On Tuesday Jack Straw gave evidence to the Justice Committee’s Devolution a Decade on enquiry. What he said was remarkable:
I am wholly opposed to an English parliament. If you went down that route, there would be little advantage seen by those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for maintaining the Union, because the argument would be, what exactly is in it for us?
So he’s not only opposed for practical or political reasons, he’s wholly - completely - opposed, ideologically opposed. And why? Because there’s nothing in it for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
So the answer to the question “What is in it for England?” must be “Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland”. And the answer to “What is in it for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?” is “continued influence in English domestic affairs”.
England is the political eunuch at the British-Celtic nationalist orgy, stripped of its virility so that an ailing Britain can maintain its erection and sate the whimsical ardours of its Celtic harem.
On removing the right of Scottish MPs to vote on English affairs Straw says, “The moment you start to look at this you see it starts to unravel”. Many more sage heads than his thought the same about removing the right of English MPs to vote on Scottish affairs, but Labour did it anyway, and went on to claim that devolution to Scotland had strengthened the Union. They were lying to you then, and they still are now (80% of peers agree).
Jack Straw insists that now is not the time for a referendum on Scottish Independence. I’m sure Jack Straw would rather leave it until the Tories are in power so he can shift the blame, but the fact that a referendum is embarrassing for Gordon Brown and the Labour Party is no reason to prevent the Scottish people deciding when the time is right.
In other news Peter Facey and Paul Kingsnorth are having a tête-à-tête over at Our Kingdom, and a National Conversation for England blog has been launched.
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Certainly remarkable. Probably the most direct and succinct statement I have read of the British regimes explanation for resisting an English Parliament. Actually gives us something to get our teeth into.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:02 pmThe hidden flaw in the argument is surely that the Union Straw wants us to think he refers to is the old “unitary” union - but that ceased to exist following devolution that turned Scotland, Wales and NI into semi-autonomous English dependencies. Tom Nairn insist that this already means the Union no longer actually exists - the break-up of Britain.
Certainly the old Union, with all its flaws, was a Union of equals - equality of the constituent nations. What Straw is really saying is that Scotland, Wales and NI want all the benefits of the old Union AND those of the new Union while England loses its old Union benefits and gets none of the new in return….the argument of a price worth paying…by England. And, of course, the British regime represents the UK not England. And, anything can and will be justified to preserve the British regime.
“England is the political eunuch at the British-Celtic nationalist orgy, stripped of its virility so that an ailing Britain can maintain its erection and sate the whimsical ardours of its Celtic harem”.
I love it! Gives a new meaning to the phrase, “Gordon Brown is a w****r!”.
Jack Straw is one, too: what a complete idiot! Basically, he’s admitting that the Union is a total joke and contradiction in terms: the Scottish, Welsh and N. Irish are only in it for what they can get from it. So, a) the Union isn’t a single, integral nation but four nations competing for their self-interest; and b) if that’s the case, what possible ‘interest’ is there for England in continuing to let itself be ’screwed’ in this way - to continue with Toque’s metaphor.
It’s only a Union if we’re all ‘in it’ together for mutual benefit and fairness. Anyway, who cares? New Labour is on their way out, and the Scots will have their referendum under a despised Cameron government; so the break up of the Union (already virtually acknowledged by Straw’s words) will soon be a political reality.
May 15th, 2008 at 8:25 amThe election of an SNP government in Scotland has really messed things up for Nieu Labour and there are signs of desperation.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:42 amIt won’t be much better for the Tories because if they win the next general election then they can kiss goodbye to their precious Union. Scotland will surely vote yes in 2010?
The Tories have discussed EVoEMs etc. but that’s almost become an irrelevence. I still be interested to see what drivel KC comes out with, if he ever actually manages to get any proposals into print!
Heh-heh.
