State of the Union August 2020

While the media and political establishment have been either wetting themselves or shitting themselves about a poll showing 55% support for Scottish independence this week, the fact that 49% of English people said they were in favour of English independence last month seems to have gone largely unreported.

The 55% figure for Scottish independence is getting there but it’s still not enough to carry a vote. It’s a useful distraction from the real story though.

The Scottish National Party has been campaigning for Scottish independence since 1934. They an independence referendum in 2014 and secured a 45% yes vote. They have been in control of the Scottish Parliament since 2007 and have 80% of Scottish seats in Westminster. This poll shows 55% in favour of Scottish independence.

Plaid Cymru has been campaigning for Welsh independence since 1925 and were part of a coalition Welsh government with Labour for four years from 2007. The last poll on the subject published in June showed 32% in favour of Welsh independence.

Sinn Féin has been campaigning for Irish unification since 1905 and is the second largest party in Stormont and would be the second largest group of Northern Irish MPs in Westminster if they didn’t abstain. They are part of the power sharing coalition in Stormont with the DUP. The last poll published on the subject of Irish unification in February showed 49% in favour of Irish unification.

There is no campaign group of any note campaigning for English independence. There is no devolved government in England and all devolved functions are carried out by British government departments, agencies and ministers. Declaring yourself English is frowned upon and expressing any sort of pride or patriotism in England is denounced as racist. There is an active campaign of misinformation and misrepresentation in politics and the media to associate anything English with Britain, including conflating the two terms so that Britain and England are interchangeable words for the same thing. Yet despite this a poll last month found that 49% of people are in favour of English independence.

A well organised, well funded campaign for English independence would drive up support for the cause well beyond the 55% in favour of Scottish independence. If an English independence referendum was announced tomorrow the yes campaign would walk it and I would be the front of the queue at the polling station to vote for it.

Oliver Cromwell Dissolving Parliament

The new Parliament of Great Britain sat for the first time on 23rd October 1707. It replaced the English and Scottish parliaments on 1st May that year but didn’t sit for nearly 6 months. It sat for just 11 months before it was dissolved and elections held for the first time.

The Act of Union 1707 was the beginning of the end for England. The union of Great Britain started with England bailing out Scotland and it has continued thus for over three centuries. The Scots have been over-represented throughout the life of the British parliament in terms of numbers and influence.

The Scots never gave up their national identity or bought into the idea of being British. The English happily adopted this new fabricated identity as it was little more than a rebranded Englishness. The Scots adopted English laws and sent MPs and peers to what had been the English parliament. They saw little difference to how it had been before the rebrand.

Fast forward 312 years and England barely exists. English and British are used interchangeably far too often, we have no self-government, MPs elected in other countries make our laws, we have no national anthem and the very idea of Englishness is something dirty that should be eradicated at all costs to British politicians.

But there is still a glimmer of hope. The English identity is still strong and in fact more people than ever describe themselves as English or more English than British when asked. Unfair funding that steals from the English to bribe the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish makes people angry. The disgraceful way that the British parliament has been blocking Brexit that was overwhelmingly supported in England means millions hold the British political class in utter contempt. Having the Scottish and Welsh First Ministers insulting English voters for voting for Brexit and demanding that their views be given precedence over ours is increasing support for booting the Scots out of the union – something opinion polls show that the majority of English people would already be quite happy with.

We will see the end of the British union in the coming years, I am quite confident of this. The current system is unsustainable, built on privilege for the few at the expense of the many. Such is the narrow minded obsession with placating the rebellious Scots amongst the British political class that they have failed to recognise just how unimportant the union is becoming to the English. It is the English that will bring the British union to its long overdue conclusion, not the Scots and it will come to the complete (and satisfying) surprise of the British when it does.

Edward III Great Seal of England

Fifty Scottish “celebrities” have signed a new declaration of independence, calling for the establishment of an independent socialist state.

The 12 demands in the declaration are:

  1. It is the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs, now and in the future. In all political deliberations, decisions and actions their interests should be paramount.
  2. Scotland should be an open and democratic society in which no individual is excluded, oppressed or discriminated against on account of their race, colour, faith, origin or place of birth, physical or mental capacity, sex, sexuality,gender or language.
  3. Scotland should have a written constitution which clearly lays out the rights of its citizens, the country’s system of government and the relationships that exist between government, its instruments and powers and the rights of individual citizens.
  4. Scotland should take its place as an independent country on the world stage, free to join international organisations and alliances for purposes of trade and commerce, and for the protection and care of the planet’s natural environment, without which the human race cannot survive.
  5. Scotland should uphold internationally acknowledged values of non- aggression and self-defence, and should refuse to maintain, stock or use, for itself or on behalf of any other power or government, chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction.
  6. There should be clear separation of the powers of the Scottish parliament and government (the executive). The judiciary should be completely independent of government.
  7. Independence will provide an opportunity to review and, where necessary, change the systems of both national and local government, in order to make them more accountable to the people and more beneficial to their needs.
  8. Ownership of land, property and natural resources should be subject to open and democratic scrutiny. The ability of communities, both rural and urban, to own the land in and on which they exist should be enhanced and extended.
  9. There should be total transparency in the way property in Scotland is bought, sold or possessed.
  10. Freedom of speech and action, and the freedom to work, create, buy, sell and do business should adhere to principles of environmental and communal sustainability and responsibility. Profit and economic growth should not be pursued at the expense of the wellbeing of the people or their habitat or that of other people or nations.
  11. We affirm the values of care, kindness, neighbourliness and generosity of spirit in all our dealings. Such values are the foundation stones of a fair, free and open society where all citizens have the opportunities to lead the best, most fulfilling lives they can.
  12. It is our belief that the best option now open to the Scottish people is for Scotland to become an independent country. The alternative is to accept that Scotland’s fate would remain in the hands of others and that the Scottish people would relinquish their right to decide their own destiny.

To be fair to them, there is some good stuff in amongst the pie in the sky lefty nonsense. Asserting popular sovereignty, improving democratic accountability and protection of freedoms are sentiments I can’t help but agree with even if the rest of it is less palatable.

It is a real shame that politicians and public figures don’t feel so strongly about England’s future or for the rights of the people of England. A group calling itself the English Constitutional Convention has been in existence for many years and has made half-hearted declarations that have been largely ignored, even at the height of the campaign for an English Parliament when the subject was in the news on an almost daily basis. Its close association with the toxic English Democrats means it is unlikely to ever gain mainstream support.

A similar declaration for England would do much to highlight the institutional discrimination against England within the British establishment and empower the English people to take control of their own destiny. The English identity is much more prevalent than the British identity and has been for many years but it is suppressed as a threat to British supremacy. An English people expressing their Englishness with the blessing and backing of public figures would deal a fatal blow to the status quo and consign Britishness to the history books once and for all.

British nationalists will view this with fear and dismay but they are an increasingly small minority. For too long we have been told that describing yourself as English is somehow wrong and not the sort of thing you say in polite company whilst our flag has been unfairly associated with British ethnic nationalists and white supremacists by those who wave the same flag as the likes of the BNP and National Front.

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget;
For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.

G.K. Chesterton, the Secret People