ZERO TOLERANCE FOR POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN POLICING

This is a press release which the English Democrats have just issued. Will we get your vote?

NEWS RELEASE 29/05/2012

ENGLISH DEMOCRATS’ POLICE COMMISSIONER CANDIDATES

ATTEND ACPO CONFERENCE IN MANCHESTER

On Wednesday, three of the English Democrats’ potential candidates for the November 15th election of Police and Crime Commissioners attended the Association of Chief Police Officers Conference held in Manchester.

The candidates were Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats, Essex Police and Crime Commissioner candidate, Stephen Goldspink, Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner candidate and Michael Felse, English Democrats’ Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner candidate.

The English Democrats are in the process of selecting their candidates for Police and Crime Commissioners for the 38 Police Forces across England which are due to have elections on the 15th November. The Government has now published draft rules on the conduct of these elections.

The Police and Crime Commissioners will replace the previous largely ineffective and anonymous Police Authorities with a Directly Elected Commissioner with the power to hire and fire the Chief Constable and allocate the Police Force’s budget and set priority policies.

Robin Tilbrook, the Chairman of the English Democrats said: “Our manifesto has good old fashioned English common-sense policies for policing and I expect will strongly appeal to the electorates of most English Constabularies. Elected English Democrats’ Police and Crime Commissioners will purge their police forces of political correctness and focus their police forces on catching real criminals and maintaining traditional English Law and Order rather than Politically Correct social engineering projects or excessive harassment of motorists as an easy target to enable Chief Constables to claim inflated clear-up rates.

“If elected I shall remove motoring offences from Essex police statistics so that the clear-up rate of real crime is clear to Essex’s voters. I also intend to seek a mandate from the people of Essex that every police station should fly the Cross of St George; that “communities” budgets are used to promote Essex’s celebrations of St George’s Day and upon a zero tolerance attitude on the part of Essex’s police force to petty crime and anti-social behaviour, that blights so many of our communities.

“I fully intend to use the Police Commissioners power to dismiss the Chief Constable in the event of non-compliance.”

Further information:

Robin Tilbrook,

Chairman, The English Democrats,

FB Profile: http://www.facebook.com/robin.tilbrook

Key facts about the English Democrats

The English Democrats launched in 2002. The English Democrats are an English Nationalist Party campaigning for a Parliament for England, First Minister and Government, with at least the same powers as the Scottish ones within a Federal UK; St George’s Day to be England’s National holiday; Jerusalem to be England’s National Anthem; Referendum to leave the EU; An end to mass immigration; The Cross of St George to be flown on all public buildings in England; The English Democrats are England’s answer to the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. The English Democrats’ greatest electoral successes to date: winning the Directly Elected Executive Mayoralty of Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council; 2009 EU election gained 280,000 votes after a total EU campaign spend of less than £20,000, giving the English Democrats by far the most cost efficient electoral result of any serious Party in the UK.

Relevant parts of the English Democrats’ manifesto are below:

1.6 The English Flag

1.6.1 We call for the compulsory flying of the English flag, the cross of St George, on all state-maintained public buildings in England.

2.11 Policing

2.11.1 Policing is an increasingly difficult job due to changes in our society, which now lacks the social cohesion and shared values that once gave us a mostly peaceful and well-ordered way of life. Our cities have become places where it is impossible to perform traditional communal policing.

2.11.2 English Democrats seek a return to a system of policing which recognises the principle that all citizens are treated equally. In their efforts to prevent crime and catch criminals the police should not be hindered and demoralised by unreasonable ideological constraints.

2.11.3 We should not lose sight of the fact that the basis for the maintenance of law and order in England rests on a firm foundation of active participation by law-abiding citizens. A relationship of trust and co-operation between citizens and police is essential to effective policing and the prevention of crime. With that in mind, it is reasonable to expect that policing should not be oppressive. The aim is a peaceable society in which liberty and justice can flourish.

2.11.4 It is essential that the police force be adequately trained and resourced.

2.11.5 Police forces should be more democratically accountable than at present. This would require the election of Chief Constables or the Police Authorities which appoint them.

2.11.6 English Democrats call for the creation of a scheme enabling businesses to pay for their security staff to train and register as Special Constables, their powers of arrest applying to their place of work and its neighbouring streets. Such registered security staff would be subject to Police staff performance monitoring and discipline.

2.12 The Legal System

2.12.1 The primary role of a legal system is to provide the means for settling disputes. It should enable those who suffer loss, in the form personal injury, theft, or damage to property, to be properly compensated by the party at fault. Laws, and the penalties for breaking them, should comply with the principles of natural justice.

As societies have become more complex, so have their law codes. To a great extent, this is unavoidable.

2.12.2 However, states and their governing elites are extending the reach of law into areas that infringe upon individual liberties. The result is a body of law which is more restrictive and complex than it need be. Many of the customs and principles of English law are being undermined in the political quest for greater conformity with Continental ideas and practices. Law is being used as a tool for imposing dogma. One of the consequences of these changes is that the police are increasingly being made the enforcers of political doctrine and moving further away from their traditional role of upholding the delicate balance between Order and Liberty.

2.12.3 In order to obtain justice, citizens must feel able to consult and employ the services of the legal profession. Many people are deterred from this by the procedures and costs of the present legal system. Improvements have been made in recent years but more needs to be done to make the system user friendly and efficient.

2.13.4 The English Democrats favours less law and a simplification of law. There are far too many matters currently covered by the criminal law. There should be a drastic reduction and rationalisation of the number and extent of criminal offences.

