UKIP "SPOILER" PARTIES?

UKIP "SPOILER" PARTIES?

UKIP are currently grumbling furiously about “An Independence from Europe - UK Independence Now” Party (“AIP”), which was formed and set up by Mike Nattrass MEP, the former Deputy Leader of UKIP, who it was reported in The Times on the 27th May spent over £300,000 of his own money on the creation of the Party and standing it across England.

UKIP has claimed that all the votes for AIP were really meant for UKIP and that this confusion is all the Electoral Commission’s fault. (See here for the report on this claim >>>
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/26/EXCLUSIVE-Electoral-Commission-Claimed-UKIP-Spoiler-Party-Name-Was-Sufficiently-Different ).

In fact Mike Nattrass has simply and intelligently used the rules in creating a Party, that is “An Independence from Europe” Party “UK Independence Now” slogan, to put the name at the top of the ballot paper and a slogan that would attract the maximum number of potential UKIP voters. There is nothing that a registration body like the Electoral Commission could be legally expected to do about that.



We are therefore thrown back on why such a party would be created. The answer is at least in part as a result of Nigel Farage’s own behaviour.

Nigel Farage is a man with great personal charm, who is highly entertaining company and who is very sociable, but he is also not somebody who is willing to allow himself to work within systems and, as is often the case with charismatic people, “he doesn’t suffer fools gladly”. He works on the basis of favourites, rather in the same manner as a medieval style royal court, where you are either in favour or you out.

The consequence of this pattern of behaviour is that there have now been to my knowledge at least five splinter parties since Nigel Farage became the effective leader of UKIP.

Back in the days when Nigel Farage took over effective control, although not then with the formal title of Leader, there was the Reform UK Party set up by those who opposed Nigel Farage’s coup against Roger Holmes.




In the last EU elections there was the UK First Party set up in response to Nigel Farage subverting the candidate selection process that had been created by a party and parachuting into the Eastern Region his preferred candidate of David Campbell-Bannerman as No. 1 on the list, contrary to the Eastern Region’s choice of Robin Page. In the South East he parachuted in Marta Andreasen as No. 2 on the list. This not unnaturally created a splinter group of people who were furious with Nigel Farage’s behaviour, including the former Chairman of the Party, the Barrister, Petrina Holdsworth. She and Robin Page and many others then proceeded to form the UK First Party.


In the Eastern Region the UK First Party was more successful in taking votes off UKIP than An Independence Party has been this time, as the UK First Party took 38,185 votes whereas An Independence Party only took 26,564 votes. In the South East and in the East Midlands UK First also took UKIP votes in 2009.

In these 2014 elections there was also Nikki Sinclair's “We Want an EU Referendum Party” which took some votes, presumably also almost all off potential UKIP supporters.



In addition to those splits there was also the major split in UKIP after Robert Kilroy-Silk had first given UKIP the publicity to surge in 2004. Then following Nigel Farage’s falling out with Robert Kilroy-Silk after which his new Party ‘Veritas’ was formed.





Coupled with that, out of the last lot of MEPs, half have either defected to other parties, like Nigel Farage’s former favourites, David Campbell-Bannerman and Marta Andreasen to the Conservatives, or set up alternative parties like Mike Natrass and Nikki Sinclaire, or more quietly dropped out of the picture. Such is the trouble with a too abrasive management style when dealing with people who regard themselves as colleagues not just as subordinates.

In addition it is worth considering UKIP’s own willingness to be involved in dirty tricks which certainly might have contributed to people thinking about creating a party with a similar name. Consider this item from the 'bloggers4UKIP' website :-

“LIBERTAS HAS hit an unexpected hurdle in Britain because a close associate of a rival political party has already registered Libertas UK with the electoral commission.
Bridget Rowe, a friend of UK Independence Party chief Nigel Farage, is listed as the leader of Libertas UK on the electoral commission’s website. The party was registered on December 19th, 2008 and is expected to field candidates in England, says the commission.
An electoral commission spokesman said yesterday one of the criteria for successfully registering a political party in Britain was that no party with the same name already existed on the commission’s list.
It is now unclear whether Declan Ganley’s Libertas, which wants to field candidates in Britain in the upcoming European elections, will be able to compete under its Libertas brand.
A Libertas spokesman refused to comment on the registration issue yesterday.... 
I don't know how much involvement Farage had in registering Libertas UK but it was a stroke of genius.”
Click here for the original story >>> Bloggers4UKIP: Irish Times: Libertas faces UK electoral hurdle over party name

