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.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have negotiated a £30.2m bonus from the British government because the British government have spent money in London for the British Olympics.  No extra money will be spent in the rest of England where local authorities are facing cuts of about a quarter over the next few years.

The money is being handed over because of what is called Barnett Consequentials - the technical name for giving Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland a big wedge of cash just because the British government have spent some money in England.  Barnett Consequentials are part of the balancing mechanism to ensure Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continue to get the same outrageous level of subsidy at England’s expense no matter how much capital investment the British spend in England.

Paying Barnett Consequentials because of the Olympics is a bloody liberty though because they’re not the English Olympics, they’re the British Olympics.  England doesn’t have a Olympic team and the British government’s investment in London is for their Olympics, not for London or for England.  Some of the facilities that are being built for the Olympics are going to be relocated to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and some of the events are even being held in those countries.  They will “benefit” from the British Olympics as much as the rest of England.

The British government shouldn’t have paid any Barnett money to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for the British Olympics but there was nobody at the meeting representing English interests.  As a consequence (excuse the pun), £30.2m of English taxpayers’ money is going to be handed over to the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish for no other reason than because the British spent some money in England for their Olympic vanity project.  This has only happened because there is no English government to represent English interests, saying “no, this is your Olympic games, we’re not paying your bribes”.

There are no details as yet on who will be on the West Lothian Commission, what they will consider and whether an English Parliament will be ruled out immediately or when they report in 2013.

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.

If I am right about my prediction of what form Scottish “independence” will take is right – ie. a confederation – then that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  The ideal way to govern the UK is with a confederation where the home nations voluntarily pool resources and responsibility for matters that they choose to co-operate on such as defence and foreign affairs.  This differs from federation or the current system of devolution in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in that the powers the confederal government has are passed up from the countries that are part of it rather than being passed down from a federal government.  It’s an important differentiation because it means the members of the confederation retain their independence and sovereignty within parameters agreed by those members rather than being told what independence and sovereignty they are allowed from the centre.  But such a confederation would have to be between England, Scotland, Wales and perhaps Northern Ireland, not between Scotland and “Britain”.

This isn’t just idle conjecture on my part, I have been giving the idea of a confederation thought for some time now.  Here’s how I see it working:

An elected confederal “senate” would replace the House of Lords dealing with defence, foreign affairs and whatever else is handed up to the confederal government and an independent English Parliament would govern England as a sovereign nation within the confederation.  Scotland and Wales would similarly be governed as sovereign nations by their own government.

Northern Ireland is a bit of an oddity and might not choose to take part in a confederal government in the same way.  Clearly unification with the Republic is not the answer – it would alienate and antagonise at least half the population and it’s not in the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement – so why not give Northern Ireland the same status as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and make it a Crown Dependency, governing itself as it does now with the confederal government responsible for its defence and jointly for foreign affairs as it is for the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man?

The confederation would be the legal successor to the union, taking over the UK’s seat on the UN, NATO, the EU and any other organisation the UK is a member of unless the members agree that one of their number should become the successor state instead such as Scotland taking over the UK’s membership of the EU as the most europhile nation in the UK.  It would also mean that the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories (Falklands, Bermuda, etc.) would work in the same way and could even become members of the confederation on equal terms to England, Scotland and Wales.

The confederal government could be funded by subscription from its members or by direct taxation.  A customs union and Shengen-type agreement would maintain the free movement of goods and people.  A confederal government would need very few politicians, perhaps even being made up of appointees from the national governments and the national governments should be unicameral, resulting in a net reductions of politicians.

A confederation also neatly sidesteps the issue of a federation being unconstitutional under English law.  One of the key properties of a federation is that the existence of the devolved legislatures are protected by law in perpetuity.  Under the English constitution, no British Parliament may bind its successor making it impossible to legislate in this way.  A new English Parliament for an independent England wouldn’t need an Act of the British Parliament to protect its existence, nor would it need an Act of the English Parliament to do so as its existence would be implicit in the fact that England would be an independent, sovereign nation voluntarily delegating powers to a “British Confederation”.  The English and Scottish Crowns can remain united in a personal union as they did before the 1707 Act of Union and the Queen can remain Head of State either through being Head of State of the confederation or the members in their own right.

The members of the confederation would be free to pursue their own economic policies, raising or lowering taxes, increasing or decreasing spending.  Scotland can become the socialist republic it strives to be, England can continue down the road of free market enlightenment.  Scotland can go nuclear-free, England can keep the lights on.