2.13.5 We must reform the jury system but not abandon it because the jury provides a democratic check on the legal system. The law is not the property of lawyers; it belongs to the people and should serve their needs.

Our preference is for a return to comprehensible, just and effective law. Given its current chaotic state, the law should be codified.

2.13.6 Once the criminal law has been properly codified, the English Democrats would ensure that the criminal law is vigorously policed and enforced.

2.13.7 Except in an emergency there should be a single annual implementation date for new law. This will help rectify the current muddled situation where no one can be sure, without considerable effort or expense, whether a clause of a new Act has been brought into force or not. Also, some rules, for example the Civil Procedure Rules, are being rewritten so frequently that new editions are being published more than once a month! This leads, not surprisingly, to the shameful situation where no-one, not even the judiciary, can be sure of the current rule in force without first making unreasonable efforts to research the point.

2.13.8 In order to avoid such excessive complexity developing again, a monitoring system should be devised which ensures that new law is unambiguously comprehensible and properly and efficiently enforceable. This could be a function of a reformed Second Chamber.

2.13.9 The English Democrats respect the right of victims of crime to defend themselves and their property against criminals. The English Democrats would extend the right of self-help.

2.13.10 The English Democrats believe that every victim of a criminal offence should have the right to address the court on the question of sentence and for the court to be required to bear the victim’s views in mind when passing sentence.

2.13.11 It is not acceptable that 100,000 hardened criminals commit over half of all crime in the U.K. Once a criminal is identified as beyond effective rehabilitation he or she must be kept out of the community until no longer a risk.

2.13.12Prisons should be designed and equipped so that prisoners are not subject to degrading conditions

3.20 St George’s Day

3.20.1 The people of England should be able to celebrate St George’s day as a National Holiday.

ENDS

COMPLACENCY OVER UK’S FUTURE MISPLACED

Union supporters comment that a poll result showing 33% support for Scottish Independence is comforting. On the contrary is shows that the UK is likely to be at an end in 2014.

The Scottish issue won’t be decided by mere opinion but by voters who take the trouble to vote in the referendum. It is now almost a truism that turnout will be about 60%. Therefore if over 30% of the electorate turnout and vote for independence then they will deliver a ‘Yes’ vote.

Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats said:- “The issue will be decided by the most committed nationalist supporters of Scottish Independence who are far more likely to actively vote, so the likelihood of a vote for independence is high and Unionist complacency is badly misplaced. Whilst Scotland has its referendum England should be having one too and indeed would be if we had a government that cared about England at all!”

Just one in three Scots wants independence from Britain, poll shows

The United Kingdom is under no threat of breaking up, according to a survey published on the eve of Friday's official launch of the Scottish separatists’ referendum campaign.

A You Gov poll showed that more people think a separate Scotland would be worse off financially Photo: David Cheskin/PA Wire

By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor

6:36AM BST 25 May 2012

An opinion poll published by Alistair Darling, the former Chancellor, showed only 33 per cent of voters in Scotland want independence and 57 per cent are opposed.

In his first intervention since becoming leader of the pro-UK campaign, Mr Darling said the poll showed Alex Salmond “doesn’t speak for Scotland” and support for independence has barely shifted over the last four decades.
Mr Salmond will be joined in Edinburgh this morning by celebrities and the leaders of minor left-wing parties to formally start his bid to end the 305-year-old Union between England and Scotland.
Sir Sean Connery is expected to be among the stars who will encourage the Scottish people to vote for separation in the referendum, due in autumn 2014.

Mr Darling’s publication of the The YouGov poll, which also showed more people think a separate Scotland would be worse off financially, was timed to undermine their message.

“Alex Salmond may be the First Minister of Scotland but, as these new figures confirm, on the issue of independence he doesn’t speak for Scotland,” the Edinburgh South West MP said.
“The nationalists will go to great lengths to try and prove there is a groundswell towards leaving the UK but the truth is their campaign has stalled. Independence is an unpopular as it has ever been.”
The former Chancellor said Mr Salmond has failed to increase support for separation after deploying the “full resources” of Scottish Executive’s civil service, the SNP’s landslide Holyrood election victory last year and raising a war chest of millions.
His survey asked 1,004 Scots if they agreed Scotland “should become a country independent of the rest of the UK”. Only 27 per cent of women agreed with this statement.
In another blow to Mr Salmond, only 58 per cent of people who voted SNP last year said they would back independence, while 28 per cent were opposed.
Nearly half of respondents (47 per cent) said they thought Scotland would be financially worse off after separation compared to only 27 per cent who said it would be wealthier. Thirteen per cent said independence would make no difference.
Mr Darling was initially reluctant to assume leadership of the pro-UK campaign but has since agreed to coordinate efforts by Labour, the Tories and Liberal Democrats.

Tory Donors' payday?

Last Sunday the Daily Telegraph's front page enthused with this heading:-

'David Cameron pushes for workplace shake-up'
(the full article is below)

When dispassionately considered the Conservatives are the Party of the City and of Big Business. Anything else that they say during elections is mere window dressing and should be treated with extreme scepticism by any sensible person.

I think when considering the headlined proposals we should reflect on the fact that it was the Conservative Party, which back in the 1950’s started the whole push towards mass immigration and have consistently done so in office.

Their reasoning is and was very different from Labour’s reasoning. Labour was initially opposed to mass immigration because the purpose of it, so far as the Tories both were and are concerned, is to force down wages in the interests of Big Businesses’ profits.

