It is St George’s day. Raedwald has posted that there can be no further delay and that it is time to establish a parliament for England, regrettable as the consequences may be for the union of the United Kingdom. What follows are my thoughts on this.
Many might make the observation that in the counties of Ulster, 6 making up Northern Ireland, and 3 part of the Republic of Ireland, there will be a generational, demographic shift that will unite Ulster in one region of the European Union. This view is strengthened by a glance at the Irish EU regional map. Ancient Ulster waits to take its place in the Europe of the regions, and is not part of these thoughts on an English parliament.
What of the mainland? There are different answers that depend on whether the United Kingdom remains in the European Union or withdraws in the face of a constitution too far.
Should we remain then the form of UK governance calls for regionalisation; but not the regions as they are now. English local government needs to be wholly rethought, and the European Union driving policy of subsidiarity whole-heartedly accepted by the most highly centralized governance in Europe. There will need to be regions embodying the natural divisions of the kingdom, wrought by geography, economic structure and historical and cultural bonds. This last implies more than one region both in Scotland and in Wales, and more than nine in England. It requires democratic answerability, with all levels of government elected; and it requires the passing down of democratic choice and responsibility to the lowest possible level consonant with responsiveness to people’s wishes, effectiveness, and efficiency. Germany and Italy are just as fractious as the United Kingdom, their unifications more recent, and yet their national unity is well-served by self-identifying regions with real local power.
Another response is to remain within the European Union and try to exploit the anomalies generated by the policies of regionalisation to achieve the entrenchment of the last statist, authoritarian power outside of North Korea and Cuba. Apart from any other objection to the status quo, for that is where we are, Scotland and Wales might find that European entry statuses and requirements are harder to achieve than their nationalist factions pretend; the European Union has no desire to enable separatism within member states.
Were England to establish a parliament, abandoning the Scots and Welsh to their assemblies’ care, it should choose to leave the European Union.
London is a globalised economy hotspot; its hinterland, as well as the collapsed former heavy industry areas, and no- remaining manufacturing industry areas, are carried by the wealth it generates. It can be thought of as a far greater and richer version of, for instance, Singapore. English-speaking and lying off the coast of Europe, with such unmatchable economic and financial markets and services, it is an independent, immensely wealthy state.
London is the English state. London has the capacity and the interest to build upon the threads of empire that lie neglected by the incomprehension, revenge against thatcherism, redistributive authoritarianism, dead ideologies practice of the last 10 years, and the false conciousness (forgive the usage but here it fits) of Blair's lickspittle warmongering. An English parliament would serve and advance the interests of this state, and truly enrich its members in contrast to their relative impoverishment (again forgive the usage but again it fits) and the tax ‘farming’ that has been endured in this vaunted economic regime for a decade. London is the prize that Brownites will grasp unless an opposition wakes up to prevent it. And all that wealth generation will be used to cement their power.
What would I choose? Now that it is set out as it is here, the first option - remaining within the European Union, recasting local government, and preserving the union of the United Kingdom, while seeking to rebuild commonwealth strengths and co-operation. My family is as much mainland European as it is British and Commonwealth, and they come first; there are, too, great difficulties and sadness in dismantling the United Kingdom; and there is much to fear in the idea of an English state and its alliances, foreign policies and the construction of its post-imperial relations.
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9 comments:
HG, you make some excellent points. My instincts too are for your ‘first option’: since my first youthful soldiering days in BAOR I have known and felt what a tangible thing it is to be a Brit. Micks, Taffs and Jocks seemed no more ‘different’ to a 19 year-old than Geordies and Scousers.
This said, the weaknesses and injustices of the current settlement with Scotland, N.Ireland and to a lesser extent Wales are clear enough, and quite possibly unsustainable in the long run, even for an England with a bottomless well of largesse, generosity, and the good grace not to keep counting the cost. (Though, heaven knows, it has been this way for decades now, and perhaps it could continue.)
You are right to cast the ‘English Question’ as a London matter. If we start from the ultra-viable London dynamic and work outwards, there must be whole swathes of England where the per capita subsidy is commensurate with that for Scotland (Geordies no more ‘different’ than Jocks). Where, then, is the natural boundary of ‘Imperial London’? The Cotswolds? The Wash? Hadrian’s Wall? (New Zealand?)
GLA-London sur seul is not, I think, viable (even as a kind of financial Vatican): nor even dormitory London which is nowadays a semi-arbitrary zone of the best part of a 100-mile radius. Also, there is the foreign-policy dimension: fragment the UK and the Security Council seat is immediately forfeit and, though this alone may not matter so much as all that, it is at least symbolic of an inevitable diminution of world standing, with potentially profound consequences over time – how many battalions has Imperial London? As you say, “there is much to fear” in that.
So: the first option it is, plus three major projects to be pursued with Churchillian willpower:
> comprehensive reform of the EU
> re-securing of our borders
> courageous but careful re-examination of the intra-UK regional settlement
We may need to be gracious about this last. Think German re-unification. And perhaps your self-identifying regions - provided the EU is rendered incapable of using regionalisation as a vehicle for a greater extension of its powers.
