Basically, this is the story so far:

Alex Salmond has been dicking about for a few years saying they’re going to hold a referendum on Scottish independence but keeps putting it off because a) they won’t vote for independence and b) the longer he threatens it, the more he can screw out of the Brits at our expense.

Salmond knows that the Scots won’t vote for independence so he’s come up with a great wheeze: devolution max.  Devolution max is almost, but not quite, a confederation between Scotland and “Britain”.  The Scottish government would be almost on a par with the British government, Salmond and Cameron would meet each other as equals rather than provincial administrator and imperial overlord.

Cameron got fed up with Salmond dicking about and told him he’s got to have his referendum sooner rather than later and he can’t offer devolution max, just a yes/no to independence.  Salmond told the media London was dictating to Scotland; Cameron said he wasn’t dictating, he was merely telling the Scottish government what they can and can’t do in a dictatorial manner (I’ve paraphrased slightly).

At some point the British government decided that after years of indecision, an independence referendum held by the Scottish government would be illegal.  Nobody has offered an opinion as to what they would do if Salmond held his referendum and ended up as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Scotland – the thing about a unilateral declaration of independence is that it’s, well, unilateral.  Salmond retaliated by saying he’d order the Scottish police not to man polling stations if the ballot papers didn’t have his options on them (yes, he can do that but technically the British Home Secretary trumps the Scottish First Minister which would make for an interesting pissing contest wouldn’t it?).

The brief posturing is over with no clear winner and now the two sides are setting out their stalls.  The Brits are making the case for the union to the Scots, humming Rule Britannia whilst Britishly tearfully extolling the British virtues of the British union and good old British Britishness in British Britain and British Scotland.  Some of them are suggesting wrecking manoeuvres such as giving people in England a vote on Scottish independence as well, although they seem to have gone quiet since Survation (an up-and-coming polling company with a very good record so far on political polls) found that more people in England want to see Scotland declare independence than Scots.

The Scottish nationalists are doing what they usually do – confusing England with “Britain”, throwing some random numbers on paper to show they’re subsidising England and … well, that’s about it but even so the Survation poll says that Salmond is quite comprehensively winning the “referendum war”.

Unsurprisingly and true to form for the Brits, virtually nobody is thinking about England in all this.  The Labour MP for Torfaen in Wales, Paul Murphy, has called for the balkanisation of England by resurrecting Prescott’s rejected local government reorganisation with regional assemblies but that’s about as far as it goes.  Other than that it’s been Scotland, Scotland, Scotland as if the future of the UK and the relationships between the member states in it are the exclusive domain of the Scots.

I don’t want a vote on Scottish independence because it’s Scotland’s business but if Scotland has a referendum then a referendum should also be held on English independence, Welsh independence and Northern Irish independence.  If the union is to continue then it should be because most of the people in all four member states want it to, not because 4 million voters in Scotland say so.

I would love to hear the British nationalists making the case for the union to England like they are for Scotland.  I would love to hear them explain why we should stay in a union where we have no voice, where £20bn of our taxes are taken from us on threat of imprisonment and given to the other three member states of the UK to spend on things that we can’t afford, where politicians elected in another country are allowed to introduce and vote on laws that only apply to England when they can’t even vote on the same things in the country they were elected in and where we are generally robbed, put upon and despised.  I’d love to hear them make the case for that union because right now all I’m hearing is Scotland, Scotland, Scotland when quite frankly I couldn’t give a damn whether they stay or go.

The celtic dog has been wagging the English tail for too long and it has to stop.  The British establishment is full of people who are, quite frankly, irrationally fanatical about Scotland.  They are 5m people (and falling), we are 51m and increasing.  They spend the money, we foot the bill.  They have an inferiority complex, we have to make ourselves subservient to them to make them feel better.  The obsession is with what the Scots want, forgetting that actually it’s England that would make or break the union.

So what’s the answer?  It’s quite simple …

Hold the referendum in Scotland with the three options – independence, current level of devolution or “devolution max”.  At the same time, hold a referendum in England, Wales and Northern Ireland offering the same choices (“current level of devolution” in England being what the Scots have now).  This will result in an English Parliament being created.  Take out the unconstitutional, unworkable English Votes on English Laws fudge (there’s no point trying to implement something that can’t work, it’s just wasting time and money) and support for devolution in England is overwhelming.  This may result in assymetry as it’s not guaranteed that all four member states of the UK will vote for devolution max (I’m thinking of NI here) but it would be through choice, not because the British government is prejudiced against one country.

