David Marquand writes: "So far as I know, no one has yet put forward a positive case for devolution to England, based on a moral vision of what England and the English stand for or might come to stand for." Charlie Marks has already pointed out that 'a moral vision of what England stands for' (whatever that might mean) is not a necessary feature of the case for devolution to England. But it's surprising that Mr Marquand hasn't come across the principal and unanswerable (if non-visionary) case for devolution to England, namely that we have stumbled half-way into a full federal system in the UK: that stopping half-way throws up numerous indefensible and destabilising anomalies, of which the most flagrant is pithily summed up in the West Lothian Question: and that the only solution to these problems, apart from dissolving the Union altogether, is to complete the federal project -- which necessarily entails devolution to England. A full federation of the four UK nations will have huge advantages, including a massive transfer of powers and responsibilities from the federal organs at Westminster to the four nations' governments and legislatures, leaving Westminster with little more than foreign affairs and defence. The UK disease of gross over-centralisation and micro-management from the centre will at last be cured. All four of the nations, not just England, will assume full responsibility for all their internal affairs. The hunger for more real devolved powers in Scotland and Wales will be satisfied. Democratic politics, brought much closer to ordinary people throughout the UK (and not just along its fringes), will be re-invigorated. It has worked well for years in the US, Australia, Canada, Germany and many other western democracies: why are we so scared of it here?

The case for devolution to England is subsumed in the case for a federation of the United Kingdom: urgent, positive, unanswerable. I hope Mr Marquand will give it fair, unbiased and non-prejudicial consideration.

Brian

http://www.barder.com/ephems/

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.

Apologies to all readers, the date of the Conference on the future of England is Saturday 26th APRIL 2008

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.

Hotspur is quite right to mention Marquand was a leader in the North East England Assemblies Yes Campaign.We have to know where these people are coming from,and what is their agenda.You really do not think all the most lucid and fair debates in all of England will matter one jot to people like Marquand.Having had such a blow to their plans for the Assemblies,they have been badly wounded,so are striking back as hard as they can

And if this letter goes against Our Kingdoms code so be it ,

You have to "know thine enemy "and to let them know that you know!

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.

Perhaps David Marquand would like to attend the Conference on the Future of England which takes place in the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London on Saturday 26th March 2008. Speakers wil include John Redwood MP, Frank Field MP and Simon Lee, senior lecturer in political economy at Hull University.

Scilla Cullen, Chairman of the Campaign for an English Parliament

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.

There is a fundamental flaw in the campaign for an English Parliament and its feeble echoes in current Conservative talk of English votes for English bills.

The CEP opposes English Votes on English Matters. It's unworkable and doesn't give the English the a nation, devolved government like the other 3 nations of the UK have.

They are entirely reactive: negative, sour, mean-minded, ‘me-too’ responses to the wonderful growth of national feeling in Scotland and Wales.

Why is the growth of national feeling in Scotland and Wales wonderful but not in England? The last independent survey the CEP commissioned showed 67% want an English Parliament - why is this growth of English national feeling not wonderful?

So far as I know, no one has yet put forward a positive case for devolution to England, based on a moral vision of what England and the English stand for or might come to stand for.

Sorry, why do we have to reinvent ourselves as a nation and a people just to get what the rest of the UK has? England isn't a naughty puppy that has to be smacked on the nose with a newspaper to be taught to behave. Ask someone dying from cancer or going blind from ARMD because they can't have the medical treatment the Scottish Parliament lets Scots have whether they can come up with a moral case for an English Parliament.

Unless and until the English decide who they are, and rediscover the buried republican tradition of Milton and Blake, they will not be fit for self government.

So we also have to give up our royal family before we are deemed "fit for self government"?

They will have to stagger on in their usual ‘pragmatic’, negative, utilitarian way and leave the task of building democratic political cultures in an increasingly threadbare Britain to the Scots and Welsh.

What? Is this a joke? This Scottish-British government has done more to remove democracy, accountability, liberty and morality from government in the last decade than the entire three centuries a British government has existed. Unbelievable!

Just who are you David Marquand? Who or what gives you the right to insult the English, to tell us that we aren't fit to govern ourselves, to talk down any sense of national pride or desire?

You are a member of the Labour Party and a former member of the Lib Dems - both of which support devolution in Scotland and Wales where they have political support but prefer to balkanise England by implementing the EU's regional structure instead.

I wouldn't find what you say so offensive if you were English yourself but you're not, you're Welsh. I'm sick to death of Scots and Welsh telling English people what we do and don't want, what we can and can't have. Your country already has devolved government, butt out and let us get on with securing the same for ourselves.

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.

