Category Archives: parliament

Federal Trust meeting: Devolution in England: A New Approach – Balkanising England By Stealth

Robert Henderson

Speakers

Andrew Blick (Academic from Kings College, London, Associate Researcher at the Federal Trust and Management Board member of Unlock Democracy).

Graham Allen (Labour MP and chair of the Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee)

Lord Tyler (LibDem peer)

Meeting chaired by Brendan Donnelly (Director of the Federal Trust )

A truly depressing meeting . Depressing because all the speakers subscribed to such a sunny view of a decentralised world it would have made Dr Pangloss feel a little uneasy; depressing because the three speakers were cynically peddling a Balkanise England by stealth agenda and depressing because most of the audience were ready to swallow the agenda because it demonised Westminster and presented decentralisation as an unalloyed good which would strengthen not weaken England .

All three speakers proclaimed the devolution to the Celtic Fringe a success, all three speakers were opposed to an English Parliament ; all three speakers wanted powers currently held by Westminster to be devolved to local government.

There was precious little if any awareness from any of the speakers of the administrative complexities of what they proposed or the costs involved.

Andrew Blick

Blick was the main speaker, having produced for The Federal Trust a pamphlet Devolution in England: A New Approach. As he spoke my mind drifted to the provisions of the Trades Description Act because new it wasn’t. His ideas have been around for years as a device to deny England a national Parliament and political voice.

Blick was engaged in a time honoured political tactic, namely, an obfuscation exercise. He did not rule anything out absolutely, but by the end of his plan the listener or reader is left in no doubt that what he wants is to Balkanise England by a thousand cuts. His method of doing this is to advocate a bizarrely complicated political regime whereby powers currently in the hands of Westminster are transferred to councils not wholesale, that is, every council to have the same powers, but rather piecemeal, with individual councils to select from a menu of current Westminster powers , choosing some rejecting others. The consequence of this would be a mosaic of councils with differing powers, something which would create even more confusion in the public mind as to exactly it is that councils do.

Not content with this complexity, Blick advocates councils linking together to cooperate in certain areas. The effect of this would be antidemocratic because, as with the EU and Westminster, it would give local politicians the opportunity to say we can’t do that or we must do this because there is an agreement with another council.

Blick seemed unaware that doing all this would mean a great deal of extra cost both because each council would have to increase their staff to cope with the extra work and this would outweigh any saving made by central government through cuts to the civil services and greatly increased powers for councils would require full time well paid councillors.

All in all , a real dog’s dinner.

Graham Allen (Labour MP)

On his website Allen advocates this: “Devolution for England should be based upon local councils with the same statutory rights and tax assignment powers as those enjoyed by the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly.” He repeated this view at the meeting.

Allen expressed contempt for Parliament, local government and the civil service, the former because too much power was with the executive; the latter two institutions because of the debilitating effect on local government and the civil service of centralisation.

According to Allen the problem with Parliament today was that MPs were reduced to cyphers. There are problems with the executive in Parliament, but to say ordinary MPs have no power or influence is clearly wrong. Where no party has a large majority the individual MP can have very considerable influence, both on their own party and on the opposition because their support or otherwise of their party really matters. Moreover, whether the parliamentary arithmetic is tight or not, MPs can have significant influence through assisting their constituents, asking Parliamentary questions and bringing matters to public attention.

Allen advocated devolution of powers to councils as a means of replacing what he saw as the inadequacy of Parliament with a newly vibrant and dynamic local government. He appeared to believe this would happen simply by changing the formal structure of government, a belief if childlike naivety. He also wants a written constitution to restrain the Westminster executive.

Lord Tyler (LibDem peer)

The man is a regulation-issue liberal internationalist who is vehemently against an English Parliament or even English votes for English laws. His reason? He claimed an English Parliament or even English votes for English laws would mean an English government within a federal structure. He made no meaningful attempt to explain that would be a bad idea.

Tyler is much keener on devolving financial power down to councils than the other two speakers and advocated more City Deal arrangements , a policy which has already placed billions of pounds in local hands.

Come questions, I began by saying I was appalled that all three speakers were embracing the Balkanisation of England by stealth. Having done that, I pointed out that in a true federal system there would be no major problem with conflicting politics between the four home countries because if full home rule was given to each of England, Scotland, Wales and NI, the policy areas which would be dealt with by the federal government would be few in number – defence, foreign affairs, the management of the pound, immigration, international trade and infrastructure projects which covered more than one of the home countries .

Consequently, the fact that England would be the dominant federal voice would not be oppressive or overwhelming because so much would be in the hands of the national parliaments. I ended by saying that the only lasting devolution settlement required an English Parliament because without it the mistreatment of England would be a never healed running sore.

The only comment I elicited from the speakers was a bald assertion that they were not engaged in Balkanisation by stealth. Hilariously they did not actually deny it was Balkanisation, merely said that what they were doing was not being done by stealth.

With the exception of myself and a few others, the questions raised by the audience were all predicated on the idea that centralisation is an evil in itself.

The future

Many people will believe that that the proposals of Blick, Allen and Tyler are no more than hot, air. That would be foolish. The anomalous position of England in the present devolution arrangements will have to be addressed sooner rather than later regardless of how the Scottish independence vote goes. If the vote is YES, the massive difference in size and resources between England and the rest of the UK will become even more extreme. That will drive calls for English devolution, especially as Wales and Northern Ireland have no oil revenues to bargain with and rely very heavily on English taxpayers’ subsidy to maintain public services at their present level. . If the Scots vote NO, Scotland and Wales will get further powers and make the position of England ever more starkly different. Again the pressure for English devolution will grow. Therefore, the question is not whether there will be English devolution but what type of devolution Westminster will try to inflict upon England. As the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems are all resolutely opposed to an English Parliament, they will have to choose between regional assemblies and devolution to local councils.

Regional assemblies are most unlikely to be pushed again because of the humiliation of the last attempt under John Prescott when the referendum on a North East Assembly, arguably the area of England with the strongest regional identity, was resoundingly rejected with 78% voting no.

That leaves devolution to local councils. Consequently, Blick’s proposals will have legs because they fit with what the Westminster parties will feel most comfortable with, albeit as a least worst choice. Add in the fact that Graham Allen is chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the Commons and will act as an enthusiastic advocate of Blick’s proposals makes them, in some form, very probably the recommendation of the committee for English devolution when they make their report.

Robert Henderson 13 6 2014

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Email to Andrew Blick 13 6 2014

Dear Mr Blick,

There were a considerable number of questions and observations which I was unable to raise or make at the Federal Trust meeting Devolution in England: A New Approach held on 10th June . Here are some of them.

1. The idea that devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is overwhelmingly seen as a success by the recipient populations is objectively false. For example, an ICM poll for the BBC in February 2014 found that 23% of Welsh voters questioned wanted the Welsh Assembly abolished and only 37% wanted greater powers for the Welsh Assembly.

Scots are more enthusiastic, but even there the support is less than ecstatic or universal. A YouGov poll on behalf of the Better Together campaign in January 2014 found that “ Thirty-two per cent of Scottish adults want devolution inside the UK, but with more powers for the Scottish Parliament… Scottish independence was the second most popular constitutional option, at 30 per cent, with the status quo of devolution as it stands today a close third at 29 per cent.”

I suggest you follow the local media in those parts of the Union to see how disillusioned people are, especially in Wales. You will encounter plenty of complaints about incompetence and extravagance, for example, the struggles of the NHS in Wales or the fiasco of the Edinburgh tram system .

2. The idea that decentralisation is a good in itself is a nonsense. For example, decentralisation in the NHS and social services has produced huge dissatisfaction because of the development of “post code lotteries” in those areas. Decentralisation of other powers to local authorities or even regional authorities would simply produce more of the same.

3. Pushing decision making down to local councils on the pick ‘n mix basis you suggest , with councils choosing from a menu of powers now exercised by Westminster with councils also free to make agreements with other councils to operate together, is inherently anti-democratic. It would produce a hotchpotch of local government regimens, which would leave voters even more confused than they are now, and allow councils to shuffle off responsibility for ignoring their voters’ wishes by saying their agreements with other councils meant that they could not do what the voters wanted. It would be the Britain/EU problem writ small.

4. The general quality of councillors is poor. If you want to see how poor I suggest you go to watch how planning applications for large developments are dealt with – councillors are completely out of their depth – and to council subcommittees . Let me give you an example. I live in Camden. Some years ago the council decided they wanted to place their entire council housing stock in an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO). The ALMO would have been a limited company (limited by guarantee) managing over 30,000 dwellings. Legally, this company would have been an extremely large public company and as such subject to company law. Serious directorial experience is needed to run a company of that size.

Thankfully the ALMO never happened because Camden were reckless enough to allow the tenants and leaseholders a vote on whether they wanted the transfer to an ALMO to take place. (The plan was rejected by over 70% of those voting). However, before the vote knocked it on the head, Camden set up a “shadow” ALMO board with the intention that the shadow board would become the actual board once the ALMO was created.

I went as an observer to every meeting of the shadow board. It was frightening to watch what was happening . There was only one member of that board who had any commercial experience and that only of running a small family company. The rest of the shadow board consisted of councillors, council officers, civil servants and the odd residents’ (tenants and leaseholders) representative.

The shadow board was self-evidently not capable of running a large limited company . One of the shadow board’s tasks was to agree the articles of Association of the ALMO. None of them had a clue what was going on. For example, they nodded through huge borrowing powers (a very risky proposition) for the prospective ALMO in a few minutes whilst spending around an hour debating whether an ALMO Board member could be disqualified if they were sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

5. The weakness of local government cannot be readily changed. When local government was strong in England, this was a consequence of a very different social structure from that which we have today and the considerable physical limitations on travel. Until the latter part of the 18^th century , when scientific road building was introduced, English roads were dire. Movement over any distance was often impossible during the winter. But even when roads improved considerably , long journeys around England were still major undertakings. To travel by road from London to Edinburgh would take the better part of a week. This lack of mobility also helped to underpin the existence of what was a very stratified society, one stratified not primarily by wealth but inherited social position.

In such conditions of necessity power was devolved to the aristocracy and gentry , both informally and through formal power resting with state agents such as JPs (who had much wider powers than they do now) and Lord Lieutenants.

The railways changed things utterly and by 1880 rapid travel around Britain was possible. This began the decline of local government, slowly but inexorably. It was possible to be an MP and return to a far flung constituency in a matter of hours rather than days. Of course things did not change overnight because there was a social inertia propping up the status quo for a generation or two. But change things did and, aided by the growth of ever more sophisticated mass communications, local government steadily became less and less powerful, less and less independent of the Westminster Parties.

Today the Westminster dominance of politics is more or less universal at any level above the parish council. The Westminster parties at local level normally slavishly follow policies set by their national party’s leadership. Even if Westminster powers were devolved to local councils there is no reason to believe that national direction of policy by each major party would cease to drive the behaviour of their parties in local government. Nor is it reasonable to assume that other parties would arise to challenge the dominance of the Westminster parties at local level. There might be the odd council which was won by, say, a taxpayers party, but it certainly would not be a widespread phenomenon.

6. Devolving power means devolving money. That will increase the opportunities for fraud and increased opportunities for fraud always means increased fraud. (The massive increase in public contracts generated by the mania for privatisation has had precisely that effect).

