Here is a recent article by Graham Allen who is the Labour MP for Nottingham North and the Chairman of the House of Commons’ Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee. Before coming out with the usual tired Regionalism he makes this striking statement:-
“England is the last country in the empire – still ruled, like some untrusted colonial backwater, from Whitehall. As Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland enjoy the fruits of devolution, England remains the most centralised country in western Europe.”
As Jeremy Paxman once said we English are living in the “Scottish Raj”. Although it is true that Scots are hugely over-represented in the British Government; and the British political and media class I think that the colonialism in question may be more of a British structural and institutional issue rather than one that is nationality based.
The characteristic of “Britishness” for years now has been an over centralised state which is obsessed with administrative considerations to the exclusion of all others (like democracy, peoples’ feelings of community, etc.).
The article first appeared in Public Servant magazine and here is the link to the original. Click here >>> http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=21852
Here is the text of the article:-
England: the last country in the Whitehall empire
19 December 2012Local government has been little more than the delivery arm of Whitehall. Now it must be allowed to get on with finding solutions to local problems and stimulating community growth, says Graham Allen
England is the last country in the empire – still ruled, like some untrusted colonial backwater, from Whitehall. As Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland enjoy the fruits of devolution, England remains the most centralised country in western Europe.
But it doesn't have to be like this. In a recent debate in parliament I argued that independence for local councils is a powerful answer to what we are now calling the English question: what form should devolution take in England now that other nations in the Union have their devolved settlements?
Local government is ready to start its own exciting and challenging journey of independence. As we look across our borders and see the legislative and financial powers available to the devolved legislatures and assemblies, English citizens are right to start asking: "If Wales can agree to provide free prescriptions, why can't my city or my region?" If local government were independent, local areas could make that choice for themselves – and local elections, local parties and local interest would be rejuvenated at a stroke.
The Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee, which I chair, is conducting an inquiry into the prospects for codifying the relationship between central and local government. The committee did not simply want to produce another lament about local government's lack of autonomy, so we commissioned a draft code from an academic expert. The draft code would fundamentally alter the balance of power in the relationship between central and local government, making local government an equal partner with a guaranteed share of the income tax yield. This would mark a huge change from the present situation where local government is little more than the delivery arm of Whitehall.
The committee has received a record 90 responses to its consultation on the draft code, most of them from councils or councillors eager to be able to enact solutions that develop their communities, rather than have top-down solutions imposed on them by central government.
Alongside LGA chairman Sir Merrick Cockell, I have also been running a campaign for independent local government to raise awareness of the draft code. Travelling around the country, we have been overwhelmed by the support for the principle of localism.
Unless the rights of local government are codified in statute in a way that successive governments cannot easily repeal, power will always drift slowly back towards the centre. Local government should benefit from constitutional protection and be given an inviolable right to exist. This is something that local government in most other European countries takes for granted. We are the odd ones out.
The coalition government has said that it wants to see a radical shift in the balance of power, and more decentralisation. The commitment to localism is laudable, but much remains to be done to make this aspiration a reality and to give it permanence. City deals are an important new step in allowing city regions to set local priorities, but we have to ensure that areas suffering from economic deprivation can also involve themselves in the localism agenda to improve their communities.
Despite the best efforts, the Whitehall default position of micro-management automatically produces legislation which further centralises power. To take just one example: £150m is being nationalised from the local early intervention grant. Whitehall just can't help it. We need to stop the centre from meddling in matters that are best decided locally. Temptation has to be put beyond its reach. That way, local government will have the scope to put forward the solutions that best suit local areas and local economic circumstances.
An amendment to the Parliament Act would be the simplest way to protect a new settlement for local government. The draft code, which can be found on the committee's website, does not pretend to be perfect. It would need work in order to be turned into statute, but it encompasses the broad principles of equality and autonomy that are essential for a harmonious working relationship to flourish. It is a start, an important step in the right direction. I want to create a dialogue among citizens across England about what independent local government could do for them.
