A CALL FROM SCOTLAND FOR ENGLISH INDEPENDENCE

A CALL FROM SCOTLAND FOR ENGLISH INDEPENDENCE

The Scotland based Leftist, “Nationalist” commentator, Gerry Hassan, has recently blogged in favour of English Independence. 

His article is well written and interesting and I have therefore reproduced it below.  Here is the text of the article:-

Rise Now and Be a Nation Again: Can a genuine English democratic politics emerge?

Gerry Hassan

Sunday National, January 26th 2020

England has always mattered to Scotland, and indeed to Wales and Northern Ireland. It has 84% of the UK’s population and 533 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons – which means that as of now how England votes gives the rest of the UK the government England wants, irrespective of how the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish vote.

Yet of late, England as a substitute for the UK has become increasingly evident. This is not just true on the right, but in left and liberal circles, underlying how widespread is this mindset.

In the past month, there have been numerous cases. One example was Andy Beckett writing twice in ‘The Guardian’, one pre and one post-Christmas, supposedly about the state of UK politics, but in both all his references were English and all his analysis was about the state of English politics.

In the last week, the ITV current affairs show ‘Peston’ had a discussion about the qualities Labour members wanted from their next leader, and as a graphic of ‘British patriotism’ the English flag was used, with no one in the studio commenting or offering an explanation.

Many will say it was always thus, and this is a long running trope that can be found for most of the history of the union. For example, there has been a long lineage of Tory politicians in the past using the English/British equivalent when they thought they could get away with it. Stanley Baldwin, Tory Prime Minister in the 1920s and 1930s, said in 1924 when addressing the Royal Society of St. George on the subject ‘On England and the West’ that he had ‘a profound thankfulness’ that he could use the term England ‘without some fellow at the back of the room shouting out “Britain”.

The rise of ‘England as the UK’ has re-emerged with a vengeance. It isn’t hard to see why. British politics have increasingly fragmented and now exist in name only and in the Palace of Westminster. There is no nationwide UK politics worthy of the term. All four nations march to very different beats, with different parties dominant in each.

This leads in mainstream Westminster politics and mainstream media to England becoming a substitute for the UK without it being presented or understood as England. Sometimes this is a deliberate deception. Sometimes self-deception and on some occasions if we are feeling charitable, oversight.

Hence, numerous public discussions about politics and policies presented as UK-wide are really about England. Take any UK TV or radio discussion about health, education, law and order, or local government. If the issue also happens to be the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament, then chances are the discussion will be about the state of the English NHS or schools, without it being flagged as that. The appearance is often given that the public services being talked about are those of the entire UK. Twenty years after the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, this continual misrepresentation does not help democracy anywhere.

It does not allow English people to understand, name and discuss their own problems – and call out whoever is responsible for any shortcomings. The UK Tory Government’s policy of 20,000 extra police is presented as a UK-wide one, but it is an English policy responding to earlier Tory cuts of the same number in England, and only putting back what has been taken out of communities at great cost.

‘England as the UK’ does not work for the benefit of most people who live in England. Rather it contributes to the detriment of a genuine English politics and public conversation, and disempowers political debate and democracy.

Yet, it is so firmly ensconced that it will be difficult to dislodge with the Irish writer Fintan O’Toole who has closely followed Brexit observing: ‘The political mindset which has captured England as Britain did not arrive overnight, but has deep roots and traditions.’ These ‘problematic, conservative forces are not just found in the Brexiteer outliers’, but in mainstream Toryism, the Corbynista left, and centrist evangelicals – who all perpetuate in O’Toole’s assessment ‘unattainable versions of the past’.

Who then propagates this worldview and gains from it? Firstly, this mindset is reinforced by the over-reach and grip of the imperial state – the hold of what writer Anthony Barnett has called ‘the British Empire State’. This still exists to this day, long after the last vestiges of the actual Empire disappeared off the map, reinforcing the lack of democracy at the heart of government and the state, and its championing of a ‘Britain plc’ in hock to the interests of the global class domestically and internationally.

Secondly, what can be seen as a de facto English independence is in fact both a giving up on the details of anything going on in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – witness this week on the Brexit Act and the views of the three devolved legislatures. But it is also the opposite of an emergence of English self-government – in that any of these discussions never get too specific about where political power sits in England: namely an unreformed Westminster.

There is a deeper ideological reason which contributes to this mindset. This is the distorted idea of ‘Great Britishism’ – an outlook which can be seen in the arrogance and conceit evident in the Brexit ‘Global Britain’ prospectus – which assumes post-January 31^st that the UK will be able to astride the world stage with a buccaneer capitalism assuming its rightful place at the top table.