7. Large scale devolution of powers now exercised by Westminster would require paid councillors because the amount of time needed for councillors to deal with a much wider range of duties would be too great to allow the job to be done on a part time basis with modest allowances and expenses to be paid. Nor would this necessarily be a matter of simply making the existing number of councillors full time. The volume of extra work might require more councillors.

8. The complaint raised about statutory instruments (SIs), namely, that Parliament cannot scrutinise them because of their number, is true, but the idea that greater scrutiny would happen at a lower level of government is fanciful. To begin with a large proportion of statutory instruments derive from the EU. These cannot be devolved because the EU requires legislation to be uniform in a member state. That means a large proportion of SIs could not be subject to such local development and scrutiny.

The SIs which arise from non-EU initiated Acts of Parliament could be developed at local level, but apart from any lack of ability amongst councillors, they would not have time to develop and scrutinise such SIs unless they became full time paid councillors.

9. The example given at the meeting of the USA and Germany as a decentralised states which are powerful to dismiss the objection that the devolution of powers to English local government would weaken England do not stand up to scrutiny. They are federal states which were formed from self-governing colonies in the case of the USA and from a menagerie of vastly different sovereign entities in the case of Germany. Federalisation in those cases was a centralising not a decentralising process. What you and the other speakers yesterday were proposing for England is the exact opposite.

The USA was founded on 13 colonies which had as their dominant culture that of England. Their foundations were English (at the time of the Revolution the historical section of the US census has 63% of the white American population as English by ancestry with a majority of the rest from other parts of the British Isles). They had not only a common language, but English Common law and English history to unite them. Indeed, the main complaint of the leading revolutionaries before and during the American War of Independence was that they were Englishmen being denied English liberty (this was their main propaganda message). The American Constitution was heavily based on the Bill of Rights and the political philosophy of John Locke and their prime propagandist was the Englishman Thomas Paine.

Germany has little history as a nation. It is formed of a large number of kingdoms, principalities, electorates, dukedoms, counties and city-states. Three of its components, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony, have a history of being important kingdoms in their own right. Before the country’s unification in 1870 it was more of a cultural expression than a country.

10. The objections to an English Parliament were that they would result in an English government for the UK. These objections dissolve if there was a true federal system with each of the four home countries having full home rule with the federal govern dealing with a very restricted palette of policies: defence, foreign affairs, the management of the pound, immigration, international trade and infrastructure projects which covered more than one of the home countries.

In such a system there would be no need for any more politicians or buildings. All that would be required is for the House of Commons to become once again the English Parliament . The members of the four national Parliaments would form the federal Parliament, which could be held in Westminster. Something would have to be done with the Lords, either abolition or a transformation into a second chamber for England.

11. The effect of your proposals for England would be, as I said at the meeting, to Balkanise England by stealth. It would be by stealth because you are representing it as something other than Balkanisation.

12. The English wish to be masters in their own house. That means a national Parliament to provide both a focus for the English national interest and practical national direction for the country. Theb have a particular need for such a body at the moment because the mainstream political parties are intent on selling England down the river whether the vote on Scottish independence is YES or NO. See

https://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/scottish-independence-how-cameron-sold-england-down-the-river-with-the-edinburgh-agreement/

https://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/what-happens-if-scotland-votes-no-to-independence/

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

NB I shall place any reply from Blick here.

Alex Salmond’s attempt to disown the UK national debt should be a non-starter

Robert Henderson

During February 2014 the Conservative, Labour and LibDem parties all pledged not to enter into a currency union consisting of Scotland and the rest of the UK if there is a YES to independence in the coming referendum ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10657721/Scottish-independence-Alex-Salmond-reveals-currency-Plan-B.html). In response the SNP leader Alex Salmond threatened that Scotland would not take on a share of the UK national debt unless Scotland can share the Pound ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/scottish-politics/10634697/Scottish-independence-SNP-retribution-plan-over-pound-would-cripple-economy.html).

The idea that Scotland can just walk away from the UK National Debt is a nonsense both legally and as a matter of realpolitik. Legally, the Union would have to be dissolved by an Act of Parliament because the Act of Union contains no provision for the Union to be dissolved, viz: “That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England shall upon the first day of May next ensuing the date hereof and forever after be United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain …” (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aosp/1707/7/section/I)

Consequently, the Act of Union would need to be repealed formally or a further Act granting independence to Scotland passed with the Act of Union falling on the doctrine of implied repeal. Until either of those things are done there can be no legal independence.

The passing of such legislation is entirely dependent on reaching terms. If terms are not reached then there is no obligation of Parliament to grant Scotland independence. Moreover, no Parliament can bind another. Consequently, if the next General Election is held in 2015 ( before Scotland is independent), there could be no bar to a new Parliament refusing to accept any or all of the terms agreed by the previous Parliament or of refusing to grant Scottish independence under any circumstances. Even if the previous Parliament had passed an Act granting Scotland independence on agreed terms, the incoming Parliament could repeal the legislation and nullify the independence.

A possible refusal of legal independence is both inherent within the situation and reasonable. The idea of holding a referendum to divide a state without agreeing first the conditions for separation means as a matter logic that independence is conditional on terms being agreed. If that were not so then Salmond could demand anything and could not be denied it because of the vote for indepenence.

That brings us to realpolitik. Its use is reasonable because what is called international law is no law at all. That is so because there is no supranational agency which, as a last resort, has the power to enforce breaches of such putative law by armed force.

The realpolitik blocks to Salmond’s position are many and powerful. For example, the punitive measures Westminster could deploy to force Scotland to accept their share of the debt include these: vetoing Scotland membership of the EU, setting up border controls, denying Scots the right to work in England and blocking the export of Scottish goods through the rest of the UK .

Salmon has made much of Article 30 of the Edinburgh Agreement:

30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others, to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom.

The Memorandum of Understanding has no legal standing, viz:

2. This Memorandum is a statement of political intent, and should not be interpreted as a binding agreement. It does not create legal obligations between the parties (para 2 of the introduction – http://tinyurl.com/Devolution-Memorandum ).

Consequently, the memorandum can be ignored with impunity as far as legality is concerned. Moreover, the language of Article 30 is woolly. There are clearly issues where the best interests of two parties cannot be served. The question of a currency union is one of them. Its creation would grossly disadvantage the remaining UK members and grossly benefit Scotland. The international markets would immediately downgrade the currency and the UK’s credit rating, both because of the uncertainty of what Scotland would do when it had control over its spending and as a result of the long shadow of the Bank of England’s standing as the lender of last resort for Scottish banks. Scotland would gain immensely because they would have the use of one of the most stable currencies in the world and the UK taxpayer (in reality the English taxpayer because Wales and Northern Ireland do not come close to meeting their public expenditure out of tax raised in their territories) would shoulder the risk of Scottish banks defaulting. Conversely, the refusal of a currency union would benefit the remainder of the UK and be very damaging to Scotland.

On the question of the Pound being a currency which is part owned by Scotland, the position is simple. Scotland only gained access to the Pound by the Union of 1707. The Pound Sterling before the Act of Union was the English currency. Sterling was pressed into service as the currency of first Great Britain. Article 16 of the Act of Union applies:

That from and after the Union the Coin shall be of the same standard and value throughout the United Kingdom as now in England . . .( http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aosp/1707/7/contents)

The Scottish Pound (worth only a few shillings Sterling in 1707) was abolished by the Act of Union. By leaving the Union Scotland loses the legal right to the Pound Sterling.

It is worth noting in all the huffing and puffing from the SNP that in the 307 years of Union Scotland has built up a massive debit balance between the taxes raised in Scotland and the public money spent there. Right from the off Scotland was given a much lighter tax burden than England through Article IX of the Act of Union, viz:

IX. THAT whenever the sum of One million nine hundred ninety seven thousand seven hundred and sixty three pounds eight shillings and four pence half penny, shall be enacted by the Parliament of Great Britain to be raised in that part of the United Kingdom now called England, on Land and other Things usually charged in Acts of Parliament there, for granting an Aid to the Crown by a Land Tax; that part of the United Kingdom now called Scotland, shall be charged by the same Act, with a further Sum of forty-eight thousand Pounds, free of all Charges, as the Quota of Scotland, to such Tax, and to proportionably for any greater or lesser Sum raised in England by any Tax on Land, and other Things usually charged together with the Land; and that such Quota for Scotland, in the Cases aforesaid, be raised and collected in the same Manner as the Cess now is in Scotland, but subject to such Regulations in the manner of collecting, as shall be made by the Parliament of Great Britain. (https://englandcalling.wordpress.com/the-act-of-union-1707/)

The population of Scotland in 1707 was about one fifth of England and Wales estimated six million or so. Had the taxation been the same in Scotland as in England , under clause IX Scotland would have paid around £400,000 not £48,000.

There is also the vexed question of how to ensure Scotland services the debt after independence., It is all too easy to see them defaulting. The only practical way would be for the UK to continue to administer all the debt with Scotland paying the money for their share to Westminster. The idea that Scotland could create a new currency and pay for it with that would be a non-starter because such a currency would have no international credibility for many years. I have addressed this subject in depth at https://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/the-wages-of-scottish-independence-public-debt/

Worryingly, not one Westminster politician has challenged Salmond or the SNP generally on the claim that Scotland could refuse to take on a share of the UK national debt. This suggests that either that no Westminster politician has considered the matter properly or that our political elite have already decided to sell England down the river in the event of a Yes vote by letting Scotland either have their currency union or to walk away from the UK without taking on any of the UK national debt.

Scottish Independence – How Cameron sold England down the river with the Edinburgh Agreement

Robert Henderson

The Edinburgh Agreement was signed By David Cameron and Alex Salmon in Edinburgh on 15 October 2012.

(http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/Government/concordats/Referendum-on-independence#MemorandumofUnderstanding ).

It established the legal basis for the Scottish independence referendum.

The first point to note is that Cameron went to Edinburgh. As Scotland are a supplicant which wishes to leave the Union, Cameron should have insisted that Salmond came to Westminster. By going to Edinburgh it at best created a spurious equality between UK national government and the devolved Scottish one and at worst that Salmond was controlling the negotiations. .

The gratuitous pandering to Salmond went far beyond the place of negotiation and signing. The clauses in the agreement which pander to the SNP are these:

4. The Order enables the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a referendum that takes place at any point before the end of 2014. The date of the poll will be for the Scottish Parliament to determine and will be set out in the Referendum Bill to be introduced by the Scottish Government. The Order requires the poll for this referendum to be held on a day with no other poll provided for by legislation of the Scottish Parliament.

6. The Order enables the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a referendum with one question on independence. The wording of the question will be for the Scottish Parliament to determine and will be set out in the Referendum Bill to be introduced by the Scottish Government, subject to the Electoral Commission’s review process, as set out in the paragraphs which follow.

9. The Referendum Bill introduced by the Scottish Government will create a franchise for the referendum. Both governments agree that all those entitled to vote in Scottish Parliamentary and local government elections should be able to vote in the referendum.

10. The Scottish Government’s consultation on the referendum also set out a proposal for extending the franchise to allow 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in the referendum. It will be for the Scottish Government to decide whether to propose extending the franchise for this referendum and how that should be done. It will be for the Scottish Parliament to approve the referendum franchise, as it would be for any referendum on devolved matters.