As you say, "the weaknesses and injustices of the current settlement with Scotland, N.Ireland and to a lesser extent Wales are clear enough, and quite possibly unsustainable in the long run, even for an England with a bottomless well of largesse, generosity, and the good grace not to keep counting the cost." When there was an empire, or later a proper relationship with the Commonwealth, the lack of balance didn't weigh so heavily - aims and effort were turned outwards from a single, London government that had differing contributions from throughout Britain (though it was fundamentally an English government, pace Newmania).
In the last 10 years the levels of subsidy to 'extra London' Great Britain have burdened every wealth producing entity in the globalised economic sector. And so we are faced with an English demand to end it.
Curiously the pressure for an English parliament resolves into a solution of either the reform of regional and local government, and greater acceptance of European Union institutions and attitudes, thus obviating the need for one; or a recognition that Scotland and Wales ( Northern Ireland is different) have nothing to contribute but a clientalised statist power base that England would do well to grasp the opportunity to lose while Scotland and Wales are in an independence frame of mind.
I wholly agree that if the first solution is sought, then reform, particularly democratic answerability in the EU, must be secured at the same time.
Unfortunately Blair's infantile meddling with the consolidation of the Union and its Constitution has worn out the co-operative good will that EU members normally offer to one another's idiosyncratic requirements, and the impenetrable face of urbane courtesy is turned towards us now.
All this is very hard to put together so any point is merely suggestion, not do or die stance.
I too would dearly love to see the UK unfragmented, our relationship with Europe radically redefined and our relationship with the Commonwealth strengthened. My fear is that sooner or later breakup of the UK is inevitable.
Regions should pay their way according to their respective regional GDP to 'common goods' such as defence; wealthy London will pay more per capita than Tyneside. What needs evening-out are the anomalies such as London paying for Scotland's cancer drugs and tertiary education when such benefits are not available to Londoners. These are not 'common goods' and should not be funded from the common pot.
I hear the equity argument. But pushing endless cash at a region where the traditional industries have gone helps no-one; the sooner prices (of land and labour) fall to their natural market levels, the sooner the market will rush in with new investment. Call centres for coal mines.
merely suggestion, not do or die stance
you retain considerable equanimity on an issue over which some are much more agitated
(the reason for your clarity of thought?)
The Scottish finacial sector is 10% of its GDP and its roaring away. Despite the RBS support for Independence I feel that there must be a problem here with their English clients being so important. Its the one thing they forgot to regulate
I think what missing slightly from you thinking here HG is what will happen to the politics of England shorn of the need to vote against Labour entirely new divergences may become important
I feel that an independent England will be able to rexamine its role in the EU because the right will be commensurately more important and the the country will cohere around these issues more centrally . Its all hot air at the moment because noone in the poltical establishment is prepared to leave.
Why not; out of the EU and out of the UK ? Sounds a bit scary but thats an illusion .If England was a company I might say you are confusing the turnover with the profits . It would be stronger and faster and more secure as a result.
Staying as we are scares me to death ruled by people who care nothing for us and saddled with imprecunious pictish neighbours talking in grunts with Porridge stuck in their unkempt beards.
The stuff of nightmares .
I know which frightens me most
'Its all hot air at the moment because noone in the poltical establishment is prepared to leave.' writes Newmania.
I'm sure you are right.
I have said why, on balance, I would not wish to leave and offered thoughts on how the UK might be saved from nationalisms various.
What is the Conservative thinking on regional inequities and their results? N, And on the results of the British constitution colliding head on with a wholly different conception of law, civil liberties and individual rights?
"what will happen to the politics of England shorn of the need to vote against Labour.. entirely new divergences may become important"
What would you say are the most important of these divergencies? it's easier to think about then.
Also, I'm not sure I subscribe to the idea that cohesion is formed by externals.
"...an independent England will be able to rexamine its role in the EU .."
My feeling is that England is and has been always independent (until recently). It is Scotland that speaks of independence (and Wales to a lesser extent). England can shrug off its consideration and take decisions wholly in its own interest now. Why doesn't it? Certainly, the last thing England needs is a Scottish prime minister sitting for a Scottish seat.
And if anyone wants to talk about oil then do so elsewhere; it's not the point.
I think I understand your post, my question is:
why shouldn't England be totally independent of the EU and UK? What's to lose?
We can be allies and friends of Scotland, Wales, France, Italy without being shackled to them politically.
The EU is attempting to solve the problems of the 1930s and the UK is an attempt to resolve the problems of the 1600s.
I tried to say, Ed that the benefits of being in the European Union are being used by the Labour administration to profit themselves, their power base and buy off Scottish and Welsh separatism. The EU constitutional practices don't mesh with the UK ones. So as ours are ousted by EU precedence and instead of substitution of our freedoms with their rights and safeguards, we are left without anything at all. Which suits the statist authoritarianism of Labour and particularly Brown.
What do we do? I chose staying in and seeking to be more European. I said why.
You, and I think Newmania, want out and out of the UK too, as the economic dynamo and essentially conservative country, England alone would be is a better outcome.
I do admire your last paragraph; though undoing relations with the EU I can visualise, undoing the UK, because it isn't just defined by its European identity, is beyond me at the moment.
Ah but the English won't have any say on whether to be Independent or not according to that philosophy - which suits our current malaise quite nicely. The Scots will determine our future (one way or the other!).
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