ENGLISH DEMOCRATS’ EU ELECTION RESULT – 126,024 VOTES

ENGLISH DEMOCRATS’ EU ELECTION RESULT 126,024 VOTES

UKIP got what must have been a thousand times more media coverage than the English Democrats. This was not only from the BBC, which did at least give us some brief mentions, but also in the other national media outlets whether it be ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 or the British national printed media, all of which refused to mention us at all. It is interesting that this onslaught of media coverage, which painted UKIP as being anti-immigration and racist and homophobic encouraged people to vote for them. Despite this the English Democrats still had over 1% in England and retained the votes of 126,024.

In the East of England, the South East and the South West we also beat the historically much higher profile BNP with a far smaller ward chest even than the BNP and having spent less than 1% of the campaign spend of UKIP (i.e. less than £30,000).

In contrast it appears that Mike Nattrass with his An Independence from Europe - UK Independence Now Party, has spent £300,000 of his own money.

Yet again the English Democrats results show that we, despite a very difficult election and the lack of resources on our part, were able to get more votes per pound than any other serious contender for the election.

So I would like to thank all those who stood in the elections, helped us, supported us, helped fund us and also all those who voted for us.

In the last batch of UKIP MEPs half of them defected. We now may have an interesting time to come with the possibility, on past form, of perhaps 13 MEPs looking for a new home within the next five years!

Given that on the 18th September if Scotland votes YES, the process of dissolution of the United Kingdom will be underway and it will be interesting to see then what happens to UKIP’s anti-English, pro-British stance.


I was recently at a meeting with one of the Scottish National Party’s MPs and we were discussing what UKIP’s name would be after the dissolution of the United Kingdom. I rather prosaically said would it be WHATKIP and was given the much snappier answer that as the United Kingdom would then be the former United Kingdom, the answer might be FUKIP. What do you think?

UKIP - THE ICE BREAKER?

UKIP - THE ICE BREAKER?

In this EU election the media have openly behaved with shameless and blatant bias in consistently attacking UKIP as if their role was purely as propagandarists for the British Political Establishment and have no role as a public information service. More understandably the British Establishment parties have also behaved appallingly.

The attacks were very obviously grossly unfair, but also to anyone who has carefully thought about the spectrum of opinion amongst our People is likely to be highly counterproductive.

For instance, they regularly insisted that UKIP is racist for being against mass immigration. Interestingly UKIP has repeatedly said it is not against mass immigration merely against the EU making the rules on immigration. This much more technical and constitutionally orientated point is of course of far less interest to a large proportion of the population than being outright against mass immigration. So in this situation the media and Establishment have unintentionally and ironically given a dramatic boost to UKIP!

One of the significant things however in this election has been that the Leftist, multi-culturalist, internationalist, globalist, “diversity” obsessed, media luvvies have come out from cover and exposed themselves and their agenda to the extent that hardly anybody that I have met for some weeks now has failed to notice just how biased and politically attached the media has become.

Indeed, in a recent comment on the Daily Politics Show, Andrew Neal told that particularly objectionable and shrill, multi-culturalist, Mary Creagh, Labour MP, that in the last few weeks the media had thrown all the usual smears against UKIP but that their support had proved “teflon” and that it was simply not working. The most interesting aspect of this comment is of course the open acknowledgement that the media as a whole had adopted a deliberate strategy of trying to influence the outcome of the EU elections.

Some people have said to me that the media should be all about reporting the facts so that people can make up their minds. Whilst of course this would be a good thing if they were like that, the simple reality is that that is not at all the way in which the media behaves, any more than our MPs behave as if they are democratic representatives of the People! (rather than our masters!)