In the current economic climate, it is clear that central government cannot provide all the answers for growth and prosperity. Giving those who are experts in their local areas the independence and the power to shape and develop the future of their communities is paramount to a successful economic recovery.
This article first appeared in Public Servant magazine
Still plugging away at the Regions idea, Forget it. Nation First sub divisions later. Parity is the prime directive for England.
ReplyDeleteLabour and the Lib Dems will not accept the fact that we don't want regions. What is just as bad is that some Tories now want a southern Parliament.
DeleteYes, but don't forget that it was the "Conservatives" John Major who introduced the idea of Regionalisation of England into 9 Regions
DeleteFirst and last means we will always be here..!!
ReplyDeleteTo a degree he is right that England is the last colony of the British empire, there is a huge obsolete British administrative class desperately clinging to England as the last remnant of their vanished empire.
ReplyDeleteI heard a short speech the other day by Welsh Nationalist MP Jonathan Edwards in the House of Commons on Energy generation in Wales, making the case, of course, for more devolved powers.
ReplyDeleteHe spoke of 'my country', 'the people of Wales', 'the British State', 'London', making it clear he wanted to be viewed as detached from the British State.
It struck me, as an English nationalist, would I ever hear an English MP, sitting for an English constituency, speak in the same way for his nation, England? For, there is no reason why he should not, the English have the same rights to national self-determination as the Welsh and Scots. They have a national Assembly, and a national parliament recognising their unities. The English have neither.
So what about English MPs? We know the British are not the same as the English, because Britain is the State which resides above us all, and England is a nation like the others. How do they feel when a Welsh nationalist challenges the British Establishment?
Should they not feel and demonstrate the same detachment from the British State? If they do not, are they not conceding that there is no difference between the British and the English which the other nations often claim, and that it is the English therefore who are their 'oppressors'?
By keeping silent they also deny England and the people of England their rights to true identity and self-determination, does it not? And when they say, nevertheless, they do represent England because they are English and from English constiuences, are they not being disingenuous?
Which English MP will be the first to make his or her position clear beyond doubt, to demand a parliament for England and speak against British rule over England?
If the Scots and Welsh can do it, and be respected and rewarded for their beliefs, let an Englishman or Englishwoman do the same.
Where is the difference in after all?
Hear hear, yes, well said dear boy, I'm APSULUTLY with you on this subject!.It's very sad to see everything falling to pieces for this England that we once New but every dog has its day.....
DeleteIt is correct, England was the first and last colony of the empire of William the Conqueror and his cronies and their successors. We are still a colony of Normandy. From their power base in London the Normans went on to conquer Wales, Ireland and Scotland. If things are going backwards then we will have to wait until Wales is independent before we are free of the Norman imperial yoke!
ReplyDeleteAnd just in the days of empire the Norman/British establishment moved in indentured labour where the natives couldn't or wouldn't do the job. First West Indians then Asians and now Poles. The British establishment don't see a problem because we, the English, always have been and still are truculent colonials.
Time to take power back for the sake of our Anglo-Danish forebears who provided the institutions and the engergy to allow the aristocracy to achieve their imperial dreams and created the richest and most well organised country in Europe before 1066.
Time for independence for England from colonial rule. But what right has a Labour mp to say anything. They were the ones who were more instrumental in bringing in indentured labour than the Conservatives weren't they?
And no, we don't want regions. We may be different in some ways in the north than in the south and in the east than in the west but we are one people and we want our country back from William the Bastard - and all the other bastards who have sold us down the river.
Yeaaaa!!! We do want our England back, North South East and West we are Anglo-Saxon English.
ReplyDeleteWe want self determination from the Cruel Norman-British ruling elite. You always here about the wingeing welsh irish and scots,about the clearance's but you never here about the large scale Brutal "English Clearances" families hanged and starved out the commoners land taken away by brutal lords and barons,People from all parts of England,families shipped off ! all over the world the America's the Africa's Australia dumped in remote corners to fend for themselves.