11. The Scottish Government’s decision on what to propose to the Scottish Parliament will be informed by the analysis of responses to its consultation exercise and by practical considerations. The Order does not restrict the extension of the franchise in the case of this referendum.

25. The Referendum Bill to be introduced by the Scottish Government will provide for the spending limits in the regulated period for the independence referendum. Both governments agree that the rules and standards set out in PPERA provide the basis for setting the limits.

Cameron gave away any say in the following matters by leaving it to the Scottish parliament to decide what should be done:

1. The general referendum legislation

2. The date of the referendum

3. The referendum question

4. The franchise

5. The referendum expenditure rules

There is also a clause which may well cause difficulty should there be a vote for Scottish independence, viz:

30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding 4between them and others, to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom.

The final sentence is the fly in the ointment. Although it is vaguely worded it could give Salmond a platform to argue for things such as a currency union.

BBC drama goes in to bat for Scottish independence

Robert Henderson

The BBC Radio 4 play Dividing the Union was a crude piece of propaganda for Scottish independence (Broadcast at 2.15pm 14 March – available on IPlayer for six days from the date of uploading this blog post http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03xgsly).

The actor playing Alex Salmond ( Greg Hemphill) sounded and behaved like Salmond, that is, he was aggressive and wilfully patronising. The actor playing David Cameron (Greg Wise) seriously failed represent Cameron’s voice and manner. He spoke with a form of received pronunciation but it did not sound like Cameron, who has a much crisper delivery and somewhat posher voice. However, that weakness in characterisation is dwarfed by the lack of dominant tone and energy in his persona. This Cameron came across as dithering and uncertain, constantly fretting that Salmond will be too clever for him in conversations with his adviser Robert (David Jackson Young). These conversations include the fictional Cameron whining to Robert that he (Robert) should not have left him alone with Salmond when the Edinburgh Agreement was agreed. All that is utterly unlike Cameron, who is naturally aggressive in debate and quick on his mental feet.

Then there is the deal they come to. The play has Cameron agreeing to a currency union, a split of the national debt by population and a division of the oil and gas revenues on a geographical basis favourable to Scotland. What does he get in return? An extension of the period in which the nuclear submarines on the Clyde can be kept there before being transferred to the rest of the UK. That is precisely the type of deal that Salmond has been angling for and saying Westminster would agree to when faced with the fact of independence. Such a deal would be grossly to England’s disadvantage.

Finally, why a play about the YES camp winning this close to the referendum? Can we expect a balancing play in which the independence vote is lost? If not, why not?

What happens if Scotland votes NO to independence?

Robert Henderson

The Scottish independence referendum is deeply flawed as a democratic process because (1) the terms of independence have not been agreed before the referendum is held so Scottish voters will be buying a pig in a poke; (2) the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland have been allowed no say in whether Scotland should be allowed to secede from the union or, if they are to be allowed to leave, the terms on which they may secede and (3) the political circumstances of the UK if Scotland votes NO to independence have gone largely unexamined.

I have dealt with the points (1) and (2) [1]elsewhere and a great deal of public attention is being paid to what will happen if Scotland votes for independence. Consequently, I shall not further labour those matters. But point (3) does require attention because next to no attention is being paid by politicians or the mainstream media to what happens if Scotland votes to remain within the UK. The question has so far engendered little more than vague talk about DevoMax with unspecified additional powers being given to Scotland. As the vote is likely to be NO, this is a matter which needs to be publicly discussed now not after the referendum when Westminster politicians may cook up any deal they want, a deal which is likely to be, as all the other devolution deals have been, to England’s disadvantage.

The complication of the next General Election

There is a very awkward fly in the post referendum ointment: the referendum will be held in 18 September 2014 and a General Election must be held by 7 May 2015 at the latest. That raises the question of who will be making the post referendum decisions at Westminster. With a General Election so close to the referendum it is improbable that any agreement on what will happen after a NO vote could be reached before the election. The parties might produce their devolution agendas for their election manifestoes but that would be about it. Consequently, it is anybody’s guess as to which party or parties in a new coalition would be making the final decision on any further devolution of powers to put before Parliament. Equally important would be our ignorance of the size of the various parties in the Commons after the General Election, for this is an issue which is fundamental enough to make quite a few MPs vote against the party whip. A government with a small majority could easily find itself outvoted. These facts mean that all the variations of probable governments – Labour, Tory or the LibDems in coalition with either major party – and the effects of the size of the majority of the government need to be considered when judging the likely shape of devolution after a NO vote.

The moral balance after a NO Vote

On the face of it, the narrower the margin of rejection of independence the greater will be the moral bargaining power of the SNP to obtain further powers on favourable terms. However that does not automatically mean generous terms would be forthcoming, because once a vote on independence is lost the politics of the Union come into play.

To begin with it is unlikely that another vote on independence would be held for at least ten years and more probably fifteen or twenty years, even if there was growing support for it in Scotland. Westminster politicians are very short-termist and might well think the subject has been kicked into the long grass sufficiently far to forget about it. The fact that none of the major parties have shown themselves willing to take action to redress the imbalance created by the present devolutionary settlement (with England left out of the equation) suggests they may wish to restrict further devolution concessions to minor matters. However, as there is further substantial devolution of powers to Scotland (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11863388) and quite possibly Wales (http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/wales-in-line-for-extra-powers-after-major-review-of-assembly.1393858063) in the pipeline this may not be a serious bar to additional serious devolution.

Then there is the self-interest of the three major British parties. A strong case can be made for both the Tories and Labour not wanting serious amounts of new power given to Scotland. The Tories have ideological reasons; Labour and the LibDems the reason of crude numbers in the Commons.

The Tories are still at heart a Unionist party and want to retain the Union as a matter of policy. Substantial new powers would weaken the Union and new powers given now would inevitably be deemed insufficient in the future, probably in the near future, because devolution is a form of appeasement and the appeased always come back for more. Moreover, every increase in devolved powers acts in effect as preparation for independence. Eventually Scotland would reach the stage where independence would not seem such a frightening thing simply because they were doing so much themselves.

As for Labour and the LibDems, they have a direct vested interest. Greatly increased powers for Scotland would make it next to impossible to justify the present Scottish representation in the House of Commons. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have a substantial reliance on Scottish MPs at Westminster. Thus both parties would have a strong incentive to deny Scotland substantial new powers to ensure that Scottish MPs are not severely reduced.

All three major parties have a further reason: if substantial new powers were granted to Scotland it would be next to impossible to deny them to Wales and Northern Ireland and make the denial of an English Parliament ever more outlandish.

If the NO vote was overwhelming, on the face of it there would be no great pressure to devolve substantial new powers. An SNP which had failed to deliver either independence or DevoMax might be seen to have shot its bolt if it cannot deliver on its promises beyond a few superficial changes. At best the SNP would be severely diminished and at worst would so thoroughly discredited that they would be finished as a serious political force, doubtless remaining as an entity but restricted to an ever smaller and shriller cabal of true believers.

But even if the referendum was lost by an overwhelming vote it is unlikely that the demands for further devolved powers would diminish, especially from Scotland. As mentioned above further powers are already on the horizon. Nor would the demands for even more powers than those already proposed necessarily go unsatisfied. Devolution has already created well established regional political establishments and the presence of nationalist MPs in the Commons not only provides a permanent platform for further demands, but the existence of cabinet ministers to represent Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and Commons committees to promote their national interests means that there are powerful administrative mechanisms to promote and develop further devolutionary powers. Unionist MPs may also continue the fatal game (from their point of view) of imagining that giving away more and more power is the way to maintain the Union. Nor should the House of Lords be overlooked because it provides a very useful platform for both advocating further devolution and of influencing the Commons through committees of both houses and voting down and amending legislation

There is also the possibility of nationalist MPs wielding disproportionate influence if there is a hung Parliament and their votes are needed to either help form a coalition or to support a minority government on an ad hoc basis.

The alternatives to an English Parliament

But regardless of whether or not a NO vote was won narrowly or by a large majority, the elephant in the room is an English Parliament. It might be thought that if DevoMax becomes a reality, an English Parliament will be seen as a political necessity by all. That is far too sanguine.

There would be politicians who would try to refloat the idea of the Balkanisation of England through regional English assemblies – an attempt to revivify the project was made in 2012 by Labour MPs (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16932030). But after the Blair government’s attempt to introduce regional assemblies met with a humiliating rejection (78% voted no) in the area deemed to have the strongest regional identity in England, the North East (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/nov/05/regionalgovernment.politics), it is an idea unlikely to fly.

There would also be the practical problem of producing regional devolution throughout England. If each region had a referendum to say whether or not they wanted a regional assembly, it is wildly improbable that there would be a vote for assemblies in every referendum. Indeed the referenda might well result in a universal rejection of such representation The only way all of England could be devolved to regional assemblies would be by Parliamentary action to impose it on England. That would be very unlikely to gain the support of a House of Commons, not least because any government likely to propose such devolution – it would have to be a Labour government or a Labour/LibDem coalition – would almost certainly have to rely heavily on MPs from non-English seats to pass such a measure because of the heavy Labour and LibDem reliance on MPs from the Celtic Fringe (it is rare for a Labour government with majority of landslide proportions to even hold a bare majority of English seats). To force such a change on England through the votes of non-English MPs should be politically impossible.

If there was a Tory majority government or a Tory\LibDem coalition , that would make a majority for the imposition of regional assemblies without referenda very unlikely because the Tory Party has officially opposed regional assemblies. In 2004, the Shadow Minister for the Regions Bernard Jenkin pledged that if Labour set up regional assemblies the Tories would ”l end Labour’s phoney regional agenda. Every power that Labour gives to regional assemblies, we’ll give back to local councils.” (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/oct/07/conservatives2004.conservatives2). Perhaps more importantly many Tory MPs are strongly opposed to regional assemblies on principle so even if the Party leadership wanted to change the policy it is unlikely they would be able to do so. It is also worth noting that even in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats the Tories have managed to abolish unelected the Regional Development Agencies which could have been used as the skeleton for elected regional assemblies and the administration arising from them. (http://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-northerner/2012/mar/31/localgovernment-regeneration-gordon-marsden-regional-development-agencies-leps).

The other alternative which might be tried as an excuse to deny England a Parliament would be English votes on English laws. This would be difficult to implement because of the difficulty of deciding what was and was not legislation which affected England only.

It might be possible to do it simply by saying that any policy area devolved to the Scottish Parliament (which has the broadest devolution power) would also be treated as an English-only area of legislation. However, to do that would require the Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies to have the same powers, because a good deal of the legislation currently passed at Westminster covers Wales and Northern Ireland as well as England. This happens because Wales and Northern Ireland those countries have much less devolved power than Scotland. Whether Wales and Northern Ireland would be competent to receive such extra powers or would want them is debatable at best. It is worth noting that a recent BBC Cymru Wales poll found that 23% of Welsh voters wanted to abolish the Welsh assembly (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-26378274).

That is the position at present. But if Scotland was to have DEVOMAX the other home countries would have to be given the same enhanced devolved powers otherwise we would be back to a variable geometry devolution. That would greatly increase the importance of the competence and desire questions for Wales and Northern Ireland.