As the multiple crises of Britain have deepened – economic, social, cultural, democratic, and even internationally – with the UK’s place in the world more unsure in light of Brexit – so the political classes have clung ever more tightly to the notion of ‘England as the UK’ to the exclusion of a genuine English debate or perspectives from the three other nations.

One perplexing dimension of this is why the dominant elements of Labour and the left have gone along with it. Labour have always had a problem addressing England, and its historic unionism has been one of subsuming England in the union of the UK. This has been influenced by the party’s fears of England being synonymous with reactionaryness and a desire to build an all-encompassing, binding British political union that had the authority and power to redistribute. But what it has done – to devastating effect as UK politics have fragmented – is to leave the terrain of England to the right.

There is in Labour and the left to this day elements who are embarrassed to talk explicitly of England. This was the line of the Corbyn leadership – an attitude also seen in leadership contender Emily Thornberry’s implied swipe at the flying of the English flag outside of a voter’s house in the Rochester and Strood by-election in 2014. This is such a deep pedigree that George Orwell wrote about observing the strand of the English left who have a deep seated ambivalence of their own country writing in his 1941 essay, ‘England Your England’ that: ‘England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.’

Mark Perryman, who has written extensively about Labour, the left and Englishness thinks part of the left ‘refuse to accept there’s anything remotely progressive in ‘progressive patriotism’’. This is reinforced he believes by ‘Labour being fundamentally a Unionist party, which has little to say on Scottish or Welsh independence and between these strands there’s not much of a space to ’talk about England.’’

Gordon Brown in ‘The Observer’ last week surveyed the state of the union and took account of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish, as well as something called ‘Brexit nationalism’, but the two nationalisms he could not even name were the British and English expressions. This is a politics of denialism and disconnection from reality which goes to the heart of how Labour misunderstands the UK and avoids any democratic conversation or politics about England.

The omission of England can even be seen in a forthcoming pro-union conference organised by These Islands and opened by Gordon Brown which has not one discussion on England. This was noted by former Labour minister John Denham now an academic who observed there was ‘not one session on England, or the possibility that England’s national identity might be playing a role in shaping the union’s future.’

Denham went on: ‘English regions are not England and some of your speakers openly advocate the break up of England – under the union parliament – into regions that mainly have little economic, cultural, historical identity or coherence.’ He concluded that politics on these isles cannot be transformed and democratised ‘without engaging with England’ – and that avoiding this subject is a huge missed opportunity.

It is true that beginning an English conversation and what it might say wouldn’t be easy – a point made by Prof. Arthur Aughey of Ulster University: ‘There is a Westminster ‘right said fred’ attitude – why bring half a ton of constitutional rubble down on your head by trying to find a definitive answer to the ‘English Question?’ This puts off facing up the lack of democracy and excessive centralisation, instead seeking solace in ‘dealing with England as if it exists only as an administrative convenience.’

England is the only nation in the world in a political democracy without its own government and Parliament. Traditionally, Westminster has served as the proxy English Parliament, but this has become increasingly problematic, while Westminster serves England nearly as badly as it did Scotland pre-devolution. England is the object of bad governance, grotesque centralisation and the old mantra ‘Whitehall knows best’.

England’s predicament matters to all of us. The collusion of the main UK parties not talking about England as a distinct nation and political community has an impact on the state of UK politics. It matters to Scotland. Even with increased Scottish self-government or independence what happens in England – in politics, society, economy and its international outlook – will have implications for us north of the border.

Underlying all this is the self-interest of the political, economic and social elites of the UK continuing the mindset of the Empire State – the unreformed, unreconstructed, undemocratic outlook at the political centre and its absolutism. Pivotal to retaining this is the mantra of ‘England as the UK’ and trying to prevent England emerge as a modern, pluralist, progressive country.

The denial of England as a democratic country is one of the last pillars holding up the ancien regime at the heart of the UK. Given its stark record how long will it take for the centre-left and left in England to champion the notion that England needs to overthrow the last vestiges of Westminster rule and imperial delusion and become a modern nation?

Many of us in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would welcome the emergence of a modern, democratic England. We could even suggest a slogan for the campaign: ‘Stop the World: England wants to get on’.

Here is a link to the original >>> https://www.gerryhassan.com/blog/rise-now-and-be-a-nation-again-can-a-genuine-english-democratic-politics-emerge/?fbclid=IwAR0F_pGIBJ1IefVVTT2LzNoDdvaCjqMNQGgMdw7HdmmBoDxcKIEdwGyMIWY

WHAT’S THE SNP PLAYING AT OVER BREXIT?