The British have alot to answer for, especially the traitors from our own back yard, who with no conscious have taken money,bribes and wielded power mercilessly.Our day will come.
I suppose that the Cornish would take issue with you at being called Anglo-Saxon English. But they still think of themselves as English and there is a fuzzy bit where Cumbria and North Northumberland are concerned. But if, as we now know, there was no complete ethnic clearing of the Brythonic Celts but merely a phasing from east to west then in the end the Celts became Anglo-Saxon adopting the culture and the language, as did the Danes and Norwegians, once they were christianised. From the start, one of the first Anglo-Saxon chiefs in Kent was called Cerdic (Caradoc) so we know there was mingling with the Celts.
DeleteI also read that the Brythonic Celts in Devon did mostly flee to Brittany as evidenced by an almost total absence of Celtic placenames in Devon.
By 1066 all, whether orginally Celtic, Danish or Norwegian Viking, as well as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians etc all thought of themselves as Anglo-Saxon and joined together to fight off Harald Hardrada and William the Conqueror.
Since we have been so fragmented into isolated pockets through mass non-European immigration, undoubtedly their aim, they now feel it would be easy to split us into regions as we are more and more ceasing to hang together as a unified whole. We must not let them divide us for that is their aim, divide and rule. We must gather together more and more in a resurrection of the folkmoot or the witan as the English parliament would be, so as to ensure that they do not smash us and send us running to the four winds.
you are right, the same treacherous lot who at the moment infest our town halls, who have utter obedience the EU, every town council has Common Purpose grads who toe the EUROPE dictats
DeleteAll we hear from America at the moment is about the fiscal cliff. Nobody says where it is exactly but I would like us to have one here so we could line up all our politicians, with a few exceptions, bankers, financiers, estate agents, property developers, employers using immigrant labour, Guardian and bbc journalists and Common Purpose etc and push them over the edge.
DeleteThe Spaniards and the Greeks are now flocking into Switzerland, which will soon be the only safe country left on the Continent. They are undoubtedly flooding in here as well but will be trampled under foot by Romanians and Bulgarians (Roma anyone?). By the way, don't even consider fleeing to that other non-EU country, Norway, they are so obsessed post Breivik with pursuing anyone that is anti-Islamic or anti-multiculturalism that they are barmy as fruitcakes. There are now pink taxis in Oslo for ladies who don't want to be gang raped by - well not the descendants of the Vikings. Only a matter of time before they start building longships and evacuate the place I think.
We are not going to get our England back. Too much of it has been lost. London is the prime example
DeleteSo you are already predicting the day a few decades hence when the whole of England will look like London.
DeleteHowever, the traditional British establishment does not live in London; it lives in the countryside. And it is their countryside that is about to be concreted over as a result of mass immigration.
There is still a hope. There is an organisation called Traditional Britain. I suggest you look at their website. There is aristocratic input there. These people might just not let the future that you predict happen.
It will all look like London if it is not stopped. The Anglo-Norman British establishment has traditionally had a seat in the countryside and a town house in London. They protect their own countryside, but if things get too bad they will move abroad (probably to a chateau in France). They have no loyalty to England. Capital is cosmopolitan.
DeleteYou are not talking about Tony Blair are you who thinks mass immigration has been a jolly good enriching thing. He probably only spends long enough in England to avoid paying tax. And yes, when the faeces hit the turbine he will be in America ( until the civil war starts there ) or on that Caribbean island with his very good friend Cliff Richard.
DeleteEngland urgently needs a proper independant leader to shake the docile indigenous English people out of their slumber and organise a revolution. The only way England will every be free from the destructive ties of a United Kingdom is to decouple fom Ireland, Wales and Scotland, then the destructive EU (Hitlers bastard love-child).
ReplyDeleteTHE European Court of Justice ruled yesterday that the European Union can lawfully suppress political criticism of its institutions and of leading figures, sweeping aside English Common Law and 50 years of European precedents on civil liberties.