Apart from the difficulty of deciding what was an English-only affecting law, to exclude MPs from non-English seats from participating in English only matters would be to remove them from much of the discussion and decision making of the House of Commons. That would be so even with the current level of devolution enjoyed by Scotland. With DEVOMAX the position could become absurd because MPs for non-English seats could easily end up being restricted to not much more than the classic federal issues of foreign policy, diplomacy, defence and management of the currency. At that point the taxpayer might well ask what are we paying Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs for?

There would be a further complication with the House of Lords. At the moment England uniquely amongst the four home countries has all its domestic legislation subject to Lords scrutiny and approval. That is bad enough as things stand, but if DEVOMAX was granted to Scotland but not England the problem would be greatly magnified. Conversely, if DEVOMAX was granted to all the home countries, then the Lords would become to a large extent redundant because most of the legislation it now deals with would be removed from it.

All in all it is difficult to see how anyone could seriously put forward English votes for English laws as an answer to the injustice England currently experiences with a substantial part of their laws being decided in part by MPs from outside of England while English MPs have no say about the legislation involved in the areas of devolved powers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

If the regional assemblies and English votes for English laws are ruled out then an English Parliament is the only alternative to the increasingly unfair dichotomy between the governance of England and the rest of the UK. The neatest solution would be to go for a true federal solution. Instead of having separate members elected to the Commons and national assemblies, a member should be elected to serve in both the Commons (when non-devolved matters are dealt with) and their national assembly to deal with devolved matters. The Commons should also serve as the English national Parliament with of course only English MPs sitting. This would prevent any great additional expense from either a new English Parliament or additional politicians. Indeed, there would be fewer with the ending of separate members for the Celtic Fringe national assemblies and the House of Commons.

Whether the Lords needs to be retained is debatable. I do not like single chamber parliaments because they have no brake on them, but it is not obvious what function the Lords would have once and English Parliament was up and running. Perhaps the Lords (or some other second chamber) could deal just with non-devolved powers. That would at least place England on an equal basis with the other home countries with all devolved issues being subject to a single chamber national parliament. If the UK had a written constitution, something sorely needed, the Lords could also act as a form of Grand Jury to decide constitutional questions.

The one thing which is absolutely clear is that the practical need and moral justification for an English Parliament, which is already great, would be substantially advanced by a vote against Scottish independence and an increase in devolved power to Scotland.

[1] http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/the-english-voice-on-scottish-independence-must-be-heard/ and

http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/the-wages-of-scottish-independence-england-wales-and-northern-ireland-must-be-heard/

Roger Scruton on the injustice done to England by devolution

Robert Henderson

Below are extracts from a talk by the philosopher Roger Scruton on the position of England within the UK since devolution . They were made one BBC Radio 4 (21 Feb 14) in their Point of View series.

I have omitted the parts of Scruton’s talk which concern the historical and economic background because they are superficial , frequently wrong and often embarrassingly sentimental – the final quote I offer gives a good idea of what has been omitted.

Where Scruton is on solid ground is his description of the situation England finds itself in now. That is what the quotes I offer deal with. It is also very useful to have someone like Scruton with something of a media profile speaking out on the subject of England’s current disadvantaged position.

Roger Scruton: United We Fall: Point of View http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/pov extracts

In all the complex changes leading to the Scottish bid for independence the English have never been consulted. The process has been conducted as though we had no right to an opinion in the matter. It was all about Scotland and how to respond to Scottish nationalism

“As an Englishman I naturally ask why my interests in the matter have never been taken into account. When the Czechs and Slovaks achieved their amicable divorce it was by mutual agreement between elected politicians. What is so different about Scotland that it decides everything for itself?”

The English tend to blame the migration which threatens to overwhelm them on a succession of Labour Governments. By allowing mass immigration into England and refusing to confront the European Union’s commitment to free movement of peoples the Governments of Blair and Brown seriously undermined the English sense of identity . At the same time through the creation of the Scottish parliament gave a new identity to the Scots.

The effect of the Scottish Parliament, however, was not only to ensure the Scots governed themselves, but also to make it more likely that they would continue to govern the English. The Labour Party did not want to lose those Scottish MPs since it was thanks to them and the Scottish vote that the Labour Party had achieved such a large majority at Westminster. Scots were disproportionately represented in the cabinets of both Blair and Brown. Tony Blair owed his position in the Labour hierarchy in part to the networks which had grown in that country.

Elections to the Scottish Parliament show that the Scots have shifted their allegiance from the Labour Party to the SNP, but they still want the English to be governed by the Labour Party. Hence, they vote to place Labour politicians, whom they don’t particularly want at home, in Westminster . As a result of this the English, who have voted Conservative more often than Labour in all post-war Elections, have to accept a block vote of Labour Members of Parliaments sent to Westminster by the Scots. The process that brought this about was one in which the Scots themselves were given the final say in a referendum from which the English were excluded. In other words the process of devolution has an air of gerrymandering, the effect of which has been to secure a Labour bias in the Westminster Parliament while allowing the Scots to govern themselves in whatever way they choose.

And the process continues. In response to Alec Salmond’s bid for Independence the people of Scotland have been granted another referendum but again the people of England have been deprived of a say. Why is this, are we part of the union or not? Or are the politicians afraid that we would vote the wrong way? And what is the wrong way? What way should we English vote given that present arrangement gives two votes to the Scots for every vote given to the English? Should we not vote for our independence given that we risk being governed from a country that already regulates its own affairs and has no clear commitment to ours?

Suppose then we English were finally allowed a say in the matter? Which way would I vote? I have no doubt about it. I would vote for English independence as a step towards strengthening the friendship between our two countries. It was thanks to independence that Americans were able at last to confess to their attachment to the Old Country and to come to our aid in two world wars. Independence is what real friendship requires and the same is true for those like the Scots and the English who live side by side.

Full text of Scruton’s talk at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26173128

What the British people want from their politicians … and what they get

Robert Henderson

What do our politicians think of the electorate: precious little. All the major mainstream parties either ignore or cynically misrepresent the issues which are most important to the British – immigration, our relationship with the EU, the English democratic deficit, foreign adventures , the suppression of free speech and the precarious state of the economy. . These issues are not addressed honestly because they either clash with the prevailing internationalist agenda or because to address them honestly would mean admitting how much sovereignty had been given away to the EU and through other treaties.

This antidemocratic failure to engage in honest politics is an established trait. The wilful removal from mainstream politics of vitally important issues has been developing for more than half a century. The upshot is that the British want their politics to be about something which is not currently on offer from any party with a chance of forming a government. The British public broadly seek what these days counts as rightist action when it comes to matters such as preserving nationhood, immigration, race and political correctness, but traditional leftist policies on items such as social welfare, the NHS and the economy (has anyone ever met someone in favour of free markets and free trade who has actually lost his job because of them?).

The electorate’s difficulty is not simply their inability to find a single party to fulfil all or even most of their political desires. Even on a single issue basis, the electorate frequently cannot find a party offering what they want because all the mainstream parties now carol from the same internationalist, globalist, supranational, pro-EU, pc songsheet. The electorate finds they may have any economic programme provided it is laissez faire globalism, any relationship with the EU provided it is membership, any foreign policy provided it is internationalist and continuing public services only if they increasingly include private capital and provision. The only difference between the major parties is one of nuance.

Nowhere is this political uniformity seen more obviously than in the Labour and Tory approaches to immigration. Labour has adopted a literally mad policy of “no obvious limit to immigration”. The Tories claim to be “tough” on immigration, but then agree to accept as legal immigrants more than 100,000 incomers a year from outside the EU plus any number of migrants from within the EU (350 million have the right to settle here). There is a difference, but it is simply less or more of the same. Worse, in practice there would probably be no meaningful difference to the numbers coming whoever is in power. The truth is that while we remain part of the EU and tied by international treaties on asylum and human rights, nothing meaningful can be done for purely practical reasons. But even if something could be done, for which serious party could the person who wants no further mass immigration vote? None.

A manifesto to satisfy the public

All of this set me thinking: what manifesto would appeal to most electors? I suggest this political agenda for the What the People Want Party:

We promise:

1. To always put Britain’s interests first. This will entail the adoption of an unaggressive nationalist ethic in place of the currently dominant internationalist ideology.

2. The reinstatement of British sovereignty by withdrawal from the EU and the repudiation of all treaties which circumscribe the primacy of Parliament.

3. That future treaties will only come into force when voted for by a majority in both Houses of Parliament and accepted in a referendum . Any treaty should be subject to repudiation following Parliament passing a motion that repudiation should take place and that motion being ratified by a referendum. Treaties could also be repudiated by a citizen initiated referendum (see 29).

4. A reduction in the power of the government in general and the Prime Minister in particular and an increase in the power of Parliament. This will be achieved by abolishing the Royal Prerogative, outlawing the party whip and removing the vast powers of patronage available to a government.

5. That the country will only go to war on a vote in both Houses of Parliament.

6. An end to mass immigration by any means, including asylum, work permits and family reunion.

7. An end to all officially-sponsored political correctness.

8. The promotion of British history and culture in our schools and by all publicly-funded bodies.

9. The repeal of all laws which give by intent or practice a privileged position to any group which is less than the entire population of the country, for example the Race Relations Act..

10. The repeal of all laws which attempt to interfere with the personal life and responsibility of the individual. Citizens will not be instructed what to eat, how to exercise, not to smoke or drink or be banned from pursuits such as fox-hunting which harm no one else.

11. A formal recognition that a British citizen has rights and obligations not available to the foreigner, for example, the benefits of the welfare state will be made available only to born and bred Britons.

12. Policing which is directed towards three ends: maintaining order, catching criminals and providing support and aid to the public in moments of threat or distress. The police will leave their cars and helicopters and return to the beat and there will be an assumption that the interests and safety of the public come before the interests and safety of police officers.

13. A justice system which guards the interests of the accused by protecting essential rights of the defendant such as jury trial and the right to silence, whilst preventing cases collapsing through technical procedural errors.

14. Prison sentences that are served in full, that is, the end of remission and other forms of early release. Misbehaviour in prison will be punished by extending the sentence.

15. An absolute right to self-defence when attacked. The public will be encouraged to defend themselves and their property.

16. A general economic policy which steers a middle way between protectionism and free trade, with protection given to vital and strategically important industries such as agriculture, energy, and steel and free trade only in those things which are not necessities.

17. A repudiation of further privatisation for its own sake and a commitment to the direct public provision of all essential services such as medical treatment. We recognise that the electorate overwhelmingly want the NHS, decent state pensions, good state funded education for their children and state intervention where necessary to ensure the necessities of life. This promise is made to both reassure the public of continued future provision and to ensure that the extent of any public spending is unambiguous, something which is not the case where indirect funding channels such as PFI are used.

18. The re-nationalisation of the railways, the energy companies, the water companies and any exercise of the state’s authority such as privately run prisons which have been placed in private hands.

19. An education system which ensures that every child leaves school with at least a firm grasp of the three Rs and a school exam system which is based solely on a final exam. This will remove the opportunity to cheat by pupils and teachers. The standards of the exams will be based on those of the 1960s which is the last time British school exams were uncontaminated by continuous assessment, multiple choice questions and science exams included practicals as a matter of course. .