One of the criticisms of supporters of an English Parliament is that they never come up with anything other than a nebulous idea about self-government.  In the case of the Campaign for an English Parliament that’s deliberate because, to paraphrase the Scottish Claim of Right, they quite rightly say that it’s for the people of England to determine the best form of government for themselves.  Well I’m a person of England and I think this is the best form of government for my country.  Discuss.

So I sez "Aye, give us a coupla billion and we wunnae hold the referendum". I didnae expect him tae do it!

Scotland will never be independent, even if it leaves this union because the SNP intends Scotland to be a member of the EU, leaving a union it has a disproportionate amount of control over for a union in which it will be a tiny irrelevant voice.  But that’s a decision for the Scots to make and if they choose to take that path then more fool them.

Alex Salmond has already been talking down independence and suggesting what will be, in all but name, a confederation of Scotland and “Britain” in which Scotland remains in a union voluntarily and on their own terms with “Britain”.  Presumably he has looked at Dubai’s bailout of Abu Dhabi and decided to hedge his bets.

Lots of people are demanding a vote in Scotland’s independence referendum, arguing that if the union is to be dissolved then it’s not just the Scots who should  be able to vote on it.  I disagree for two very good reasons:

Firstly, whether Scotland decides to declare independence or not is Scotland’s business – a declaration of independence is an affirmation of sovereignty and you can’t affirm your sovereignty by asking for someone else’s permission.  The UK or “Britain” isn’t a country, it’s a union of countries and if one of them decides it no longer wants to be in that union, it’s nobody’s decision but their own.

Secondly, Scottish independence won’t mean the end of the union, the Brits will keep “Britain” going for as long as possible in a sad parody of its former self like Serbia federating with Montenegro and calling itself Yugoslavia not because the Serbian people identified themselves as Yugoslavian but because the Serbian political class that dominated Yugoslavia refused to accept the reality of post-Yugoslav Serbia.  The same will happen in England – the British political class will refuse to accept the reality that they have put Scotland on such a high pedestal that the union will seem irrelevant without them and will do whatever it takes to keep “Britain” in existence that little bit longer.

To ensure that Scotland stays in some form of union with “Britain”, the Scots will be comprehensively bribed.  The union started with England paying Scotland’s national debt and a bribe on top to be shared amongst the Scottish people which was promptly stolen by Scotland’s great and good and the end of the union will similarly marked by a Scottish cash bonanza at the expense of the English taxpayer.

The day after the SNP won the Scottish election, David Cameron gave Scotland a £2bn bung for no other reason than Alex Salmond had won the election.  This is the first of many bribes from the British government and it won’t just be handing over billions on pounds of English money, it will be political concessions as well – more independence, a greater say in what happens in England, more Scottish representation at Westminster, more Scots in key British cabinet positions, more British (English) government departments located in Scotland, more “respect” for Scotland.  The divorce settlement will cost England dearly if it is negotiated between the Brits and the Scots.

I don’t want a vote on Scottish independence (although I would vote yes if I did) because it’s none of my business as an Englishman living in England.  I am agnostic about the union – if the union survives or if England stays in it or not is something I won’t lose any sleep over but if the union survives and if England stays in it then it has to be on equal terms with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with an English Parliament and fiscal autonomy, just the same as Scotland.  But if the terms of the union – and England’s relationship with the other members – are to be fundamentally renegotiated then that renegotiation has to be done between England and the rest of the UK, not “Britain”.

The British can’t be relied up to represent English interests, we must have an English government to negotiate on our behalf.

The Welsh have had their second referendum, the Scots are due for their third soon on increased powers recommended by the Calman Commission and I don’t even know how many the Northern Irish have had but it’s a fair few.  The English, however, are still refused a referendum on devolution by the British government.

Last night I predicted that the result would be around 70% in favour give or take 5% with about a 50% turnout.  The turnout is looking low with 600k votes from 18 of the 22 electoral districts.  With approximately 2.26m registered voters in  Wales, turnout is going to be about 35% so I was a bit out on the turnout but so far it’s looking like about 62% in favour of increased powers so I wasn’t that far out!

I am genuinely pleased for the Welsh in gaining extra powers from the British government, I just hope it makes more English people site up and take notice of the fact that the Brits refuse to give us equal rights in this so-called “United” Kingdom.

The “Diversity Fund” has been set up to raise money to fund election campaigns for female, ethnic minority, disabled and disadvantaged Lib Dim candidates in Wales.

