This mysterious by-law banning the use of the English flag doesn’t seem to apply to the local CofE church though, the table the EDP had set up was in full view of the church proudly flying the English flag.

It also apparently doesn’t apply to the “butcher’s apron” - red, white and blue bunting is apparently all over the town.

The full story is in the Brussels Journal:

English Democrats Harassed by Police for Flying the Flag

From the desk of A. Millar on Fri, 2008-06-27 17:10

Threats of prosecution or fines for flying the England flag in England is not new, and perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that the English Democrats party – which uses the flag in its promotional material – is reporting that it has become a target of such intimidation. Yet it is different for one very significant reason: that there has been a longstanding, unspoken rule that political parties in Britain should not be harassed by the police, particularly when campaigning. We accustom such behavior with dictatorship, not democracy.

The incident occurred when candidate Derek Allpass and his team were out campaigning on June 21, for the Henley by-election (held June 26). They had set up a table with promotional material, and strung bunting sporting the red cross of St. George around it. However, the team was soon approached by the police and the Town Clerk, the latter of whom allegedly told Allpass, “we don’t want that flag here in Henley.” Darren Riley, the Party’s Kent Chairman, responded by pointing a church that was close by, and likewise flying the England flag (because it was under the denomination of the Church of England), and remarked, “if you don’t want England’s flag flying in Henley you had better take this up with the Vicar too.”

Nevertheless, the authorities claimed that the display of the flag by the English Democrats breached a by-law, and instructed them to remove both the table and bunting. The by-law in question has yet to be shown to the party, though as the town was also strewn with red, white, and blue bunting (signifying the United Kingdom, as opposed to England), one can only wonder how peculiarly specific it must be. There were several witnesses, and the party intends to issue the Town Clerk with a Section 65 Race Relations Act Questionnaire if the by-law does not state what was claimed.

The English Democrats team complied with the request – though not before taking photographs of the display – and continuing their campaigning. Henley is a Conservative safe seat, and was held by Boris Johnson until recently, who prompted the election when he resigned to concentrate on his position as London Mayor.

And the British foreign minister, David Milliband, has the nerve to appear in front of TV cameras and criticise the Zimbabwean tyrant, Robert Mugabe, when agents of the British state are harassing an English political party for displaying the English flag?

Andy Murray, the very talented, very surly, Scottish tennis player, now claims his statement that he supported anyone who played against England was a mere bagatelle.

Murray’s rationalisation of his former slight appears to have come after he overheard an Englishwoman saying to her friends: “That’s that Scottish w***** who hates the English.”

Perhaps he thought that the English would adopt their usual stance of accepting any sort of abuse from a Celt, lest they be accused of arrogance and lacking a sense of humour. If the woman cares to get in touch, I have a chocolate egg for her - it isn’t just me that will not accept this insult with a smile. I’d have had more respect for Murray if he had maintained his former stance. He is perfectly entitled to hold that view but we are entitled to dislike him for it.

He should not change it just because someone has been nasty to him. As he chases Wimbledon glory, I wish him all the luck he wishes England.

Good stuff from Brian Moore, it’s just missing a suitable picture.  How about this one?

On Wednesday June 25th harsh restrictions on democracy in tche treatment of planning applications in England, personally endorsed and promoted by Gordon Brown UK Prime Minister, were carried with the help of votes of Scotland 50 MPs of which he is one. Mr Brown is MP for Kirkaldy and Cowdenbeath in Fifeshire. His government’s new proposals, which he calls ‘a reform of the planning laws’ were carried by a majority of only 43 votes.They were opposed not just by rebel Labour English MPs, the Conservative Party and the Lib-Dem Party but also such organisations as the Friends of the Earth (FoE) and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE).

‘This vote is yet another searing example of the way the 1998 devolution legislation devised and spearheaded by Gordon Brown treats England with flagrant injustice,’ stated Michael Knowles National Council member and Head of the CEP Media Unit in a message circulated to all CEP members in England. ‘That legislation provided a parliament for Mr Brown’s own country and an assembly for Wales but nothing at all for England. That legislation enables Scotland’s MPs to vote on every single measure which affects England while it denies to England’s MPs any say at all in the legislation that the Scottish Parliament passes for Scotland. Scotland by virtue of the 1998 devolution measures is now 75% independent of the rest of the UK. England’s MP’s have no say at all in Scotland’s planning matters. Yet Scotland’s MPs were able yesterday to help vote through the most restrictive and anti-democratic planning legislation affecting England only in the whole of the post-war period.’

The CEP endorses the opposition to the new proposals made by the FoE and the CPRE. ‘This planning bill is undemocratic, marginalises community voices and does nothing to tackle climate change,’ has stated Hugh Ellis FoE planning campaigner. ‘The new system removes the public’s right and safeguards” Mr Ellis stated. ‘Instead unaccountable commissioners will decide whether anyone can cross-examine, which witnesses are heard and whether there will be a public hearing for each planning decision.’