20. To restore credibility to our university system. The taxpayer will fund scholarships for 20 per cent of school-leavers. These will pay for all fees and provide a grant sufficient to live on during term time. Any one not in receipt of a scholarship will have to pay the full fees and support themselves or take a degree in their spare time. The scholarships will be concentrated on the best universities. The other universities will be closed. This will ensure that the cost is no more than the current funding and the remaining universities can be adequately funded.

21. A clear distinction in our policies between the functions of the state and the functions of private business, charities and other non-governmental bodies. The state will provide necessary public services, business will be allowed to concentrate on their trade and not be asked to be an arm of government and charities will be entirely independent bodies which will no longer receive public money.

22. A commitment to putting the family first. This will include policies which recognise that the best childcare is that given by the parents and that parents must be allowed to exercise discipline over their children. These will be given force by a law making clear that parents have an absolute right to the custody of and authority over their children, unless the parents can be shown to be engaging in serious criminal acts against their children.

23. Marriage to be encouraged by generous tax breaks and enhanced child allowances for children born in wedlock.

24. Defence forces designed solely to defend Britain and not the New World Order.

25. A Parliament for England to square the Devolution circle. The English comprise around 80 per cent of the population of the UK, yet they alone of all the historic peoples are Britain are denied the right to govern themselves. This is both unreasonable and politically unsustainable in the long-run.

26. A reduction to the English level of Treasury funding to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This will save approximately £17 billion pa because the Celts receive overall approximately £1,600 per head per annum more than the English.

27. An end to Foreign Aid. This will save approximately £11 billion.

28. A written constitution to ensure that future governments cannot abuse their power. This will be predicated on (1) the fact that we are a free people, (2) the belief that in a free and democratic society the individual can be trusted to take responsibility for his or her actions and to behave responsibly and (3) that politicians are the servants not the masters of those who elect them. It will guarantee those things necessary to a free society, including an absolute right to free expression, jury trial for any offence carrying a sentence of more than one year, place citizens in a privileged position over foreigners and set the interests and safety of the country and its citizens above the interests and safety of any other country or people.

29. Citizen initiated referenda shall be held when ten per cent of the population have signed a petition asking for a referendum.

Those are the things which I think most of the electorate could embrace, at least in large part. There are also other issues which the public might well be brought to support if there was proper public debate and a serious political party supporting them such as the ownership and bearing of weapons and the legalisation of drugs.

The positive thing about such an agenda is that either Labour or the Tories could comfortably support it within the context of their history.

Until Blair perverted its purpose, the Labour Party had been in practice (and often in theory – think Ernie Bevin), staunchly nationalist, not least because the unions were staunchly protective of their members’ interests and resistant to both mass immigration (because it reduced wages) and free trade (because it exported jobs and reduced wages).

For the Tories, the Thatcherite philosophy is as much an aberration as the Blairite de-socialisation of Labour. The true Tory creed in a representative democracy is that of the one nation nationalist. It cannot be repeated too often that the free market internationalist creed is the antithesis of conservatism.

The manifesto described above would not appeal in every respect to ever member of the “disenfranchised majority”. But its general political slant would be palatable to that majority and there would be sufficient within the detail to allow any individual who is currently disenchanted with politics to feel that there were a decent number of important policies for which he or she could happily vote. That is the best any voter can expect in a representative democracy. People could again believe that voting might actually change things.

The EU IN/OUT referendum: strategy and tactics for those who want to leave the EU

Robert Henderson

The general strategy

A) How to leave

Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty states

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.

A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49. (http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-european-union-and-comments/title-6-final-provisions/137-article-50.html).

The OUT camp must make it clear that it would be both damaging and unnecessary for the UK to abide by this Treaty requirement. It would allow the EU to inflict considerable damage on the UK both during the period prior to formally leaving and afterwards if the price of leaving with the EU’s agreement was for UK to sign up to various obligations, for example, to continue paying a large annual sum to the EU for ten years . It would also give the Europhile UK political elite ample opportunity to keep the UK attached to the EU in the manner that Norway and Switzerland are attached. More of them later.

There is also the danger that the stay-in camp could use Article 50 to argue that whether the British people want to be in or out, the cost of leaving would be too heavy because of this treaty requirement.

The Gordian knot of Article 50 can be cut simply by passing an Act of Parliament repealing all the treaties that refer to the EU from the Treaty of Rome onwards. No major UK party could object to this because all three have, at one time or another, declared that Parliament remains supreme and can repudiate anything the EU does if it so chooses.

If the stay-in camp argue that would be illegal because of the treaty obligation, the OUT camp should simply emphasise (1) that international law is no law because there is never any means of enforcing it within its jurisdiction is a state rejects it and (2) that treaties which do not allow for contracting parties to simply withdraw are profoundly undemocratic because they bind future governments.

The OUT camp should press the major political parties to commit themselves to ignoring Article 50. If a party refuses that can be used against them because it will make them look suspicious. Before the vote

B) The parties’ plans of action if there is a vote to leave

It is important that all the parties likely to have seats in the Commons after the next election are publicly and relentlessly pressed to give at least a broad outline of what action they would adopt in the event of a vote to leave. Left with a free hand there is a serious danger that whatever British government is in charge after a vote to leave would attempt to bind the UK back into the EU by stealth by signing the UK up to agreements such as those the EU has with Norway and Switzerland which mean that they have to (1) pay a fee to the EU annually, (2) adopt the social legislation which comes from the EU and (3) most importantly agree to the four “freedoms” of the EU – the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour throughout not merely the EU but the wider European Economic Area (EEA).

It is probable that the Westminster parties will all resist this, but that would present them with two problems. First, a refusal to do so would make them seem untrustworthy; second, if one party laid out their position but the others did not, that would potentially give the party which did say what it would do a considerable advantage over the others which did not. If no party puts its plans before the public before the referendum, there should be demands from those who want the UK to leave the EU that any new treaties with the EU must be put to a referendum and, if they are rejected, the UK will simply trade with the EU under the WTO rules.

C) Repudiate re-negotiation before the referendum

Supporting the negotiation of a new relationship between the UK and the EU before a referendum is mistaken because it would seem to many to be giving tacit approval for renegotiation and legitimise the possibility of the UK remaining within the EU. It is also rash because the likelihood of the EU giving nothing is probably very small. Indeed, they might well give something which is substantial, because the UK leaving the EU would be a very great blow to the organisation. The UK is the country with the second largest population within the EU with , depending on how it is measured, the second or third largest economy and the country which pays the second largest contribution to the EU budget. For the EU to lose the UK would not only be a blow in itself, it would also create a very strong precedent for every other EU state, especially the largest ones. If the UK left and prospered the temptation would be for other EU states to leave.

But even if negotiation produced nothing of substance as Harold Wilson’s “renegotiation” did in 1975, it would be a mistake to imagine that it would not influence the referendum result. The electorate is divided between the resolute come outs, the resolute stay-ins and the wavering middle. A claim by the stay-in campaigners that something had been conceded by the EU, however insignificant, would provide the waverers with an excuse to vote to stay in because they could convince themselves they were voting for change.

It would be also be a mistake to see the EU offering nothing at all as a gift for the OUT camp. This is because the waverers might simply see that as evidence that the EU was too powerful to oppose and shift their votes to staying in.

Those who want the UK to leave should unambiguously put the case for no renegotiation. Dismiss anything Cameron (or any other PM) brings back from the EU by way of altered terms as being irrelevant because the EU has a long record of agreeing things with the UK and then finding ways of sabotaging what was agreed. In addition, a future British government may agree to alter any terms offered at the time of the referendum. The classic example of this changing of agreed terms happening in the past is Tony Blair’s giving up of a substantial amount of the Thatcher rebate in return for a promised reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), a promise which was never met. That episode produced my all-time favourite amongst Blair’s penchant for lying. Two days before he went to the EU meeting at which he gave away a substantial part of the rebate he declared during Prime Minister’s Questions that the rebate was “non-negotiable – period”

It is difficult to envisage any British prime minister not trying to negotiate with the EU before a referendum, but it might just happen if whoever is in power when the referendum is announced were to be told privately by the major EU players that nothing will be given and the prime minister of the day concludes it would be best to pretend that a decision had been made not to negotiate rather than risk the humiliation of getting nothing, perhaps not even a pretence of negotiation before nothing is given. Why would the EU do this? They might calculate that it would be a gamble worth taking to send a British PM away with nothing whilst hoping the referendum vote would be to stay in because then the power of the UK to resist further integration would be shot.

If the EU offer nothing, the OUT camp should welcome the fact and stress to the public that if the referendum is to stay-in the EU could force any federalist measure through because not only would any British government be much weakened in its opposition to more federalism, the UK political class as a whole would more than willing to go along with it because of their ideological commitment to the EU.

D) After the vote

Ideally the government which deals with the EU after a vote to leave will have committed themselves to a plan of action before the referendum vote. However, as described above, it is quite possible that this will not happen because the UK’s overwhelmingly Europhile political class will try to re-entangle the UK with the EU. To prevent them doing so there should be a concerted campaign after the vote to ensure that the British public understands what is being done on their behalf with a demand for a further referendum to agree any new treaty.

The terms of the debate

It is essential that the Europhiles are not allowed to make the debate revolve around economics. If they do it will effectively stifle meaningful debate. As anyone who has ever tried to present economic ideas to an audience of the general public will know it is a soul-destroying experience. Take the question of how much of UK trade is with the EU. The debate will begin with the stay-in camp saying something like 45% of UK trade is with the EU. Those wanting to leave the EU will respond by saying it is probably less than 40% because of the Rotterdam/Antwerp effect . They will then be forced to explain what the Rotterdam/Amsterdam, effect is. That is the point where the general public’s concentration is lost and the debate ends up proving nothing to most of the audience.

But although nothing is proved to the general audience by detailed economic argument , the audience will remember certain phrases which have considerable traction. In amongst the serious debating on the issue of trade there will be phrases such as three million jobs in Britain rely on the EU and dire threats about how the EU will simply not buy British goods and services any more. This is nonsense but fear is not a rational thing and many of those who vote will enter the voting chamber with fear of losing their jobs in their heads regardless of what the OUT camp says if the debate is predominantly about economics. Shift the debate away from economics and the fear inducing phrases will be heard less often. If the BIG LIE is not repeated often enough its potency fades.

National Sovereignty

How should those wanting to leave the EU shift the focus of debate? They should put the matter which is really at the core of the UK’s relationship with the EU – national sovereignty – at the front of the OUT camp’s referendum campaign. Campaign under a slogan such as Are we to be masters in our own house?

Making national sovereignty the primary campaigning issue has the great advantage of it being something that anyone can understand because it is both a simple concept and speaks directly to the natural tribal instincts of human beings. Being a simple concept readily and naturally understood, it is a far more potent debating tool than arguments attempting to refute the economic arguments beloved of the stay-in camp. The fact that the natural tribal instincts have been suppressed for so long in the UK will increase its potency because most people will feel a sense of release when it begins to be catered for in public debate.

The appeal to national sovereignty has a further advantage. Those who support the EU are unused to debating on that ground. That is because uncritical support for the EU has long been the position of both the British mainstream political class as a class and of the mass media. That has meant that the contrary voice – that which wishes Britain to be independent – has been largely unheard in public debate for thirty years or more. Where it has been heard the response of the pro-EU majority has not been rational argument but abuse ranging from patronising dismissal of a wish for sovereignty as an outmoded nationalism to accusations that national sovereignty amounts to xenophobia or even racism. These tactics – of excluding those who want to leave the EU from public debate and abuse substituted for argument – will no longer be available to the pro EU lobby.

