Category Archives: quisling elite

Who will  speak for England?

Robert Henderson

It is a singular thing that the question of English votes for English laws let alone  an English Parliament  has gone almost unmentioned during the 2015 general  election. There has been a great deal of noise made by the Tories about the threat offered to England  by the SNP in coalition with Labour ,  but precious little if anything has been said about how the SNP threat could be neutralised entirely by  establishing  a federal system for the UK.  This would require an English Parliament, something which could be created  quickly and with little extra expense by simply allowing  MPs for English seats to sit as the English Parliament.   The few UK federal policies such as defence, management of the Pound and foreign affairs could be dealt  with by  representatives from the four home countries  sitting as a federal Parliament in the House of Lords.

Such an arrangement would remove the SNP’s ability to operate as Irish MPs under leaders such as  Charles Stewart Parnell and  John Redmond  operated  before the Great War when Irish MPs sitting at Westminster supported liberal governments  and in return pressured the Liberal Party top grant   Home Rule for Ireland.

Stripped of their ability to interfere with English affairs the SNP would lose  any meaningful power over English politicians. They could of course continue to seek independence or at least more and more powers until they were on the brink of becoming independent, but there would be a great difference in the way such ambitions were treated by English politicians.  There would no longer  be an  incentive for English politicians to pander to the Scots, as they  now do in the most craven fashion, because  the great  prizes  in UK politics would be to become the  Prime Minister of England (or whatever  the position might be called) and take part in the government of England.  As the government of England  would be decided only by the English electorate, there would be no need to make compromises with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which would affect English interest adversely.

There would also be a general change in mentality amongst English MPs because they would have  an English Parliament with an English electorate to satisfy.   English politicians of necessity  would have to look to English interests before the domestic interests of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland .  Most importantly, the Barnett Formula that determines Treasury disbursements  (which favours not only  Scotland but Wales and Northern Ireland over England)  would be unsustainable.

The extent  to which  England is disadvantaged by the formula is startling.   In 2013 the Treasury funding for each home country was as follows:

  1. Ireland £10,876 per head  (£2,347 more than England)

Scotland    £10,152 per head (£1,623 more than England)

Wales          £9,709 per head    (£1,180 more than England)

England      £8,529 per head

The ONS estimates of each home country’s population for  mid-2014  are:

England 53.9 million

Scotland   5.3 million

Wales       3.1 million

  1. Ireland 1.8 million

If  the per capita Treasury payments to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2013 had been  reduced to those received by England, the money paid to these three home countries would have been reduced by:

Scotland    £8.6 billion

Wales         £3.6 billion

  1. Ireland £ 4.2 billion

Grand total of reduced payments £16.4 billion.

Such a reduction would be a very sharp wake up call for those wishing to break up the United Kingdom. It would give them a taste of what independence would mean.

If there was such a reduction, the SNP would doubtless keep chanting their mantra about the oil and gas extracted in British waters  being Scotland’s oil and gas. But  even if  all the oil and gas in the North Sea was in Scottish waters, which it is not,  it would be a poor argument because while Scotland is part of a nation state called the United Kingdom, the oil  and gas around British waters is not Scottish oil and gas but the United Kingdom’s oil and gas.  They also need to bear in mind that oil and gas revenues have only flowed since 1980, so there is the previous 273 years since 1707 to be accounted for, much of which time Scotland  was Churchmouse  poor and produced little by way of tax revenue.   Moreover, oil and gas extraction from Scottish waters is expensive compared with much of the oil and gas being extracted elsewhere  and consequently very vulnerable if the price of oil drops below $100 a barrel. If the price remains as low as it is now, hovering around  the $50-60 dollar a barrel mark, even the most naïve Scot would begin to worry about basing Scottish independence on oil and gas revenues as heavily as the  SNP do now.

Apart from the Barnett Formula abolition, the Scots might well find that with an English Parliament the English did such things as taking the SNP at its word about wanting rid of the Trident nuclear submarine base in Scotland and removed the base  to England with the thousands of jobs which go with it and decide to repatriate English public sector jobs administering  services  such as English welfare payments and taxation  which have been sent to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Faced with an English Parliament looking after English interests first,  the prospect of Scottish independence could  fade rapidly. The problem is no party in this election which is likely to win seats is proposing an English Parliament and only two -UKIP  (see the Political Reform section) and the Tories –  support the idea of  English votes for English laws. Even there the Tories are ambiguous about exactly how far their proposal would go in stopping non-English seat MPs voting on English only laws, not least because while the Barnett formula exists  – which it would continue to do while there was no English Parliament to cut the Gordian knot of a misshapen devolution settlement – – there would be few bills of any significance which did not have direct implications for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland because their funding is linked to English funding.: England gets more money for something; the other three home countries get a proportional increase. Even the strictest possible interpretation of what was an English only measure was adopted,  the problem with non-English seat MPs pressuring a party without an overall majority in the Commons  to grant favours to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would remain.  Moreover, under English votes for English laws, it would not be the English seat MPs  only who initiated English-only legislation.

Labour and the Lib Dems are resolutely opposed to  any form of devolved power for England as a nation and are attempting to fudge the question of the imbalance in the present devolution settlement which leaves England out on a limb by Balkanising England by giving power to local and regional bodies in England with the Lib Dems having the particularly fatuous idea  ”devolution on demand” whereby local  areas ask for devolved powers with the consequence of this being a superfluity of differences between parts of England.

Patently, England’s interests are being wilfully neglected in this election. Is there really no one in British politics who will call for an English Parliament,  no one who will  speak for England?

Devolution and the House of Lords

Robert Henderson

There is one important aspect of the devolution mess created since 1997 which receives little or no attention in the mainstream media or from mainstream politicians, namely, the role of the House of Lords.  As things stand  all legislation which affects England goes through the Lords,  while ever increasing swathes of legislation affecting Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland avoid such scrutiny  because the legislation is initiated, debated, amended and either passed or not at the will of the three devolved assemblies. Yet another instance of how England is grossly disadvantaged by the unbalanced devolution in Britain.

Many will shrug their shoulders and say what does it matter, isn’t the Lords just a talking shop with no power?  The answer is an emphatic no. Government ministers sit in the Lords, the House  can initiate their own Bills, amend   or strike down completely  Bills  sent to them by the House of Commons ,ask  questions orally and in writing, including questions of ministers,  sit on  their own select committees and on  joint committees of the Lords and Commons . Members also have the great privilege of a national political platform to get their views to the public.

The power of the Lords to delay

The sharpest power  the Lords has is to delay.  This can be achieved   by being tardy over  their examination of Bills sent to them by the Commons, by heavily amending Bills sent to them by the Commons (this means they have to go back to the Commons for re-consideration) and  by refusing outright to pass Bills. (There is one important exception to the power of the Lords to amend or refuse outright to pass  Bills from the Commons and that is what are called money Bills, legislation  which involves   the collection or spending of money by the government. Such Bills have to be signed off as Money Bills by the Speaker. )

If the Lords does refuse to pass a Bill from the Commons in its entirety or in part, the 1949 Parliament Act allows the Commons to force through a Bill regardless of the wishes of the Lords in the  session of  Parliament in which the Bill was originally introduced into the Common. This procedure    typically  results in  a delay of  around a year.  When the Bill is reintroduced it is passed without the Lords having any opportunity to delay it further. This is a very rare procedure with only seven Acts have been passed in this way either under the 1949 Parliament Act or its 1911 predecessor.

Being able to delay Bills sent from the Commons is a  powerful weapon  because  government legislation may be lost for want of Parliamentary time if an election is looming or a session of Parliament (which normally lasts a year)  is coming to an end and other government business takes priority in the new session.   Even if time is not absolutely pressing, governments are generally anxious to get their legislation through quickly and will often accept a Lords’ amendment to Bills sent from the Commons simply to get the legislation passed quickly.

The political composition of the House of Lords

“As at 16 December 2014, the total membership of the House of Lords was 847. However, excluding those currently ineligible to sit (such as members on leave of absence or those holding particular posts), the ‘actual’ membership was 791. The average attendance of the House of Lords in the 2013–14 session was 497.”

The  791 Members eligible to sit in the House of  consisted of 679 Life Peers, 86 ‘excepted hereditary’ Peers and 26 Bishops.  Their political allegiances, where declared, were:

Conservative  230

Labour  216

Liberal Democrat  105

Crossbench  180

Bishops  26

Even on the declared allegiances  the House is heavily tilted toward the liberal left who are instinctively anti-English.  Not only do Labour and the Libdems  have a majority together over the Conservatives, those  who take the Tory whip  will more often than not have much the same politics  as the Labour and LibDem peers .  As for the officially politically  non-aligned, it is reasonable to assume that  most  of  the Bishops will also be of liberal left  because  the upper reaches of the Anglican Church has long shown themselves to be consistently  left of centre with their unwavering support for political correctness .  The crossbenchers   will also have a healthy component from  the liberal left  simply because  they are selected by those who generally subscribe to political correctness  with  the consequence that they  will do the very human thing of selecting those who resemble themselves.