I have asked Peter Black several times on Facebook why black, female or disabled people need or deserve more money for election campaigns.  Do elections cost more money for such people in Wales?  His answer?  It’s an “internal matter” and he doesn’t have to answer to me.
Well no Peter, you don’t have to answer but by not answering you look like a mealy-mouthed politician who’s been caught out making a tit of himself in a desperate search for a good headline.  Elections cost the same whether or not you are a “minority” candidate so there is no need for extra money for any candidate.

But there’s quite an important point that I would like to make, along the lines of the one I’ve made about the Ministry for Inequality and the institutional discrimination contained within it and the Equality Bill it has produced.  By grouping all the various “minorities” together, they actually form the majority and by focussing resources, legislation and policy on them, you turn white men into the under-represented, discriminated-against minority.  This is why positive discrimination is such a fallicy.

Technorati Tags: Peter Black AM, Kirsty Williams AM, Lib Dims, Wales, Discrimination, Positive Discrimination

The irony is, the Conservatives today announced that they will abolish all the regional quangos if they win the next election, including the regional development agencies.

Today I wrote the following to the four Conservative MP’s in Shropshire (there’s no point writing to the Labour MP, David Wright, any more as he rarely replies and when he does it’s usually spin or he answers a question you haven’t asked) as follows:

When I got home tonight and picked up the paper, Daniel Kawczynski was on the front page again, this time in a similar vein to Mark Pritchard last night. How am I supposed to keep up!

The reference to “Wrekin” is Wrekin Construction, a local construction company that has just gone bust with the loss of around 1,100 direct and indirect jobs. Despite having £40m of orders on its books for this year and enough money coming to them to pay their £2.8m overdraft off by the end of the week, the Royal Bank of Scotland refused to give them a few days extra to pay it. The Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform – an English department of the British government – will now have to pay £5m in redundancy payments because the company is in administration. Yet in the same week, RBS pledges to spend £1.7bn on loaning new mortgages in Scotland – as is usually the case: Scottish first, British second.

To celebrate, here’s a picture of some of the finest Welsh totty …

Technorati Tags: Wales, St Davids Day

The service says it intends to add the functionality in by September this year at a cost of around £4m and in the meantime it is having summonses translated by the Ministry of Justice.  So far the MoJ have spent £425 on translating summonses meaning it will take 1,569 years to recoup the £4m cost of automating the translations.

Talk about pissing money up the wall.

Technorati Tags: Courts, Waste, Welsh

I’ve spent a lot more than average an amount of time in hospitals and I apreciate the work that doctors and nurses do, often putting themselves in dangerous situations for the public good.  The same goes for policemen, firemen, etc.  But do we need specific laws relating to individual groups of people?

It is already against the law to physically or mentally abuse someone.  Whether that someone is a nurse, a policeman, asian or white, it is still against the law.  The problem is not with the law as it stands, it is with the way that judges are guided by politicians.

Politicians impose minimum and maximum punishments for crimes so judges can’t decide to punish somebody who’s assaulted a nurse harsher than someone who’s assaulted a drug dealer.  So when people complain that hundreds of doctors and nurses a day are being assaulted and that they’re getting away with lenient sentences, their answer is to make a new law introducing a specific offence and a different punishment.  But the crime is still the same – an offence against the person contrary to common law.

With new offences being created at an alarming rate and people falling foul of daft, ill-thought out and politically-motivated laws, what we really need is for a major cull of these offences and for politicians to butt out and let judges get on with their jobs.  There is no need for specific offences relating to specific groups of people.  There is no need for specific offences relating to “motivation”.  Offences like racially aggravated assault are no different to any other assault other than the fact that it’s politically expedient to look like it’s being taken more seriously.  Physically assaulting a nurse is no different to assaulting a shop keeper but it makes the British government look like they’re caring for people who carry out a public service.

I’m not a nurse, I’m not a doctor, I’m not a fireman, I’m not a politician, I’m not black.  I’m white and I’m English and that means that if I got mugged whilst taking the dog out for a walk or walking across the car park or sat at my desk at work, the British government considers my pain and suffering to be less important than that of a nurse or a fireman or an immigrant.  Why?

Technorati Tags: NHS, Law

AM’s currently draw up new laws but they have to be rubber stamped by the British government before they actually become law.  In Scotland they make their own laws in their own parliament.

There are another nine orders waiting to go through which will give the Welsh Assembly primary law making powers in other areas.

Scotland got its own government after a break of 300 years and Wales after 500 years.  England is still the only country in Europe that doesn’t have its own government.