WHAT’S THE SNP PLAYING AT OVER BREXIT?

Ever since its foundation, in 1927, the Scottish National Party has been loudly dedicated to getting Independence for Scotland from the Union of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 

During the heady days of Alex Salmond’s leadership it looked as if it might actually achieve that ambition, but with Nicola Sturgeon it would appear that the SNP have lost their way. 

Rather like the questioning about why Theresa May was making such a poor job of Brexit (was it incompetence or duplicity?); we now have to ask the same question of Nicola Sturgeon and her leadership of the Scottish National Party about Scottish Independence and Brexit.

On Thursday last week Scottish Nationalist MPs proposed a resolution in the House of Commons to try to trigger Article 50 being revoked and thus to abort Brexit altogether.

This is a strikingly ironic and an apparently irrational thing for national ‘independence’ campaigners to do.  Not only are they trying to use Westminster parliamentary tricks to block the English Nation’s popular vote for independence from the EU, but also they are voting to block Scottish independence also. 

This last point needs explanation.  

During the Scottish Independence referendum, the then head of the European Commission, Mr Barosso, confirmed what numerous other EU figures had been saying, which was that Scotland leaving the UK would make Scotland automatically outside the EU.  

It follows that if the UK is kept within the EU Scotland cannot become independent of the UK without leaving the EU.  However if the UK leaves the EU and Scotland then leaves the UK, Scotland could apply to become an “Accession State” to the EU.  

Instead the SNP are now trying to block the UK leaving the EU which shows either a startling degree of incompetence, or that their policy on Scottish independence is mere duplicity. 

In weighing up which you think it is, it may be worth considering Nicola Sturgeon’s remarks in saying that she doesn’t like the word ‘national’ in Scottish National Party’s name, to see whether you think that the Scottish National Party is still sincerely committed to Scottish independence or whether it is just parasitically hag-riding the support of duped Scottish Nationalists as yet another Internationalist, Leftist party. 

Here is the BBC report of what Nicola Sturgeon said:-

“Nicola Sturgeon has said she wishes she could turn the clock back and change the Scottish National Party's name.

The SNP leader admitted the word "national" could be "hugely problematic" during a debate at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

She was speaking with Turkish author Elif Shafak, who said the word had a "negative meaning" to her.

However, the first minister insisted her party was about self government and was not insular.

Ms Shafak, who was wrongly accused of public denigration of Turkishness for her novel The Bastard Of Istanbul, told the audience at the sold-out event: "Coming from Turkey, seeing the experiences there, not only in Turkey, across the Middle East, the Balkans, for us for instance the word nationalism is, for me personally, has a very negative meaning because I've seen how ugly it can get, how destructive it can become, how violent it can become and how it can divide people into imaginary categories and make them lose that cultural coexistence.

"Whereas when I come here, I hear the word nationalism being used in a different way and I felt that, can nationalism ever be benign? Can it ever be a benevolent thing? So there is a part of me that doubts that very much."

In response, Ms Sturgeon admitted: "The word is difficult."

She said: "If I could turn the clock back, what 90 years, to the establishment of my party, and choose its name all over again, I wouldn't choose the name it has got just now, I would call it something other than the Scottish National Party.

"Now people say why don't you change its name now? Well that would be far too complicated. Because what those of us who do support Scottish independence are all about could not be further removed from some of what you would recognise as nationalism in other parts of the world.

"Two things I believe that I think run so strongly through the Scottish independence movement are firstly that it doesn't matter where you come from, if Scotland is your home and you live here and you feel you have a stake in the country, you are Scottish and you have as much say over the future of the country as I do. And that is a civic, open, inclusive view of the world that is so far removed from what you would rightly fear.

"Secondly one of the great motivators for those of us who support Scottish independence is wanting to have a bigger voice in the world, it's about being outward looking and internationalist, not inward looking and insular.

"So the word is hugely, hugely problematic sometimes for those of us who ...but Scottish independence is about self-government, it's about running your own affairs and making your own mark in the world.

"So yes words do matter but I think we can't change the connotations that the word has in other parts of the world, what we have to do is just demonstrate through words of our own, through deeds, through actions, through how we carry ourselves, that we stand for something completely different to all of that."

Here is a link to the original report>>>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-40975105

So what do you think?  Is the SNP's policy on Brexit incompetent or duplicious?

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM COMES A STEP CLOSER!

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM COMES A STEP CLOSER!

