David (Cambridge, Britology Watch): I’d like to draw a new 10 Downing Street e-petition to the attention of OurKingdom readers. This reads as follows: “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to state whether he recognises that England is a nation”. Readers will doubtless have their own ideas concerning the value and purpose of such petitions, especially as those demanding impossible concessions (such as immediate independence for England) abound! However, this one is meant to strike at the real heart of the issue: before we can even address the question of whether England can or should have its own parliament or even independence, we need to establish what, and indeed whether, England actually is.  Read the rest of this post...

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.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Over at Comment Is Free, Paul Kingsnorth reflects on his recent OurKingdom debate with Vron Ware, and re-states his left-wing case for English nationalism: because the English, unlike the Scottish, the Welsh or the people of Northern Ireland, have no political focus for their concerns, they have nowhere to turn to express them. What can happen when such a focus does exist can be seen north of the border. The last decade has seen a transformation of Scotland, as a direct result of the creation of a Scottish parliament. Of course, the Scottish Parliament is itself the product of decades of political mobilisation. Scottish nationalists had no political focus either until they created one. Perhaps the first step for progressive English nationalists is to figure out how to follow that example.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): It seems the Westminster/Holyrood faultine inside the Scottish Labour Party extends to the question of whether there should be a UK football team at the 2012 Olympics. Gordon Brown held out that prospect during his visit to Beijing at the weekend: 'I think when people are looking at the Olympics in 2012 - Britain, home of football, where football was invented, which we gave to the world - I think people would be very surprised if there is an Olympic tournament in football and we are not part of it.' Scottish Labour leadership candidate Cathy Jamieson has proposed an alternative plan: "One option could be a home nations football tournament with the winners representing the UK at the Olympics." Jamieson added: "Team GB should include a football team but not at the expense of Scotland's football team. It would be wrong to gamble with the identity of Scotland's team."  Read the rest of this post...

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Arthur Aughey recently described English nationalism as 'a mood not a movement.' The English Democrats represent one attempt to change that, but it is an attempt which English nationalist blogger Gareth Young suggests is deeply problematic. Over at Little Man in a Toque, Gareth documents the party's attempts to build alliances with far-right fringe groups such as Third Way and England First. "There’s a huge centre-ground of people who vote Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, and it’s those people that the English Democrats need to attract," Gareth writes. This won’t be achieved from a position in the gutter. The EDP have never taken my advice on anything (which is why I reluctantly write this article), and perhaps they won’t now, but for what it’s worth here’s my advice: Stop meeting with racists, instead you should fight them; differentiate yourselves from ethnic nationalists in the minds of the public, help show that English nationalism is not soft white nationalism; move yourself out from the fringes, focus on the mainstream; stop poaching from other parties, recruit from your own ranks, and; for all our sakes start preaching the progressive nationalist values that I think you believe in, make those your main focus and people will find common ground with you. It's good advice, but one can't help feeling that a party that needs such basic lessons in democratic politics is unlikely to be the vehicle that remedies England's democratic deficit.

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): Voice matters. Indeed having a voice and using it is pretty vital when it comes to being heard by others - the first step to getting what you want. What kind of country is it then that isn't happy with its own voice? The answer comes in the form of a recent SpinVox survey of several thousand British adults. It reveals that a stunning three quarters of Brits don't like the sound of their own voices! Expressed in this way, however, the findings can be misleading. Disliking one's own voice isn't a feeling shared across the nations of these isles. Whilst the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish are more than happy with their voices, it is the English who most want to change theirs. Only one regional accent bucks this national trend. Can you guess which one? Clues are: Ant and Dec; "Haway man!"; the bloke who narrates Big Brother.  Read the rest of this post...

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Former Europe Minister Denis McShane made a particularly interesting contribution to the post-mortem on Glasgow East in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday: "After Glasgow," he wrote, "Labour has to do more than debate its leadership and see off excited calls by union leaders for challenges to Gordon Brown. Instead the party has to confront an existential problem of its own making: the question of England."  Read the rest of this post...

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): In the latest edition of Parliamentary Brief, Arthur Aughey looks at how Ken Clarke's Democracy Task Force has attempted to answer the English Question. Although sceptical on the details, he suggests that Clarke's approach reflects distinctive conservative principles that may point the way to a solution. English nationalism is still a mood, not a movement, if only because the Conservative Party refuses to mobilise it as such. The taskforce’s objective is to prevent that mood becoming a movement, confirming the Unionism of the Conservative Party, something David Cameron has taken every opportunity to confirm since becoming leader. If the report becomes party policy, which seems very likely, then the trajectory of Conservative thinking on the ‘English Question’ since 1997 is from constitutional maximalism to constitutional minimalism. It has gone from tentative support for an English parliament, through ‘English votes on English laws’ and Sir Malcolm Rifkind’s idea of an English grand committee,to this taskforce’s present recommendation of certified English bills being considered and voted on by English MPs only in committee and at the report stage.  Read the rest of this post...