Labour’s interest in rubbing the “Right’s nose in diversity”, as one of Labour’s inner circle once put it, by supporting mass immigration, only arose when they saw that immigrants have been disproportionately likely to vote Labour. The change also reflects Labour’s move away from its traditional roots in the English, Scottish and Welsh working classes, towards being a Party that only represents the interests of State employees, ‘minorities’ and State welfare recipients.

So, without taking the above into consideration it might be easy to imagine that David Cameron had committed a blunder in proposing an arrangement which will add to the workplace problems of all employed people permanently resident in England.

We are already at a point where it is very hard for young or unemployed English people to get a job, given the competition from EU immigrant job applicants, both in terms of skills and attitude and in willingness to work for less money. The “reform” now proposed by the Conservatives will lead to the increasing likelihood of employees losing their jobs to EU and other immigrant job applicants who are willing to work for less. Such reform does therefore represent a serious threat to the interests of all people permanently resident in England generally whatever their ethnic origins.

It is of course however not aimed at being a policy that the English electorate will like or support, but is instead aimed at shoring up that all important financial support from Big Business and the City, which enabled the Tories to fight the last General Election with a war chest of £48 million. Without that financial support the Tory Party, which is no longer in any meaningful sense a mass party (having declined from more than 2.5 million members in 1960, to arguably no more than 50,000 paid up members today), would quickly cease to be a Party of Government.

Here is the article – read it and see what you think:-

"In a major report to be published as early as this week, the Coalition will reveal the findings of the Beecroft Report which was commissioned by David Cameron to look at workplace deregulation.
Although the Government has yet to agree to the proposals, Whitehall sources have made it clear that both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor want to see changes to the present employment environment which it is believed ties business leaders up in too much red tape.
Proposals in the report include reducing the length of consultations businesses have to enter into before making “collective redundancies” from 90 days to 30 days, a relaxation of the transfer of undertaking (TUPE) rules which are enforced during a take-over and a change to the work permit regime to make it the responsibility of the Home Office and the Border Agency to warn businesses if permits for foreign workers are invalid or about to expire.
The report will be published by the Department for Business, Industry and Skills and is set to reveal tensions with the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, a Liberal Democrat member of the Cabinet.
When parts of the Beecroft Report were leaked to The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph last autumn, there was a backlash from some sections of the Liberal Democrat Party, as well as the Labour opposition and the trade unions.
The report said that employment tribunal rules should be relaxed to make it easier to dismiss under-performing staff.
The Beecroft Report is named after Adrian Beecroft, the venture capitalist and Conservative Party donor, who was brought in by Number 10 after the Prime Minister expressed frustration at the lack of progress on deregulation.
Mr Cameron asked Mr Beecroft to look at how employment regulations could be relaxed without falling foul of European Union legislation. His report was completed only after Whitehall lawyers had agreed that the EU would not be able to block the changes.
The Beecroft Report was presented to ministers last autumn but was never fully published and Conservative members of the Coalition have become increasingly frustrated at the delay in any reforms suggested.
It contains 20 recommendations and although they would mean major changes to some elements of employment law, Whitehall sources said that there would still be plenty of protection for employees.
The five major recommendations beyond the changes to rules governing employment tribunals include changing the Equality Act to block third party harassment claims – where employees can take action against an employer who is deemed not to have done enough to protect its workers from outside abuse – and putting a cap on loss of earnings payments following successful employment tribunal cases.
The report also recommends overhauling the TUPE regulations by allowing firms to harmonise workers’ employment rights one year after a takeover and also ­allowing firms in economic difficulties to agree redundancies in five days." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9277441/David-Cameron-pushes-for-workplace-shake-up.html

Welsh Minister confused about Englishness!!

Leighton Andrews, the Welsh Minister for Education and Skills, who is the Welsh Labour AM for Rhondda, has written a long thoughtful article about Welsh Education called: 'Education and the Welsh Public Sphere'. The article touches interestingly on the English Question.

Unfortunately Mr Andrews suffers from a common myopia over the distinction between 'English' and 'British'. So I have written to him as follows:-

"Dear Mr Andrews,

Click on Wales » Blog Archive » Education and the Welsh Public Sphere

May I congratulate you on your article, which is an interesting and thoughtful one?

From my perspective it is deficient in only one respect. Which is that when you talk of "English Exceptionalism" you mean British direct rule, not English at all - as is well exemplified by a Scot, Michael Gove, being in effect the minister for English education. Also when you talk about English you often mean British eg public schools.

Please remember that English and British are two different concepts. One is a nation and the other is a state.

Yours sincerely

Robin Tilbrook,

Chairman,

The English Democrats"

Below are the relevent extracts from his article, the whole of which can be found here >>> http://www.clickonwales.org/2012/05/education-and-the-welsh-public-sphere/

I want to say a few words about the development of policy on education and higher education in the context of contemporary debates on the future of the United Kingdom. I think it is time to make the case that it isn’t necessarily Alex Salmond alone who is the biggest threat to the unity of the United Kingdom. The UK coalition government’s policy of what I want to call ‘English exceptionalism’ is as damaging, and so is the Westminster political and media class, mired in what both Lord Morgan of Aberdyfi, Kenneth O.Morgan the historian, and Raymond Williams separately called their ‘metropolitan provincialism’.

The UK coalition government presumes that it can speak for the whole of the UK.. It is clear that they have not thought through the detail of their policies and their implications for the whole of the UK, particularly where their UK-wide policies may require active co-operation from the devolved administrations.

We live in a Wales of course where the bulk of people get their news from newspapers written in London. It is perhaps not surprising that when they engage with issues of education policy in Wales it is on the occasions that they think of us as exotic or backward.