Although the “Mainstream Media” (AKA “Legacy Media”) newspapers and broadcasters, such as in the article below by Alan Cochrane, focus on the risk to the Union (of the UK) from Northern Ireland and Scotland, it may well be that the more important longer term “threat” to the Union will be from England and from English Nationalists.  As William Hague when he was the Leader of the “Conservative” Party said:-  “English nationalism is the worst of all nationalisms” for the future of the Union!

The constitutional position about Theresa May’s agreement, if she manages to get it through Parliament and ratified by all the relevant parts of the EU will be interesting, because, if that happens, with the majority Leave vote in England, of well over 15 million English people voting for Leave, can then only be satisfied by the dissolution of the United Kingdom!

From a legal and constitutionalist point of view this works because the dissolution of the UK as the contracting state means that the deal is dissolved too.  This was threatened against the Scottish Nationalists, in the run up to the Scottish Independence Referendum, when the then Commissioner Barosso pointed out that, if Scotland left the United Kingdom then (because the United Kingdom would be dissolved), Scotland would be a new State and therefore not an ‘Accession’ state and so not part of the EU. 

The EU is composed of “Member States”.  If a Member State is dissolved and ceases to exist, then the arrangements with the EU also cease to exist.  The EU is not a territorial entity, nor an entity of individual people, nor of peoples, it is an entity only of accession Member States.  This means that the general legal principles on dissolution or death of a participating entity in an agreement apply.  Generally that means that the agreement itself ceases to exist as well as the dissolved entity upon its dissolution (or death).

I explained this in my Blog article quite a few years ago.  Here is a link to that article >>> https://robintilbrook.blogspot.com/2012/12/england-to-be-free-of-eu-in-2014.html

The article below by Alan Cochrane is also interesting but is of course yet again looking at the Union from the Scottish perspective rather than from the point of view of English nationalists. 

In short I think Theresa May’s proposed deal may actually fill the sails of English nationalists and of English nationalism because our way of thinking will then be the only practical way of coming out of the EU. 

What do you think?  Here is Alan Cochrane’s article :-

Warring Tories have put a hurricane in the sail of the nationalists 

With the Conservative Party tearing itself and the government of Theresa May asunder last night, one of its hitherto more successful parts appeared to be also heading for the intensive care ward.

In a bitter, and unprecedented Cabinet-level war, the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party accused resigning Brexiteer ministers of threatening to wreck the United Kingdom. In one of the most outspoken attacks one senior minister has ever launched against colleagues, former or otherwise, David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, described Dominic Raab and Esther McVey as “carpetbaggers”.

Just for good measure, he claimed that Mr Raab’s departure was more about a future leadership bid than the Brexit deal.

In their resignation letters, the former Brexit and Work and Pensions Secretaries had both cited the threat to the Union posed by the fact that special provisions were proposed for Northern Ireland in Mrs May’s withdrawal deal.

And there is little doubt that this escalation in insults reflected the fact that the Northern Ireland aspect of the deal has put immediate and intense pressure on Mr Mundell and, also to a lesser extent, Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader.

Their partnership has been largely responsible for the revival of the Conservatives north of the border – leaping from one MP to 13 at the last general election and forming the official opposition to the SNP at the Scottish Parliament.

However, significantly, at least in terms of their current embarrassment, both signed an open letter to the Prime Minister last month in which they threatened to resign if there was a “differentiated deal” agreed for Northern Ireland. And, no matter how you cut it, that is precisely what is contained in the deal Mrs May put to her Cabinet on Wednesday.

I have a great deal of sympathy with the view expressed in Scottish Tory circles that Mr Raab and Ms McVey used the threat to the Union as “cover” for their resignations. And I can also understand Mr Mundell’s intense irritation that many of the most ardent Brexiteers care little for the maintenance of the Union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Indeed, I can’t remember any of them making an appearance during the Scottish independence referendum campaign four years ago.

That’s neither here nor there now, however. No amount of name-calling and foot stamping will alter the plain fact that, by including a distinctive feature for Northern Ireland after Brexit in the deal, the Prime Minister has done two things: she’s delivered a major boost to the SNP, whose sole aim is the break-up of Britain, and she’s ignored the warnings she received from Mr Mundell and Ms Davidson.

In one of the great ironies of the situation, the nationalists claim that Scotland should be given a different deal from the rest of the UK but haven’t got it, whereas Northern Ireland is getting one but its majority party doesn’t want it. And yesterday First Minister Nicola Sturgeon claimed that Ulster’s special treatment would give it an unfair trading advantage over Scotland.

