Under the rash of stories about fraudulent and unethical British politicians you could be forgiven for missing yesterday’s Justice Committee report: ‘Devolution: A Decade On’.
Unlike Charlie Falconer the Justice Committee didn’t go quite as far as to say ‘not today, not tomorrow, not in any kind of future we can see now’ but it does seem as though they see a national parliament for England as the last ditch solution when all else has failed. Potentially this puts us – the CEP – into a position where we must attempt to undermine the Union and ensure that all other solutions do fail.. They will not countenance an English parliament on the basis of democracy, natural justice and public demand; England’s demand for constitutional equality within the Union will be frustrated in order to maintain the Union.
This is their conclusion.
While an English Parliament could address one aspect of the English question in
terms of giving England a similar constitutional status to Scotland within the United
Kingdom, it presents issues of balance because of the sheer size of the English
population and because it would require a Government and First Minister for
England in addition to the United Kingdom Government and Prime Minister. We
do not think that there is a need to consider so far-reaching a solution as an English
Parliament, although it may become necessary to do so if the English questions are
seen as increasingly significant and other solutions are rejected or fail.
Meanwhile, ippr has stated that the British political class must do more to recognise English national identity in fight against the BNP and have released ‘More than one English question’ which is available for download here.
LINKS
Justice Committee: Devolution a Decade on (Volume 1 and Volume 2)
Times: Funding formula for Scotland ‘lacks any basis in equity or logic’
Parliament News: Report on devolution and the governance of England
Telegraph: English devolution question is ‘unfinished business’
Politics: England the ‘unfinished business’ of devolution say MPs
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The Committee also stated, my comments are in brackets; “The implications of having an English Government and First Minister as well as a United Kingdom Government and Prime Minister have not been the subject of much public discussion (We must make them so) and are politically significant. Approaches which make the UK Parliament into a federal parliament or treat English laws differently at Westminster raise questions about the nature and role of the second chamber which need to be considered as part of the discussion of Lords reform (indeed they do): clarification would be needed about whether, and if not why, the Second Chamber should consider “English” laws when it did not consider the laws of Scotland (well that is what happens now!).”
The fact that they have mentioned an EP as an alternative answer, and, in my opinion, not completely dismissing it because they reflected on the role of the second chamber and federalism, shows just how important it was for the CEP-represented by Mike Knowles- to have given written and oral evidence to this Select Committee, otherwise I doubt they would have mentioned an EP at all. It is these types of pronouncements that will get us to our goal much more quickly than setting up a political party, which some have advocated for us. Our task is never to let up on the pressure and to make sure that we push the debate in the direction we desire and not to accept a fudge.
In addition we have the Government funded think tank the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) urging mainstream politicians to do more to recognise and engage with a growing sense of Englishness. Clearly the best way to do this is to set up English Insitutions including an English Parliament.
May 25th, 2009 at 10:47 am“While an English Parliament could address one aspect of the English question in terms of giving England a similar constitutional status to Scotland within the United Kingdom, it presents issues of balance because of the sheer size of the English population and because it would require a Government and First Minister for England in addition to the United Kingdom Government and Prime Minister”.
There is much that could be said to unpick the assumptions behind such a statement. But what never fails to amaze me is the sheer double standards: they’re saying that an English Parliament and Government would be problematic because of England’s disproportionate size within the Union as a whole; and yet, they have the gall – elsewhere – to argue that it is because of England’s overwhelming size that its interests are adequately represented by the UK parliament. But wouldn’t it be more logically consistent – from their point of view – to say that such a Union parliament must of necessity be dominated by English interests – hence being no better than a separate English parliament?
The answer, as we know is simple: give the people of England the democratic choice – English Parliament or Union Parliament. But just like the referendum on the European constitution, they don’t want to give us a referendum on a new constitutional settlement for England, because they know they’d get an answer they don’t want.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:19 pm