The geographical spread and size of the  of the Lords is very  important. Peers can come from any part of the United Kingdom and there is no limit to their number.   This means that the Lords could easily become imbalanced, if it  is not already so, by the creation of disproportionately large  numbers of peers who were not English. Moreover, because peers are not elected , in principle,  a government could create any number of new peers to push through  legislation which is damaging to English interests, for example, to Balkanise England with regional assemblies regardless of the wishes of the English.

Less dramatically, because of the power to delay and force compromise from a government, it is easy to see how a House of Lords which was  against England controlling its own affairs could cause considerable difficulties if  the Commons voted , for example, to  end the Barnett formula or to set up an English Parliament  simply by delaying matters, for example, if General Election was due in less than a year’s time and sufficient numbers in the Lords thought there was a fair bet that the election would result in a change of government.

If England had English votes for English Laws

Would English votes for English laws solve the constitutional imbalance?  The idea  raises many problems such as how to define what is English only legislation while the Barnett Formula is in place because the Formula  determines what Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland gets from the UK Treasury  because it is linked to government  spending in England.  But the  Lords adds another complication because the proposal  as it has been suggested to date makes no mention of removing from the Lords’  the power of  scrutiny of any House of Commons Bills which are deemed English only Bills. If that were the case then there would still be the anomaly   that the Lords  could interfere with English only legislation while having no power to intervene over the equivalent legislation for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland .

The difficulty could be surmounted by giving English only laws the same status as money Bills but in reality, only an English Parliament and a truly federal constitution for each of the four home countries will permanently solve the problem of the imbalance of the present devolution settlement.

Devolving powers to Manchester is the thin end of the Balkanising of England wedge

Robert Henderson

The government have recently  announced the passing of responsibility for the £6 billion of NHS money spent   in the  Greater Manchester  area to a consortium of ten local councils.   This is in addition to the creation of a Mayor for Greater Manchester and  the devolved powers granted to Greater Manchester in November which are intended to place  around £1 billion in the same  local government hands  by  2019 to administer new powers over transport,   house building,  skills training and the police (the Mayor will replace the police commissioner). Contrary to some reports  The Mayor will not have formal responsibility for the NHS and Care budget spending, but will probably exert some unofficial influence in those areas.

Greater Manchester is to have an elected mayor  foisted upon it despite  voted against having one  in 2012 with the Tory minister responsible Grant Shapps  stating at the time  of the referendum that  “People should have the right to decide how they are governed in their local area. The whole point is to give people a say. No-one is forcing mayors on anyone.” That one is being imposed now tells you all you need to know about the real  attitude of the coalition government and their commitment to local democracy. It is a case of you can vote anyway you like provided we approve of your choice.  Shades of the EU’s way with referenda which do not go their way.

All of this has got nothing to do with improving local services and everything to do with fudging the issue of devolution in England. Our political elite are utterly  determined that England will not have a Parliament or government to represent her national interests. Labour and the LibDems are reliant on Welsh and Scots MPs for a significant number of their Commons seats and are concerned that an English Parliament and government could seriously upset the UK  political apple-cart by forcing the reduction of the per capita Treasury funding for Scotland, Wales and N Ireland, for example, by reducing it to the per capita funding for England (that would take around £16 billion a year away from the Celtic Fringe at present).

This shifting of powers to an English region is the beginning of a process  which all three major Westminster parties in one form or another all support.  The policy has two great advantages for the Tories, Labour and LibDems. It  allows  them to claim however absurdly that the imbalance in the UK devolution settlement has been addressed and creates  political institutions which once granted would be very difficult to abolish.

The mere  existence of  regional political institutions with differing  powers  would be a great barrier to an English Parliament and government. Such devolution  would create a patchwork of differing powers and provide a ready-made argument for why England should not have her own Parliament, namely,  that an English Parliament would not be able to legislate on a great swathe of  policies because so much had been devolved to the regions and so varied are the different devolved powers that no meaningful national legislation on those policies would be possible.

Apart from the Balkanising effect on England, there are the practical effects which would be obnoxious.  Because it would be impossible to have such devolution throughout the country so inevitably differences in service offered and the rules under which it is offered would arise. The  post-code lottery already afflicting much of public service, especially in NHS provision, would be greatly amplified. There would also be an ugly battle for resources by different regions.

There is a further good practical reason why such devolution is wrong-headed: the quality of both local politicians and their senior officers is generally poor. If anyone doubts this go and attend a few local council meetings and committees. They simply would not be up to the job of administering such responsibilities.  If local authorities whether singly or in concert as is proposed in Manchester are given extensive new borrowing powers there is every chance they will behave recklessly and run up debts which they could not service and  central government would have to bail them out. Spain is a gruesome example of  such misbehaviour by devolved governments.

The fact that it is Greater Manchester which is receiving the extra powers rather than individual councils or even just the councils for the city of  Manchester   suggests that what is being aimed at is a surreptitious resurrection of the goal of  Balkanising England  which was so roundly rejected in 2004 under Blair’s premiership.

Regional bodies such as those proposed for Greater Manchester will have some  ostensible democratic respectability because their members  will be  drawn from elected councils.  But  this democratic respectability will be specious  if there is a Mayor  of Greater Manchester  who is  not attached to any council heading the consortium. Individual councillors from each council will have little if any influence because you can bet the Mayor will form a council of the leaders of the component councils which will proceed to  stitch up deals  that are then  presented as a fait accompli to the individual councillors. Anyone who has had experience of a council which has adopted the “cabinet” system will be only too well aware of how councillors who are not part of the cabinet are left virtually powerless to affect any council policy or behaviour because they are effectively  excluded from decision making.

Scottish  Welsh  and Northern Irish  politicians will welcome such devolution within England because it lessens  the opportunity for England to exert  its natural power in the Union by making a national voice for England less likely. However,  they could find it a wrong-headed move if English regions start demanding some of the additional exchequer funding  over and above that provided to England that the Celts  currently receive.

These new powers for Manchester are not a done deal because the Tory Party may  well not be in power after the General Election in May.  Certainly in the case of the devolution of NHS power Labour have made it clear that they do not want  it to happen with the  Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham rejecting  the NHS Proposal viz:

“If I was health secretary I wouldn’t be offering this deal.”

“My worry is having a ‘swiss cheese’ effect in the NHS whereby cities are opting out.”

 “This deal is only being offered to certain parts of the country too and there’s a real concern that it could cause a two-tier service and challenge the notion of a National Health Service.”

What is proposed for Manchester is the thin end of the Balkanising of England wedge. It needs to be opposed on principle.

English votes for English laws: a rich diet of political fudge

Robert Henderson

The Leader of the House of Commons, William Hague, launched  English votes for English laws into  the Commons on 16 December with the publication of  the command paper  The Implications of Devolution for England

The paper’s proposals  include three from the Tories and  one from the LibDems. Labour is absent from the  paper having refused to join in discussions with the Tories and LibDems .

Labour’s  position on England within a devolved UK  can be swiftly dealt with: they offer only devolution to local and possibly regional government  (either way the Balkanisation of England)  and press for a Constitutional Convention to arrive at an agreement as a transparent device to kick the question of England having a voice into the long grass for as long as possible. If they form a government whether on their own or in a coalition they will probably drop the Constitutional Convention idea.

The Tory and LibDem proposals put forward are messy with all three  Tory options  (P22 of  The Implications of Devolution for England ) fudging  matters by not restricting the proposal of and the voting on of English-only legislation to English-seat MPs  and  the  LibDem proposal   being a blatant attempt to smuggle in proportional representation by the back door by suggesting that an English Grand Committee be set up with its members selected to represent the proportion of votes each party . They also have a superb recipe for balkanising England by allowing various  levels of  representation on demand with differing  powers  if a city,  council or region seek them. Labour have not put any proposals formally forward because they refused to join discussions on fitting England into the devolution mix.

It is true that the Tories   provide one proposal  (option 1) which  excludes all but English seat MPs  from  voting on  laws which affect only England, but  leaves  Welsh MPs to vote on some matters which are deemed to  affect both   England and Wales.  This  means that England would still not have parity with Scotland and Northern Ireland because there would be issues which the Scots and the Northern Irish  deal with  in their own assemblies  which English MPs will not solely decide.  The creation of what in effect  would be  a three classes  of legislation at the Westminster level – that affecting England only, that effecting England and Wales combined and UK legislation –  would further complicate the position of  the UK government , because there could conceivably be different majorities for all three classes of legislation.  For example, there might be a Labour/SNP  majority for UK legislation, a Tory Majority of English legislation and a Labour majority for English and Welsh legislation.