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): A report from the Commons Welsh Affairs Committee looked at one of the most sensitive aspects of devolution this week, the impact on NHS services that have traditionally straddled the English/Welsh border. As a consequence of the tensions over diverging funding regimes in Wales and England, evidence suggests that there is a perception that the English NHS is subsidising the Welsh NHS. Evidence also suggests that Welsh patients perceive that they are being treated as second-class citizens within the National Health Service. Both suggestions should be addressed immediately by the Department of Health, the Welsh ssembly Government and health service providers to ensure that patients receiving treatment on both sides of the Welsh-English border are treated fairly and equally, and that they believe this to be the case. In evidence to the Committee, First Minister Rhodri Morgan explained why North Wales in particular is still heavily reliant on specialist services based in England: The population of North Wales is one thirteenth of the population of the North-West of England, therefore the relationship with even the small/medium centres, like Chester, but certainly with Merseyside and Greater Manchester in the provision of health services is totally different from the relationship between South Wales, which as two million people, and the greater Bristol areas, which would also have about two million people.  Read the rest of this post...

David (Cambridge, Britology Watch): There has been much discussion recently – including on Britology Watch – about whether English nationalism can be reconciled with progressive politics; and whether progressives need to espouse the nationalist cause, associate it with left-of-centre values, and thereby prevent it from falling into the hands of the far right.  Read the rest of this post...

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): As Gareth Young reports below Ken Clarke's Democracy Task Force has come up with a new answer to the West Lothian Question The current devolution settlement contains long-term risks to the Union. The Democracy Task Force recommends to David Cameron a modified version of ‘English Votes for English Laws’, incorporating English-only Committee and Report stages but a vote of all MPs at Second and Third Reading. We believe that this proposal can remove the main source of English grievance at the current devolution settlement without some of the risks to political stability that critics have seen in proposals for a completely English procedure. (Answering the West Lothian Question) Gareth is none too happy with this "crude technical" solution, but how have others reacted? Read the rest of this post...

Gareth Young (Lewes, CEP): Ken Clarke's plans to solve the West Lothian Question, have been greeted with predictable disdain by most political commentators. Typical was Iain Dale who declared that "England deserved better": From what I have seen I cannot in any way defend this so-called solution. It is not even a half way house. Either you believe that England should have devolved government or you don't. If you do, then you either believe in English votes on English measures or you believe in some form of English Parliament. But Iain Dale is wrong. Not that England deserves better, of course she does, but because neither Clarke's solution NOR English Votes on English measures are for people who believe that England should have "devolved government" (or "English government" if you prefer). Instead both are crude technical devices that attempt to right the democratic deficit brought about the very absence of English government. Clarke's contrivance is contrived to such a ludicrous degree precisely to avoid even the pretence of an English parliament that EVoEM seems to offer, and the consequent threat that such a democratic English body would pose to the Union when Scots object to it on the grounds of their own irrelevance. Indeed, as Clarke went to pains to point out on the Today Programme, his solution "means that the government retains control of the agenda; it retains control of the money." Scottish MPs would vote on the second reading of an English bill - "which is the vote on principle on the bill" - thereby ensuring the legitimacy of any cabinet government that contained Scottish ministers. But as Malcom Rifkind points out Clarke's mechanism would not have prevented the disgraceful actions of Scottish MPs during the Foundation Hospital and Top-up Fee legislation, even if last week's English Planning Bill amendment, scuppered by Brown's non-English MPs, could have been carried by English rebels. Under Clarke's scheme the English will be denied the affirmative expression of national identity afforded to the Scots; instead English MPs will speak for England only negatively - by wrecking UK Government legislation through the of tabeling ludicrous amendments, or the deleting of English clauses at committee stage. But fear not, for as Clarke points out the UK government retains control, and: "at the final stage all the UK members would vote so if the English have transformed it to a way that is unacceptable to the Government the government could ask its majority to veto and abort the measure." Or in other words if the English have transformed the bill to a manner that is acceptable to the English, the government could abort the legislation. Malcolm Rifkind does offer a slightly more sensible alternative to Clarke's madness: There could be a requirement that at Second Reading and at Report stage, for a vote to be carried on amendments to an England-only Bill, the vote, to be declared carried, would need a majority both of the House as a whole and of MPs representing English constituencies. Though one has to ask Rifkind why, if the English can veto the UK Government, should we bother letting the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish vote at all; why not just let the English draft and vote on their own legislation instead of muddling up UK Government and non-English MPs in the process? The simple answer to that question is "The Barnett Formula", a funding mechanism that provides Scottish MPs with the constitutional right to vote on English legislation by dint of the fact that English domestic legislation determines the block grant due to Scots as an inflated percentage of what is available to the English. Naturally Ken Clarke does not even bother to address the Barnett Formula.  Read the rest of this post...

