Give us a moral vision for England

I think this gadgie is on our side.

Marquand - a socialist? The BBC is a socialist broadcasting corporation?

Have I woken up in a parrallel universe, by any chance?

To argue that Enoch Powell was the only English figure to put forward an English national myth is self-serving nonsense. Powell was a dyed-in-the-wool Unionist and imperialist as well as a racist.

And Marquand - if Wales and Scotland had seen the kind of mass immigration England has, your countries would have produced your own Powells. And worse.

We'll see how tolerant the "proud Celts" with their "wonderful nationalism" are when 30% of the population of Edinburgh and Cardiff consists of visible ethnic minorities.

Personally, I'm neither a republican, Puritan (Milton) nor a Romantic humanistic utopian (Blake) - I'm a Catholic and a supporter of constitutional monarchy: both solid English traditions as much as the republican and socialist strand. If anything, I would argue that the libertarian and egalitarian tendencies are more associated with 'Britology', to use my term: the myth-making discourse of Britishness. Which is not at all the same thing as saying that freedom and equality/fairness as such are more British qualities and aspirations than English ones; but rather that liberty and equality have tended to be preached by the British state in tandem with the imposition or would-be imposition of British commercial, economic and political power - most notably, through the Empire and, in more recent times, through New Labour's military misadventures in the name of 'British' liberal values.

It's up to the English how they wish to reinvent and live out the values of freedom, equality and fairness. In the first instance, however, freedom and fairness needs to be shown to the English by reversing the fiscal and political injustices of the English Question, and by giving us a representative democracy like that enjoyed by the other nations of the UK.

A few points:

1. I don't see why a democratic demand - which is what the call for a devolved English parliament is -has to posses a specific moral vision beyond that of favouring self-government?

2. Would the same criticism - a lack of moral vision - have applied to the Welsh or Scottish nationalists if one or the other nation had been denied a referendum on a devolved government?

3. The phase "fit for self-government" is remeniscent of colonialist arguments against anti-colonial movements, which reminds me of what Tony Benn said of England in the early nineties:

"England is also entitled to its own cultural and political identity. The cultural identity of the English has been submerged by a history of dominating the United Kingdom and the world, such that the common people of England have been persuaded that in return for status as subjects of a King or Queen-Emperor, they somehow shared the glory of that Empire. In fact England, like Scotland and Wales is the colony that never secured its own liberation from that monarchical power."

4. Now, I am oviously not a royalist, but why should the demand for English devolution be specifically republican? Any single-issue campaign has to appeal to a wide variety of people who have differing views on what form of government the UK should have - so the CEP doesn't have a line on English independence or the future of the monarchy,

Disagree with this. Britain IS England. When are peope going to realise, that what people around the world view as being British and being English is fundamentally the same.

Thats why there's all this angst about "What is English"? Its because people erroneously believe that once you take Britishness out of the equation, they don't know what English is, because surely it must be something different? They're confused.

Britishness is a lie, it always was, the Welsh are more "British" then the English, but thats to use the term correctly, which is something that "British" has not been since 1707!

My problem with Britain and British is that it has smothered the English nation, the word that is "English", for the past three hundred years. How dare this fop tell me I don't know what my identity is!

Give me ten seconds and I can give you a list....

"Our Kingdom", what a joke...

There is some truth in this, I concede. Whilst true that the English seem wedded to the idea of Westminster sovereignty - rather than the higher-minded (as David sees it) Welsh and Scottish nationalism - that doesn't, to my mind, exclude them from the option of self-government if that's what they choose.

Or is the upshot of this that the English can only choose home rule if it's based on democratic socialism?

To quote David Marquand: "Though the metropolitan liberal intelligentsia has never been comfortable with the idea, the English are a people, too. If the peoples of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are entitled to autonomy over a wide range of policy areas, how can it be right to deny it to the English?"

Amen to that. To let the English nation decide how they are governed will establish a sovereignty of the people, an idea that has so far been denied to them - not least by people like Marquand who promoted the idea of English regionalism with John Tomaney in the early years of Blair.

As an Englishman from the North East of England, I am proud of my role in the NO campaign against a regional assembly. It was probably Marquand who dreamed up the Yes Campaign's stunt at Newcastle Station of a braying hooray Henry type with top hat and monocle, getting off the London train supposedly to tell us Northerners what to do. Marquand's Yes Campaigners then started a campaign in the press of villification of southern English people.

Where is Tomaney nowadays Marquand,hiding under a rock?