Exhibit 9: The devolution dividend

So when we took a decision on HE tuition fees that was different from the UK coalition government, the (slide) Telegraph and (slide) Mail in particular didn’t like it, both branding it educational apartheid.

Exhibit 10: Daily Telegraph – Apartheid

Exhibit 11: Daily Mail – Apartheid

Even the BBC were a bit shocked. An old friend contacted me on Facebook to say

“Leighton – wish you’d seen the response in the newsroom…think the penny dropped at last about the reality of devolved powers. Da iawn.”

Exhibit 12: Response

I responded in the Guardian, pointing out

• I am responsible for the student support arrangements for students domiciled in Wales. The Scottish government is responsible for students domiciled in Scotland. Northern Ireland ministers in their assembly for students domiciled in Northern Ireland. And – wait for it – Vince Cable and David Willetts in the UK coalition government for students domiciled in England. They are welcome to follow our example in Wales.

• If that puts us in the European mainstream, while England swims in a different direction, so be it.

Exhibit 13: A-levels

On 31st March Michael Gove wrote to me stating the actions he intended to take in respect of A Levels. On 3rd April, coinciding with a letter back to Michael Gove from the Chief Executive of the English regulator, Ofqual, the front page of the Daily Telegraph was headlined ‘Dons take charge in A-level shake-up’. The article said ‘universities will be given new powers to set A-levels for the first time in 30 years because of fears that the gold standard qualification is failing to prepare teenagers for the demands of higher education. Ministers will relinquish control of syllabuses and hand them to exam boards and academic panels made up of senior dons from Russell Group universities’. As the vice-chancellor of Aberystwyth rightly said ‘the Russell Group universities are important and have a powerful brand – but there are other universities that we know have excellence in student experience and teaching. Why would you not want to include those universities if the option became available?’

The article was accompanied by an editorial highly favourable to Michael Gove and his ‘characteristic boldness’.

Now, I have known Michael Gove since he was a journalist on Grampian television. I quite like him. I told him when we met in summer 2010 that one of the advantages of devolution was that it allowed England to be a laboratory for experiments.

But one of the problems of the over-centralization of our print media is the likely confusion of Welsh parents and pupils over what its actually happening. If Michael Gove says that A levels or GCSEs are too weak and need to be strengthened –in the process, for example, radically simplifying the debate over modular and linear forms of assessment – then that is what the so-called national newspapers will report. Given their reach into Wales, a perspective on those exams is given, largely unchallenged. The nuances, for example, of the research on A-Levels amongst HEIs and employers that was undertaken jointly by Ofqual, the Welsh government and the Northern Ireland regulator, get ignored. And while the reality of devolution is that decisions are for us to take, and our policy autonomy is unchallenged, if the validity of the exams has been publicly questioned, then it has an impact on the confidence that people place on exams taken here too.

In his letter to me, Michael Gove accepted that A-Levels were a three-country issue affecting students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. But he failed to consult either me or the Northern Ireland Minister before rushing to the UK media with his plans.

The same could be said for his proposals last year to change the direction of travel for GCSEs, announced on the Andrew Marr show on 26th June 2011, again without Ministerial discussion with Wales and Northern Ireland.

The reality now, in respect of both A-Levels and GCSEs, is that we are seeing, without debate, a dismantling of the three-country system for public examinations. The Northern Ireland examining body has already decided it will not offer its exams in England. It had a tiny share compared to the WJEC, but this is a symbolic and significant step. John O’Dowd, the education minister in Northern Ireland decided that they would leave the decision on modular GCSEs to schools, saying that Michael Gove’s decision ‘did not appear to have been taken on the basis of clear evidence or educational justification’. In Wales, we have made it clear that our decisions on qualifications will be made on the basis of evidence and that is why we are conducting a full review of qualifications for 14-19.

There have been failures to consult us effectively on the remit of cross-border bodies such as the School Teachers Review Body.

In terms of welfare reform, the UK Government takes England as the default model for service delivery, and is still unable to answer key questions we have as to how they intend to mandate people on to devolved services or withhold training allowances including Welsh Government allowances, from trainees who have a benefit sanction imposed or pending.

We also expect the UK Government to honour its commitments under the Welsh Language Act. It was therefore particularly disappointing that in November 2011 the UK Government wrote to all teachers in Wales through the medium of English only. I objected to this, and the Schools Minister Nick Gibb subsequently apologised to me for the failure to issue the letter bilingually. I am sure that the Welsh Language Commissioner will be looking carefully at the exercise by UK Government departments of their responsibilities in Wales in the future.

I think there are a number of interesting issues for academic exploration in the relationship between central and devolved governments.

But what is really happening is deeply cultural. UK coalition government ministers often have UK-wide responsibilities. But sometimes its Ministers are largely Ministers for England; sometimes they exercise cross-border England and Wales responsibilities; sometimes they operate in an environment where policies have traditionally been developed, as with GCSEs and A-levels, on a tri-partite basis.

Exhibit 14: English Exceptionalism

They operate, in practice, on the assumption that England is the norm. In this, they are demonstrating what Martin Kettle recently in the Guardian called ‘England’s institutionalised indifference about the non-English parts of Britain’. The coalition government’s response reflects the timeless born-to-rule assumptions of the English public school system that trained administrators to run an empire – the imposition of an English exceptionalism that today threatens the unity of the United Kingdom itself.