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon):The gradual emergence of a distinct English nationalism in the wake of devolution has proven problematic for all the main Westminster parties, but perhaps none more so than the Labour Party. It was interesting therefore that last weekend's Compass Conference featured a seminar entitled An England for All: Can a progressive patriotism ever be inclusive? It proved to be a lively and well-attended session. In the chair was Mark Perryman, editor of the new anthology Imagined Nation: England after Britain, reviewed below by Arthur Aughey. "This debate is not being driven by the English," Perryman lamented. "We now live de facto in a disunited kingdom." OK's Anthony Barnett suggested that the debate has moved beyond technical issues like the West Lothian Question, arguing that "the English as a people must have the opportunity of being offered their own Parliament. Read the rest of this post...

Arthur Aughey reviews Imagined Nation: England After Britain by Mark Perryman. (Perryman, Lawrence & Wishart, April 2008, 248pp) This book, inspired by Billy Bragg’s The Progressive Patriot, is another contribution to the contemporary Condition of England Question. The editor has assembled a good company of contributors, some familiar, some celebrated, and some less well-known, whose essays, individually and collectively, are worthy of serious reflection. This review will concentrate mainly on the collective spirit albeit with reference to individual authors. Those who have been following the debate will be familiar with not only the arguments but with the tone. Nor will they be surprised that the energy comes from those on the left rather than the right. First, there is the call for the English to re-imagine a strong national consciousness (to recover one would be too conservative). This left/liberal vision celebrates a civic, liberal, multi-ethnic, hybrid, mongrel, idea of Englishness (choose the appropriate label) but it is an idea that, in the past, it has struggled to reconcile with native populism. There has always been the suspicion, best expressed in the past by Paul Gilroy, of the ‘two World Wars and one World Cup’ beer-fuelled nativism lurking beneath the traditionally conceived civilities of Englishness. This is a suspicion which often makes the liberal-left vision more elitist and therapeutic in its approach to the nation than its conservative counterpart which, in its turn, is more ill at ease with England’s cultural diversity. The vision in Imagined Nation provides an alternative understanding of English patriotic sentiment: that putting out more flags of St George represents what may be called the ‘autonomy of populism’, an expression of patriotic attachment that falls outside the boundaries of party political debate. Its autonomy challenges the normal discourse of British politics and its populism presents an opportunity. Many of the contributors, Andy Newman and Stephen Brasher for example, try to identify the opportunity for the left. Read the rest of this post...

Gareth Young (Lewes, CEP): In the knowledge that the Scottish Government spends £300,000 a year promoting St Andrew's Day "to help promote our distinctive national identity and attract tourists", it must have been with some embarrassment that Margaret Hodge revealed that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport spent just £230 over the past five years on promoting St George's Day. As the Daily Mail was only too quick to point out it is yet another example of Government words not matching Government deeds: This April, Downing Street proudly raised the flag, and Mr Brown's spokesman said: 'The prime minister's view is that of course we should celebrate our Britishness, but celebrating our Britishness does not mean we cannot also celebrate our Englishness, Scottishness, Welshness or Northern Irishness.' Justice Secretary Jack Straw urged the English to reclaim the day from 'bigots'. 'Anyone proud to be English is equally proud of St George and what, down the ages, his myth and his flag have come to represent for this nation within the United Kingdom,' he wrote in the Daily Mail. Read the rest of this post...

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): A new report by IPPR North asks whether the media is creating cultural distance between England and Scotland. Author Douglas Fraser, the Scottish political editor of The Herald, answers with an emphatic yes, documenting how the London press has ignored even those Scottish stories, like the Calman Commission's review of Scottish finance, which have major implications for England. Broadcasting may yet prove central to the developing relationship between England and Scotland, Fraser believes. The debate here is symbolised by the question of the 'Scottish Six, long proposed as an alternative to the main BBC News programme from London. Fraser is suspicious of the Scottish Government's calls for more broadcasting powers, suggesting that they could lead to increased political interference. At the same time, he acknowledges that John Birt's alliance with Tony Blair to block the Scottish Six was itself a highly political episode. Read the rest of this post...