This raises the spectre of one or more member states of the UK voting for independence.  Scotland is probably less likely to vote for independence than England despite the overt nationalism north of the border.  Of the four member states of the UK, only England pays its own way and only England would thrive outside of the union.  Despite the protestations of some Scots, they do extremely well out of the union whilst England does extremely badly out of it.  If one or more member states vote for independence then the British government should be prepared with a firm plan for a British confederation.  I won’t dwell on the virtues of a confederation, just follow the link.

The independence of one member state would raise some interesting challenges when it comes to the inheritance of treaties.  For instance, who would keep the UK’s seat on the UN Security Council?  If Scotland declared independence then “Britain” would probably still exist for a short time and once it fell apart, England would naturally be the successor state.  But if England declared independence and Scotland didn’t, “Britain” wouldn’t last any longer but Scotland would naturally be the successor state.  Salmond wants to demilitarise Scotland and on the international stage Scotland is a non-entity (“Scotland, isn’t that in England?” – you get the picture) – the UN isn’t going to have a bunch of whining skirt wearing with delusions of grandeur on the UN Security Council.

EU membership is another question that needs considering.  Scotland is the most europhile member state of the UK, it would probably want to remain a member.  The EU would want to keep England to pay the bills.  New countries joining the EU have to agree to join the €uro – Scotland might not be too fussed about joining the €uro but England?  It’s unthinkable.

What about the British Overseas Territories?  Who will inherit those?  If a confederation can successfully be created then problem solved.  If not, it’s open for negotiation – they may opt for independence, they may choose their own “protector” to pay fealty to.

The Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties says that it’s basically up to succeeding states to decide who takes on what treaties with the assumption that if no agreement is made, all the treaties currently in force will apply to all successor states.  That means that the default position is that all member states of the UK declaring independence would remain members of the EU, UN, NATO and party to all the other treaties the UK has signed up to since 1978 unless they agree to divvy them up.  Contrary to what British politicians say, independence of any of the member states of the UK does not necessarily mean losing the memberships of international bodies the UK currently holds.

None of the perceived problems are insurmountable so what reason is there for the union to continue?  This is the case the British unionists have to make to all of us, not just the Scots and this is precisely what won’t happen.  The British are so obsessed with what the Scots want that they won’t see what’s happening under their noses until it’s too late.

I’ve just got back from a fortnight’s holiday – the first week was spent in Somerset and the second week in Ceredigion (or Cardiganshire as it used to be called).  There was an abundance of English flags in Somerset (Burnham-on-Sea to be exact) but not to the exclusion of the British flag, just a lot more St George’s Crosses than the butchers apron.  Wales was different though (at least the part of Wales we stayed in) – the only British flag I saw was, ironically, outside the Welsh Assembly building in Aberystwyth where it occupied one of the “other” flag poles to the side of the Welsh flag, the other “other” pole sporting the ring of stars logo of the EU.

Flags aren’t the only symbol of nationhood and cultural independence of course and this is where the Welsh have the English at an advantage: the Welsh language.  People in the street, in cafés and shops spoke Welsh to each other.  Not just old people who grew up in a time when Welsh communities were often isolated and the Welsh language survived simply because they weren’t exposed to English, it was people my age and most importantly, young people.  Welsh kids sitting in cafés with their family quite easily swapped and changed between English and Welsh depending on who they were talking to without hesitation and they are the ones who will decide what the de facto first language of Wales is in a decade or so.

Road signs are an indication of the change in the status of the Welsh language.  Dual-language signs were permitted in 1965, a national roll-out started in 1972 and until relatively recently they have generally been in the form of English road signs with Welsh translations.  The opposite is now true in most of Wales – the road signs are in Welsh with English translations.  English speakers are accommodated alongside Welsh rather than the other way round such as you might find in arab countries where the latinised version place names are included underneath the arabic.

English being the lingua franca of international trade and diplomacy has many advantages on the world stage but at home it takes away one of the most obvious things that unites a people and sets them apart from their neighbours.  If England had a unique language of its own in everyday use – pockets of Old English speakers, perhaps, that could be used as a starting point – then the English identity would be a lot stronger than it is now and we wouldn’t be facing problems such as the threat from Britification and the public’s willingness to accept institutional discrimination as the price of the union.