Hotspur, your's is close to being just the kind of ad hominem comment that ruins web discussion sites. David Marquand calls for England to have a moral vision and you attack him for the North East campaign launched by Prescott. What's that got to do with it? Please think before you post. Thank you

Anthony

PS: Let me be more specific, Hotspur, your comment is close to being dishonest. You allege it was "probably" Marquand who organised the North East 'Yes' campaign, a ridiculous suggestion, and then proceed to assume that your suggestion is a fact. There is a really good level of honest comment and debate on OurKingdom and we intend to keep this and will refuse to run what is in effect 'noise' not debate. See our guide on how to post. Thanks again.

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?

Ex-labour MP Marquand reeks of establishment fear and loathing.

The fundamental flaw with the CEP is that they are not radical enough and should come out in favour of complete independence.

The moral case is that England must be free - free from UK and EU oppression.

Home rule for England.

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.

Hmmmm. I don't know what to say.

It's just breathtaking. Swingeing statements, delivered as if fact, wall-to-wall insults, hints that England has discovered the wrong kind of nationalism - and only made tangible because we nicked the idea from the Scots, the Welsh and Mel Gibson - and then somehow corrupted those ideals of jolly noble visionings to a sour vexation fuelled by nastyism of the English kind..

Apparently, according to the author, English nationalism is somehow fuelled by envy and sour, mean minded me-twoism. Well obviously, it would be wouldn't it.

And of course, English nationalism would just have to be handcuffed to the right wing idealism of Enoch Powell, wouldn't it?. So old Knocker was 'The only English political leader who has tried to articulate an English national Myth in our time'.....

I don't think so. Powell was an uber Unionist. His myth, his vision was a British one. Powell, the man with the 100% British ident, Welsh parents, an Ulster Unionist MP in later life, and obsessed with Britain not joining the Common Market - then getting out of it once we had joined.

But then again, Powell is painted as a right wing nutter - so there must be something vaguely Anglo-Wagnerian, something a bit teutonically-dodgy in a Saxonish kind of way.... Something a bit ENGLISH about him, right?

To truly see how one-eyed Marquand's piece is, why not replace 'England' with 'Scotland' and vice versa - then re-read it.

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...

David Marquand exposes the socialist quisling approach to doing down England so that Scots and Welsh socialists can rule.

There is a clear English identity and proud history. It does not help that the socialist broadcasting corporation keeps putting out programs on British History which are really English history.

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,

Just to add to the above. This wonderful resurgence of Welsh and Scottish nationalism has also been accompanied by the "Braveheart" brigade who believe Hollywood movies, think burning down holiday cottages is acceptable behaviour, and attacking people wearing England football tops is ok.

England does not need that kind of nationalism, neither that of the type streaked with spite at past wars, buck passing and revenge.

Us English have our own culture and traditions and we can happily survive as our own country like we did long before the 1707 Act of Union!

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.

David, aka Britology: but what have you got to say about the wonderful tradition of Milton and Blake?

Anthony

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.

If anything is "negative, sour, mean-minded", it is Marquand's anglophobia. Does Marquand like the English in any way? If you start off with the premise that English nationalists and patriots are reactionary philistines and bigots, which seems to be his view, then clearly we are not 'worthy' of democratic self-rule and need to be held at arm's length by the Pan-Celtic British Alliance.

Do we need an English national Myth? We've got one already: it's Britain and Britishness. That has served its time, and we do need to define a new way ahead for England. But it's the English people alone who can decide where that way should lead.

David, aka Britology Watch

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

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

David Marquand trots out the usual trite, leftist, Anglophobic, drivel that has become the stock in trade of the anti-English brigade. He falls into the trap – maybe deliberately - of propagating the stale myth of the heroic Celt. He ignores the quite obvious and vibrant development of a separate English myth, culture, history and traditions over the centuries and how those traditions and expressions of English nationhood and culture were deliberately smothered to make way for notions of Britishness in a way that Celtic culture was not and from which Scotland and Wales benefited. His offensive and deeply insulting comments indicate the depths to which the Anglophobes will sink to prevent England from regaining its freedom. Think back to pre-devolution days and to the nature of the debates in Scotland and Wales and you find an often vicious and deeply sinister anti-Englishness; no heroic democratic myth there. As for democracy, well, Scotland with a population of 5million has its own parliament; Wales with a population of about 3 million has its assembly; and, England with a population of 50 million has neither a representative chamber nor government of its own. If we are looking for ‘entirely reactive: negative, sour, mean-mindedness’ we need look no futher than Anglophobes fo his ilk. The positve, forward looking, vibrant and fresh democratic thinking is, as usual, coming from England and the English and particularly the Campaign for an English Parlaiment.

I think this gadgie is on our side.

Marquand ignores the main aspct of this debate: England has not been given its democratic right to say how it wishes to govern itself. This right has been extended to all other parts of the UK and it is clearly unfair that the people of England continue to be denied.This issue can only be properly resolved by a referendum in England .

[...] a couple of posts on Our Kingdom (here & here) David Marquand has accused the campaign for an English parliament of being ‘entirely [...]