The second Tory option restricts the Committee  and Report stages  to either English seat MPs only or English and Welsh seat MPs, but allows the whole House of Commons to vote on the Third Reading . This would effectively allow a government with a UK  majority  but a minority of seats in England to vote down a Bill which had been approved by English or English and Welsh  seat MPs.

The third Tory option  restricts the Committee stage to English seat MPs or English and Welsh seat  MPs  but the Report stage is taken  by the whole House of Commons.  Amendments can be made at the Report stage so a government with a UK majority but a minority of seats in England would be able to radically alter a Bill.  However, that  would  not the end of the matter.  After the Report Stage an English Grand Committee would  vote on a Legislative Consent Motion which would either accept the Bill or parts of the Bill or reject it entirely.  If the Legislative Consent Motion is passed the Bill moves to a Third Reading  where it cannot be amended but it can be voted down.

The fact that two out of the three Tory proposals allow much less than English votes for English laws  suggests that the Tory leadership wants to go  for less than full blown English control of the English laws. It is a  well practised trick of those who set the terms of any debate with a practical outcome guaranteed to offer options which offer an extreme option with one or more less extreme options. (By extreme I do not mean something impractical or unreasonable,  but simply something which moves further from the status quo than other options)  For example, had the recent  Scottish referendum offered DevoMax as well as independence on the ballot,  it is a fair bet that there would have been a strong vote for DevoMax.

That leaves the LibDem proposal is unashamedly to reduce the power of Parliament by engaging in a piecemeal Balkanisation:   “By empowering England in this way we would significantly reduce the policy areas in which the so called “West Lothian Question” applies – as powers currently resting with Westminster for England but not Scotland would be devolved away from Westminster for much or all of England too.” P28 of  The Implications of Devolution for England

The LibDem’s want “Devolution on Demand” . This would be arranged by passing an   “English Devolution Enabling Bill”.  The Bill would list powers  and  areas would  be able to demand “from Westminster and Whitehall the powers that they want from a menu of options.”  The areas would be “ cities, counties, regions and other appropriate geographic entities  [which would] develop their own elected bodies with their own suite of administrative, legislative and taxation powers which worked for the people and communities in their area.” This would create a chaotic postcode lottery throughout England of both services and administrative shape.

But the LibDems recognise that not everything could be devolved in this fashion because there would still have to be some things requiring a decision to be taken by all English  seat MPs. The LibDems want  “for measures which unambiguously affect England only and which are not devolved below the Westminster level, there should be a new parliamentary stage before third reading or equivalent, composed of MPs proportionately representing the votes cast in England to allow them to scrutinise proposals and to employ a veto if they so wish.”

Note the “composed of MPs proportionately representing the votes cast in England”. That would mean far more LibDems  in this “new parliamentary stage”   (this would be a committee probably an English Grand Committee)  than were warranted by the number of their English seat MPs.  Indeed, because of the way LibDem voters are distributed across the country (more evenly than any other Westminster represented party) it is even conceivable they might not be able to muster enough MPs to reach the number which their  votes in England warranted because under the first past the post system the more evenly distributed the voters the fewer seats won. However, that would require LibDem seats in the Commons to fall hugely (suppose they won, say,  15%  of the English  vote and only held  six English seats).

What the LibDems really want is to kick into the longest grass  possible the question of  how to fit England into a devolved UK . Their favoured method of doing this is to call for a Constitutional Convention  which at best would be unlikely to produce an agreed  settlement by the end of the next Parliament.   To make certain the matter would drag on interminably and probably end in stalemate with no agreement, the LibDems want  a Constitutional Convention “composed of representatives of the political parties, academia, civic society and members of the public. The Convention should be led by an independent Chair agreed by the leaders of the three main political parties. The remit of the Convention should be decided by parliament through legislation, if possible on a cross party basis. The Liberal Democrats believe this should include the consideration of the appropriate level for political decision-taking in the UK, the powers of the devolved administrations, the interactions between the different institutions of the UK and the voting rights of MPs. The working practices and way in which it chose to approach the remit should be decided by the Convention itself.”

Both the Tory and LibDem proposals rely on an English or English and Welsh seat MPs to form a committee.  How they would be selected would be of great importance. If they are simply stuffed with the placemen of the  leaders of the  various Westminster parties with English seats,  they could be seriously unrepresentative of  backbench feelings and simply end up pushing through the ideas of what we know are increasingly out of touch political elites.

What of the House of  Lords? The Implications of Devolution for England  paper leaves this matter untouched.  That is ridiculous. The Lords may have lost much of their power ,  but they can delay matters by rejecting Bills or amending them heavily so that they have to go back to the Commons to be either represented in their original form or with some but not all of the Lords amendments accepted.  The Commons could also change the original Bill.  (Under the 1949 Parliament Act the Lords can block Commons Legislation for two sessions spread over one year ).

The Lords composition,  which pays no attention to geographical  representation,   is patently unfitted to act as a revising chamber of English only laws.  English votes for English laws under the proposals would leave England as an anomaly  in that they would be the only one of the four home nations to have legislation specific to it  alone subject to a revising chamber.  To give England parity with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland  either the Lords (however reformed unreformed ) would have to be cease to consider English only laws.

Finally,  there is the  vexed question of who initiates legislation. This is also ignored by the Tory and LibDem proposals.  Bearing in mind the strong possibility that a UK government would  be formed every now and then from a party or parties which could not command a majority of English seats, who exactly would initiate English only legislation in such a situation?  It could scarcely be a UK government which could not command an English seat majority. Not only would this seem unjust to the English, but  an English seat majority  in the Commons would under most of the proposed schemes be able to block the legislation.   Permanent deadlock could  be the result  over a  great deal of the legislative programme of  such a UK government.   But if it was not the UK government initiating English only legislation, who would?  The party with a majority of English seats? A coalition of parties drawn from English seats?  Whoever it was making the decisions  it would in effect be an English government.   To get to such a de facto English government there would have to be radical changes top Commons procedures because it is the UK government which controls the business of the Commons.

Where does all this leave us? Even in its  purist form with only English seat MPs voting on English laws this would not be  a permanent solution.   Once established it would  quickly become clear that there would be perpetual dissent over what are English-only laws, squabbles over the continuing existence of the Barnett Formula and the practical difficulty of having a House of Commons where the majorities for UK business and English business might be different, for example, a  UK wide  majority for Labour  or Labour led coalition, either relying for MPs from seats outside of England for their majority and a Tory majority in England.

But  English votes for English laws would be a staging post on the way to the only clean solution to the English Question, an  English Parliament.   Whether we will get  any the options put forward by the Tories and LibDems  will depend on whether the Tories form a government after the 2015 General Election.  A  Labour government or  a coalition formed by Labour/LibDem/SNP  would probably do nothing while the likely outcome of  another Tory/LibDem coalition would be a Constitutional Convention dragging interminably on and coming to no conclusion before the General Election after the 2015 one.

The BBC and “coloured  players“

Robert Henderson

Twice in the past few days  two  interviewees from the football world  on Radio 5 have used the word coloured in connection with  black players  when discussing the possible introduction of the Rooney Rule into English football. The so-called rule comes from America and  in the English context makes  compulsory the interviewing of at least one black candidate where a managerial  or head coach position in a professional football  team is to be filled.

The first occasion was by the Wigan FC owner Dave Wheelan  (3 Oct),  who repeatedly referred to “coloured players” .  Nothing was said during the interview, but immediately it was over the presenter  in best politically correct fashion said in the peculiarly noxious tones of a white liberal affecting outrage that they were apologising for language in the interview “which listeners may have found offensive”.  Interestingly, the BBC  written item which referred to Whelan’s appearance discussing the Rooney Rule subject did not mention that he had used the phrase “black footballers”.

On the Stephen Nolan programme (4 Oct) the very experienced English football manager Dave Bassett  and the black basketball player  John Amaechi   engaged in an extended row over the same phrase  coloured footballers,  plus variations on it (go into to the recording at 35 minutes) .  Amaechi  jumped in after the first two uses  of “coloured players” with ”This is 2014 and I’m listening to someone talk about  using coloured players. For the love of God are  you kidding me?”.

Judged by his  frequent  British media appearances Amaechi  is a naturally petulant and childishly abusive personality. He  proceeded to try  to patronise Bassett, a working-class man without much education, by referring to his (Amaechi’s)  academic qualification in psychology and saying  with heavy sarcasm that he might just have the edge over Bassett when it came to judging human behaviour. This merely made Amaechi look like an unpleasant boor at best and a deeply insecure man at worst.  Amaechi added to this bad impression by constantly insulting Bassett by objecting to any attempt by Bassett to get a word in edgeways by shrieking something along the lines of don’t interrupt me, it’s rude.

The presenter Nolan made precious little attempt to restrain Amaechi’s rudeness or give Bassett a fair chance to speak. In addition, he backed up  up Amaechi by several times saying to Bassett that the word coloured in this  context was “inappropriate” . So much for BBC staff not expressing opinions.