The media has degenerated into a state where its commitment to democracy is mere lip service and its actual aim is to push its own agenda. The most brilliant exponent of this fact of British political life is that of Peter Oborne who is the author of the idea that we are in fact ruled by a “Political Class” (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Triumph-Political-Class-Peter-Oborne/dp/141652665X).

This political class includes the most important people within the “national” mass media and also establishment party politicians and who do not compete with each other but rather cooperate. Such differences that there appears to be between them are usually both minuscular and concocted.

An interesting insight into the consequences of people at last opening their eyes to what is actually going on around them is given in the article below in which the two Leftist academic authors fret that the “white working class”, who have so long continued to imagine that the multi-culturalist, internationalist, pro mass immigration, Europhile, Labour Party in any way represents their interests, might be now awakening.

The realisation that Labour no longer cares for them, which inevitably accompanies the first time that such voters have not drifted along and voted tribally as their father and grandfather before them will, the authors think, and I would agree, lead to all such people never again idly voting upon the old tribal basis, but instead they will be starting to think which party they cast their vote for.

What do you think?

Here is the article:-

Ukip has divided the left, not the right, and cut Labour off from its 'old' support

Labour and Ukip voters agree on more economic issues than you might think, presenting a strategic problem for Ed Miliband

According to conventional wisdom, Ukip has "divided the right". By targeting Europe, immigration and politicians in Westminster, Nigel Farage is tearing off a section of the Conservative base that David Cameron desperately needs if he is to triumph in 2015.

But while it is true that Ukip is currently winning over most of its support from people who voted Conservative in 2010, this actually tells us less than commentators often claim.

In 2010 Labour was at a low ebb, Gordon Brown was extremely unpopular and traditional Labour voters were angry about immigration and the financial crisis. Defining "the right" as 2010 Conservative voters is therefore risky. A lot of those who voted Conservative in 2010 may not have been natural Conservatives at all, backing Cameron despite their misgivings about his party, as a vote against a failed and unpopular Labour government.

A more sensible way of defining left and right is in ideological terms. Ever since Clement Attlee's 1945 Labour victory, British politics has been structured around a conflict over the economy and the proper role of the state.

The left has favoured higher taxation, redistribution and greater state intervention. The right has favoured free markets, low taxes and a small state. This is still a central dividing line today.

Ed Miliband's most celebrated policy announcement called for state regulation of gas and electricity prices, and he has shown a distrust of big business, and a desire for greater taxation of the rich, and greater government help for the less well-off. The Conservatives, meanwhile, retain their traditional faith in free markets and private enterprise.

If Ukip is just dividing the right then we would expect to see Ukip voters falling consistently on the Conservative side of this longstanding divide. But as our chart below shows (based on new data from the British Election Study), the opposite is in fact true.

An average of 71% of Ukip voters agree with five leftwing ideological statements, far above the Conservatives (43%) or even the Liberal Democrats (65%). They are only a little behind Labour (81%).

When Ed Miliband argues that big business takes advantage of ordinary people, employees on zero-hour contracts are being exploited by management, that the rich exempt themselves from the rules that apply to others, and that ordinary workers are not benefitting from a recovery for the rich, Ukip voters agree with him. On these core economic issues, Farage and Ukip do not divide the right. They divide the left.

This raises an obvious but also awkward question for progressives. If Ukip's struggling, pessimistic and left-behind voters find these economic messages appealing, why are they supporting Farage, not Miliband?

The problem for Labour is that these voters no longer think about politics in general, or Labour in particular, in economic terms. Labour has encouraged this: New Labour played down traditional leftwing ideology in favour of social liberalism and pragmatic centrism. Now many voters with longstanding "old left" economic values associate Labour more with "new left" social liberalism: feminism, multiculturalism and support for immigration.

Ukip's rise has exposed this division on the left and made it harder to heal. Many of the "new left" voters attracted to Labour by its social liberalism cannot stomach Ukip voters' strong opposition to immigration, which they regard as an expression of ignorance and prejudice, and so refuse to engage with "old left" voters on the economic issues where the two groups share common ground.