Immigration

The most threatening and energising subject relating to the EU for the general public is immigration. The public are right to identify this as the most important aspect of our membership of the EU because immigration touches every important part of British life: jobs, housing, education, welfare, healthcare, transport, free expression and crime besides radically changing the nature of parts of the UK which now have large populations of immigrants and their descendants.

The public rhetoric of mainstream politicians and the media is changing fast as they begin to realise both what an electoral liability a de facto open door immigration policy is as the effects of mass immigration become ever more glaring. The argument is shifting from the economic to the cultural. For example, here is the Daily Telegraph in a leader of 25 March:

“The fact is that, for many in Britain (especially those outside the middle classes), it is not just a matter of jobs being taken or public services being stretched, but of changes in the very character of communities. Those changes may not necessarily be for the worse: as the Prime Minister says, Britain’s culture has long been enriched by the contributions of new arrivals. But as long as ministers treat immigration as a matter of profit and loss, rather than the cause of often wrenching social change, they will never be able fully to address the grievances it causes.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9952717/Immigration-and-the-limits-of-the-possible.html)

This new frankness in public debate means that the OUT camp can use the immigration argument freely provided they keep the language within the confines of formal politeness. The subject will naturally dovetail with the emphasis on national sovereignty because the most important aspect of sovereignty is the ability to control the borders of the territory of a state. Judged by their increasing willingness to talk publicly about immigration, it is probable that the mainstream UK parties will be content to go along with ever more frank discussion about immigration.

The economic argument must be kept simple

It will not be possible to avoid economic arguments entirely. The OUT camp should concentrate on repeating these two facts:

– The disadvantageous balance of payments deficit the UK has with the EU

– The amount the UK pays to the EU

Those are the most solid economic figures relating to the EU. There is some fuzziness around the edges of the balance of payments deficit because of the question of where all the imports end up (whether in the EU or outside the EU through re-exporting) , while the amount the EU receives is solid but it has to be broken down into the money which returns to the UK and the amount retained by Brussels. Nonetheless these are the most certain figures and the least susceptible to obfuscation by the stay-in side.

The best way of presenting the money paid to the EU is simply to say that outside the EU we can decide how all of it is spent in this country and to illustrate what the money saved by not paying it to the EU would pay for.

It will also be necessary to address the question of protectionist measures the EU might take against the UK if the vote was to leave. It is improbable that the EU would place heavy protectionist barriers on UK exports because:

1. The massive balance of payment deficit between the UK and the rest of the EU which is massively in the EU’s favour.

2. Although the rest of the EU dwarfs the UK economy, much UK trade with the EU is heavily concentrated in certain regions of the EU. The effect of protectionist barriers would bear very heavily on these places.

3. There are strategically and economically important joint projects of which the UK is a major part, for example, Airbus, the Joint-Strike Fighter.

4. the Republic of Ireland would be a massive bargaining chip for the UK to play. If the UK left and the EU rump attempted to impose sanctions against Britain this would cripple the RoI because so much of their trade is with the UK The EU would be forced to massively subsidise the RoI if protectionist barriers against the UK were imposed. The EU could not exempt the RoI from the sanctions because that would leave the EU open to British exports being funnelled through the RoI.

5. The EU would be bound by the World Trade Organisation’s restrictions on protectionist measures.

The economic issues which are not worth pursuing in detail because they are too diffuse and uncertain , are those relating to how much the EU costs Britain in terms of EU-inspired legislation. It may well be that these load billions a year of extra costs onto the UK but they are not certain or easily evaluated costs, not least because we cannot in the nature of things know what burdens an independent UK would impose off its own bat. Getting into detailed discussions about such things will simply play into the hands of the stay-in camp because it will eat up the time and space available to those promoting the OUT cause.

Other Issues

Apart from the economic issues the stay-in camp will use these reasons for staying in:

– That the EU has prevented war in Western Europe since 1945. This can be simply refuted by pointing out that the EU was not formed until twelve years after WW2; that until 1973 the EU consisted of only six countries, three of them small, and of only nine countries until the 1980s. Consequently it would be reasonable to look for other reasons for the lack of war. The two causes of the peace in Western Europe have been the NATO alliance and the invention of nuclear weapons which make the price of war extraordinarily high.

– That nation states such as the UK are too small to carry any real diplomatic weight in modern world. That begs the question of whether it is an advantageous thing to carry such weight – it can get a country into disastrous foreign entanglements such as Iraq and Afghanistan – but even assuming it is advantageous , many much smaller countries than the UK survive very nicely, making their own bilateral agreements with other states large and small. It is also worth remembering that the UK has such levers as a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (which allows the UK to veto any proposed move by the UN) and considerable influence in institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.

Robert Henderson

1 April 2013

Ed Miliband and the Left’s attempted sabotage of England and Englishness

Robert Henderson

The leader of the Labour Party Ed Milband has cynically climbed onto the bandwagon which Labour politicians like John Crudas, Harriett Harman and John Denham tentatively started rolling before the last election as they began to fret over losing the votes of the British white working class, the vast majority of whom live in England. The bandwagon is England, the English and Englishness. Miliband’s boarding point was a speech in the Festival Hall on 7th June (http://www.labour.org.uk/ed-miliband-speech-defending-the-union-in-england,2012-06-07).

Miliband decided to break the habit of a generation of Labour politicians by referring to the English in terms which did not suggest that they were the brutish enemy of all that is right and good and dangerous to boot , viz:

“I believe we can all be proud of our country, the United Kingdom.

And of the nations that comprise it.

Second, that means England too. [RH: Damned decent of the fellow]

And those on the left have not been clear enough about this in the recent past.

We must be in the future.

We should embrace a positive, outward looking version of English identity.

Finally, we should also proudly talk the language of patriotism. “

How dramatic a shift of opinion and language this was can be gleaned from the things which Labour ministers and backbenchers were saying about the English only a few years before. Here is Jack Straw (a Jew as it happens) when Home Secretary in the Blair Government :

“The English are potentially very aggressive, very violent. We have used this propensity to violence to subjugate Ireland, Wales and Scotland. Then we used it in Europe and with our empire, so I think what you have within the UK is three small nations…who’ve been over the centuries under the cosh of the English. Those small nations have inevitably sought expression by a very explicit idea of nationhood. You have this very dominant other nation, England, 10 times bigger than the others, which is self-confident and therefore has not needed to be so explicit about its expression. I think as we move into this new century, people’s sense of Englishness will become more articulated and that’s partly because of the mirror that devolution provides us with and because we are becoming more European at the same” (BBC Radio Four’s Brits 10 January 2000 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/596703.stm )

And here is a Labour backbencher , the German Gisela Stuart. From 2005:

“Yet it has only been in the last five years or so that I have heard people in my constituency telling me, “I am not British – I am English”. That worries me. British identity is based on and anchored in its political and legal institutions and this enables it to take in new entrants more easily than it would be if being a member of a nation were to be defined by blood. But a democratic polity will only work if citizens’ identification is with the community as a whole, or at least with the shared process, which overrides their loyalty to a segment. (15 11 2005 http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-opening/trust_3030.jsp). (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/dont-laugh-labour-are-flying-the-english-flag/).)

This is the type of mentality Miliband coyly and disingenuously referred to when he said in his speech

“ We in the Labour Party have been too reluctant to talk about England in recent years.

We’ve concentrated on shaping a new politics for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

And this was one of the greatest achievements of the last government.

We have rightly applauded the expression of Scottish identity within the United Kingdom.

But for too long people have believed that to express English identity is to undermine the United Kingdom.

This does not make sense.

You can be proudly Scottish and British.

And you can be proudly English and British.

As I am.

Somehow while there is romanticism in parts of the left about Welsh identity, Scottish identity, English identity has tended to be a closed book of late.

Something was holding us back from celebrating England too.

We have been too nervous to talk of English pride and English character.

For some it was connected to the kind of nationalism that left us ill at ease.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Union flag was reclaimed from the National Front.

Since Euro 96, English football fans have helped to reclaim the flag of St George from the BNP.

Now more than ever, as we make the case for the United Kingdom throughout the United Kingdom, we must talk about England.

Because people are talking about it and we cannot be silent.

And because if we stay silent, the case for the United Kingdom in England will go by default.

There are people like Jeremy Clarkson who shrug their shoulders at the prospect of the break-up of the Union.

Others will conjure a view of Englishness which does not represent the best of our nation.

Offering a mirror image of the worst aspects of Scottish nationalism.

Anti-Scottish.

Hostile to outsiders.

England somehow cut off from the rest of Britain, cut off from the outside world.

Fearful what is beyond our borders.

Convinced our best days behind us.

I don’t think like that.”

Miliband’s England is not England at all and his patriotism is no love of country but love of the inchoate multicultural mishmash which the politically correct promote as the most desirable of all societies and, increasingly, as the only legitimate society. Their wish, implied or in a few cases stated overtly, is to radically change the nature of England (the vast majority of immigrants to the UK settle in England) by allowing and covertly encouraging massive immigration of those who are radically different in race and/or ethnicity.

The passage above from Miliband’s speech sets the ground for England to be left defenceless against further immigration and the placing beyond the politically correct Pale any desire to maintain and celebrate Englishness simply by ensuring that England remains English in people and culture as well as name. You can only be English on Miliband’s terms and those terms are that the English will not only be prevented from resisting the destruction of England as their national homeland, but be forced at least overtly to embrace their own destruction as an independent people as if it were the most marvellous and desirable of social transformations in a manner reminiscent of North Koreans cheering their Dear Leader et al.

One of those willing to come clean publicly about the deliberate destruction of England and the English as a nation within their own territory, is Andrew Neather, a special adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett. Neather let the cat out of the bag in 2009 in the London Evening Standard. Writing about the attitude of the Blair Government towards immigration at the end of its first term, he disclosed:

“I wrote the landmark speech given by then immigration minister Barbara Roche in September 2000, calling for a loosening of controls. It marked a major shift from the policy of previous governments: from 1971 onwards, only foreigners joining relatives already in the UK had been permitted to settle here.

That speech was based largely on a report by the Performance and Innovation Unit, Tony Blair’s Cabinet Office think-tank.

The PIU’s reports were legendarily tedious within Whitehall but their big immigration report was surrounded by an unusual air of both anticipation and secrecy.

Drafts were handed out in summer 2000 only with extreme reluctance: there was a paranoia about it reaching the media.

Eventually published in January 2001, the innocuously labelled “RDS Occasional Paper no. 67″, “Migration: an economic and social analysis” focused heavily on the labour market case.

But the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.

I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn’t its main purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date. That seemed to me to be a manoeuvre too far.

Ministers were very nervous about the whole thing. For despite Roche’s keenness to make her big speech and to be upfront, there was a reluctance elsewhere in government to discuss what increased immigration would mean, above all for Labour’s core white working-class vote.” (http://www.standard.co.uk/news/dont-listen-to-the-whingers–london-needs-immigrants-6786170.html)

The inevitable eventual result of this strategy would be to dissolve the English in a sea of competing ethnicities, to make the English but one of many people in their own homeland , a people bereft of any special claim to the land. On the way to that calamity and while they remain the large majority in their own land, the English are wilfully discriminated against by their own elite which promotes the interests of existing ethnic minorities above those of the English whilst suppressing English dissent in ever more ruthless fashion, including the increasing use of jail for anyone daring to publicly speak out against what is the most fundamental act of treason, namely, the permitting of the de facto colonisation of parts of England.