When Seymour Martin Lipset’s American Exceptionalism book came out in 1996 I recall a frisson of excitement amongst the Conservative Party policy wonks who used to attend the receptions and dinners and visits to the Proms that the then BBC Head of Public Affairs used to have to organise. Whoever he was. Was there not, I heard some of them say, a kind of English exceptionalism that underpinned the conservatism of England – the kind of individualist, mercantile philosophy which differentiated English from continental history? Many of those people, of course, subsequently went on to hold positions under the Conservative party of David Cameron.

What they meant then by that label of ‘English exceptionalism’ is different from what I mean by it. Under the coalition, it is English policy that is moving away from the other constituent nations of the UK. English exceptionalism is the political practice of this Conservative-led coalition.

Martin Kettle rightly said in his Guardian article that ‘the London press must get out more. It needs to make a much more conscious and deliberate effort to report Scotland and Wales to England, as well to discharge a British responsibility to report to and for Scotland and Wales themselves.’

Martin Kettle is right. None of the broadsheets adequately covers Wales. The weekly political press like the New Statesman or the Spectator never do. Most of the think-tanks and party pressure groups rarely engage with devolved issues. The specialist press, like the Times Higher and TES, do to be fair look at what we are doing – the TES normally on a weekly basis.

The institution with the biggest responsibility to report Britain to itself is of course the BBC, which on a regular basis goes through paroxysms of neurosis about whether it is reflecting the UK adequately, then shortly after forgets all about it again.

Before Rhodri Morgan made me a Deputy Minister in 2007, I was writing a book on the BBC and Britishness. Indeed, I gave a version of the first two chapters to a seminar here chaired by Professor Tom O’Malley. I had about 70,000 words written and it was due to be published in 2008 by UWP. They were, I think, the wrong 70,000 words, but never mind. One day I will return to it.

Jeremy Hunt may be the Murdochs’ favourite Culture Secretary, and Jim Naughtie’s favourite mispronunciation, but his tenure has been marked by an unprecedented assault on public service broadcasting, both in the hasty re-negotiation of the BBC Licence Fee, and the cut in the S4C budget.

Indeed, the most damaging thing to happen to the Welsh language in the last two years was the decision by the UK Government to abandon the funding formula for S4C, set down in statute, without any effective public debate. The budgetary loss to the Welsh language in the five years to 2014–15 will be at least £60 million.

It is clear that in terms of language policy at least, the Welsh Government will need to take a closer view of the impact of broadcasting policy on the Welsh language.

Broadcasting, of course, was not part of the devolution settlement. But the reality of post-devolution Wales has made it clear that new processes of engagement with the Assembly will be required. That is an argument I made in Media, Culture and Society and in Cyfrwng some time ago, before becoming a Minister. And although my party said at the last Assembly elections that we were not seeking its devolution in the immediate future, the current Minister responsible for broadcasting in the Welsh Government has said that he is “sympathetic” to the case for some form of devolution in the future.

Change will happen, just as the European Union slowly evolved over time its own responsibilities over transnational broadcasting, despite hostility from member-states.

English exceptionalism also surfaces in HE policy. The Higher Education Policy Institute recently published a report on Universities and constitutional change in the UK, looking at the impact of devolution on the higher education sector. I broadly agree with its conclusion that ‘the social democratic governments in the devolved countries have shown little appetite for the market-based reforms adopted in England and while acknowledging the need to maintain the autonomy of universities they seem to be moving in some respects in the direction of a more traditional European model of higher education’. I have said on numerous occasions in the past that we prefer to plan the development of our higher education sector, not leave it to the market.

THEY SET OUT TO DESTROY ENGLAND BUT TOGETHER WE CAN STOP THEM!

Here is an impassioned plea to every Englishman and woman from one of our members - what do you think?

"Fellow English Men, Women and Children

Where-ever you are,

In the World.

May 2012

Dear All,

THEY SET OUT TO DESTROY ENGLAND

BUT TOGETHER WE CAN STOP THEM!

The plan for a European Socialist Super State to rival America has been unfolding throughout the years since the death of Karl Marx on the 14^th March 1883. However, despite its fundamental impact on the wealth and prosperity of the English Nation in the period since the end of the Second World War, the way in which that ultimate political objective has been pursued does not seem to have been widely appreciated by the vast majority of the English supporters of the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Political Parties.

Conservative supporters alive at the time and politically aware appreciated that the concern of those who had created the Labour Party in the early 20^th century was not the welfare of those either working with their hands or labouring in the fields, the coal mines or elsewhere who, unlike school teachers, Local Government Staff, Civil Servants and others paid from the public purse, had neither social security nor pensions to rely on. It was the pursuit of political objectives. They were creating “a Brand” with which the “working man” would identify and which the Socialists could successfully inhabit because, “compassionate souls” that they were, their concern was to identify with and support the working man in his dealings with greedy and oppressive employers.

The worst fears of those Conservative Supporters were realised when the General Strike “in defence of miners’ wages and hours” got under way on 3 May 1926 and they were completely taken aback by the knowledge that it had been possible for the Socialists to get between 1.5 and 1.75 million men to leave their work and march. However, the Socialists had overlooked the fact that, unlike themselves, these men were neither in public sector salaried positions nor had money in their own right. If these men didn’t work, they didn’t get paid and not only did those involved go home but were left with no stomach for more industrial action until they were paid whilst engaged in it. The lesson was learnt but it was too late to prevent the occurrence of a period of unprecedented prosperity that only the Second World War was able to bring to an end.

As Paul Oliver, Ian Davis and Ian Bentley identified in their Book “Dunroamin the Suburban Semi and its enemies” first published in 1981 by Barrie & Jenkins Limited, there were over 600,000 families without houses at the end of the First World War in 1918 and another eight years were to go by before the picture began to change.