Conversely, "old left" voters retain a strong distrust of Labour's middle-class elites, after decades of feeling ignored and marginalised as New Labour chased the middle-class swing vote, and cannot abide lectures from privileged "new left" activists about the virtues of immigration and diversity.

Tony Blair's winning recipe in 1997 was to bury the traditional "old left" Labour ideology, gambling that he could expand Labour's coalition without losing traditional support, as the voters who endorsed it had nowhere else to go. Nigel Farage's rise has made this Blairite balancing act impossible. Ukip has divided the left, splitting the old from the new, and cutting Labour off from struggling voters it seeks to champion.

(Click here to see the original >>> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/16/ukip-divided-left-right-cut-labour-support ).

AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM - Scottish independence: constitutional implications of the referendum

AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM

Audi Alteram Partem may not be the snappiest title for an article but it is an important principle of both decent propriety and of English Law. It is a fundamental principle of the “Rules of Natural Justice”. It has its roots in Anglo-Saxon Law and it means:- “Hear the other side i.e. of the argument"

(Click here for a learned explanation >>> http://legalperspectives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/audi-alteram-partem-natural-justice.html ).

From, at least, the Act of Union in 1707 this maxim has also meant something in Scottish Law.

I mention Audi Alteram Partem because that is exactly what hasn’t happened in the making of a politically important report:- “Scottish independence: constitutional implications of the referendum”, by the House of Lords Constitution Committee.

This is a Committee in which there is a considerable over-representation of Brit/Scots and hardly any English and is also under the Chairmanship of Baroness Jay. Her only qualification to be in the upper chamber of our legislative assembly is Labourite nepotism. In a proper democracy the Lords would be called our “Senate” and would be properly democratically elected instead of stuffed with the cronies and the dodgy donors of the Establishment parties.

Below I quote an important extract from the text of the report which has been grandiosely entitled:- “Scottish independence: constitutional implications of the referendum”.

This is a Committee which point blank refused to hear evidence from any source that would contradict their politically motivated and pre-determined conclusions.

Baroness Jay has thus in a sense presided over a show trial of the sort that those other pillars of the Left, Joe Stalin and Mao Tse Tung would have been proud of. The aim in this case though wasn’t the ritual humiliation and then slaughter of opponents, but instead the destruction and dismemberment of England.

The bias of this report goes even beyond the refusal to hear the other side of the argument. It includes the attempt to belittle and dismiss any who advanced the contrary point of view. This has been done in the way that the English Democrats and the Campaign for an English Parliament have been referred to. Also His Honour Judge Ian Burns Campbell QC has been dismissed as a “retired diplomat”.

For those interested in hearing the real argument the issue is not the diversionary argument of whatever that oxymoron “International Law” may say. That is a complete red herring. What matters is the Constitution of the UK.

Once this point has been grasped it is painfully obvious that the concept of the “Rest of the UK” calmly sailing on in undisturbed constitutional waters, having quietly dropped Scotland overboard, is an utter fantasy.

If Scotland goes then it can only legally do so with the repeal of the relevant clauses of the Act of Union 1707. This means that the United Kingdom of Great Britain is dissolved and that any subsequent Union which may be cobbled together will not be the same constitutional entity that is now meant by the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

(E + S = GB therefore GB – S = E)

This scenario poses a direct challenge to the British Establishment. It will end their games of post imperial posing about “punching above our weight on the world stage” and, as the SNP have stated, means that none of the “Successor” or “New” States would need to automatically take on the vast debts of that most profligate and spendthrift entity, the British State! Cue: Exit Stage Left - panicking bankers and Eurocrats?

Here is the relevant part of the report:-

Principles governing independence

The UK as the continuator state

10. A central question about the constitutional position of the rest of the United Kingdom after a "yes" vote is whether it would continue as the same state. In other words, would the United Kingdom retain the statehood of the UK, with Scotland becoming a new breakaway state? If so, the rest of the UK would technically become the "continuator state" and Scotland the "successor state". Alternatively, would the remaining part of the United Kingdom and Scotland become two new states?

