Michael Knowles (Cheshire, Campaign for an English Parliament): I have been asked to respond to Peter Facey's contribution of January 30th, entitled ‘Regions, Parliaments and The Future of England'. A very convenient coincidence. On February 19th we meet to present evidence to the Justice Committee of MPs inquiry into the outcomes of the 1998 devolution legislation, specifically the English Question.
Peter in his piece roams very widely, creating Aunt Sallys left, right and centre for him to knock down. Within the few words allotted me I can really only tackle one theme if I am do justice to anything. He damns the debate between English Parliament campaigners and regionalisers as ‘sterile'; and in so doing he misrepresents it crucially. It is one of the most important debates now happening in England.
The debate between English Parliament campaigners is in no way ‘sterile' but the exact opposite. A choice faces England of the most crucial and historic kind. On the one side there are campaigners like me who want England, as the historic nation it is, the oldest unified nation in Europe, with all its vibrant flowing diverse culture - literary, artistic, spiritual and political - to have self-rule over its internal affairs precisely as Scotland has, which Peter supports for Scotland. We want a Union in which the three historic nations of this island stand in exactly the same relationship to it and to each other; and not one in which one of the three, Scotland, stands in a unique and privileged relationship. We want for England, our nation, what the Scots got for Scotland, their nation. Read the Devolution legislation and all the government papers associated with it. Devolution was accorded to Scotland and Wales specifically as to distinct nations. That is the text. Nothing less. "Scotland is a proud historic nation," declared Blair in his Preface to the Scotland white paper. "The assembly shall be the focus for all the concerns of the Welsh nation" stated the Wales legislation. We want England to have exactly the same status and recognition. And what can possibly be wrong with that? A lot, according to one very powerful movement of regionalists, of a specific sort.
They are to be clearly distinguished from those regionalists who hold - absolutely rightly - that power in the UK is excessively centralised; and it is with this latter group that English Parliament campaigners emphatically agree. With them too the debate is anything but sterile. It is healthy, vital, vibrant and absolutely necessary. It is about where the people of England, through the agency of their own parliament, should locate home rule. An English Parliament located well outside of London, say to Derby or Stoke or Manchester, would bring about the biggest transfer and distribution of political, cultural, employment, media and industrial power in the whole of England's history. That done, it would then be for the English Parliament to debate the next stage, to take the decentralisation of self-rule even further and distribute real power to ‘localities'. But which? To England's historic counties and cities, or to ‘regions'? That will be something for the people of England to decide, not the Union in Whitehall.
The ‘regionalists' whom we EP Campaigners emphatically oppose - and we will fight with them with all our might and main - have two planks to their platform. For various reasons, some of which Peter mentions, they do not want England given what Scotland and Wales have been given, namely political and constitutional recognition as a distinct nation within the Union, which is precisely what the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly mean for Scotland and Wales, and the self-rule that goes with it. Instead they want England balkanised into ‘regions,' with such powers of self-rule similar to those exercised by Scotland - which would effectively abolish it constitutionally and politically. A careful analysis of Peter's contribution indicates this is the camp which at heart he belongs to.
But there is an even greater opponent of the genuine devolution for England that an English Parliament represents. Much more powerful, because it is the common mind of both the Labour and Tory parties, and all the vast bureaucracy of the Unionist state that stands behind them, developed over three centuries of immense economic, political and military power. It is fairly relaxed about the degree of devolution it gave to the 16% of the Union population which make up Scotland, Wales and Northen Ireland. But it will fight tooth and nail not to grant the same to England. England is 84% of the UK population and 90% of its power and wealth. Total control over that it will not let go lightly. It will not share it with any one if it can prevent it. Certainly not with an English Parliament. However, it is a reliable rule of thumb that if a state Establishment opposes you, you are in the right and a genuine progressive.