‘Unlike Scotland with its own parliament and Wales with its assembly,’ Michael Knowles wrote to the CEP membership, ‘England has no voice of its own to defend its environment. For this government, and Mr Brown in particular, England is just a market place, a building site, an employment park, a trading estate, a huge shopping mall, a monumental car park. Nothing else. By means of the 1998 devolution which he drove through the UK parliament he got for his own Scotland a parliament which can fully protect its great and glorious enviironment about which all Scots can be justly proud and enjoy to the full, himself included. He does not treat his country as a mere trading estate like he treats England. The time has definitely come for England to have the same means of protection, its own parliament.’

The scene in question shows an Italian family being loaded into the back of a truck to be taken to a forced labour camp.  The Italian man says “you know how it is, England for the English” and one of the other characters then made a reference to Nazi forced labour camps.

Dr Who is made by BBC Wales and the actor playing Dr Who is a Scot.  Throughout the series and in previous series, they have been consistent in their use of “Britain” and “British”.  I don’t recall hearing “England” or “English” used once in this series.  If they were consistent they would have said “Britain for the British” but they didn’t so it is reasonable, I think, to assume that it was a deliberate slur on the English by BBC Wales.

I have sent the following complaint to the BBC:

I watched Dr Who tonight and was disgusted by the portrayal of the English as racists, likening us to the Nazi’s.

The scene I refer to is where the Italian (?) man is being taken away to a labour camp and says “you know how it is, England for the English”.

If Dr Who wasn’t consistent in it’s use of “Britain” and “British” throughout every series then I might have let it pass but I think this is the first time I’ve heard the word “England” or “English” in this series of Dr Who and its use was entirely derogatory and offensive.

The fact that Dr Who is made by BBC Wales and its main star (although not in this episode) is Scottish only makes it worse.  Do you have an anti-English racism problem in the BBC?  It certainly seems so.

If you would like to make a similar complaint, you can do so by clicking this link.

The response was much the same as that previously encountered from Tesco and not entirely surprising.  In a nutshell, if the English flag were put on items produced in England they wouldn’t sell in Scotland and Wales.

Ian Campbell, a member of the CEP National Council, wrote to Sainsbury’s asking much the same question and received the same response from Sainsbury’s - if English products were marked as English they wouldn’t sell in Scotland and Wales.

For years the British establishment have painted the English a group of nasty racists and bigots, linking English nationalism with groups like the National Front and the BNP whilst encouraging, promoting and even fueling nationalism in Scotland and Wales.  Yet here we have the three largest supermarkets in the UK telling us that Scottish and Welsh people won’t buy English goods because they’re English but English people will buy Scottish and Welsh goods.  Perhaps the British nationalists in the Labour Party have a different definition of bigot?

IPPR claims that 38% of people support a directly elected mayor for their council and 29% oppose it, rising to 40% when asked if major cities should have directly elected mayors with 16% opposing it.

In an IPPR publication entitled “Directly Elected, Direct Results” they say this:

By presenting mayors as a decentralising measure, Gordon Brown would finally have a substantive policy response to the English Question, which has arisen as a result of asymmetric devolution to Scotland and Wales.

Mayors might not answer the West Lothian Question - a reference to the ability of Scottish MPs to vote on English matters - but by enabling England to be administered in a far less centralised fashion they would significantly improve the way England is governed, something which is likely to be of greater concern to the public.

Directly elected mayors are a great idea - democratic accountability at a local level certainly needs strengthening to combat the sustained attacks against both our country and local government by way of regionalisation.  However, it is not for a Prime Minister elected in Scotland to decide how England should be governed.  Local government is devolved in Scotland where Gordon Brown was elected and it is a quite bizarre suggestion by the IPPR that a Prime Minister elected in Scotland who cannot change the structure of local government in his own constituency should introduce a reform to local government in England to partly mitigate the West Lothian Question when this is a shining example of the West Lothian Question itself!

Let’s be clear on this - directly elected mayors will not even scratch the surface of the West Lothian Question.  There is only one answer to the West Lothian Question that is acceptable to the English people and that is borne out by repeated polls that show a clear and sustained majority of English people support the introduction of an English Parliament.  The last two CEP independent opinion polls were 68% and 67% in favour of an English Parliament.  IPPR’s idea of directly elected mayors is only 38% and the referendum on a Welsh Assembly was only 51% in favour with a 50% turnout.  Why must we be expected to make do with half measures when the English people have clearly shown, many times, that what they want is nothing more and nothing less than equality with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

There is a lot of talk at the moment about the Irish “No” vote on the EU not-a-Constitution with people asking “when will they realise that no means no”?  Well I ask “when will the British government realise that yes means yes”?  Do we want an English Parliament?  Yes!