11. A great deal flows from this question. Were the rest of the UK to be the continuator state, it would retain all of the public institutions of the UK. It would retain the treaty obligations and memberships of international organisations of the existing UK. For example, the rest of the UK would continue as a member of the European Union (with the various opt-outs that the UK now has), the United Nations (including the permanent seat on its Security Council) and NATO. Such memberships would automatically continue; they would not have to be applied for. Were the rest of the UK to be the continuator state it would significantly shape negotiations after a "yes" vote.

12. A comprehensive legal opinion by Professor James Crawford, Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge, and Professor Alan Boyle, Professor of Public International Law at the University of Edinburgh, on the status of Scotland and the rest of the UK in international law was annexed to the Scotland analysispaper on Devolution and the implications of Scottish independence. We are not aware of any serious objection to their analysis of the principles of public international law that would apply to Scottish independence.

13. The UK Government's position follows this legal opinion: that the rest of the UK would become the continuator state and that Scotland would become a new, successor state. The Advocate General for Scotland, Lord Wallace of Tankerness QC, set out four main reasons for this:-

First, the majority of international precedents—from Russia being the continuator state on the break-up of the Soviet Union to Sudan continuing after South Sudan became a new state—point to the rest of the UK being the continuator state. The most directly relevant precedent is that Great Britain and Northern Ireland continued as the UK after the secession of the Irish Free State in 1922.
Secondly, the rest of the UK would retain the greater share of the population (92%) and territory (68%) of the existing UK. These factors are given weight in public international law.
Thirdly, the likelihood is that the majority of other states would recognise the rest of the UK as the continuator state and recognise Scotland as a new state.
Fourthly, where the alternative of two new states being created has applied—for example, when Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia—that has usually been by mutual agreement. The UK Government would not agree to the UK becoming a new state, so this alternative could not apply. It is relevant that the referendum is taking place only in Scotland: it is not a UK-wide referendum on whether the UK should split into two new states.

14. The majority of our witnesses agreed with this analysis.[11] Professor Alan Boyle said that it was the "only ... credible view". Professor Michael Keating, Chair in Scottish Politics at the University of Aberdeen, referred to the "broad acceptance that the UK would be the continuing state." Professor Stephen Tierney, Professor of Constitutional Theory at the University of Edinburgh, agreed, as did commentators David Torrance and Mandy Rhodes. The commentator Alex Massie said that it appeared "to be the common-sense attitude. It will be the view that will be taken by the rest of the world. If you vote to leave a club, the club remains."

15. In her covering letter to the Scottish Government's written evidence the Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon MSP, appeared to question the proposition that the rest of the UK would be the continuator state. She described it as an "assertion made by the UK" and quoted a passage from Professors Crawford and Boyle's advice in which they refer to the position in international law depending on arrangements made between the two governments and the position of other states. Having said that, the Scottish Government in their written evidence did not argue explicitly against the principle of the UK being the continuator state and we are not aware of them questioning it in other forums. David Torrance said the Scottish Government "have not taken an unequivocal position ... They appear to cast doubt on the rest of the United Kingdom being the [continuator] state, but they have not said what they think would happen." As so much flows from this it is incumbent on those who question whether the UK would be the continuator state to set out their analysis of what the alternative position would be.

16. The overwhelming view in the evidence we received was that after a "yes" vote the rest of the United Kingdom would continue as the same state: it would be the continuator state. Scotland would become a new, successor state.

17. This would be the case because relevant precedents support that position; it would be consistent with the rest of the UK having the majority of the territory and population of the existing UK; and it would reflect the likely opinion of other countries. No realistic alternative case has been made.

18. The fact that the rest of the UK would be the continuator state shapes discussion on the implications of independence; this report proceeds on that basis.

Footnote
___________________________________________________________________
(11. We received written evidence to the contrary from the Campaign for an English Parliament, the English Democrats and Ian Campbell, a former diplomat.).


Click here for the whole report >>> http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldselect/ldconst/188/18802.htm

'Immoral’ tax avoiders are only obeying EU law

 

Margaret Hodge MP

'Immoral’ tax avoiders are only obeying EU law

As Christopher Brooker wrote: 'It’s not on,” said Mrs Margaret Hodge, stamping her little foot. 