DeleteThe EU's top court found that the European Commission was entitled to sack Bernard Connolly, a British economist dismissed in 1995 for writing a critique of European monetary integration entitled The Rotten Heart of Europe.
The ruling stated that the commission could restrict dissent in order to "protect the rights of others" and punish individuals who "damaged the institution's image and reputation". The case has wider implications for free speech that could extend to EU citizens who do not work for the Brussels bureaucracy.
I am waiting for David Cameron to launch a blistering attack on this removal of free speech and I wait and I wait. Meanwhile Obama's statement that there is no future for those who slander Islam is putting the first amendment in danger. Will this lead to criticism of him and his administration as being illegal as well over there.
Emma West is still refusing to plead guilty and to be judged insane. Such is the fate of us all as Stalinism creaps over Europe and beyond. As for the three stooges who run the country. They know and they are all signed up to the New World Order.
I find it strange that the English have not yet
cottoned on to the fact that the country is drifting into a police state. Nor to the fact that they are a threat to the New World Order and need to be replaced. I am just reading Michael Wood's book on the Domesday Book. He states that what shines through is the individualism which was a hallmark of Anglo-Saxon society and of later English society. Well, individualism and totalitarianism don't mix so you know what the solution is going to be don't you?
Been looking for information on the Emma West case, she is to be praised for her bravery, like a great many I am a fan of hers.
DeleteNow here's a slogan to consider.BRITISH OUT OF ENGLAND.For the dumb and hard of understanding,they wouldn't get it at first but I think realisation would eventually dawn if repeated often enough.The Temeraire 1805.
ReplyDeleteDefinitions:
DeleteBRITON - an old name for the Welsh.
BRITISH - any resident of the British Commonwealth
BRITISH CITIZEN - a citizen of the United Kingdom
BRITAIN - the United Kingdom
GREAT BRITAIN/ALBION - the largest of the British Isles, containing the countries of England, Scotland and Wales.
THE ISLAND OF IRELAND/IVERNE - the second largest of the British Isles, containing the countries of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
I Like that ! british out of England !
ReplyDeleteEngland has had enough! stay Out for good.
In other words F.O. go and scab some money elsewhere. Leave we ENGLISH alone !
Cameron is now aiming to increase the number of ethnic minority mps in order to take the ethnic minority vote away from Labour in the same way that he is chasing the gay vote.
DeleteJust shows you who these vile people care about, themselves and their own power, after all there are meant to be ten times more psychopaths in positions of power than in the general population and this goes to prove it.
As for the English, they all follow Jack Straw's line, "England and the English are not worth saving", not if they risk putting an end to the Marxist revolution in which all three parties including Cameron's "conservatives" are involved.
Cameron's "Conservative Party" is the old Liberal Party reborn, which is why he gets along so well with Clegg and the "Orange Book" Lib Dems.
DeleteReal Conservatives are joining other parties, i.e., Ukip in the south and the English Democrats in the north.
I have just come across the following from a speech given by James Cotton to the Traditional Britain Group on Enoch Powell.
ReplyDelete"The reason he (Powell) was against mass immigration is because he realized that true global diversity can only continue to exist if the nation state system is upheld and immigration between those states limited; that both the British culture he loved so much, and the foreign ones, must not be over-diluted by abolishing national borders. Throughout most of human history, this idea was regarded as common sense."
Isn't that what we feel in our bones also. England and the English were unique, just as France and the French, Holland and the Dutch, China and the Chinese. Why are these stupid illogical people who scream diversity not realising that in the course of a couple of hundred of years the diversity they prize will be lost to the world. Many of them eagerly anticipate the day when blond to black, blue eyes down to dark brown, will be lost and the whole world will look like Brazilians with a coca cola or even Islamic culture. Why will they prize diversity in the animal kingdom and wish to preserve it but be happy to see it vanish because they consider such massive destruction to be progressive?
