England will be free

"Lets be clear the devolution settlement was fundamentally anti-English."

No it wasn't. Devolution by design is the granting of limited autonomy from a strong centre to peripheral regions. In the case of the UK the central Anglo-British identity and functions of state remained unchanged. The whole principle of devolution, which is based on the idea of a unitary Greater England, would fall apart of England got its own parliament. That's not devolution that's federalism.

"...remember England voted Conservative at the last general election..."

No it didn't. Even throwing the Lib-Dems into the equation still gives Labour a 43 seat majority among English seats for the 2005 election. It's probably more now with the defection of at least one Tory MP to Labour.

England will get its parliament when Scotland votes to leave the union. It will never get a parliament under any federal system as neither the Conservatives, the Lib-Dems or Labour want one as it would be a further step on the road to the dissolution of the union. If you think David Cameron's going to create an English parliament your living in a dream world.

The unionists are between a rock and a hard place. They can't give England its own parliament because that's federalism and would entail the complete rejigging of the constitution and the Westminster parliament and would further weaken the union. But if they refuse to give England a parliament that inflames the English and also weakens the union.

I suppose for those like me who want an independent Scotland it's a win-win situation.

I know what you mean, Sarah. There is an unspoken censorship directed towards any discussion or discourse at the highest levels of the media or public life that refer to England as a distinct nation, rather than just as an informal name for part of the UK. I've posted numerous discussions of this on my blog.

But that's the point: a huge debate IS going on, even if the Westminster politicians are too scared to even utter the word 'England'. We're having that debate now, in this blog. The country - England - is moving away from the unionist politicians and media; and sooner or later, they're going to wake up to that fact, if only for their own survival. There are already signs that GB [Gordon Brown] is treading more softly around the whole Britishness agenda, and the Daily Telegraph seems quietly to have dropped its 'Proud to be British' campaign, given all the huge rejection it was getting from its core target and readership: conservative English opinion.

Things are shifting at the grass roots, and eventually, there'll be a filter-up effect - even if it has to be more independence for Scotland that forces the politicians to realise that their version of the Union simply does not exist any more.

David, aka Britology Watch

"It’s a neat point to say it does not have to be republican, but what is to _be English_ as opposed to not being Scottish or Welsh?"

Didn't take long for the 'What is English anyway crowd' to put in an appearance did it? Funny how despite what being Scottish and Welsh is being , apparently, so well known they never see fit to offer the definitions for what they are that they demand from anyone English before we're allowed to ask for anything.

One of the arguments the left like to use is that with an English Parliament there would be always be a Tory majority, but it never worried them that Tory voters in Scotland would have to live under scottish labour forever. The uk new labour party (run by scots)and scottish new labour in scotland (run by scots) have used anti English bigotry to demolish the scottish tories. What I find very hard to take is the complete roll over by English MP's (for the sake of the union) and have allowed scottish mp's to practice their anti English bigotry in our own country.

Much of the comment is predicated on an assumption that a free England with her own pariament would be automatically a Tory fief forever. This assumption is hardly ever questioned but is completely wrong .

In the same way that Scotland and Wales after self government are rapidly casting off the old political stranglehold of the Left and developing a much more complicated politics , the same process will happen in England with the existing parties which bedevil us .

The present political stasis of 100 years in which two and a half parties dominate all politics is the product of the British state , will be thrown away . It is partly happening already with the widespread withdrawal of support from these old parties .

Do we have to search that hard to find a 'moral case' for English free self-determination, i.e. the chance to decide whether we want to be a nation that governs its own affairs or whether we're content to be absorbed into a supra-national Britain, EU and global village? There, I've said it: 'free self-determination' - that's a good a definition of a / the fundamental English political and philosophical value. It corresponds to a deep-rooted characteristic of the English: the value and respect for the individual; the individual's right to live their life as they choose so long as they do not infringe the same right for others; a love of privacy and domestic life, coupled with real, if often imperfectly expressed, concern for those around us in our local communities.

And these characteristics extend beyond the individual, and the narrow confines of the home and neighbourhood, to the nation and the country (evoking also the land): it's a characteristic of the English to love England it- / herself, the precious and threatened rural environment, the great cities, the marvellous heritage and history that's all around us, and the massive contribution (beyond the size of our land and our people) that we've made to creating the modern world, for good or ill.

There are, perhaps, as many visions of what it means to be English as there are English people. But it should be for the English to decide how to translate those visions into a political programme that is worthy of our respect and assent. And that's a moral 'should': the imperative of democracy.