What aroused her ire as chairman of the public accounts committee was the news that Amazon last year paid the Treasury a pitiful £9.7 million in corporation tax on its UK earnings of £4.7billion. But last November she was branding such tax avoidance as “immoral”, referring not just to Amazon but also to Starbucks, Google, Apple, Next, Vodafone, Pizza Express, the foreign-owned companies that sell us water and electricity, and all the countless other firms that manage to pay only minimal amounts of tax on the hundreds of billions of pounds they make from their UK customers.

What Mrs Hodge and all the other politicians and commentators who ritually wax righteous about this wholesale tax avoidance never seem to mention is Chapter 4 of the Treaty on European Union. Articles 63 to 66 of this treaty spell out very clearly that “all restrictions on the movement of capital between Member States and between Member States and third countries shall be prohibited”; and it is this that makes it perfectly legal for companies to move their earnings to whichever country their tax liability will be lowest, whether elsewhere in the EU, Jersey, the Cayman Islands or wherever.

No one knows this better than Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, which, in 2007, lost a historic test case on the matter in the European Court of Justice.

So why are Mrs Hodge and co so unwilling ever to admit that, under EU law, there is nothing we can do about a racket which, according to one estimate, could be costing Britain as much as £120billion a year in lost tax revenue? 

I think we all know the answer to that, don't we?

But please note that the sums involved are more than the deficit and therefore alone would end the need for this government's Austerity programme of Cuts - which are mostly falling in England.

English Democrats' 2014 Party Political Broadcast - "Let the English Revolt Commence!"

English Democrats' 2014 Party Political Broadcast - "Let the English Revolt Commence!"

 

Here is the English Democrats' 2014 Party Political Broadcast:-

"Let the English Revolt Commence!"

 

Click here >>> http://youtu.be/WW8vrbbwR2o

 

What do you think? If you like it please forward to all your friends and family!

Daily Politics show interview at our EU campaign launch

English Democrats - YouTube

Here is a link to the Daily Politics show interview at our EU campaign launch.

Click here >>>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN8AFwaN0rk&list=UULXT-HuPORYWUC57YbKryQg

What do you think?

OH DANNY BOY – KEEP YOUR SCOTTISH NOSE OUT OF ENGLISH AFFAIRS! Liberal Democrats attempt to try and cause division within the nation - a good wheeze to try and break off Cornwall from England.

 OH DANNY BOY – KEEP YOUR SCOTTISH NOSE OUT OF ENGLISH AFFAIRS!
 
Danny Alexander, or as Harriet Harman (aka Hatty Harperson) unkindly called him “a Ginger Rodent”, the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP and Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the Coalition Government, stuck his nose into English affairs last week with his typical 
Liberal Democrat attempt to try and cause division within the nation, as much as they are trying to do in Scotland with the Orkneys.  They now think it would be a good wheeze to try and break off Cornwall from England.  

Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times (27.4.14) is highly amusing about this and said:-
 
“Mmm, delicious Cornish fudge – made in Brussels

At last, one of Britain’s most colourful but endangered and rapidly dwindling communities has been afforded special, protected “minority” status.  The nation’s last remaining colony of possibly Liberal Democrats voters, known to the public as “Cornwall”, is to be recognised by the European Union.  This joyful news was announced by the, er, Liberal Democrats chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander.

Cornwall is henceforth a special entity – a bit like Transnistria, say.  No longer simply a weekend destination for braying Hooray Henrys and middle-class families with mewling brats and Labradors called Oscar.  No longer simply a “county” like all the other counties.  It has been “recognised” under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of Pixies and People Who Have Been Too Generously Apportioned Fingers and Toes.

A small minority of the Cornish have long proclaimed that they are not part of that awful oppressive and imperialistic thing from which they get all their money – England.   Some of the more radical separatists have protested by placing razor blades and broken glass beneath the sands of the country’s better known beaches, so as to impress upon the incomers their profound loathing at being afforded a decent living.  Their claims to a special status have some force, mind – there is a distinct language in Cornwall, a Celtic hand-me-down that is spoken and understood by precisely 557 of the half a million people who cling to its photogenic and precipitous cliffs, or paddle about its bogs in search of peat.