Miliband reduces Englishness to nothing by embracing the tactics that the Left have used for the past decade . They have moved from pretending either that the English did not exist as a meaningful nation or claiming that any attempt by the English to promote their own interests and culture is racist to the concept of “progressive patriotism”.

“Progressive patriotism is a slogan fit to stand with Orwell’s Freedom is Slavery or Ignorance is Strength because it is the very reverse of patriotism. Rather, it is an ideological fig-leaf designed to cover the disastrous effects of the fundamental act of treason which in post-war mass immigration to England. This “progressive patriotism” requires the people of England (and any other true national group) to disown the idea of the nation as the tribe write large, created not by deliberate design but organically grown, for a self-consciously created idea of the nation as being no more than the people occupying the same territory. Miliband unashamedly embraces this “ progressive patriotism” which, in another piece of Orwellian oxymoronic doublespeak he describes nonsensically as “Celebrating our differences but drawing us together.”

The England Miliband refers to is one in which no one is expected to think of themselves simply as English. Instead, they must have “multiple identities” which muddy the waters of natural (cultural) nationality and allow the overarching faux nationality of British to cover all and sundry regardless of origin. The attack is from below as well as above with local or regional feeling used to corrode and dilute Englishness viz:

“..we are stronger together as a United Kingdom and that essential strength comes from our ability to embrace multiple identities…

To me, Britain is a country where it is always possible to have more than one identity.

More than one place in mind when you talk of home.

A Welshman living in London regards himself as Welsh and British.

Someone born in London living in Glasgow remains a Londoner still.

This is the reality of modern day Britain.”

What I remember when I think about English identity.

What I love is the spirit of quiet determination in the face of adversity and the sense of common decency that goes with it….

Celebrating national characteristics does not mean claiming they’re unique.

Or that we’re necessarily the best.

Celebrating our differences but drawing us together.

Remembering our history.

But building a shared future.

Honouring our people.

And learning from their stories.

This is what I have learned from my own story.

This is what I am learning from our summer of national celebration.

And this is what I believe we all need to learn by reflecting on our country. “

Miliband details his own divided self which reveals more of his mentality than perhaps he imagines:

“I am proud to represent the people of Doncaster North.

I am proud to lead the Labour Party.

I am proud to be Jewish.

I am proud to be English.

And I am proud to be British too. “

Very revealing that English comes last but one on his list. He also emphasises several times in his speech his Jewishness and his status as the son of immigrants:

“Neither my Mum nor my Dad came from Britain.

As I have said on other occasions, they arrived here as refugees from the Nazis.

My Dad was 16 when he caught one of the last boats from Ostend to Britain.

He was a Jew.”

And

“This is who I am.

The son of a Jewish refugee and Marxist academic.”

The obvious point to make is that the multiple identity nation concept is very convenient for someone with Miliband’s background. A much deeper observation would be to ask what Englishness can mean to someone like Miliband, a man who must have been set apart to some degree from English society by his second generation immigrant status and membership of an ethnic minority? His distinct oddity of physical appearance would have made him a target for bullying anyway and the things which set him apart for other children – his immigrant origins and Jewishness – would have been obvious tools for bullies to latch onto.

The primary objection to this salami slicing of identity is that it takes no account of what each claimed source of identity can provide. Thinking of yourself as a Londoner or a Yorkshireman before anything else ignores the fact that such localised loyalties cannot offer protection against enemies , the building of infrastructure which extends over a wider area than the local allegiance or the other 101 things that a nation state can provide. The age of the city state is over and small states exist at the will of large ones. The same objections apply to those minorities who see their first allegiance as religious, ethnic or racial. In fact their position is even weaker than those with a local territorial allegiance, because the latter are dominant in their area and consequently at least have the possibility of raising taxes and running some important matters within their locality. The nation has to be the source of first allegiance both because it is the only group which can provide meaningful protection and because a territory with many competing national or ethnic groups will be unable to provide that protection. #

Miliband also uses the other two ploys commonly adopted by “progressive patriots” The first is the claim that England is and always has been a nation of immigrants

“We must always debate the right approach on immigration.

And never run away from the issues it throws up.

Our villages and towns have always been mixtures of locals and newcomers.

At their best, these are places where people come together to make something new.

A common good.

Learning to live together, not separately, in new ways that serve us all.”

That is a claim which is pedantically true in the sense that foreigners have come, either by force or invitation, to England throughout history. What is howlingly untrue is that England has always welcomed or tolerated foreigners or vast numbers of immigrants have been absorbed before 1945 . In fact, very little immigration took place from the expulsion of the Jews by Edward I in 1290 until the eighteenth century with the reintroduction of the Jews and the Huguenots from France. But even this and the Jewish immigration of the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries was small in comparison with tidal wave of post-1945 immigration. Compared with much of continental Europe, England was a country remarkably little touched by immigration before WW2.

The other ploy is the reducing of nationhood to values such as respect for the law and material considerations such as wealth and poverty:

“I have talked about the need to secure our poorest a living wage.

Because that recognises the dignity of work.

It’s an idea that came from working people.

I have spent much of my leadership talking about the need for a ‘responsible capitalism.’

An economy that works for working people.

That preserves the sense of justice and fairness that people value against an unregulated market.

And I have talked too about the need to restore hope among people that politics can bring the change they so desperately want to see.

All of this speaks precisely to the English Labour traditions I have described:

A politics that starts with people.

That builds a sense that we really are all in it together.”

That is a political ideology not part of what constitutes a nation which is something which evolves without conscious planning or design.

The denial of an English Parliament

Miliband completely gives the game away about his feelings towards England when it comes to the question of giving England a political voice. In Miliband World England alone of the four home countries is to be denied a Parliament and consequently a political voice:

“There are some people who say that this English identity should be reflected in new institutions.

But I don’t detect a longing for more politicians.

For me, it’s not about an English Parliament or an English Assembly.

The English people don’t yearn for simplistic constitutional symmetry.

Our minds don’t work in spreadsheets, just like our streets don’t follow grids.

But there is a real argument here which does unite England, Scotland and Wales:

And that is about the centralisation of power in London.

This resentment is felt in many parts of England.

A sense that our politics is too distant.

Too detached.”

When Miliband says the he doesn’t “detect a longing for an English Parliament” he is being grossly disingenuous. He must know that polls on the question of an English Parliament have regularly shown majority support for it. In 2007 a BBC poll showed 61% of the English in favour (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6264823.stm) and in 2011 a Mori poll showed 51% of all Britons (not just the English) in favour of an English Parliament (http://robintilbrook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/poll-most-english-want-english.html). Compare that healthy support with the votes for Scottish and Welsh devolution in 1997. The turnout in Scotland was a mere 60.4% and the voting although not close (Yes 74.3% to No 25.7%) showed a substantial minority voting against (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/devolution/scotland/live/index.shtml), while Wales only engaged 50.1% the Welsh electorate and the referendum was won by a minute 6,721 votes – Yes 559,419 (50.3%) No 552,698 (49.7%). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_devolution_referendum,_1997).

The referenda figures tell their own story: the Scots and Welsh as peoples were far from fervently seeking a parliament or assembly . This lukewarm response came despite the fact that there were established Westminster Parliamentary nationalist parties as well as the Labour and LibDems supporting the proposals and much of the mainstream media in favour. Conversely, the English have now and never have had, a Westminster Parliamentary Party – nationalist or Tory, LibDem or Labour – advocating an English parliament. In addition, precious little time and space has been given to the question in the British mainstream media and when the subject does occasionally get an airing, it is almost always to deride the idea of the English needing a parliament or devolved powers. Despite these immense disadvantages, the English desire for a Parliament and control of much of their own affairs is arguably stronger than that of the three home countries who have devolved powers and a parliament or assembly.

Miliband has a venal reason for denying England a voice and political power to look to its own interests: an English Parliament would in effect be the UK Parliament because so much of the population is in England and the large majority of the UK’s tax revenue is raised from English taxpayers. An English Parliament as the de facto UK Parliament would mean the end of Labour as a serious force in UK politics because so much of their support comes from the non-English parts of the UK. But he may have another more visceral reason: the type of active dislike of English society displayed in Neather’s piece quoted above. After all, he was if not an elected politician at the time Neather let the cat out of the bag , a NuLabour insider as special adviser to Gordon Brown. Nor has he repudiated or denied Neather’s startling claims.

The Lion and the Unicorn

As so often with the left Miliband engages in serious and unashamed misrepresentation. In his speech he quoted from George Orwell’s 1941 essay The Lion and the Unicorn: “Are we not forty-six million individuals, all different?… How can one make pattern out of this…”

Miliband takes this at its edited face value. Whether he is simply ignorant of what follows or he is deliberately misrepresenting Orwell I will leave readers to judge. Far from believing that England and Englishness could not be defined – as Miliband’sedited quote suggests – Orwell merely used his questions as a platform for rebutting the idea that England is just an atomistic collection of cultures and peoples, viz:

“But talk to foreigners, read foreign books or newspapers, and you are brought back to the same thought. Yes, there is something distinctive and recognizable in English civilization. It is a culture as individual as that of Spain. It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes. It has a flavour of its own. Moreover it is continuous, it stretches into the future and the past, there is something in it that persists, as in a living creature. What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.

“And above all, it is your civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillar-boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side the grave you will never get away from the marks that it has given you.

Orwell understands, as Miliband does not, that nations are organic growths which are not delineated neatly by self-conscious moral imperatives, but arise and sustain themselves through an unconscious process of behaviours becoming the norm for a group and those behaviours collecting to form a distinctive culture. No one can create a nation consciously, although many have tried. The best such would-be social engineers can achieve is the temporary subordination of a people to an ideology through fear. Once the fear and control is removed the old and natural feelings which belong to the group, whether it be tribe, clan or nation, re-emerge.

Orwell also understands that although national cultures inevitably change, they are not universally plastic and can only develop in ways determined by existing structure of a culture:

” Meanwhile England, together with the rest of the world, is changing. And like everything else it can change only in certain directions, which up to a point can be foreseen. That is not to say that the future is fixed, merely that certain alternatives are possible and others not. A seed may grow or not grow, but at any rate a turnip seed never grows into a parsnip. It is therefore of the deepest importance to try and determine what England is, before guessing what part England can play in the huge events that are happening.”

This misrepresentation of Orwell is akin to the frequent false attribution to Churchill of a desire that the UK should be part of what has become the EU when Churchill explicitly said that he wanted Britain to remain outside any such European supra-national organisation. In both cases the exact opposite of what Orwell and Churchill actually wrote or said is represented as their true opinion.

Britishness is dead letter

Throughout his speech Miliband frequently confuses or equates Englishness with Britishness. This is no surprise because British as a national label is used by the politically correct to act as a camouflage for the effects of mass post-war immigration.