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): The Telegraph has an interesting leak from the Conservative Party's long-awaited Democracy Task Force report. It claims that Ken Clarke's committee has rejected Malcolm Rifkind's proposals for an English Grand Committee. Instead, he is said to have advised allowing all MPs to vote on English legislation at the initial second reading stage of parliamentary scrutiny. But only English MPs would get to vote during the detailed committee stage of the legislative process, where real changes can be effected. At the third and final reading, all MPs could once again vote, but a new parliamentary undertaking would prevent any party using Scottish votes to block amendments made by English MPs.   A sceptical Gareth Young has dubbed the plan 'English pauses for English causes.' Iain Dale has denounced it as a sop.  Read the rest of this post...

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): "At some stage — perhaps very soon — the English Question will explode into British politics, and will decisively change the political landscape," Frank Field argues in a Telegraph piece today. The front page of the Sunday Times suggests that Field is not alone among Labour MPs. The anti-Scots backlash has been prompted in part by the humiliation of the Crewe by-election where Labour’s campaign was run by a Scot, Steve McCabe, a government whip. He has been criticised for running a negative campaign caricaturing the Conservatives as “toffs” that backfired among English voters. The paper quotes Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, calling for Jack Straw to be installed as an English Deputy Prime Minister, and MPs Keith Hoyle and Steven Ladyman demanding more English voices in the cabinet. There are four Scots in the cabinet, including Brown and Darling. Douglas Alexander, the international development secretary from Renfrewshire, and Kilwinning’s Des Browne, the defence secretary, are both highly rated by the prime minister, but some English MPs question their ability to communicate with voters south of the border. Read the rest of this post...

This is a response by Vron Ware to Paul Kingsnorth's review of her book Who Cares About Britishness? in which she sets out the fundamental differences between her approach to national identity and that of Kingsnorth in Real England. Vron Ware (author): I bought Paul Kingsnorth's book Real England a few weeks ago after reading a positive review of it. I was enthusiastic about his project of bringing an anti-globalisation perspective to the destruction of England's distinctive environments as I also feel passionately about this. I have been writing about a particular English locality for ten years now, tracking the impact of global forces on every area of life. I've also been working on and against racism and nationalism, attentive to the past and future relationships between Britain and England. When I read him I realised that there are differences between us. Now, Kingsnorth's mean-spirited and inaccurate review of my book commissioned by the British Council, Who Cares About Britishness? A global view of the national identity debate (Arcadia, 2007) suggests that there is little common ground between us. Rather than just respond to his attack I'd like to assess his whole approach. Kingsnorth employs the well-worn method of identifying the 'Real England' by travelling around the country to document a tale of damage, decline and neglect. The portrait of Englishness that he paints conveys a lament for better times, coupled with a reluctance to protest effectively at the destruction of 'ways of life' and institutions that once developed out of local, English culture. I thought the book would also bring an added dimension, especially since George Monbiot's recommendation on the front cover announces that the book 'helps to shape our view of who we are and who we want to be'. In particular, given his knowledge of the movement inspired by the World Social Forum I hoped he would combine an environmentalist rage with a critique of the racially coded nationalism which is often implicit in this genre of writing about England. Instead, he does not really address the question of who counts as English, and who the 'we' are, talking vaguely of people 'of all backgrounds'. The fact that he is prepared to define himself as a nationalist indicates that he is not interested in connecting his position to a discussion about the future of England as a postcolonial country at ease with itself and alive to the value of a cosmopolitan future. Read the rest of this post...

Gareth Young (Lewes, CEP): What comes first, nationalism or the nation? For Mark Perryman it seems that an English Parliament is inevitable; England is the human flotsam that will emerge as the good ship Britannia sinks after offloading its Celtic jetsam. And our task - as inheritors of the new state - is to begin preparations for how we want that nation to be: A pluralist England founded on space not race, Englishness, an inclusive nationality for all. In 10-20 years, says Mark, we will arrive at "England after Britain". It's a timescale based on three assumptions: Scotland will vote for independence; Ireland, due to a Catholic hegemony, will be reunited, and; Wales will have a Parliament. No need, then, for a Campaign for an English Parliament? Except, that of the three assumptions, the only one that I think is inevitable is Wales gaining a parliament. Northern Ireland is becoming greener but a Catholic majority is still a long way off, and since the Belfast Agreement gives the Republic a veto on reunification no outcome should be assumed. And for Scots the romantic dream of "Freedom!" is not yet matched by an overwhelming desire for complete political independence from the rest of the UK. Read the rest of this post...