Greatly to his credit Bassett stuck to his guns and refused to apologise , during his time on air or, according to Nolan, afterwards – Nolan said that Bassett had stood by his use of the phrase after he left the airwaves.  Whilst on air he made the very good point that managers and coaches in English professional football frequently did not represent the percentage of the players involved from various groups such as the Northern Irish or Welsh. He also opposed the introduction of the Rooney Rule.

The attempt to stop the use of coloured is a prime example of how racial, ethnic and other minorities such as gays try to exert power generally over society .  This is both sinister  – control of language is the tool of dictators – and  unreasonable, because while  a group may call themselves whatever they choose , they  have no moral right to impose their chosen  term  upon those outside of the group. The moral abuse caused by imposition  becomes  especially  sharp where there is a different word used by the population in which they live which is not abusive.  That is the case with coloured.  The term was for more than a century  the polite term for blacks.   The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People was founded in 1909 in the USA and continues with the title today.   There is little serious complaint about the use of coloured in the title of that  organisation, while the  mixed race (white/black mixture)  population of South Africa is still called coloured.  Ironically, the term black  occupied the same position as coloured does now fifty years ago.

On the Rooney Rule question, it would be just another granting of privilege to a racial minority. Nor is  it clear who would count as black in these circumstances. How black would you have to be? One half black, quarter black , one eighth black?  What of someone with one parent who has black ancestry who looks white? (genetics can produce some unexpected results). Would every racial and ethnic minority be  allowed  climb on the bandwagon?

On a purely practical level where would  the large number of black and Asian qualified managers and senior coaches required to meet the  interviewee quota come from? Would it be a very small group who went from interview to interview?  After all, if there are only two black managers in the top 92 English league clubs , who exactly could be meaningfully called for interview? By definition  these would all be inexperienced  so how on earth could many if any be considered for clubs in the  tope toe English divisions, the Premier  League and the Championship?   Even at the level of formal coaching qualifications there would be a problem because few black  or Asian footballers  are taking their advanced coaching badges.

The group which is scandalously under represented in football both as players and managers is of course the English, who have been relentlessly squeezed out since the formation of the Premier League in 1992 and foreign owners, managers and players flooded in as English League  football became ever more lucrative and prestigious.  The result is that the English have become second-class citizens in their own professional football. That is the  inequality which needs addressing.

NB If you want to catch the Nolan programme recording , do so quickly because it will only be available on IPlayer at  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04jj29l   fro another 4 days.

The persecution of Emma West continues

Robert Henderson

Emma West  was arrested in November 2011 after she protested about immigration whilst travelling on a bus. Her protest was captured on video and uploaded to YouTube as well as being copied by many national media outlets. The video was  viewed millions of times.

Following the upload of the video Emma was arrested, held in the UK’s highest security prison for women , released and then subjected to a year and a half’s intimidation by the state as the powers-that-be desperately tried to get her to plead guilty to charges relating to racially motivated serious crimes (racially aggravated intentional harassment and racially aggravated assault)  which would have almost certainly sent her to prison. Eventually, worn down by the stress she pleaded guilty to the  lesser charge of racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress.

I say Emma’s outburst was a protest against immigration because that is precisely what it is. Here are some of her comments:

She says: “What’s this country coming too?

“A load of black people and and load of f***ing Polish.”

One commuter challenges West, who rounds on him telling him: “You aren’t English”, to which he replies “No, I’m not”

She then scans the tram, pointing out people one-by-one, saying: “You ain’t English, you ain’t English, None of you are f***ing English.

“Get back to your own f***ing countries.”

“Britain is nothing now, Britain is f***k all.

“My Britain is f**k all now.”

You can argue that is foulmouthed,  but you cannot argue it is anything but a protest against immigration. In fact, it is the most grass-root form of political protest there is, namely, directly engaging with the effects of policy.

Emma lives in a country which has been made unrecognisable by the permitting of mass immigration for over sixty years. Neither Emma nor any other native English man or woman (or Briton come to that) has had any say in this invasion of the country. This most fundamental act of treason has been committed by generations of British politicians who to date have got away with their crime. But to continue to get away with the crime the guilty men and women need to suppress public protest against what they have done.  That is why the authorities were so desperate to get to plead guilty. She was a refusnik and they could not let that pass.  That she resorted to foul language in her frustration is entirely understandable.

But those with power were not satisfied simply with her criminal conviction. Emma has now had her livelihood as a dental nurse taken away by the General Medical Council with this preternaturally smug judgement:

A [Dental Council] spokeswoman said: “Her conduct was truly appalling.

“It clearly has the capacity to bring the profession into disrepute and to undermine public confidence in its standards.

“Furthermore, her violent and abusive conduct would demonstrate a real risk to the safety of patients.

“In relation to her racially aggravated offence, this was committed in a public setting and received further public exposure, as a person had uploaded the video clip to the internet which has been viewed extensively.”

So there you have it, political correctness can not only send you into the clutches of the law but take your means of living away.

For the full story of Emma West’ persecution see

The oppression of Emma West : the politically correct end game plays out

Posted on July 2, 2013by

Robert Henderson In November 2011 Emma West was arrested  and subsequently charged for a racially aggravated public order offence (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state/). The charges concerned her  public denunciation of the effects of mass immigration whilst on a tram in Croydon,  a suburb … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Immigration, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 61 Comments | Edit

Emma West and the State – The State has its way (sort of)

Posted on June 5, 2013by

Robert Henderson Emma West has finally been worn down. Eighteen months after she was charged with racially aggravated intentional harassment and racially aggravated assault , she has agreed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of racially aggravated harassment, alarm … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , | 21 Comments | Edit

Emma West’s trial scheduled for the sixth time

Posted on April 10, 2013by

Robert Henderson Emma West was due to stand trial at Croydon Crown Court for  two racially aggravated public order offences  arising from her complaint about  mass immigration and its effects made on a Croydon tram  in November 2011 . The … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , ,, | 36 Comments | Edit

Emma West trial scheduled for the fifth time

Posted on March 13, 2013by

Robert Henderson A fifth, yes that’s fifth,  date for the start of Emma West’s trial on criminal charges arising from her complaint about  mass immigration and its effects made on a Croydon tram  in November 2011 has been set  for  … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, Nationhood | Tagged , , , , , , ,, | 28 Comments | Edit

What has happened to Emma West?

Posted on January 8, 2013by

Robert Henderson It is now 14 months since Emma West was charged with racially aggravated public order offences after she got into an argument on a tram which led her to make loud complaint about the effects of mass immigration. … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | 31 Comments | Edit

Emma West trial delayed for the third time

Posted on September 8, 2012by

Robert Henderson The trial of Emma West on racially aggravated public order offences has been delayed for the third time ( http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/Emma-West-trial-adjourned-time/story-16820636-detail/story.html ).  No further date has been set.   The trial was originally scheduled for June, then July and finally September … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | 13 Comments | Edit

Emma West has her trial delayed yet again

Posted on July 27, 2012by

The trial of Emma West on two racially aggravated public order offences has been put back to 5 September to allow further medical reports (http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/Trial-alleged-YouTube-tram-racist-Emma-West-moved/story-16543355-detail/story.html).  Her trial was meant to take place on 17th July but a request for … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged , , , , ,, , | 12 Comments | Edit

Courage is the best defence against charges of racism

Posted on June 12, 2012by

Robert Henderson The trial of Emma West on two racially aggravated public order charges which was scheduled for 11 June has been postponed until 16 July to enable further psychiatric reports to be prepared. (http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/Emma-West-race-rant-trial-moved-July/story-16346869-detail/story.html). As Miss West was charged … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments | Edit

Emma West, immigration and the Liberal totalitarian state part 3

Posted on January 4, 2012by

Robert Henderson Emma West appeared at Croydon magistrates court on 3rd January.  She  will stand trial  on  two racially aggravated public order offences, one with intent to cause fear. She will next appear in court  – Croydon Crown Court –  … Continue reading →

Posted in Anglophobia, Immigration, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged , , , , ,, , , | 12 Comments | Edit

Emma West, immigration and the Liberal totalitarian state part 2

Posted on December 7, 2011by

Robert Henderson Emma West has been remanded in custody until 3rd of January when she will appear at Croydon Crown Court (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/tram-race-rant-woman-court-052333359.html).  By 3rd January she will in, effect , have served a custodial sentence of 37 days,  [RH She was … Continue reading →

Posted in Anglophobia, Culture, Immigration, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged , , , ,, , , | 23 Comments | Edit

Emma West, immigration and the Liberal totalitarian state

Posted on December 1, 2011by

Emma West of New Addington, London has been arrested and placed in “protective custody” following the publication on YouTube of  a two minute 25 second  recording labelled by the YouTube poster as “Racist British Woman on the Tram goes CRAZY …Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, Nationhood | Tagged , , , , , , ,, | 39 Comments | Edit

The Scottish referendum and the accidental emergence of the English voice

Robert Henderson

The outcome of the Scottish independence referendum has  resulted in the breaking of a particularly effective omerta within the British political classes, namely, that there should be no acknowledgement of the wilful damage done to English interests by the devolution settlement of the late 1990s which has excluded her from having a national political voice while Scotland, Wales and Northern  Ireland were given such a voice and ever increasing devolved powers.