Britishness has always been a manufactured national feeling, because the idea of Britain as a nation since its inception after the Act of Union in 1707 has been a political device not a nation wrought by Nature. Nonetheless, although it is a political rather than natural nation something of the feelings of patriotism and a true sense of nation relating to Britain did emerge over the centuries. This was partly because of the experience of being under one government and partly from Britain’s ever swelling imperial role which provided both a shared enterprise for England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland to coalesce around and new broadly Anglo-Saxon countries such as Australia and New Zealand still searching for an identity often spoke of their Englishness or Britishness. The experience of two world wars added to this melding of the peoples of Britain and the white dominions and by 1945 there was probably a greater sense of the British as an emotional rather than a manufactured nation than ever before. Yet it never obliterated the natural sense of belonging to the four natural nations which formed Britain.

This sense of British unity was rapidly thrown away by the mass immigration which began in the late 1940s. With mass immigration came a problem of identity: what were the hordes of blacks and Asians and their descendants to call themselves? The early immigrants from the West Indies might call themselves British because that was what their schools had taught West Indians to believe they were, but this was soon swept away by the rush to independence of British colonies in the 1960s. As for the Asians who came from the Indian subcontinent, they did not think of themselves as British because an independent India and Pakistan already existed. The children of these immigrants were placed in a toxic situation where they had neither the full ancestral culture imprinted nor an unequivocal acceptance of being English even if they were born brought up in England. They had no sense of certain place and retreated into a paranoid world in which they saw themselves as victims of the English.

Today, blacks and Asians in Britain cling to the idea of Britishness, often moderated by a qualifier such as British-Asian, Indian-British or black-British but very rarely do they describe themselves as English, even with a hyphen such English-Asian or Black-English. In more than 50 years of living in London I have never heard a black or an Asian describe themselves as simply English unless they are in a situation which prompts them to do so, for example, a black or Asian representing England at some sport. I routinely hear blacks and Asians raised in this country referring to themselves as Indian, Pakistani, Chinese or African.

The blacks and Asians raised in Scotland or Wales are more likely to describe themselves as Scottish or Welsh but that is probably because there are far fewer blacks and Asians in Wales and Scotland than in England. (Northern Ireland has such a small non-white population that the nationality question does not really arise and in any case the sectarian divide in the province renders the nationality question meaningless because the Protestants see themselves as British and the Catholics as Irish). But even in Wales and Scotland blacks and Asians are more likely than not to qualify their Scottishness or Welshness along the lines of Asian-Scots or Black-Welsh.

As blacks and Asians (and some white immigration groups) have embraced the word British, whether hyphenated or not, the white native population of England have largely rejected the idea that they are British and embraced the idea that they are English. This trend has been enhanced by the effects of devolution which has left England greatly disadvantaged as the one home country which has been denied a Parliament and power over much of its own territory and people. The word British has been marginalised to the point where its main purpose within the UK is to designate someone who is not or does not think of themselves as English. In terms of binding the UK together the idea busted flush.

A Miliband government would simply see more of the deliberate suppressing of English interests , the encouragement of continued mass immigration and the privileging of ethnic minorities over the English which has been a feature of the past fifty years at least.

The utilitarian case for the monarchy

Robert Henderson

The utilitarian case for the monarchy is not about pageantry, deference or the vulgar belief that it is worth keeping because it acts as a tourist magnet. It is not about the cost of the monarchy compared with a president. It is not about whether the individual members of the Royal family are worthy beings or if its very existence is an insult to ideas of politically correct equality. The utilitarian case is purely political: our monarchy underpins Parliamentary government.

In resisting the abuse of the many by the few, Britain begins with the great advantages of a parliamentary system and an in practice non-executive head of state chosen by a means utterly outside political manipulation short of the outright criminality of murder, blackmail, illicit threats and bribery, namely birth. These provide a massive barricade against a Prime Minister who would be a despot. He cannot act without the support of an elected parliamentary majority. His cabinet in practice must be overwhelmingly drawn from elected politicians. He may change his cabinet but he cannot do so without regard to a cabinet member’s status and popularity within the party on whose support he depends.

Most importantly, the prime minister (or any other politician) cannot become head of state. This is of central importance, because whether the powers of a president be executive or ceremonial, the mere existence of the office of president provides an avenue for those who would subvert parliamentary control of the executive. The example of De Gaulle in France
in the early years of the Fifth Republic demonstrates how easily a President’s powers may be extended by the overtly democratic means of a referendum against the wishes of a Parliament. As things stand, a would be British dictator would have to do one of two things. The constitutionally legitimate path would require him to first persuade Parliament to
adopt the idea of an executive presidential system and then win the backing of the electorate for a change to a presidential system either through a referendum or an electoral mandate. His illegitimate path would consist of either a referendum put to the country against the wishes of Parliament or an outright coup backed by the military and police.

This is not to say that a prime minister equipped with a large majority cannot have a great deal of freedom and personal power. Both Thatcher and Blair achieved this. But however big their majority or great their personal authority they could not routinely make policy without some regard to the wishes of their ministers, backbenchers and the electorate. Whatever dark thoughts Thatcher may have had about mass immigration or membership of the EU, she was in practice hamstrung in doing anything about it by the opposition of powerful ministers such as Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe. Tony Blair’s desire to severely reduce the welfare state was thwarted over many years by his Chancellor Gordon Brown. To those leashes on their dictatorial desires can be added the fact that both Thatcher and Blair left office before they wanted to as a result of dissent amongst their parliamentary parties. Had either been an elected president operating outside parliament, neither would have been removed before the end of their term of office.

A parliamentary system such as that of Britain has other restraints on abuses of power. First-past-the-post elections based on constituencies means that MPs are not solely beholden to their party elite s as is the case with a party list system, and general elections, at least since 1945, have normally produced a single party with a majority in the House of Commons.
This latter fact means that the vast majority of modern British government have not been able to fail to honour their manifestos on the grounds that they were part of a coalition.

If a demand for a president arose in Britain there would be an opportunity for those pressing for such a change to seek an executive president with the executive removed from Parliament on the grounds that it was “more democratic” and provided a check on the power of the executive. . Anyone who thinks this is a good idea should look at the American experience where the powers of the president are constrained by a division of powers outlined in a written constitution administered by a supreme court. The President appoints his cabinet subject only to the agreement of the Senate, the President’s nominees being normally accepted. Supreme Court judges are also nominated by serving presidents and vetted by the Senate. These nominations meet more Senate opposition, but most of those nominated are passed and if one is rejected, the President still gets to nominate an alternative. That means a president will broadly speaking get a judge into the court who is sympathetic to the president’s political views. As Supreme Court judges are elected for life, a president
who is able to get even two new judges onto the court may affect its political bias for decades.

Even if a supposedly non-executive president was adopted with the executive remaining in Parliament, the relationship between the prime minster and head of state would be different. If the president was elected, there would be a second font of democratic authority regardless of the president’s powers. This would mean that there would be a constant temptation for a powerful politician to get themselves or a stooge elected to the presidency and then use their control of Parliament to increase the president’s powers. If the president was simply appointed by politicians a prime minster with a large majority could either take the presidency themselves and use his parliamentary control to increase his powers or place a stooge in as president, use Parliament to increase the presidential powers then control the stooge.

None of this is to pretend that the British system of government is perfect for the executive has found many ways of thwarting proper parliamentary oversight and control . The way it does this is fivefold (1) the entanglement of Britain in treaties, most devastatingly those related to the EU, which remove sovereign power from not only Parliament but Britain; (2) the increasing grip of party elites on the selection of candidates for Westminster seats, something of particular importance with the rise of the career politician who has never done
a job outside of politics; (3) an ever swelling use of secondary legislation, particularly statutory instruments, which provide much less opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny than primary legislation; (4) the increasing appointment of peers as ministers and non-politicians as “Tsars” for particular policy areas and (5) the use of the Royal Prerogative by prime ministers.

There are ready cures for these ills. Treaties could be repudiated to regain sovereignty; the power of selection of Parliamentary candidates invested solely in local constituency parties would greatly reduce the power of party elites; a requirement that a Parliamentary candidate should have ten years work experience unconnected with politics before being able to stand for Parliament would end the career politician; withdrawal from the EU would greatly reduce the amount of secondary legislation and increased time to scrutinise what was left and the use of peers and non-politicians banned.

That leaves the Royal Prerogative which represents a particularly danger to democratic control because the powers exercisable under it are large. This is because of the long, organic
development of the relationship between Parliament and the Crown, the powers and rights of the Crown are little circumscribed by law, although most, and all the important ones, are now invested in practice in the office of PM. The dissolution or proroguing of Parliament and the calling of elections are by the prerogative. The PM and his ministers are appointed by
the Crown. In principle, the monarch could appoint a Government in which none of its members sat in Parliament. No Bill can become a law without the monarch’s signature. Treaties and the making of war and peace can and are made without the assent of Parliament. All foreign relations are in principle within the monarch’s remit. Justice is the monarch’s. The Monarch can do no wrong. Many senior state appointments such as appointments to the higher judiciary and bishoprics are one by the prerogative. The monarch is head of the armed forces. There is prerogative power which allows the Crown to expropriate or requisition private property (with proper compensation) in time of war or apprehension of war. The Crown has limited powers of legislation under the prerogative, principally as respects the civil service and UK dependent territories. This legislation is made by Orders in Council, ordinance, letters patent and royal warrant. A ragbag of other rights such as treasure trove and bona vacantia (the reversion to the Crown of property where there is no inheritor) and arcane rights such as the monarch’s right to (most) swans also exists.

The simplest thing would be to cancel all prerogative rights which have a serious political dimension. This would reduce greatly the power of the PM and consequently pass power to Parliament. Such powers as are left to the monarch should be laid down clearly in law. That would do a great deal to increase the power of Parliament and the ordinary member.
However, more could be done without producing a situation which would leave a Parliament with an executive unable to act. I would ban the whipping of MPs, restrict the size of government to reduce the government “payroll vote” ( modern governments draw in more than 100 MPs) and make the justice system truly independent by removing the political officers – Lord Chancellor, Attorney-General and Solicitor-General – from the process of justice.

The banning of whips would not mean a government with a working majority was constantly defeated because most party members will vote for their party programme. Governments would have to get used to accepting the odd defeat on even important policies as a fact of life not a cause to call a motion of confidence. The reduction of the “payroll vote” would lead
to more independent minded backbenchers who would see being a backbencher as an honourable and worthwhile end it itself. The removal of the politicians from the process of justice is necessary to observe natural justice.

Two other things would be s desirable as a check on the executive: a written constitution designed not to promote a political agenda but to protect democratic control and prevent governments from undertaking anti-democratic policies or reckless behaviour which self-evidently will be damaging to the country. If there is a Supreme Court to administer it, judges should be selected for a fixed period of five years and chosen by a free vote of the Commons. Alternatively, the administration could be done by a reformed second chamber (see below).

The second thing is electoral reform. To address the problem of parties with even less than 40% of the popular vote ending up with large majorities, for the Commons I would suggest double member constituencies with each elector having a single vote. The two candidates receiving the most votes in each constituency would be elected. This would probably both reduce the size of majorities whilst giving any elector a choice of two MPs to go to rather than one.

As for the Lords, if you want a house which will not engage in a democratic mandate war with the Commons or simply replicate the party dominance of the Commons, I suggest selecting a house by lot from all those who put themselves forward to serve a single term of ten years, sufficient time for them to become proficient as a revising chamber.