But change it did in the aftermath of the General Strike and within just twenty years of the end of the 1914-1918 War there was as large an excess of homes over families (600,000) as there had been families without homes 20 years before.

It was a truly remarkable period in history and delivered an astonishing rate of economic recovery with many of the houses in areas where there were problems of unemployment.

As a result of the outcome of the strike, widespread prosperity was enabled to develop in a remarkably short period and continued until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.

The population of the United Kingdom had, for the most part, experienced the enormous benefits of a thriving economy whilst at the same time being bombarded with unfounded allegations of jerry building being attributed to the four million new homes that were built and sold with no increase in their price throughout that time. They knew that people could rent a new home from the builder and when the time came that they could afford to buy it, they did so because the price hadn’t gone up! Equally importantly, they knew their neighbours, their kids played together and went to school together, and the hoarding of building land by builders in order to monopolise the market as they are now doing was unheard of.

Only the advent of the Second World War enabled this idyllic period to be consigned to the dustbin of history and steps taken to try and ensure that never again would it be allowed to happen.

The defeat in the 1945 General Election of Winston Churchill, the man who had led and inspired the Nation to Victory in the Second World War seemed inconceivable to many but the subsequent creation of the Welfare State confirmed the power and influence of Socialists. Along with the creation of the Labour Party in 1920 as a Brand with which the working man would readily associate himself, The British Broadcasting Corporation was established with a Charter that enabled it to the be managed by Socialists and function in the way that the Socialists directed in pursuit of their political objectives. With the most powerful propaganda machine that the world had ever known to serve their interests there was only one more potential threat to the plan for the creation of a European Socialist Super State and that was the men who had fought and died in the most appalling conditions on the battlefields of France in the First World War. The circumstances in which those people came together had to be controlled but what better way than to create an organisation that, like the BBC, the Socialists could control and ensure its credibility by associating it with Royalty. The Royal British Legion was established and every year the BBC provides outstanding radio and television coverage of a brilliantly organised and most moving occasion.

So who are the English? They are people who, like their ancestors have lived in England for generations along with others who have come to England throughout the period since the end of the Second World War, and whose children have been born in England and together they are celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen of England in the belief that England offers both them and future generations of their family, wherever it originated, a better quality of life than would otherwise be possible.

The bonus for the Socialists is that these are British Organisations and are thus able to play a significant part in encouraging the English to think of themselves as British and thus passively accept their fate of being consigned to the dustbin of history as the British Regions of a European Socialist Super State.

The English are, undoubtedly, the most tolerant and law abiding nation in the world and the extent to which the indigenous population absorbed the mass immigration initiated by the post Second World War Socialist Government of Clement Atlee is proof of the fact. And why not? The English along with their Welsh Scottish and Irish neighbours had fought and died alongside other members of the Commonwealth of Nations during the Second World War and when our Royal Family make official visits to other parts of the Commonwealth they are well received. And that is equally true of our sportsmen and women.

If the majority of these people had been told that they were being deliberately induced to the come to the United Kingdom because mass immigration was a significant plank in a Master Plan conceived before the end of the 19^th Century to consign England to the dustbin of history as the British Regions of a European Socialist Super State to rival the United States of America, they would never have believed it.

Quite simply, if the English would tolerate a continuation of post war austerity combined with mass immigration and measures to prevent the prosperity generated by unfettered house building from ever again threatening the plan for the European Socialist Super State they would tolerate anything.

If anyone doubts what has been said, they should try and explain why the Scotland Act was one of the first pieces of legislation brought before Parliament by the Labour Government in 1997 under the leadership of Tony Blair. At face value, on any basis, despite Blair and his Chancellor Gordon Brown both being Scots it did not make sense. Why would a British Government want to break up the United Kingdom? Obviously, Scottish Political Independence would obliterate support for the Conservative Party in Scotland as a result of the attempts by the Conservative Party to sustain a United Kingdom through opposition to the legislation. The Welsh Assembly, already well established by a Labour Government, could be given further powers to strengthen their robust Labour Party representation and the Northern Irish had better behave otherwise they would wake up one morning in a United Ireland.

As for the fate of England; on coming to power in 1997 the Blair Government set up unelected Regional Assemblies throughout England as a dress rehearsal for “Victory for Socialism Day” when The English Royal Family and what is left of the English Aristocracy along with the rest of the English Nation will become inhabitants of the British Regions of the European Socialist Super State and the hated English can be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Incidentally, the dress rehearsal having been undertaken, the Regional Assemblies have since been disbanded as quietly as they were constituted.

If anyone has taken the trouble to read what has been said thus far, he or she should need no further persuasion that the Labour Party does not have the interests of England at heart, that the Liberals are nothing but a distraction that helps to undermine the Conservative Vote and the Conservatives are so politically inept that they have never appreciated the Plan for the European Socialist Super State, regard the European Union as inevitable and believe they are the best people to represent Britain.

The UK Independence Party is clearly making inroads into support for the other parties but is likely to take more votes off the Conservative Party than the Labour Party and thus deliver the Labour Victory that will facilitate the realisation of the dreams of those who laid the plans for a European Socialist Super State at the end of the 19^th Century.

It is only the English who have an interest in saving England from the fate of being divided up into the British Regions of a European Socialist Super State because only the English would be fundamentally adversely affected.