Having denied England her due for 16 years the Tory Party has suddenly embraced the idea constitutional equality with the rest of the UK with the necessary changes being made in tandem with the new powers so recklessly promised by Gordon Brown during the last days of the Referendum campaign.    No matter that the Tory Party has had this sudden conversion to being the upholder of English interests because it is a way of marginalising the Labour Party through both threatening to remove the influence of its many non-English seat MPs; no matter that so far all that is proposed is English votes for English laws rather than an English Parliament; no matter that the Labour and LibDem leaders have rejected the idea. What matters is that the English devolution train has started to move and once moving it will be very difficult to stop.

Cameron’s “solution” to the constitutional imbalance

The morning after the NO in the Scottish independence  referendum vote David  Cameron  proposed  this:

“Just as the people of Scotland will have more power over their affairs, so it follows that the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland must have a bigger say over theirs.

The rights of these voters need to be respected, preserved and enhanced as well.

It is absolutely right that a new and fair settlement for Scotland should be accompanied by a new and fair settlement that applies to all parts of our United Kingdom.

In Wales, there are proposals to give the Welsh Government and Assembly more powers.

And I want Wales to be at the heart of the debate on how to make our United Kingdom work for all our nations.

In Northern Ireland, we must work to ensure that the devolved institutions function effectively.

I have long believed that a crucial part missing from this national discussion is England.

We have heard the voice of Scotland – and now the millions of voices of England must also be heard.

The question of English votes for English laws – the so-called West Lothian question –requires a decisive answer.

So, just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish Parliament on their issues of tax, spending and welfare so too England, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland, should be able to vote on these issues and all this must take place in tandem with, and at the same pace as, the settlement for Scotland.”

Whether Cameron could deliver much of this in the seven months before the General Election is highly dubious, both on the  grounds of time and the difficulty of getting agreement with the other major Westminster parties . Labour leader Ed Miliband has already refused to back the idea of linking English constitutional reform to the granting of extra powers to Scotland. This is for a crude political interest   reason: without Labour MPs from outside of England the Labour Party would have no chance of forming a government in England for the foreseeable future.  LibDem leader Nick Clegg has also refused to back Cameron’s proposal,  but has said he would support the formation of an English Grand Committee to scrutinise and amend English-only legislation. However,  this would still leave the UK parliament as it is present constructed with the final say which would include MPs for seats outside of England.

But  even if  Cameron  could  do it in the time and the other major Westminster Parties agreed to his proposal, it is difficult to see how Cameron could achieve what he wants – an equality of control over  national affairs in the four Home Countries – because he is determined not to have an English Parliament.  English votes for English laws suggests he wants to have only  MPs for English seats voting  on issues  which affect only England. (It is not clear at  present whether Cameron would exclude Welsh and Northern  Irish MPs . If  they were not excluded the problem of non-English MPs voting on English issues would remain.  But there is a difficulty in doing this insofar as Welsh and Northern Irish devolved powers are less than those already in Scotland and even more inferior to a Scotland with the proposed new powers.  The solution to this is to give all four Home Nations equal devolved powers.)

But excluding non-English seat MPs from voting on English issues would not  entirely  solve the problem.  There would still be the question of who makes the policy on which the MPs vote.  It is easy to see how a situation could arise where a Labour government  or a coalition  government with MPs drawn  from non-English seats  could have an overall majority in the Commons  but be in the minority amongst English MPs.   If that was the case it would not be for such a government to make laws for England because it would be non-English MPs making English policy.  English laws would have to be formulated and developed  by an executive drawn only from English-seat MPs. That would  mean   two executives in the Commons, one dealing with English affairs and one with all other affairs.  It would be unworkable.    If there was both an English Parliament and a Federal government the problem would not exists because the two executives would be clearly delineated and their areas of responsibility  obvious.

Consider also the position at a UK wide general election.  How would those standing for seats outside of England campaign? If such MPs were allowed to be   part of the policy making process  for English-only legislation but were not allowed to vote,  what exactly would they put in their election manifestoes about such a  situation? Similarly what would the parties they represent put in the Party manifesto?  If MPs outside of England were excluded from both voting and  policy making on English-only matters  would the Party manifestoes for seats outside of England  have to exclude any mention of what the Party manifesto for England said on English-only issues?

There is also a serious procedural  problem with English votes for English laws, namely, who would decide what is an English only issue. It has been suggested the Speaker would make the decision. That would place a dangerously large  amount of political power and influence in the hands of one man. (Imagine the present speaker John Bercow making such a decision  when faced with a Tory government).  But whatever the arrangements for making such a decision  there would be immense opportunity for dissension and many seemingly English-only issues could end up classified as not qualifying as English-only.  Indeed, while the Barnet Formula remains any English legislation with spending implications could be argued  to not be English-only because what England gets to spend is linked to what Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive: England gets more for the NHS, the other home nations gets a proportionate boost to their spending . That difficulty could be removed by abolishing the Barnett Formula but that would cause a great uproar amongst the Celtic Fringe.  There would also be the a problem if the Welsh and  Northern Irish assemblies were not given the same powers as the  Scottish parliament because  that would also cause great confusion and argument.

But the question of English representation goes beyond mere numbers. Even if  a Westminster government  is formed with a majority of English MPs, the fact that MPs from outside of  England would still be able to both vote on and help frame  English-only legislation  and policy would colour that legislation and policy  because personal relationships between politicians of the governing party would compromise  the desire of the government to act in England’s interests. (The smaller the government majority  amongst English MPs  the more influence non-English seat MPs would be able to exert because their voice would be louder and the Government would  always be afraid of a general rebellion by the non-English seat MPs if non-English  interests were  not being pandered to. With a government with a tiny majority of English seats this could well result in defeat for the government.)

If the Westminster government with a majority English-seat MPs  was formed by a party with strong representation in one or more of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish, the temptation not to act solely in English interests would be strong because of the fear that what was done at Westminster could damage their standing in the other Home Countries.   A coalition with an English-seat majority  which excluded the Tory  Party would be particularly difficult  for England because it would have non-English seat MPs  from different parties pulling in different directions.

The plain truth is that the only practical  and honest solution to the constitutional mess  is an English Parliament. It would allow an exact equality of powers and national focus to be granted to each of the Home Nations. The Parliament  could be created very simply at little or no additional cost: only MPs for English seats would be elected to the  House of Commons which would become what it was originally, an English institution.

An English Parliament would remove not only the practical difficulties of  deciding who should make policy to put before  the Commons and  what legislation was to be dealt with only by English seat MPs, it would force England’s representatives to concentrate on England’s interests first, second and last.

The UK federal Parliament could be created simply by forming it of the MPs of the four Home Country national Parliaments.    With federal matters restricted to a handful of important issues – defence, macro fiscal policy, foreign affairs, homeland security and suchlike – the federal parliament would not have that much to do. This would allow it to  meet at Westminster if a physical gathering is required or it could be conducted through linking the four national parliaments via the Web  The federal government would be formed as the UK government is now, on a majority drawn from the four Home Country parliaments.

The attempts to fudge the English constitutional question

There are  already frantic elite  attempts to fudge the English question  in play. As soon as the NO vote was certain the mainstream media and Libdem and Labour politicians started pushing the idea of devolving the powers Scotland had to either English regions or councils. The BBC was particularly assiduous in this respect with Radio 5 who started their propagandising for devolution which would deny England a Parliament as soon as it became clear in the early hours of the morning  that the NO vote would win.

Devolving to English regions or even councils  the powers enjoyed by the Scottish Parliament after the new powers are added  manifestly cannot achieve  what Cameron wants, namely, equality of treatment for England.  For example, Scotland is to have new tax raising powers over income tax. If  such powers were given to English regions or large conurbations , this would simply result in a hideously complex post-code lottery which would set one area against another.   But it would not simply be  a matter of setting one area against another which would be an ill consequence of such devolution. Imagine what would happen if  one area suffered a severe shortfall in revenue under such a tax regime?  This could happen because they set the rates too low to make up for any new taxpaying businesses or individuals they attracted or because there was a flight from higher  tax areas. Would what remained of central government in the UK  be willing to stand idly by and allow vital public services in the afflicted area  to fall into disuse? Most probably not, but that would raise a problem: if much of the revenue raising had  been devolved where exactly would the money come from to bail the at risk region or council out?   But even if central government did have the funds,  it would be politically toxic for them to be handing out money to a region or city which could not fund its public services because it had set its local tax rates too low. Solvent regions or cities would be up in arms. There would be plenty of issues such as this. The whole thing would be an administrative mess of heroic proportions.