The Americans were described as a "contemporary forward looking race", reading the blogs how does one decsribe the British inparticularly the English? Perhaps a "historical and backward looking race?". Daring to be different perhaps we could stop the history lessons, and the whining about the Welch, Scottish and Northern Irish, and move to consolidating ourselves as a English race and finding solutions to problems such campaigning and fund raising?
ReplyDeleteConcerning the Americans,I have just come across something very interesting which might be of interest to Robin with his Russian connections also.
DeleteA columnist in Pravda, where there might indeed be some truth now that communism in Russia has gone, described Obama as a communist and said he is trying to turn America into a communist, or perhaps that should be Marxist like the EU, state.
In another column he went on to tell the Americans not to let themselves be bullied into giving up their arms. Many of us who tune into Russia Today find out things that are happening here and in America that we know nothing about.
So here is post-Marxist Russia where Marxism was imposed from outside in 1917 telling the West not to fall for it. We all know that there is going to be civil war in America but it looks as Russia is preparing for it. The course of Marxism through the world - a spirit from hell - was predicted there in 1912. Left alone Russia would have in time developed from tsarist autocracy into a democracy.
The 1912 prediction also said that Russia would re-christianise those countries dechristianised by Marxism. The muslim population of Russia has rocketed in ten years from 14% to 20% as the muslim republics of the former Soviet Union, like our former colonies, are unable to go it alone and are flocking to the Russians to look after them. I am sure that the Russians will know have to deal with the problem in the same way that they know what the likes of Obama and Hague are planning for Syria. Another takeover by the Al Qaeda backed muslim brotherhood undoubtedly.
On the face of it, there is nothing to disagree with in what Graham Allen has written here.
ReplyDeleteThe great danger to the continued existence of England comes from EU inspired "standard regions" introduced under the Maastricht agreement, South East, South West, North West, North East, Yorkshire and Humberside, West Midlands, East Midlands, and East Anglia. These were devised around populations of roughly five million - small enough to be bossed around by Brussels, but big enough not to be a nuisance to administer from Brussels.
City regions go against 'Europe of the Regions', as do bigger units comprising a number of 'standard regions', such as the disbanded Northern Way (a combination of North West, Yorkshire and Humberside, and North East) which proved to be too assertive for Whitehall's taste.
ENGLISH ARE RACIALLY DISADVANTAGED - Tory minister David Willetts says that English boys should be regarded as an educationally disadvantaged minority.
ReplyDeleteWell, the Leftist educationalists wanted this to happen and they have succeeded.
DeleteThe question is will the educationalists act? Probably not because it does not suit their warped left wing anti-English and anti-white racist viewpoints.
francis
Perhaps this is what Enoch Powell had in mind and what "they" intended when he said that the day would come when the black man would have the whip hand over the white man in his own country.
DeleteSorry to mention his name but Nigel Farage was being interviewed on this subject and the Indian heritage Mr Guru-Murthy and the African heritage black rights lady he had ranged against Nigel were trying to trap him into displaying racist tendencies. All Nigel kept saying was that if we had the grammar schools back than all, irrespective of ethnicity, would be able to take full advantage of their natural abilities.
Incidentally, I see that an academic "expert" has come out and said that we should be preparing ourselves for a lone wolf "right wing extremist" Anders Breivik style attack here. So the blood spilled then would be running down the drains along with that of the 7/7 bombings, Stephen Lawrence and thousands of indigenous persons murdered by those whose heritage lies elsewhere.
They shouted down poor old Enoch who only had the courage to raise the voice of common sense and yet these social engineers are still trying to bend human nature to suit their utopianist one world dream.
I can't think he called them English. He would have called them white working class. We are the white community. The English are history, don't you know anything?
DeleteI hope you mean this ironically.
DeleteI mean it as they describe us. After all George Allagiah ( or however you spell his name ) told the Hay on Wye literary festival that he now thinks of himself as English.
Deletewhen the poodles of the new labour party commit more terrorist acts in england,with the conivence of the anti english establishment.i would like to think there would be a massive violent backlash..forcing the establishment to show their position.
ReplyDelete