Consequently, if you care about your English identity, if you are adamant that you don’t want England to be broken up into the British regions of a European socialist super state, so that the only thing that is English is an international language freely available to be exploited by others for their own commercial advantage, I urge you to unite in membership of the Political Party that is devoted to the preservation of the English Nation order to save our English nation, our English Identity, our English Culture, our English sportsmen and women, our English history, our English head of state, our English Parliament, the commercial exploitation of our English language and everything else that is English and consign the British Regions and everything else that is British to the dustbin of history.

THE ENGLISH DEMOCRATS ARE THAT PARTY AND ARE TOTALLY COMMITTED TO THE PRESERVATION OF AN INDEPENDENT ENGLISH NATION CAPABLE OF CAPITALISING ON ITS ENGLISH HERITAGE AND BECOMING A SEAT OF LEARNING IN RELATION TO ALL ASPECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ITS TRADITIONS.

JOIN US! DON’T DELAY THE SOCIALISTS WON’T! SEND DETAILS OF YOUR FULL NAME ADDRESS AND OCCUPATION WITH EMAIL ADDRESS AND TELEPHONE NUMBER, IF AVAILABLE, TO THE ENGLISH DEMOCRATS, PO BOX 1066, NORWICH, NR 14 6ZJ

Yours faithfully,

Harry Billington

an Englishman

Shropshire,

England

Out of the EU the easy way? Scottish Independence!

Page one from the Articles of the Treaty of Union between the Parliaments of England and Scotland.

It doesn't take a genius or a first in law from Oxford to know that if Scotland goes independent in 2014 then the UK is at an end.

As I have blogged before, the Act of Union 1707 is quite clear that the United Kingdom was the union of the two kingdoms of Scotland and England (which since 1536 has included Wales) into the new United Kingdom of Great Britain.

It follows therefore, as night follows day, that if that Union is dissolved then the Kingdoms of Scotland and England will re-emerge as seperate nation states.

The Northern Irish rump of the Act of Union 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland would also dissolve automatically.

I suspect that the 1536 Act, incorporating the Principality of Wales, would soon follow but that would involve further legislation and not be automatic, since it is earlier and so is not founded on the 1707 Union.

The interesting consequence for English Nationalists, who overwhelmingly want to leave the EU, is explained in this article from the Daily Telegraph - I however would have entitled it:- 'England delighted to be out of the EU if Scotland Separates'!!

Britain 'forced to leave EU if Scotland separates'

"Scottish independence could see the UK kicked out of the European Union and forced to surrender its £3 billion annual rebate if it wanted to rejoin, a senior constitutional lawyer has told MPs.

By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor
17 May 2012

Patrick Layden QC, a former Scottish Executive legal expert, warned that other EU countries could exploit separation to argue that the United Kingdom has ceased to exist as a member state.

Ministers in Edinburgh and London would then both have to reapply for membership, but he said they could be stripped of “ridiculous” privileges that governments on the Continent resent.

He highlighted the £3.3 billion annual rebate, negotiated by Margaret Thatcher, and the UK’s opt-out from the Schengen Agreement allowing free travel across 25 EU states.

Joining the European free travel area would mean removing border controls at airports, ports and the Eurotunnel, making illegal immigration harder to police.

Mr Layden told the Commons Scottish Affairs select committee’s inquiry into Scottish separation this is not a certainty but the final decision would rest with other EU countries.

His intervention is significant as for decades he has advised ministers in London and Edinburgh on European and constitutional affairs and only left the Scottish Executive last June.

Alex Salmond, the Scottish First Minister, has insisted that a separate Scotland would automatically retain EU membership along with all the UK’s opt-outs.

However, a series of legal experts have warned that Scotland would have to reapply and would have to negotiate its own opt-outs from Schengen and the euro.

Mr Layden told MPs that their populations would mean a separate Scotland and the remainder of the UK would be due more seats in the European Parliament but this would mean other member states agreeing to give up some MEPs.

“These aren’t insurmountable problems but if I were advising a government of another member state I might very well be saying to them ‘the Brits are chopping themselves in half but will wind up with more votes’,” he said.

“’We need to have an input into this to make sure our views on the matter are heard and expressed and a way of doing that is to characterise the process as the UK leaving the (European) Union and the two other states applying to join.’”

He said he would advise other EU members that this was an opportunity “of having a go at this British rebate, having a go at this ridiculous British exclusion from Schengen, having a go ridiculous British attitude to these JHA (Justice and Home Affairs) measures.

“There are all sorts of things that could get ‘tidied up’ in respect of other member states on the back of this.” He refused to predict whether a separate Scotland would have to join the euro.

The committee later heard evidence from trade unionist working in the defence industry that shipbuilding in Scotland would end after independence.

Duncan McPhee, Unite Senior Shop Steward at BAE Systems in Scotstoun, said that without UK defence contracts the shipbuilding industry in Scotland “would be greatly reduced, or in fact – finished”. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9270749/Britain-forced-to-leave-EU-if-Scotland-separates.html

UNLUCKY ENGLAND DAY DEMO – FRIDAY 13TH JULY

UNLUCKY ENGLAND DAY DEMO – FRIDAY 13TH JULY

Here is advance notice of a date for your diary to come and demonstrate in London (venue to be arranged). On Friday the 13th July we will mark the “Unlucky England Day”!

On this day, English taxpayers have to pay £7.65 per prescription charge whereas Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish taxpayers pay nothing - courtesy of English taxes; On this day, English NHS hospitals charge English patients, and their families and visitors car parking charges - unlike Welsh patients; On this day, English pensioners are made to pay for residential care whereas Scottish pensioners get it for free - courtesy of English taxpayers; On this day, English students are being made to pay £9,000 a year university tuition fees whereas Scottish students and EU students studying in Scotland get their tuition for free - courtesy of English taxpayers; On this day, the subsidy from English taxpayers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be about £133,879,780; On this day, the payments made by English taxpayers to subsidise the EU will be £87,431,693; On this day, an estimated 400 illegal immigrants will come to settle in England; On this day, an estimated 800 legal immigrants will come from other parts of the EU to settle in England (permitted by of EU rules); On this day, there is no democratic representation of the English Nation in an English Parliament; On this day, there is no First Minister or Government for England!