Regional assemblies would not work  even if their remit was restricted to genuinely local matters and their taxation powers remained small. . This is because there are no English regions which have anything approaching  as strong an identity as any of the home  nations. Most  of England has no strong regional identity.  Even the North East and Cornwall – the two English areas most commonly touted as having a strong regional identity – would be unsuitable.  The North East is comprised of Northumberland and  Durham but that has strong antipathies within it, for example, the rivalry between Newcastle and Sunderland.   Cornwall is too small to stand on its own – with much of its population not being Cornish but incomers  – and  a South West Region comprising Cornwall, Devon and Somerset  would have no natural unity. The Northwest would include Manchester and Liverpool, two major  cities with little love for one another.

At the level of devolution to towns and cities, this would raise the problem of what to do with the considerable stretches of England without large cities or substantial towns.  That would rule out extending the powers of large cities and towns to the surrounding countryside in much of England..

What needs to be done now?

Although English votes for English laws on policies developed by MPs from England and put forward by an English executive  would be very messy and ultimately impractical, the adoption of the scheme   could be used as a springboard to an English parliament. This would be partly because the public would see that it was not working efficiently or fairly and partly because the habit of publicly speaking about English interests and English constitutional circumstances would have been formed. That would embolden politicians and the mainstream media to advocate an English parliament.   If it was only English votes for English laws with MPs outside of  England still forming part of the policy determining  group for the legislation for England,  this clear evidence of  blatant inequality between England and the other Home Nations  would boost demand for  English votes for English laws to be scrapped and English Parliament put in its place.

The danger for England is that she will end up  without anything which goes anyway towards remedying the disadvantage she is presently under.  Nothing will be decided before the 2015 General Election and if Labour form a government, whether on their own or in coalition with the parties other than the Tories, the chances of English votes for English laws getting off the ground is remote. In such circumstances the issue of English devolution would be likely to be kicked into the long grass with things such as a constitutional convention and the devolution of some unimportant extra powers to the cities. I doubt whether regional assemblies would be attempted because of the resounding rejection  of an assembly in the North East in 2004. It would also look like treating England as a second class citizen.  The idea of devolving important powers such as those  granted to Scotland to cities  would be a non-starter .

If the Tories have a modicum of sense they will go to the country on a platform of  English rights. Ideally, this should  contain support for an English Parliament , but even English votes for English laws would have considerable traction with English electors because at long last there would be a major Party which appeared to be “speaking for England”.  Such a platform would place both Labour and the LibDems in an impossible electoral position because a refusal to allow the English to have the same powers as the Scots, Welsh and Irish would be self-evidently unreasonable.

All you could ever want to know about Scottish independence

Note: These are all the Independence blog posts to date in one place for easy access.  Robert Henderson

The Scottish independence referendum  – The second STV debate 2nd Sept 2014

Robert Henderson The full debate can be found at http://player.stv.tv/programmes/yes-or-no/ Better Together panel Douglas Alexander Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary and MP Kezia Dugdale  Scottish Labour  Shadow Party Education spokesman and MSP Ruth Davidson Leader of the Scottish Conservatives and MSP … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged independence, Parliament, quisling elite, Scotland | 2 Comments | Edit

Salmond vs Darling round 2 – The  shameless chancer versus the trembling incompetent

Posted on August 27, 2014by Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson The second Darling vs Salmond debate on 25 August was even more depressing than the first. It might have been thought that having gone through one debate the palpable nervousness both showed the first time round  would have … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged Celts, England, independence, Scotland, The Scots | Leave a comment |Edit

Alex Salmond is a chancer in the mould of Paterson and Law

Robert Henderson William Paterson was the main mover of the Darien disaster which bankrupted Scotland in the 1690s through a mixture of ignorance, general incompetence and embezzlement; John Law was the Scot who ruined the currency and economy of Louis … Continue reading →
Posted in Anglophobia, Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged England, independence, Scotland, The Scots | 4 Comments |Edit

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

Posted on June 13, 2014by Robert Henderson
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 … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged England, independence, Parliament, quisling elite | | Edit

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

Posted on March 15, 2014by Robert Henderson
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 …Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged independence, Parliament, Scotland, The Scots | | Edit

BBC drama goes in to bat for Scottish independence

Posted on March 15, 2014by Robert Henderson
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 … Continue reading →
Posted in Anglophobia, Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged independence, Parliament, Scotland, The Scots | 4 Comments| Edit

What happens if Scotland votes NO to independence?

Posted on March 4, 2014by Robert Henderson
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)  … Continue reading →
Posted in Anglophobia, Devolution, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged English, independence, Parliament, Scotland | 5 Comments | Edit

Frank Field calls for an English Parliament on Any Questions

Posted on February 23, 2014by Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson Any Questions on 21 Feb 2014 (BBC R4) came from  Blundells School in Tiverton, Devon. The panel answering the question were the  Secretary of State for Scotland  and LibDem MP Alistair Carmichael, Conservative backbench MP Nadhim Zahawi  MP, … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged birthright, censorship, independence, invasion, quisling elite, The Scots | 7 Comments | Edit

SNP 2013 XMAS INDEPENDENCE NOVELTIES

Posted on December 13, 2013by Robert Henderson
Make you own currency kit Allows you to name your currency,  design your own coins and banknotes, create coins (3D printer included) and banknotes and set up a central piggy bank.  Warning: the money will have the same value as … Continue reading →
Posted in Anglophobia, Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged Celts, independence, Scotland, The Scots | 10 Comments |Edit

The Scottish Independence Referendum – unanswered questions

Posted on November 27, 2013by Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson NB UK2 stands for the UK containing England, Wales and Northern Ireland The vote on Scottish independence is in 2014. The next UK general election is scheduled for 2015. The date for  Scotland to leave  the Union is … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Economics, Immigration, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged birthright, England, independence,Northern Ireland, Scotland, The Scots, Wales | 10 Comments | Edit

The future of England

Posted on November 22, 2013by Robert Henderson
Meeting arranged by the Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP) House of Lords 20th November Speakers Frank Field Labour MP Lord Maclennan (Lib Dem) Professor Wyn Jones ( Professor of Welsh Politics, Cardiff U) Eddie Bone CEP There were around …Continue reading →
Posted in Anglophobia, Devolution, Immigration, Nationhood | Tagged Celts, democracy, English, independence,quisling elite, Scotland, The Scots | 3 Comments | Edit

The BBC way with Scottish independence

Posted on September 23, 2013by Robert Henderson
Victoria Derbyshire BBC Radio 5 16 Sept 2013 10.00 am -12.000 noon Debate on the Scottish independence vote This was a  classic example of  the BBC’s  interpretation of balance and consisted of a number of regulation issue BBC propaganda tricks. … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged BBC, independence, Scotland | 14 Comments | Edit

Suppressing scandal – The Mayor of London’s State of London Debate 12 June 2013

Posted on June 17, 2013by Robert Henderson
Methodist Central Hall Event broadcast by LBC Speaker Mayor of London Boris Johnson Presenter Nick Ferrari  of LBC There was a substantial audience of, according to LBC , 2,000. Boris Johnson gave a short inconsequential speech in his routine  Old … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Politics | Tagged censorship, Francis Crick Institute, political correctness, quisling elite | | Edit

SNP 2012 XMAS Novelties

Independence Balloon When filled with hot air the balloon floats away leaving its owner with nothing to hold onto Comes in your clan tartan or decorated with Saltires Hours of  innocent fun Has a use-by date of  31 December 2013. … Continue reading →

The English voice on Scottish independence must be heard

Posted on October 20, 2012by Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson The shrieking flaw in the  proposed Scottish independence referendum is the failure to establish the terms of Independence before the referendum is held.  This is vital because all parts of the UK are potentially seriously affected, especially if … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged England, independence, Parliament, Scotland | 41 Comments | Edit
Posted on April 15, 2012by Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish Numpty Party (SNP),  has been at full impotent froth over an article in the Economist which describes Scotland as Skintland and carries a map of Scotland with puns on place names … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Economics, Nationhood | Tagged independence, Scotland, The Scots | 95 Comments | Edit

The English white working-class and the British elite – From the salt of the earth to the scum of the earth

Posted on April 1, 2012by Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson 1. How it used to be  Thirty years ago the Labour Party primary client base was the white working-class, while the Tories still had remnants of the heightened sense of social responsibility towards the poor created by two … Continue reading →
Posted in Anglophobia, Devolution, Economics, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged English, history, political correctness,Scotland | 8 Comments | Edit