Wales, like Scotland, has been lost by the British.  The symbols of British cultural imperialism that you see in England just don’t exist in the celtic nations.  The companies and political parties investing in Britishness are limiting themselves to an increasingly narrow section of English society who still believe in Britain.  Support for English devolution is consistently falling just shy of the 70% mark whilst support for English independence has jumped to 36% in a Comres poll published in July this year.  A TNS-BMRB opinion poll published in June this year showed that support for Scottish independence has risen to 37% (51% in people under 24) and in Wales the most recent opinion poll I can find is 2007 which shows support for independence at just 12%.  Support for devolution in Scotland was 70% in a 2009 Populus poll, the Welsh referendum on extending devolution this year was 64.5% and the last poll I’ve seen in England was 67%.  Support for devolution in England is higher than in Wales and almost as high as Scotland.  But the independence figure is the one that is most interesting – almost as many English people support English independence as Scots do for Scotland (and significantly more than support Welsh independence) but the rate at which support for independence is increasing in England far outstrips any increase in support that Scotland has ever seen.

Companies have already realised that Britain is a toxic brand in Scotland and Wales which is why you will rarely find anything overtly British in shops and supermarkets outside of England.  The same goes for political parties – there is not a single -England arm of any UK political party but they all have -Scotland and -Wales arms.  Charities and non-profit organisations are the same – there is an Age Scotland, Age Cymru and Age UK; there is a British Medical Association (BMA) Scotland, BMA Wales and plain old “the BMA” for England.  What they have failed to notice is the increasing irrelevance and even opposition to “Brand Britain” in England and that will cost them dearly in the very near future.

The union could still have a place in our future, albeit in a significantly different form to the current union but it will only survive the next few years if it is reconfigured on the basis of fairness, equality and respect for all the people of these four nations.  There is a small (and I mean small – a couple of years at the most) window of opportunity for the British to save their union but they will need to put their imperial past behind them and start thinking the unthinkable: most of “Britain” isn’t British any more.

Watching the wedding made me feel quite happy really – I love the royals and I’m sure William and Kate will turn more than a few borderline republicans into monarchists.  The run-up to the wedding has been absolutely horrendous though – days of inane chatter, clueless hypothesising and utter bollocks from people trying to imply they have some inside knowledge of the wedding because they know the Middleton’s gardener’s milkman’s postman’s next door neighbour.

The big downside of the royal wedding, though, is the proliferation of the union flag and people declaring their pride in being “British”.

The resurgence of the English flag over the last few years has been great.  Passing rows of houses with English flags in their gardens and hanging out of their windows is a gratifying sight but the last few days has seen English flags taken down and replaced with the flag of our imperial masters.  Even St George’s Day has been largely ignored by shops who decked out their stores with red, white and blue bunting weeks ago.  There is a very real danger that people will fly the BNP flag now that they have bought them instead of the Cross of St George, putting back the cause of progressive English nationalism by years.

And as for this ridiculous pride in being “British” – how does that work?  How can English people – the citizens of the last colony of the British empire – feel any pride in a non-country that has failed to build an inclusive national identity in over 300 years of existence?

The so-called “United” Kingdom is anything but.  The union between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has been superficial from day one and we are no more united now than we were in 1707.  This union of four nations has five governments, five flags, four languages, four constitutions, three legal systems, two judiciaries and two royal families – Prince William will be King William V of England and William III of Scotland.   “British” is a three century old failed experiment in social engineering that is as irrelevant now as it was before the Act of Union.

I used to describe myself as English first and British second.  Now I’m just English.  And isn’t it time we had a Prince of England?  A much better title for Prince William that Duke of Cambridge!

He went on to say “Britain is the home of football, which we gave to the world, and people will be surprised if there is an Olympic tournament in football and we are not part of it”.  This is the kind of revisionist drivel that our glorious leader loves so much.  Football has been played in England since the 12th Century but only made its way north of the border in the 19th Century.  English football has spawned not only the international game the Americans call soccer but American football, Australian football, rugby and a multitude of other football and rugby related games.  Scotland brought the Tartan Army to the game…

As for people being surprised if there isn’t a British football team, I think they’d be more surprised if there was one because Britain simply doesn’t exist from a footballing point of view.