So on Friday, 13th July is England unlucky? Or what?

Come and join us and demonstrate against the “hard luck of the English”!

BNP attack

It has been brought to my attention that Nick Griffin, Leader of the British National Party (BNP) has made what can only be described as the elementary mistake of attacking a “rival” opposing Party on his Party’s main website and thus on the most public face of his Party.

What is more, the article (click here to see it >>> http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/national/another-rival-faces-post-election-blues-and-meltdown) appears more than usually spiteful and petulant. In particular I really cannot understand the psychology of a senior Party figure, let alone the Leader, of the BNP, implicitly suggesting that anyone who is now or ever has been a member of the BNP must therefore be such a terrible and unacceptable person that however much they change their mind about politics, they can never be admitted into a respectable Party, like the English Democrats. There does seem to be a truly weird element of self-hatred in such a thought process!

Most of the alleged facts stated in the article are untrue or twisted beyond recognition. For example it is claimed that the English Democrats are in debt. Whereas the only debts of the English Democrats arise from the willingness of myself and other members of the Party to put their hands in their pockets to fund our Party and Cause. I wonder if the same can be said within the leadership of the BNP?

It is also true that we did not raise sufficient money to do a full campaign in the London elections, but as I have mentioned in my previous blog entry, we stood in the Party List and spent less than £1,000 on the election campaign, literally only distributing our general recruitment leaflet (a pdf of which you can find on this link >>>> http://www.voteenglish.org/images/stories/engdemrecruitment.pdf). So what is clear is that most of those that voted for us will have voted for us without even receiving a leaflet this time. This shows that we already have a core vote, even in London, which contains some of the least fertile constituencies for us, of slightly over 1% of the turnout, or over 22,000 votes.

If we had received the media coverage that the BNP received in the GLA election and, as we hope to on the next occasion, had raised enough money to do a full campaign, I suspect that Nick Griffin would have excellent cause to write an even more querulous article than this one about that result!

I cannot finish however without pointing out that, simply because former party members and activists move over to a new party, that does not make them in any reasonable sense “traitors”. It is the unbridled use of such, frankly, silly language which has helped to taint whatever good there was in the BNP brand. Its use here shows that neither Nick Griffin, nor the BNP, can any longer be taken seriously and no wonder Dr Matthew Goodwin of Nottingham University who is the foremost academic analyst of the BNP, tweeted this >>>

.

Elections May 2012

I am pleased with our election results this year. For a small Party with very little funding we have done well, putting up 101 candidacies, in which we have often come second and also regularly achieved 20% of the vote (where the candidate has made a concerted campaigning effort). Our overall percentage is just short of 10% (including some of our candidates who stood merely as paper candidates). Well done to all who stood up for England this May!

In the London GLA Elections our vote held up well with us getting over 22,000 votes. Our total campaign expenditure in the London Elections was less than £1,000, whereas I understand the BNP (with a full Mayoral campaign and an entry in the Mayoral Booklet going to each and every elector, together with a Party Election Broadcast) spent £200,000 and got less than 2½% of the vote. UKIP, it is rumoured, has spent more than £500,000 on the London Elections yet even so failed to achieve even 5%.

I appreciate that what I am going to say now will attract criticism that my maths skills are as bad as those as Baroness Warsi, when she claimed that UKIP was simply standing in the percentage shoes of the BNP, but I cannot resist considering what we might have achieved if we had £200,000 to spend on the London elections, if for a mere £1,000 spend we got over 22,000 votes?

In the run-up to May 3rd, the BBC and various politicos and journalists were suggesting that we would lose our Mayor of Doncaster because we were unpopular there. I said that it was just a bunch of careerist ,local Labour, malcontented councillors. Doncaster's voters proved me right, by resoundingly defeating the attempt to get rid of their Mayor and so handing us a high probability of getting Peter Davies re-elected next year.

Another interesting item is that, in Wheatley Ward, Doncaster, our candidate conducted an experiment to see whether our candidates were winning votes because of their personal reputation or whether the votes were coming in because of the English Democrats’ branding.

The candidate, Roy Penketh, is well known in Doncaster, having previously been Chairman of the local Conservative branch and a long serving Conservative Councillor. He is also on various governing bodies.

Roy’s suspicion was that the 786 (23%) vote that he got last year as an English Democrat wasn’t radically affected by his relatively high personal profile, so this year he used only our general recruitment leaflet rather than a personalised leaflet - such as he had used in last year’s election (Doncaster being one of those local authorities that has elections three years out of four in multi-councillor wards).

It is interesting that the results of his experiment show that it was clearly English Democrats’ branding that was bringing in the votes. This year he again came second with 806 votes (28.25%).

Nevertheless I suspect that to achieve actual victory would require a more focussed and savvy electioneering strategy!

In the months to come therefore we English Democrats need to work harder at raising funds and increasing our brand awareness. We also need more focus upon the nuts and bolts of electioneering, but we can do this with some confidence that if we are able to get the necessary organisational, logistical and resource issues sorted out, that it will be possible for us to achieve a genuine and sustainable electoral breakthrough! I shall be focused on doing so - do join and help!