Gadgie,

Marquand probably is on our side if we ditch the Hobbesian doctrine of absolute sovereignty in crown-in-parliament, if we cast aside Powell's 'sacred olive tree' that is the unlimited supremecy of Westminster. There is a wider game here, the noble pursuit of destroying England's inherent conservatism.

English Votes on English Matters is an attempt to preserve that, so perhaps the campaign for an English parliament can count on Marquand's support if we ditch the monarchy and sign up to the Weimar Republic.

I'm not dishonest. Marquand was involved with Tomaney in the Yes Campaign. Marquand's article today fits in with the Yes Campaigns tactics in the North East.

If it was not him perhaps he'd like to tell us whose idea it was?. I contacted a few organizations in the North East but they all ducked.

It is not England or the English that need a moral vision, it's people like Marquand.

David puts the English in a 'Morton's fork'. If they demand national political representation it is only for negative reasons. At the same time it is their fault that they do not express their national identity vigorously enough. Why is the growth of national feeling in Scotland and Wales 'wonderful' while any celebration of English national identity is described in such a negative way? Who is being negative, David?

An English Parliament would provide a focus for the English nation, just as the 'late' Tony Blair said that a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh National Assembly would provide a focus for those nations. It's not so much a 'me too' response by the English as a 'why not us?' At present England has no voice. Why is England gagged?

Since 2006 a series of opinion polls has consistently reported support for some form of English Parliament at over 60%. The question to ask is therefore why does the British Government fail to acknowledge the will of the people and at least offer the English a referendum? Why does democratic choice and 'sovereignty of the people' stop at the border? Why does the Government insist that the English must have what they do not want - division into so-called regions? This is a genuine democratic deficit, not sour grapes. The Unionists simply refuse to acknowledge the right of the English people to choose the form of government best suited to their needs.

The English know perfectly well who they are but regrettably the British Government does its best to tell the English that they are British rather than English and that they must be prepared to sacrifice their own national identity in order to preserve the Union. Mr Brown proposes to teach Britishness not Englishess in English schools. He is assisted by many taxpayer-funded quangos, charities, newspapers, placemen and even supermarkets, between them deploying billions of pounds of funding.

And yet the English, like the Poles when they were partitioned by Austria, Russia and Prussia in the 18th Century, refuse to give up being themselves. Gisela Stuart complained a year or so back that many of her constituents were misguided enough to tell her that they were English rather than British. Expect more to do so. Brown's policies are, despite himself, fuelling the revival of English nationalism as more and more English people come to realise that unless they stand up for their country it may disappear. The demand for an English Parliament is at its core a demand for the restoration of English liberties and democracy, a noble cause rather than a 'mean-minded' response to devolution. As Neil Ascherson told Mr Brown recently those very British values he is so keen on espousing are largely English values.

The fundamental flaw in the devolution arrangements is that the legislators thought that they could abolish England altogether and turn it into the national equivalent of Middlesex - a forgotten administrative unit which occasionally re-appears in addresses or on sporting occasions.

The English do not want to be abolished. Give them a chance, David, and stop these mean-minded, negative sour comments. Take a positive line and encourage a wonderful growth in positive English national feeling.

England iis the only part of the UK that is directly governed by the UK government. All other nations and N Ireland have been allowed a referendum to decide how they should be governed and it is unfair that the people of England have not been given the same choice.

One of the virtues of being English is being slow to take offence and often apathetic about academic constitutional issues. But there is steadily growing realisation and annoyance about the results of being unfairly governed. In a period of relatively prosperous economic circumstances this is not surprising but when the economic cycle turns against us (which may be iminent) there could be an explosive reaction leading to the break up of the Union. Those who wish to preserve the Union should realise that there may be little time left to find a solution.

The CEP has been pointing out this unfairness for the last ten years and only now are the Westminster politicians beginning to accept that there is a real problem. All parties ought to be joining the English Constitutional Convention to seek an urgentlty needed solution.

The whole thing is racist - that people can die in England for want of medication available on the NHS in Scotland, that the English public services and NHS are underfunded, that other UK MPs foist legislation onto England, that people in England scrape together money for prescriptions available free to millionaires in Wales.

It's spite - some kind of "pay back" for perceived injustices in the past. These "injustices" are far from clear cut when closely examined. It's simply that the perceived wrongs of "Britain" are heaped upon England.

There is no noble vision. It is a racist elite (the pure "Celt" thing is terrifying and inaccurate) ruling a "great unwashed". That people cannot see the racist element in all this worries me intensely.

England must have its own parliament.