open Democracy News Analysis - Brown must recognise England's claim of right, Gareth Young - Comments

Hendre on "Brown must recognise England's claim of right"

Hendre — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:52:26 +0100

Yes, the Labour vote in Scotland is certainly vulnerable but looking at what the SNP has to do in order to gain a majority of seats at Westminster I suspect they will need all the vagaries of FPTP working in their favour to achieve that.

It will be interesting to see how the Labour Party in Scotland position themselves at the next by-election -more crude appeals to unionism may well backfire.

Toque on "Brown must recognise England's claim of right"

Toque — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:50:15 +0100

I wouldn't say that "it's on the cards", but it's not off the cards. The way that Labour are going nothing is off the cards, and I see the SNP, rather the the Tories or Lib Dems, as the main beneficiaries of the collapse in Labour's vote.

Labour may rally in Scotland as the official opposition to the SNP, or the "party of the union". In fact, that's probably their best tactic. The upcoming by-election will be a good indicator.

Hendre on "Brown must recognise England's claim of right"

Hendre — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:27:48 +0100

“It is just possible that the SNP may gain a majority of the Scottish Westminister seats at the next General Election …”

The SNP may have momentum but is a 23 seat gain really on the cards?

Labour 38

Lib Dems 12

SNP 7

Cons 1

Speaker 1

britologywatch on "Brown must recognise England's claim of right"

britologywatch — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:06:04 +0100

Gareth,

As you and I well know, for Brown and the UK government to recognise the sovereignty of the English people would require renouncing the sovereignty of the UK parliament over English affairs. Brown and the Labour Party have enough troubles clinging on to power at the moment to carry out a wholesale undermining of the basis for that power! Still, the demand is a fair and reasonable one, and an appeal to justice that needs to be made.

Perhaps the sovereignty of the UK parliament over English matters is the underlying structural - as opposed to tactical - reason why the government can't overtly acknowledge the England-only nature of many of its actions, and shies away from referring to 'England' as a nation rather than as the one 'part' of the UK over which its unitary rule still applies. If there is no such thing as English popular sovereignty, that implies that England officially is not a (sovereign) nation, and that there is no such thing as 'the people of England' who might be in a position to determine the future of 'their own' nation and their forms of governance. A call for English popular sovereignty at root involves a demand for recognition of the existence of England as a nation in its own (sovereign) right.

Maybe this is the tactic English nationalists need to adopt: not just demanding a parliament or sovereign self-determination but demanding recognition as a nation, like any nation that is fighting to establish and maintain itself as an independent entity, such as the Kosovos or Georgias of this world. Before England can be a sovereign, self-ruling parliamentary democracy, it has first to be a nation. Maybe demanding national and international recognition as a nation would be a cause that could get some popular support and momentum behind it. The government could be directly challenged to respond to the question: Do you accept that England is a nation? If they say no, this would provoke an angry outcry; if they say yes, then they've admitted the principle on which sovereignty and self-determination depend.

Brown must recognise England's claim of right, Gareth Young

Gareth Young — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:49:05 +0100

Gareth Young (Lewes, CEP): The Scottish Claim of Right of 1988 was signed by all the Scottish Labour MPs, with the exception of Tam Dalyell. In 1997, with the advent of the Labour Government of the UK, one third of that initial cabinet (8 out of 24) had signed that claim and were thus pivotal in influencing the Labour UK Government, which issued the white paper, the Scotland Devolution Bill 1998.

The Scottish Claim of Right acknowledged that the Scottish people have the sovereign right to decide the form of government best suited to their needs. That 'form of government' must include independence as well as devolution, yet those cabinet members do not seem in any great hurry to hold a referendum on independence. When they signed the Claim quite possibly it never occurred to them that the Scottish people might decide to get rid of them altogether. They should be reminded of it at every opportunity. Rather than display a willingness to hold a referendum on independence, apart from Wendy Alexander's short-lived "Bring it on!", the Unionists claim instead that because there is a Unionist majority in the Scottish Parliament, the people of Scotland have "voted for the Union". It is just possible that the SNP may gain a majority of the Scottish Westminister seats at the next General Election, and if so that will mean, according to Unionist logic, that the people of Scotland have voted for independence. I'm sure they will try wriggle out of that.

The Scottish Claim of Right was a principled recognition of the sovereign right of the people. It is hypocritical of Gordon Brown, and others who signed that Claim of Right, to now deny that same sovereign right to the people of England, especially as recognition of the Scottish sovereign right has moved power away from Westminster in a way that has damaged English voters.