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 [...]

Calman Report: Constitutional reform on a plate

The eagerness of the main unionist parties to seize on the Calman Commission’s report on Scottish devolution, published on Monday, suggests how little they are interested in factoring the English Question into their constitutional-renewal programmes. The report offers nothing for England: it deliberately avoids addressing the West Lothian Question; it urges that the Barnett Formula [...]

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 [...]

Devolution as it should (have) be(en)

One of the objections that is often raised to an English Parliament is that it would add a whole new large body of MEPs, as I suppose we’d have to call them (unfortunate clash with the European Parliament), on top of the existing 530-odd (or however many) Westminster MPs representing English constituencies. To say nothing [...]

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 [...]

Nation of England: Self-rule will come with self-pride

‘Nation of England’! Now there’s a phrase to stir the blood or – for some – to make it boil. ‘Nation of England’: sounds rather un-English, doesn’t it? We English are not given to aggressive displays of ‘national pride’ and self-assertion. It sounds like the demand of some rebellious ethnic minority to be respected and [...]

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 [...]

The Tory Answer To the West Lothian Question: Compromise And Fudge

Yesterday, the Tories finally published the recommendations of their Democracy Task Force on how to ‘resolve’ the West Lothian Question. Their report contained no surprises, as it was virtually as leaked two weeks ago. There was, however, one clarification. In the leaked account of the Tories’ proposals, it was stated that: “At the third and [...]

English pauses for English clauses begs more questions than it answers

Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph leaked news about the Conservatives’ supposed answer to the West Lothian Question: the fact that Scottish- (and Welsh- and Northern Irish-) elected MPs can vote on legislation affecting England only whereas MPs for English constituencies can no longer do the same for much of the corresponding legislation for Scotland, Wales and [...]