I think the Tories have alot to fear from a free England. They have deliberately frustrated England's right to debate her future, have allowed Scots like Rifkind to pronounce on England's future with daft ideas like Grand Committees, when they know anything less than an English Parliament is a slap in the nation's face. Even Mark Field (MP Tory) had the guts to say what is unsayable in the Tories, that an English Parliament wouldn't be a heavy bureaucratic nightmare and was the only practical solution.

There is no guarantee the Tories are a party most people would want to vote for in fact the biggest contingent of public opinion lies in those who wouldn't vote Labour or Tory!

Tories were beaten to death supportwise for betraying the Scots and I have no doubt the same will be true of the English to them. The Tories have no moral compass, are pro British and anti English and are chock full of people who owe their political careers to a Britishocentric party. Too many people have too muc going their way to want to give it up and it is this self interest we are fighting against.

England will be free as the writer says, it is a question of when not if, and whether that change has to be fought for or willingly given.

It would make more sense for all concerned to let the people decide, let the people vote - the politicians of course won't because none of them are democrats, they want to manipulate the result and save their own skin - for that reason alone I wouldn't vote Labour, Tory or Lib Dem.

Annoying as it undoubtedly is to be challenged by the question of what it is to be English, I think Anthony is right to frame the issue in terms of identity and - in relation to Marquand's article - national myths. The crisis of the Union does involve a profound identity crisis: one that involves English and British individuals' sense of their own identity - and national identity - as much as collective, shared concepts of English nationhood (national myths).

I think there is a sense in which many English people - perhaps David Marquand is one of them; I sense that uncertainty, even desperation, in his piece - don't know what it is to be English: what 'Englishness' actually means. And that's a personal issue as much as it is a political and ideological one. This is because an individual's national identity is an integral part of their identity per se - the sense of belonging to a group, tribe, ethny, nation, or whatever, being a fundamental part of personal identity.

The problem is that the English - collectively and, hence, individually - have defined themselves as British for three centuries: that's been their national myth, and there's never been any deep sense of contradiction between having a personal identity as English (born, brought up and living in England) and a national / state identity as British. The break up of the Union that began with the 1998 devolution settlement also initiated a break up of that unity of the English-British identity: of that identification of the English with Britain. This identification, and the national myth that it sustains and which it is sustained by, is what the establishment has been desperately trying to cling on to with all the Britishness mullarkey, and all the deranged pretence that political and governmental business that now relates to England only is somehow still integrally British in a way it was before 1998.

This attempt to maintain the British identity and myth on the part of the English is doomed to failure because the Britain it was based on has ceased to exist. All the evidence is that the British identity will continue to break up as the Scots and Welsh affirm their separate nationhood and win ever greater political powers over their own lives. Britishness only existed when there was a Britain for the English to govern as 'their' realm. As the English are increasingly left to their own devices, there is no way and actually no rationale - politically, culturally or psychologically - for the almost literally mad desire on the part of some English people to be British not English to be sustained. England will be England, and there won't be a Britain in political terms.

But that will still leave the task of defining what it is and means to be English (psychologically, culturally) to be gone through: collectively by the new 'official' English nation/state, and individually by the many millions of English people who still define their personal-national identity in terms of the myths and ideals of Britishness. Those of us who already recognise the political necessity and psychological / cultural sanity of accepting, indeed loving, ourselves and our countrymen as English can consider ourselves to be further down the road of recovery from the delusions of British grandeur. But this is a road that all of us English people will need to continue travelling down for some time to come.

I still think David Marquand's main point has not been addressed. It is all very well to say let's get on with it. Or to take the Line Gareth Young does on Toque that Charlie Marks' reply to Marquand meets all the points. http://toque.co.uk/blog/?p=729

Logically, it may. But why less than 300 sigs to the petition? Because it is not a matter of saying, they have parliaments now it is our turn. David M's point is there is a need for a postive, moral case, something inspiring which says how England will speak to the world. It's a neat point to say it does not have to be republican, but what is to _be English_ as opposed to not being Scottish or Welsh? Where is the whoomph?

This is NOT an "anti-English" point, please don't get me wrong, it is the opposite.

Anthony

"The McLabour aren’t alone in “doing England down.” "

No they aren't They do Scotland and Wales down too!

The good news is there is a new English nationalist party that is campaigning for independence. It's called the Free England Party. It has been registered with the Electoral Commission and we are just in the process of setting everything up. Our main aim is to create a sovereign nation state of England that has elected upper and lower houses and a Bill of Rights.