Bring the Nuclear Deterrent to England now

Posted on February 5, 2012by Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson A Daily Telegraph report  of 27 January 2012  “Nuclear subs will stay in Scotland”  ( James Kirkup -http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9043092/Nuclear-subs-will-stay-in-Scotland-Royal-Navy-chiefs-decide.html) is most disturbing. The essence of the story is that should  Scotland votes for independence the  UK nuclear deterrent would … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood, Politics, World influence | Tagged armed forces, Celts, defence, Scotland, The Scots |14 Comments | Edit

It must be no to Devomax

Posted on February 2, 2012by Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson The leader of the Scots Numpty Party  (SNP) Alex Salmond has a secret love. He has a long-time partner Independence , but also  a burgeoning  affair with  the siren Devomax.    No, this not a relative of the cyber personality Max … Continue reading→
Posted in Anglophobia, Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged Celts, English, Scotland | 14 Comments | Edit

Salmond’s proposed referendum question is heavily biased

Posted on January 26, 2012by Robert Henderson
The Scotch Numpty Party (SNP) leader Alex Salmond’s proposed referendum question “‘Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?” is strongly biased. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9040988/Alex-Salmonds-independence-question-is-loaded-and-biased.html). The question is biased because it is (1) asking people to positively agree not merely choose from … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged Celts, independence, Parliament, Scotland | 33 Comments | Edit

An “independent” Scotland must not be allowed to have the pound as their official currency

Posted on January 22, 2012by Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson The Scottish Numpty Party leader Alex Salmond desperately wants to have his independence cake and eat it. He wishes to have DEVOMAX as well as independence on the “independence” ballot and, if the vote is for independence, he …Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Economics, Nationhood | Tagged Celts, independence, Parliament, Scotland | 42 Comments | Edit

SNP 2011 XMAS Novelties

Posted on December 24, 2011by Robert Henderson
Independence Puzzle Based on the Rubik Cube principle,  when solved the puzzle represents  a map of the Scotch mainland with the word INDEPENDENCE  in the its centre.  WARNING: this is a very demanding puzzle and even the brightest players will …Continue reading →
Posted in Anglophobia, Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged Celts, independence, Parliament, Scotland, SNP, The Scots |94 Comments | Edit

The complete “Wages of Scottish independence”

Posted on July 23, 2011by Robert Henderson
I have now completed the series on the implications of Scottish independence on the Calling England blog. They cover all the important ground relating to the question: The wages of Scottish independence – England, Wales and Northern Ireland must be …Continue reading →
Posted in Anglophobia, Devolution, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged Celts, English, independence, Parliament, Scotland | 1 Comment | Edit

The wages of Scottish independence – England, Wales and Northern Ireland must be heard

Posted on July 22, 2011by Robert Henderson
In the matter of Scottish independence, the British political elite and the Scottish Numpty Party (SNP) are flatly  ignoring the interests of the English, Welsh and Northern Irish.  This is unreasonable for two reasons: firstly, the granting of independence to … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Immigration, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged Celts, independence, invasion, Scotland | 24 Comments | Edit

The wages of Scottish independence – If Parliament says NO

Posted on July 17, 2011by Robert Henderson
Whether or not Scotland would vote for independence is debatable.  Polls consistently show a majority against, although there are always a substantial number of “don’t knows”.  In a  referendum held only in Scotland with the YES campaign headed by the … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Economics, Politics | Tagged Celts, independence, Scotland | 3 Comments | Edit

The wages of Scottish independence – infrastructure

Posted on July 9, 2011by Robert Henderson
Geographically Scotland is very isolated. It is a stranded at the top of mainland Britain with a single land border with England.  Any goods or people coming and going to Scotland have a choice of independent access by air and … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Economics, Immigration, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged EU, public service, public spending,Scotland, The Scots | 4 Comments | Edit
The wages of Scottish independence – a divided country
Posted on July 3, 2011by Robert Henderson
The divided country is not the UK but Scotland. Its divisions are cultural, geographical, religious, demographic and racial. Demographically Scotland is a most peculiar place. It has a population estimated at 5.2 million in 2010 (http://www.scotland.org/facts/population/) set in an area … Continue reading →
Posted in Anglophobia, Culture, Devolution, Economics, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged British, Celts, ethnicity, EU,independence, Scotland | | Edit

The wages of Scottish independence – membership of the EU

Posted on June 25, 2011by Robert Henderson
The Scottish Numpty Party (SNP) leader Alex Salmond has a dream; well, more of an adolescent  fantasy really. He imagines that an independent  Scotland  would  immediately be embraced enthusiastically by the EU. In the more heroically bonkers versions of the fantasy, … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged Celts, EU, independence, Scotland | 6 Comments | Edit

The wages of Scottish independence – The monarchy

Posted on June 18, 2011by Robert Henderson
The Scottish Numpty Party (SNP) has committed itself to the Queen being Scotland’s head of state should independence occur.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/wintour-and-watt/2011/may/25/alexsalmond-queen). As with so much of the SNP policy towards independence this presumes something which is far from self-evident, namely, that …Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged Celts, Crown, independence, Parliament, Scotland | 6 Comments |Edit

The wages of Scottish independence – Public Debt

Posted on June 2, 2011by Robert Henderson
One thing is certain about an independent Scotland: it would begin life with a massive national debt. Exactly how much is problematic because  the Scottish referendum on independence will probably not be held until 2015. The Scots Numpty Party (SNP) …Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood | Tagged ethnicity, independence | 18 Comments | Edit

The wages of Scottish independence – the currency problem

Posted on May 27, 2011by Robert Henderson
The most problematic  decision for an independent Scotland is the currency.  There are three choices: to keep using the pound, join the Euro or create their own currency.   If they choose the pound or Euro they will not be truly … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Economics, Nationhood | Tagged independence, The Scots | 9 Comments | Edit

The wages of Scottish independence – the loss of the military

Posted on May 23, 2011by Robert Henderson
One of the most complex aspects  of disentangling Scotland from the rest of the UK should  Scotland become independent is defence.   It is complex because of  (1) the siting of the Trident submarines and other major ships at Faslane; (2) … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Economics, Nationhood | Tagged armed forces, birthright, English, independence, invasion,military, The Scots | 11 Comments | Edit

The wages of Scottish independence – public sector employment

Posted on May 19, 2011by Robert Henderson
One of the many major issues which an independent Scotland would have to address is the extent to which the Scottish economy is  dependent on public spending and in particular the number of public sector jobs which would be  moved … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Economics, Nationhood | Tagged public service, public spending | 11 Comments | Edit

The truth about UK oil and gas

Posted on May 14, 2011by Robert Henderson
The Scots Numpty Party (SNP) bases its case for the viability of Scotland’s independence  on the idea that wicked England has been “stealin’ ouir oil” and that  if only they had control of the tax revenues from UK oil and gas … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Economics, Nationhood | Tagged independence, oil and gas, technology | 105 Comments | Edit

Make sure the costs of Scottish independence get into the media

Posted on May 12, 2011by Robert Henderson
The letter  below was published in the Times 10 May 2011. It is extremely important that the debate on independence for Scotland  is conducted on the basis that Scotland will not be allowed to walk away from the financial obligations … Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Economics, Nationhood | Tagged ethnicity, Parliament, political correctness, quisling elite | 15 Comments | Edit

Scottish independence? Yes, but only on these terms

by Robert Henderson The Scots Numpty Party (SNP) has managed to defeat the  attempts of the unionists who deliberately devised the electoral system to thwart single party government (and hence leave independence off the practical political agenda) and get a …Continue reading →
Posted in Devolution, Nationhood, Politics | Tagged Celts, ethnicity, laws, race | | Edit

The Scottish independence referendum  – The second STV debate 2nd Sept 2014

Robert Henderson

The full debate can be found at http://player.stv.tv/programmes/yes-or-no/

Better Together panel

Douglas Alexander Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary and MP

Kezia Dugdale  Scottish Labour  Shadow Party Education spokesman and MSP

Ruth Davidson Leader of the Scottish Conservatives and MSP

YES Scotland  panel

Nicola Sturgeon Deputy First Minister (SNP) and MSP

Elaine C Smith Convenor of Scottish Independence Convention

Patrick Harvie Co-Convener of the Scottish Green Party and MSP

Presenter Bernard Ponsonby

The debate  was divided into opening and closing statements by Alexander and Sturgeon with three sections in which one representative from the Better Together and Yes camps was put up to answer  questions. There was a fourth section which was the audience asking questions which could be put to any member  of the two panels at the presenter’s discretion.

It was a more edifying spectacle than the Darling-Salmond shouting matches.  This was largely but not wholly due to the   difference in programme structure , which included much more audience participation, had  six voices rather than two to be accommodated and excluded  formal questioning of each other by the two sides. This removed much of the opportunity for  the unseemly squabbling which had tainted the Darling-Salmond debates.

