English Democrats: Are the BBC taking the monkeys; or do they just not give a monkeys?

Watched the TV interview with the English Democrat chairman Robin Tilbrook on the Daily Politics yesterday. Effectively, he was given about half of the five minutes allotted to the item, with the remaining half being given over to a couple of panellists. I thought he held his own quite well against some fairly tough questioning. [...]

Real Change: Britain or England?

Introduction: Deliberations on British-constitutional reform must factor in the national questions

I recently signed up to ‘Real Change‘. This is a grassroots movement that aims to set in motion a nationwide debate, at local level, about fundamental constitutional reform, culminating ultimately in a citizens’ convention to collate and deliberate on all the options, and to come [...]

Regrettably, I’m voting UKIP

Never thought I’d say that! I don’t consider myself to be politically right-wing and I’m certainly not a Unionist; so UKIP is far from being a natural political home for me. I don’t like UKIP’s simplistic, black-and-white presentation of the case against the EU and open immigration policies, even though I myself am in favour [...]

The governance of England must not be left out of the process of constitutional reform

Over the past week or so, I’ve been attempting to write a rather long post on the implications of the ongoing MPs’ expenses scandal. I started to write it last week, when I was concerned that the initial reaction was tending to ignore the fact that public outrage about MPs’ behaviour was symptomatic of a [...]

“England is a nation”: now what?

I was bowled over by the government’s response last Monday to the ‘England nation’ petition that I posted on the Number 10 website, and which so many of my readers signed – for which, many thanks.
To remind you, the petition asked: “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to state whether he recognises that England [...]

No more Great Britain: A blueprint for a federal UK

The trouble with the UK is ‘Great Britain’. The future of the UK, if it has one, will be settled by coming to a more stable, mature and equitable relationship between the different nations that currently make up that state. Great Britain, and its even more ill-defined cognate ‘Britain’, is the great interloper that stands [...]

English nationalism as a blend of ‘Whig imperialism’ and ‘democratic republicanism’

I reproduce here a comment I made on a post in the OurKingdom blog that was reviewing a presentation by the political historian David Marquand of his new book Britain after 1918: The Strange Career of British Democracy. In this book, Marquand analyses British history over the last 90 years as a product of the interplay [...]

Why the government can’t understand calls for an English Parliament

The government’s recent response to an online petition calling for a referendum on English independence – not submitted although signed by myself – doesn’t appear to have provoked much commentary; unless I missed it. First the text of the petition:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to grant the English people a referendum on independence [...]

Exit the West Lothian Question; Enter the Ulster Question

The Tories look set to establish their own version of the West Lothian Question in the next Westminster parliament. News reports today suggest that David Cameron is trying to forge an alliance or merger with the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), with which it was connected in the past. The advantages of this are described in [...]

Campaign For a National Referendum (2): Downing Street Referendum Petition

Just signed the Downing Street petition for a referendum on English independence I came across today. This actually calls for a referendum on English independence irrespective of whether the Scots are offered a referendum on independence for Scotland, or if they go ahead and have one anyway whether the British government, or the Scottish First Minister for England, [...]