He went on to confirm what the CEP has been saying for years - that the extra funding given to the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish (the “celtgeld”) under Barnett Formula is not calculated according to need but is a bribe to keep them in the union:

It probably derives not from greater need but from the more credible threat to the Union of the United Kingdom that they pose

It is thanks to the £11.3bn Barnett bribe that the Scots can afford free care for the elderly, free national public transport for the elderly, free prescriptions (as of next April), increased spending on flood protection (it has been decreased again in England), free university tuition, a cure for ARMD (the most common cause of blindness in the elderly),  expensive cancer treatments and the many other social benefits that the Scots get and the English are refused.

The Scottish Raj will, of course, be reluctant to curtail the lavish redistribution of England’s wealth to the celts and equally reluctant to allow the Scots fiscal autonomy.  Gordon Brown’s generosity with English money is what has kept Labour nominally electable in Scotland and scrapping the Barnett Formula would put a stop to that.  Allowing Scotland fiscal autonomy would be equally disaterous to the Labour Party’s spin-meisters because they would no longer be able to portray themselves as Scotland’s generous benefactors.

£24m in debt, membership halved in a decade, no longer in control of Scotland and Wales and virtually unelectable in any part of England.  Who’d want to be a Labour MP?

In 2008, DCMS spent £116 on promoting St Georges Day, £114 in 2007 and nothing in the previous 3 years.

The whole £230 was spent on putting up flags on the DCMS offices.

The Scottish government spends £300,000 per year promoting St Andrews Day.  If the DCMS were to spend a pro-rated amount on England’s national day comparable to the amount spent in Scotland on theirs, they would be spending £4.28m per year on St Georges Day.

If anyone knows how much was spent by the DCMS on St Patrick’s Day, St David’s Day, Eid, Diwali, etc. then please get in touch.

Magna Carta was a contract between the Crown and the people, limiting the power of the Crown, creating an English Parliament and most importantly, established the right of English citizen to be free of arbitrary detention.

The CEP, of course, doesn’t have an opinion on the detention without trial of terrorist suspects for 42 days but the irony of the most fundamental clause in the most important charter in the English constitution being abolished by a Prime Minister elected in a Scottish constituency hasn’t been lost.

I asked Daniel Kawczynski MP, who was on the committee, why in gods name they were proposing such a woefully inadequate and frankly insulting settlement to England and was told that the committee hadn’t made its decision yet and to wait and see what comes out of it.

The Torygraph has apparently seen a leaked copy of the report and it looks like the rumour is true - Ken Clarke, arch eurofederalist traitor that he is, thinks that even English Votes on English Matters is too good for the Federated Euroregions of New Britain and that instead we should be satisfied with the constitutional abortion that is English Pauses for English Clauses.

The answer to the West Lothian Question is not, in Ken Clarkes’ opinion, to stop foreign MPs from voting on things that only affect English, but to stop them from talking about it in committee stage but continue to allow them to vote on laws that only affect England when the talking is over. What the fuck was that man smoking when he pulled that idea from up his arse?

Since English Votes on English Matters was first adopted as Conswervative policy, myslef and others have pointed out what a bloody stupid idea it was. Other people including one Scottish MP, whose name escapes me, who said that he would simply claim an interest in anything that cost money because it would have an impact on the Scottish subsidy. Scottish MP, Tom Harris, inadvertantly demonstrates why nothing short of a devolved English Parliament will be good enough when he points out that the 4 SNP MPs voted against the Crossrail Bill in defiance of their self-imposed ban on voting on devolved matters because it cost a lot of money and would have affected how many tartan snouts would fit into the English trough.

I sent the following to Daniel Kawczynski:

Dear Daniel,

You may recall that some time ago I wrote to you after hearing a rumour that the Democracy Task Force was going to suggest a pointless, watered down version of English Votes on English Matters - itself a pointless, watered down version of an English Parliament - as an answer to the West Lothian Question.

You told me that the committee was yet to decide on the outcome and that I should wait for the report to come out.

Well, the Torygraph has had a leaked copy of the report and it appears the rumour was true - the report is going to propose what we are calling “English Pauses for English Clauses” as the answer to the West Lothian Question.

The West Lothian Question asks why MPs with constituencies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should be able to vote on matters that don’t affect their own constituents. In modern terms, it asks why MPs with constituencies outside of English should be able to vote on matters that, in their own countries, are the responsibility of devolved institutions. I’m sure you’ll agree that it is a valid question to ask - why should Gordon Brown be formulating the education policy responsible for the closure of several schools in your constituency, or the health policy that will deprive the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital of funding if it fails to meet an arbitrary target, when those policies do not apply to the people who elected him?

English Pauses for English Clauses does not even begin to address the West Lothian or English Questions. It is a fudge of a fudge that will allow MPs elected in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland to continue to vote on laws that don’t affect their constituents and which not a single voter has given them the legitimate mandate for.

English Pauses for English Clauses will solve nothing and will only fuel the resentment caused by the undemocratic assymetric devolution settlement that has left English people disenfranchised and their interests unrepresented.

Stuart