There is a hope within Scottish Conservative circles that Mrs May might yet be able to retrieve the situation by clarifying and playing down the differences in the deal for Northern Ireland. But given the furious reaction from DUP MPs yesterday, she has a mountain to climb in that direction.

Nevertheless, the Scottish Tories’ main problem is that threatening letter sent to the PM and signed by Mr Mundell and Ms Davidson. It was seen at the time, by some observers, as a silly piece of grandstanding and it has now come back to bite them – hard.

Ms Davidson is on maternity leave and, last night Mr Mundell said he was staying put, insisting that he would fight on for the maintenance of the UK, adding: “That’s what I’m focused on, not being the heart of some soap opera of resignations and I’m not going to be bounced into resigning by carpetbaggers.”

Notwithstanding his determination to fight on and his angry words about his now former colleagues, I’m sure that he wishes he hadn’t signed that letter. It’s boxed him in, good and proper.

Labour’s new Leader in Scotland confesses anti-Englishness!

Labour’s new Leader in Scotland talks about anti-Englishness in Scotland

The article below caught my interest.  This was not only because it confesses to what I think is quite well known that there is a deep vein of Anglophobia in Scotland.  If you are a patriotic Scot this is not entirely surprising, not because of history in which the Scots have done rather well out of England, or because of the Barnett Formula where they continue to do extremely well out of England, but because of the over 800,000 English immigrants into Scotland of which such a large proportion voted to remain within the UK that it swung the result of the Scottish Independence Referendum in favour of the remain option.  Whereas if it had been left to just ethnic Scots to vote, Scotland would now be well on its way to being an independent country because a majority of them voted for Independence.

Another thing that is interesting about this Times article is it is clear that the privately educated Mr Leonard thinks that it his job is to “stand up for the interests of working people”, rather than for standing up for Scotland.  He comments that he has got an overriding objective to “win the battle of ideas with nationalism”. 

So there we have it, the new Leader of Labour in Scotland wants Scottish politics to revert to old fashioned Unionist class war rather than nationalism. 

It is certainly going to be interesting to see how the attempt to get the Labour Party in Scotland to be seen as focussing on Scottish working class interests!  That is whilst Labour in Westminster is almost entirely focussed on the obsessions of middle-class, internationalist, multi-culturalist, Leftists.

This attempt is being made at a time where elsewhere Labour is following in the footsteps of almost all Western European social democrat parties in losing its connections with their country’s working class, instead predominantly voting for nationalist parties, such as the Front Nationale and the Austrian Freedom Party.  Of course in Scotland Mr Leonard is up against a so-called nationalist party, which in fact seems to prefer multi-culturalism, diversity and is actually more EUish than Scottish!

Here is the article:-

“My Englishness is a barrier, confesses Labour’s Richard Leonard

The English-born leader of the Scottish Labour Party says he accepts some Scots will not vote for him because he is from south of the border.

Richard Leonard, who was elected Scottish Labour leader last November, was born in Yorkshire but has lived in Scotland since studying at the University of Stirling in the early 1980s.

Asked in an interview with The Times if he thought his Englishness would be a barrier to people voting for him, Mr Leonard said: “There is a small group of people for whom that will be an issue.”

The MSP, 56, said the reality of anti-Englishness in Scotland became clear to him during the 2014 independence referendum. “I wrote a blog on the case against an independent state and somebody put a comment on it which was, ‘In truth you would not be welcome in an independent Scotland’.

“And I thought that was really chilling — not an overt attack in some senses, but on the other hand really quite a dawn-knock-at-the-door. So there are those elements that exist and I am conscious of that.” But Mr Leonard stressed these people were a small minority. He said it was now “a sign of the stage Scotland has reached” that Scots “will vote for an English Scottish Labour leader to be the next first minister of Scotland”.

He denied he was at a disadvantage when voters asked themselves who would best stand up for Scotland. “No, I don’t think I am,” he said. “What people are looking for is someone who will stand up for the interests of working people, predominantly.

“I accept there is an extent to which Scottish politics has become about geography, but I think it should be more about principle. I think we need to break out of this confinement that it’s about where you’re from and ‘you’re not from around here’, which I think is quite a corrosive part of our politics, and get back to ‘these are the ideas’.

“The overriding object I’ve got is to win the battle of ideas with nationalism. Most people say to me it’s not where you come from, it’s where you’re going to. It’s about your principles and what you stand for rather than where you were born.”

Shortly after his election as leader Mr Leonard was asked which team he supports when Scotland play England at football or rugby. “If it’s England v Scotland, I do support England,” he replied.”

What do you think?