The media has been awash with stories of the Conswervatives “new” radical plan to save the union and solve the West Lothian Question.

It’s not a new idea though, they’ve been talking about it for a couple of years at least and even then it’s not an original idea – someone told me that it first reared its ugly head in the 1800’s!

Anyway, this is all by the by – English Votes on English Matters or an English Grand Committee (they’re basically the same thing) will not solve the West Lothian Question, will not save the union and will not make England equal within the union.  What it will do is fail miserably and expose the extent to which party politics has made an utter sham of democracy.

If the Conswervatives introduce a bill for an English Grand Committee and somehow manage to get it through Parliament, Liebour will do everything in their power to make it fail.  That’s assuming they get it through, of course, because Liebour MPs will be whipped until they’re sore to make sure that their Scottish MPs can still vote on English matters because without them they don’t have a working majority in England.

There is a marked difference in the attitudes of MPs from Liebour and the Conswervatives in response to the English Grand Committee idea.  Tories are coming out and saying something has to be done to make the system fairer because it’s not right that MPs elected in Scotland have a say on health and education in England but not in their own constituencies.  Liebour, on the other hand, are rolling out minister and after incompetent, discredited minister to say that the idea is unworkable and will lead to the breakup of the union.  They’re right but what do they propose as an alternative?  They don’t because they don’t have one.  They know that the only way to make governemnt fair in England is to give us our own parliament but that’s bad for the party so they won’t entertain the idea.  In short, the party is more important than the people and that’s the root of all the problems with the sham of a democracy in this country.

There are many problems with the idea of an English Grand Committee is that it doesn’t create a seperate English Executive.  The MPs sitting on the Grand Committee won’t be there as English MPs representing the interests of England, debating English legislation.  They will be there as British MPs representing British interests on British legislation relating to England.  They certainly can’t be relied upon to represent England’s interests, they’re the ones who’ve been letting all this happen in the first place.

This Grand Committee idea also means there’s no pot of money for England.  Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get a wedge of cash to spend on what they want, spending on England comes from the British budget.  If the money is needed to buy a few votes then tough luck England, there’s no more money for you.

And don’t even get me started on the Speaker of the House deciding whether a bill should be certified as an English bill – the Speaker is a Scottish Liebour stooge whose partiality at times is so breathtaking that it’s a miracle that Conswervative MPs are even allowed to speak in the presence of a Liebour MP, let alone disagree with them.

So what’s the solution?  Nothing short of an English Parliament is going to work but nobody wants to give us one.  I asked a few people today – some interested in politics, some not – what they thought and the same two answers came from everyone:

• Hold a referendum
• Revolution

The first one is simple and every day that passes and the Scottish Raj don’t give us a referendum is an insult to every English man, woman and child in England.  The second?  I’m not suggesting that a group of armed revolutionaries should storm parliament and hang every MP that’s supported the apartheid but a short sharp revolution like the one in Ukraine followed by a snap election not long ago would suit me just fine.  We need an English Parliament and whether it’s by referendum or revolution we will have one.

Technorati Tags: England, Britain, Devolution, English Parliament, Revolution