The reason certain members of the Labour party wanted a Scottish referendum now, is simply because they think they would be in a stronger position to win. Bottom-line. They fear 2010. They will be out of office in the UK, and Scots will be going to the polls with the Conservatives in power.
One has to wonder what the Labour strategy will be then? From a Scottish perspective I’ll have a guess.
Fear - here, there and everywhere. This, that and the other will happen if people vote for Independence. The ‘only way’ of the Tory govt. would be to vote back Labour in, ehhh, Scotland.
Further, they have the absolute ******* audacity to suggest that they are proposing an early ref to give voice to a Scottish electorate, and that the SNP only want it for THEIR own political strategies.
Yet, thus far, the SNP HAVE ALWAYS stated 2010 as the date and the Labour Party HAVE ALWAYS viciously opposed giving any voice to the Scottish electorate on this question.
Struth. What a shower on lying, deceitful numpties Labour are.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:32 amIncidentally, if you think about the logic of what Straw said, this also means he thinks Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland could be quite viable outside the Union. That’s implied by saying they might as well quit if they stopped being subsidised by England.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:04 pmNot a very intellectual reply from our esteemed Lord High Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. He reduces the United Kingdom to a simple matter of advantage or not for the component countries with the implied and (to him) specific ,targetted and built in national disadvantage to England as quite acceptable.
Not for him any consideration of shared history, shared principles or aspirations. No Brownite twaddle about Britishness for Mr Straw. Just simple advantage as summed up in his phrase “whats in it for us”. The UK reduced to the mores of a calculated shopping expedition without the retail therapy.
I think his primitive but doubtless honest appreciation of the motivation of the celts’ participation in the United Kingdom ought to be remembered for quoting back at him in the future .
May 15th, 2008 at 4:39 pmJack Straw inspirations,possible feedback, from the paly Celtic Dr john Reid & others ?
May 15th, 2008 at 9:12 pm“I am wholly opposed to an English parliament. If you went down that route, there would be little advantage seen by those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for maintaining the Union, because the argument would be, what exactly is in it for us?”
An odd argument because I can’t see a Parliament for England radically changing the amount of money going to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK would still be the UK with some rearrangement of internal local government for England.
What an English Parliament would do however, would be to clearly define the boundaries between Britain and England. That would deal a death blow to the idea of a unitary British state and nationality where Scotland, Wales and NI are considered as devolved provinces of Britain not as nations in their own right and Englishness is kept as a sub-set of Britishness.
The knock-on would be large especially in the media. The existing “British” news and current affairs programs in Scotland, Wales and NI would have to change from providing a fuzzily defined British/English main news to providing separate British and English/Scottish/Welsh/NI news stories across the different nations, contributing to the idea of separate nations not a single one. The idea of a unifying BBC, and to an extent ITV, would fail.
It would also mean that the Welsh Assembly would have to be uprated to a proper parliament. The English Parliament would probably have the same powers as the Scottish one and therefore who would legislate for Wales? Wales would have to be uprated to a proper parliament which again would loosen the ties of the Union.
It’s nothing to do with financial advantages, it’s all to do with the unionists trying to keep the boundaries between Englishness and Britishness as fuzzy as they can because that way devolution is possible. Once England gets its own parliament you’re into federalism and uprating the Welsh and NI parliaments to match the Scottish and English ones. It will lead to a much weakened sense of Britishness.
England will get an English Parliament when Scotland leaves the Union.
May 17th, 2008 at 12:13 pmWell put Doug. Just for clarity’s sake I don’t think anyone in the CEP is other than well disposed to the idea of Wales having a representative national assembly which would be in effect a parliament , perhaps so called if that is what they want. Ulster too.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:23 pmAn EP would of course emphasise the boundaries between Great Britain, for that is the name of this state, and England. High time too. Speaking personally , I have never regarded Wales and Ulster as devolved provinces of England. They are just Wales and Ulster that is all. By the way, if Ulster is a devolved province of anywhere it is of Scotland .