Like I said, just the sort of revisionist drivel you expect to hear from a British nationalist Scot desperate to deflect attention from the rapid disintegration of the union caused by his party’s anti-English, Scottish appeasement.

Technorati Tags: Football, Gordon Brown, Revisionism

The report says that ideas like swearing allegiance to the Queen, Britishness lessons and a Britishness Day public holiday won’t help people feel British, making an arse out of No Mandate Brown’s pathetic obsession with ramming Britishness down English childrens’ throats.

The BBC has devoted over half of its article on the Joseph Rowntree report to the previous report by another Liebour think tank, Civitas, that recommended teaching pro-British propaganda to English children and quoting that report’s author several times.

Education and communities and culture are devolved meaning that any decisions on the teaching of British propaganda in schools or indoctrinating children will apply only in England.

Technorati Tags: BBC Bias, Joseph Rowntreee Trust, Britishness

Technorati Tags: Letters, Britishness, England

England has always been considered expendable by the Labour Party, hence their willingness to embrace the EU’s regionalisation agenda.  Balkanising England suits Labour’s political agenda – England doesn’t vote Labour but enough of “the regions” probably would making it easier possible for Labour to win another election.

The North East euroregion rejected regionalisation in a referendum a couple of years ago but that decision has been ignored.  Only 22% of people in the North East wanted regional government and that was the euroregion that the British government said had most support for regional government.

The people of England don’t want regionalisation, the British government has no democratic or moral mandate to impose it on us.

Technorati Tags: Britishness, No Mandate, Regionalisation

Apparently, Rooney doesn’t know the words which Peedle thinks is disgraceful and has offered to teach them to him.

The Royal Society of St George is there to promote England and the Commonwealth, singing the British national anthem before English football games is counter-productive to that aim and Bob Peedle is wrong.

I sent the following comment to the Daily Mail:

Technorati Tags: National Anthem, Wayne Rooney, Bob Peedle

The One Eyed Wonder of Wankistan says that the UK is “the world’s most successful multi-national state” but that the union isn’t “a contract of convenience that can be renegotiated”. Multi-national or multi-regional? Remember, as far as Liebour is concerned there is no such thing as England.

Also today, Jack Straw is going to set out a “statement of British values” that define British citizenship and press the non-existent case for a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. There’s that word again – responsibilities. It’s no longer enough that you live here, work here, pay your taxes here or were even born here – you must have some good old British responsibilities for the British good.

The Demon Headmaster will be pressing for more power at local, regional and national level with more power for city governments. The national level is, of course, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (which isn’t even a nation). The regional level, obviously, is England which must never be given any form of acknowledgment as a national entity. City government (aka City Regions – the EU’s favoured form of “local” government) will only apply to England … sorry, the English Regions … because local government is devolved.

Apparently, today is the first day of Jack Straw’s consultation on Britishness, British values and a British Bill of Rights. Has anyone English been invited to take part in this “consultation”? If Jack Straw and Gordon Brown get away with what they’re trying to do right now then that’s the end of England forever.

Technorati Tags: Anglophobia, Britishness, Regions

The British government is responsible for a relatively small number of public buildings in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but most belong to their devolved assemblies, particularly in Scotland.  Predictably, the Scottish government instantly denounced the daft idea and once again confirmed that the Scottish flag will fly from Scottish government buildings.

The report also makes provision for the English flag to be flown more often but the idea is to promote Britishness Brown’s British Britishness so don’t hold your breath.  The British government orders public buildings to fly the British flag on certain days and in the name of Britishness and preserving their cushy British jobs, British MPs will support the British government’s decision to force all British public buildings in England to fly the British flag.

Quite why Britishness Brown thinks Scottishness and Welshness are to be encouraged but Englishness is the work of the devil, I don’t know.  He supported the “sovereign” right of the Scottish people to determine the best form of government for themselves and he pledged to put their interests “first and foremost in all [his] acts and deliberations” when he signed the Scottish Claim of Right.  Perhaps it’s because destroying the English national identity will keep the union artificially alive and the English serfs will continue to pay their taxes to their celtic lords, thereby fulfilling his pledge to put Scotland’s interests before those of England.  Or perhaps he just hates England and English people.

Whatever the reason, the Cross of St George is the only flag that will fly at my house and every public building in my town that flies the butchers apron will get complaint after complaint until it’s taken down.

Technorati Tags: England, Britishness