To the difference in programme  structure improving matters   can be added the absence of Salmond, , who was primarily responsible for the way the Darling-Salmond debates deteriorated into incoherence as the two politicians repeatedly spoke  over one another.  Darling is not  naturally shouty and was provoked into behaving out of character by Salmond’s  toxic behaviour.  It is also true that Douglas Alexander was a vast improvement on Darling, both in his persona, which was relaxed and controlled,  and in the quietly reasonable  way he answered questions. However, his effectiveness was curtailed  because  the format of the show   meant Alexander remained  silent for  much of the time.

Of the others  Dugdale was nervously gabbling,  Davidson attempted to give factual answers , but spoke  too quickly, Elaine Smith  was strident  and emotional and  Harvie supercilious and adolescently idealistic by turns.  Listening to Sturgeon  was to hear Salmond’s words slavishly repeated by someone else. She even mimicked his practice in the second Darling-Salmond debate of moving from behind her rostrum and wandering about the stage.

Although the debate was much  better mannered than   the Darling-Salmond encounters,  it was not  much more informative. There is an inherent  problem with public debates where two sides are allowed to make assertions without challenge from any disinterested third party.   Even where , as was the case here, the audience were able to ask a good number of questions, little is achieved because there is  no sustained questioning of the  speakers’ responses.  Even where the speakers appeared to be giving hard facts there was no solid challenge to what they claimed. The presenter, with the amusingly incongruous  English name of Bernard Ponsonby,   made attempts to challenge what was being said, but these interventions  rarely went anywhere and appeared more for show rather than a determined attempt to stop the speakers waffling, evading or lying.  The upshot was that after the one and three quarter hours  the programme ran I doubt whether the studio audience or the viewers were much the wiser about where the truth lay.

The subjects  covered  were social justice ,  benefit spending, health and social care,  tuition fees, the currency, North Sea oil,  the Barnett Formula, domestic violence,  the nuclear deterrent, Faslane, defence,  the EU and  the further powers offered  in the event of a NO vote. Because of the number of subjects,  they were all dealt with quickly and inevitably superficially. Some questions or points from the audience went unanswered lost in the fog of politician’s waffle.

Only Alexander and Davidson made any real attempt to consistently answer questions with reference to   facts. For example, Davidson had  a very good point about the startlingly meagre nature of the proposed armed forces  put forward in the SNPs white paper on independence.  (Go into the recording at 1 hour and 15 minutes). At the point of independence  the White Paper proposes that “ Scotland will have a total of 7,500 regular and 2,000 reserve personnel at the point of independence, rising to around 10,000 regulars and 3,500  reserves by the end of the five years following independence” (P237) with the possibility after  ten years  of  15,000 regulars and 5,000 reserves.   (That is for the army navy and airforce of a country whose territory constitutes 30% of  the UK).

Judged purely on the information being given by the panellists,  the Better Together side was far superior, but the YES mixture of bluster, bald assertion  and outright lies was  backed  up by aggressive audience participation by YES voters  which covered the massive gaps in their responses to questions.  The  NO  part of the audience applauded vigorously when good points were made  by Better Together, but they did not exude the childlike  excitement and joy  seen on YES supporters’ faces , which were eerily reminiscent of the sublime inanity of the faces of the hippies in the film Easy Rider.

The extremely  large elephant in the room –   the interests of the rest of the UK in the referendum – went unmentioned  but for one brief comment by Alexander. He  pointed out that  a vote for independence would give Salmond a mandate to engage in negotiations for the terms of separation, not  as the YES camp claimed,  a democratic mandate for anything Salmond demanded : “ The sovereign will applies here  in Scotland.  it can’t bind what would be the sovereign will of what would be a  separate country after independence. “ Go into recording at 33 minutes.

To take one example of the rest of the UK’s ignored  interests  which is of immediate concern , no  discussion has taken place about the position of Scottish MPs at Westminster if there is a YES vote.  If the General Election takes place in 2015 but Scottish independence not until 2017 (or even later if the negotiations go badly), there would be the absurd situation of Scottish MPs and peers  still sitting in Parliament at Westminster, making decisions on English matters.  In addition, if Labour win the  election but only with the support of Scottish MPs, a Labour Prime Minister could find himself with a majority in the Commons one day and a minority government the next. It would also mean that the terms of independence  for Scottish independence would be negotiated by a PM who was arithmetically certain to have to resign after Scottish independence day and was dependent on the Scottish MPs to pass whatever terms were agreed.  That would be an incentive to give far too much away to the Scots.

Looking at the three debates   together , (the two Darling-Salmond debates and this one)  it is astonishing that so many important questions other than the  rest of the UK’s interest in the referendum have gone largely or wholly unexamined. Here are some of them:

  1. The public service jobs which will go south of the border if there is a YES vote. This will be the military  ones,  including the Trident submarines and missiles at Faslane,  plus the  considerable number of public service jobs which have been exported from England to Scotland which deal with English matters  such  as the administration of the English  welfare system.
  2. The position of public sector pensions in Scotland, both those already being drawn and the pension entitlements accrued to the date of independence which have not yet begun to be drawn.
  3. The condition of private sector pensions in Scotland such as those attached RBS and HBOS. These could very easily default especially if the Bank of England is no longer the lender of the last resort.
  4. The very heavy reliance of the Scottish economy on taxpayer funded jobs .
  5. The narrowness of the private sector of the Scottish economy, it being massively dependent on oil and gas, financial services and food and drink.
  6. Immigration to Scotland.
  7. Scottish Nationality.

How should  the NO  campaign have been conducted?

The Better Together campaign has suffered from what is always a fatal flaw: they have  built their strategy  around  appeasement of the Scots. Appeasement can never be a strategy because the appeased always returns for more concessions. Appeasement can only ever be a tactic to buy time, something which does not apply in this context.

The policy of appeasement  has meant there has been no input from those who are  not Scottish and opposed to the break up of the Union.  Any Unionist politician with an English accent has been treated as toxic  by the NO campaign.  The debate has been entirely about what is best for Scotland. Fear of being accused of being  a traitor or Quisling has meant that no honest answer has been given to the challenge put by pro-independents along the lines of “Are you saying that this extremely wealthy and wondrously talented country Scotland cannot be successful as an independent country?” . This is   because to suggest  that Scotland is  anything other than a supremely talented and amazingly  wealthy country would bring exactly those accusations.   Faced with that dread the NO camp has  retreated to the absurd position of  agreeing that Scotland is an extremely wealthy and talented country whilst saying that it should not be independent because it would lose so much economically by independence.

The fear of being labelled  either a Quisling (if Scottish) or a bully (if an English Westminster politician) has allowed the YES camp in general and Salmond to make absurd statements which have gone effectively unchallenged, for example on  these two major issues:

  1. Salmond’s claim that Scotland has part ownership of the Pound. This is a literal nonsense. The legal position is very simple: the Pound Sterling is the English currency. Scotland gained the right to share it when they signed the Treaty of Union. If they leave the Union they forfeit that right because the  Treaty and the subsequent Acts of Union will no longer operate.  No one on the pro-union side has made this very obvious point.
  2. Salmond’s threat to default on taking a proportionate share of the UK national debt if they do not get a currency union. This is a non-starter because Scottish independence is dependent on the Westminster Parliament repealing the Act of Union. Again, no one on the pro-union side has made this very obvious point.
  3. Sterlingisation. Why on Earth did no one on the Better Together side not ask Salmond the question “Who will be Scotland’s lender of the last resort if there is Sterlingisation?” A simple question but one Salmond would not have been able to evade.

The whole business has been misguided from beginning to end. Granting an independence  referendum to be decided simply by those in Scotland  when it affected around 90% of the population of the UK was wrong in principle.  That error was compounded by the failure to define the terms of independence before the referendum was held. Had the terms been decided before the referendum,  it is very doubtful that  the referendum would have resulted in a YES vote because Westminster politicians would have been forced to take account of what the electorate in England, Wales and Northern Ireland  would tolerate by way of terms for Scotland to secede from the Union.  For example, the three major  Westminster Parties would have had to make their pledge that there would be no currency union part of the terms,  because to  agree to a currency union would have left them open to the  anger to the electors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland  at the idea that the Bank of England (and hence the UK taxpayer)  would be the lender of last resort  for Scotland.

If the terms had been agreed in advance, ideally these should have been put to a referendum of  the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland for their acceptance. But even if that was not done,  the fact that a UK general election was  to be held in 2015  would have put great pressure on the politicians negotiating the deal with the Scots to not give too much away.

What can be done before the referendum by unionists?  Precious little if anything in terms of promoting the positives of the UK  because it is simply too late. . What the Westminster parties should not be doing is scrambling around promising an ever more potent version of  DEVOMAX.  That would be because it will be seen as appeasement and because the closer the DEVOMAX on offer gets to independence, the less reason there is for people to vote NO  to get DEVOMAX.

What we have had since the referendum was announced has been  the very small Scottish tail  wagging the very large English dog. That is both absurd and a betrayal of the 90 per cent of the population who do not live in Scotland.

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

—————————————————————-

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  18th 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.