That’s even fewer than the number of people in London who speak English, but never mind.  Northumberland for example, doesn’t have its own language, even if the people up there are no less intelligible than the Cornish and use the mysterious dialect word “netty” for lavatory basin and refer to those people with whom they have sort of primitive affection as “marra”.  So this recognition thing has been a long time coming and it remains to be seen what will happen next.

Will the people of Cornwall press for full-scale independence, like the Catalans and Venetians and Galicians?  Should we envisage passport checks as we approach the Tamar and import duties on their sickly, tooth-rotting fudge?  Or will they instead simply sulk in an adolescent manner, mindful of which side their bread is buttered?

Of course, this recognition business is a nominal thing meaning little more than an expenditure of taxpayers’ money and in effect amounting to precisely nothing.  Some public sector employees and third-sector activists will undoubtedly coin it, to a limited degree.  But it is largely – if you will excuse my terminology – piss and wind, as is so much that Brussels churns out in its increasingly desperate attempts to undermine the notion of the nation state.

It is in the EU’s interests to perpetually encourage regional factional dissent against the national governments that, it believes, are archaic and redundant concepts.  The more the disparate parts of – particularly – Italy and Spain can be encouraged to renounce the hegemony of Rome and Madrid, the stronger the EU feels itself to be.  And so there are EU departments determined to pay homage to Catalonia, or the Basque, or the Bretons, or the Cornish.  Anything that loosens the ties towards the capital cities and thus, by default, strengthens the ties to Brussels. 

Early reports suggest the Cornish are distinctly unimpressed. Of course the activists and the quangoes have exulted, especially those whose job it is to pretend that the Cornish language is of crucial importance to Cornwall and the world, despite considerable evidence to the contrary.  But on the phone – it shows your average Cornishman was less than euphoric.  “Will it help me find a job – no!”   And “What is the point? Probably to line the pockets of those who we will never know sat in posh offices.”  Yep, that would be about right.”


The initial report shows in fact Rod Liddle hadn’t quite got his facts straight as actually Danny Alexander has given £½m of our money to the Cornish language "partnership" as is shown from the government press release the last paragraph of which says:-

"The Cornish language is the only language in England recognised under the Council of Europe’s Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In March 2014, the government announced funding of £120,000 to the Cornish Language Partnership for the development and promotion of the Cornish language. Since 2010 the government has provided over £500,000 to the partnership. This payment which will sit alongside funds from Cornwall Council and other funds raised locally by the partnership."
  https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cornish-granted-minority-status-within-the-uk


Regular readers of this blog will remember that this is happening in the context of the results of the 2011 Census which showed that by only sensible understanding Cornish nationalism is a dead issue.  Here is how my comments were reported in Cornwall:-

CORNISH nationalism is "dead" – according to an English nationalist leader.
Robin Tilbrook, chairman of the English Democrat party, which is campaigning for England to become independent of the UK and EU, based his claim on the latest census figures.

He said it showed people did not take the opportunity to declare themselves as Cornish.

Mr Tilbrook told the West Briton from his home in Essex: "The census figures show that not many people are precious about declaring themselves as Cornish. There's at least five times more people for English nationalism than Cornish.

"People feel a part of being Cornish but they do not identify Cornwall as a national identity."

Read more: http://www.westbriton.co.uk/Cornish-nationalism-dead-according-English/story-19908944-detail/story.html#ixzz30S9c5skA


Can anybody think of an adaptation to the Danny Boy song to adequately and wittingly reflect the English preference for the “Ginger Rodent” to stop sticking his nose into English affairs? 

Here is the text of Danny Boy:- 

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen and down the mountainside
The summer's gone and all the roses fallin'
It's you, it's you, must go and I must bide

But come ye back, when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh, Danny boy, oh, Danny boy, I love you so

But if you come and all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an ave there for me

And I will know, though soft ye tread above me
And then my grave will richer, sweeter be
And you'll bend down and tell me that you love me
And I will rest in peace until you come to me.

Here is a link to a good performance of it (click here>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jgma--0WYU ).