Technorati Tags: Wales, Devolution

Update:
A few Welshies are of the considered opinion that because the Welsh phrase sprayed on the wall wasn’t proper Welsh, rather some nonsense generated by a translation website, that it can’t be Welsh nationalists that did it. In fact, a comment on one website said it must be ultra right wing English nationalists to blame because it was duff Welsh. Indeed, so convinced are they of this argument that Smiling under the Buses thinks I must be an anti-Welsh blogger (despite being part Welsh myself!) and one commentator on the CEP blog, where this was cross-posted, asked if the post was going to be edited because the facts had been thrown in doubt!

I’m an English nationalists – quite a committed one I hope you’d agree – but I don’t speak Anglo Saxon. You don’t have to speak Anglo Saxon to be an English nationalist and you don’t have to speak Welsh to be a Welsh nationalist. The fact that the Welsh graffiti is probably duff (it was suggested by locals that it was very old Welsh) doesn’t mean it wasn’t the work of English-hating Welsh nationalists, it just means that it was probably the work of English-hating Welsh nationalists that don’t speak Welsh.

Update 2:
Smiling under the Buses is a Wrexham fan which means that I’m duty bound to loath and detest him and wish him a fiery eternity in the depths of Hades.

Technorati Tags: Wales, Anglophobia, Racism

I’d like to wish my Welsh readers a happy St Davids Day. Isn’it? Lovely.
As we’re so close to Wales here in Shropshire, I popped over the border to see if they were celebrating.

I didn’t have much time so I only managed to get the picture on the right …

Technorati Tags: St David, Wales

The line has been used by freight trains but to make it suitable for passenger trains 18 miles of track had to be refitted at a cost of …

£35,000,000

Count the zeroes, that’s 35 million pounds for an 18 mile stretch of track.

Technorati Tags: Trains, Wales, WTF

It’s only 5 minutes until England’s opening Six Nations match against Wales.

Not so long ago I’d have been looking forward to this game to see how much of a pasting we give the mutton munchers but just lately Wales have become a force to contend with and it’ll be a challenging game.

Jonny Wilkinson is playing but Lawrence Dallaglio is out of the squad.

Jerusalem has been played, it’s cold, it’s damp and it’s muddy.  What more could you ask for?  Apart from God Save the Queen not to be played as our national anthem again that is.

Bring it on boyo’s!

Edit:
England are leading 16-6 at half time.  The crafty celts have played a decent first half but England have out-classed them.  The huge New Zealander that’s now playing for us is very good – a beast of a man but fast.

Edit 2:
England’s game has collapsed and the taffy’s have taken the lead.  England are playing embarrasingly badly – bring back Dallaglio!

Edit 3:
Holy shit!  Wales haven’t won at Twickenham for 20 years and England have thrown away a brilliant first half and comfortable lead.

Technorati Tags: England, Wales, Rugby, Six Nations

For a while now, Federal Europe has provided mediators to try and come up with a solution that would allow Kosovo to remain part of Serbia which would be acceptable to both the Serbs who don’t want to lose Kosovo and to the majority Kosovan Albanians who want independence.

They have so far failed to come up with a solution and it’s now almost certain that Kosovo will declare independence very soon but there is opposition amongst some EU member states who are concerned that recognising Kosovan independence would set a precedent and force them to recognise the independence of their own seperatist regions.

Belgium has seperatist movements in Flanders and Wallonia; Denmark has seperatist movements in the Faroes and Greenland; Finland has a seperatist movement in Åaland; France has seperatist movements in Brittany, Corsica and Savoy; Italy has seperatist movements in Sardinia, Sicily and Northern Italy; Romania has a seperatist movement in Transylvania; Spain has seperatist movements in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Navarre; Sweden has a seperatist movement in Lapland; The UK has seperatist movements in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Cornwall.

Belgium has been without a government for months now after the main parties failed (several times) to form a coalition government.  The former Prime Minister has been caretaker-Prime Minister ever since the last election.  There are strong calls for independence for Flanders and to a lesser extent, Wallonia.  The situation in Belgium is similar to in the UK – a constitutional monarchy, no-mandate Prime Minister, an artifical union at the end of its useful life, one nation of the union subsidising the rest and a lack of concern as to whether the union breaks up or not.  What is different, however, is that Belgium is held up by Federal Europe as the perfect multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual union.  It is, in short, what the European Union wants to be when it grows up and that’s why the break-up of Belgium is so important to the majority of Europeans who don’t want to live in a Federal Europe.

The Basque Country is virtually independent now within Spain.  They have so much autonomy that there is virtually nothing that can be devolved from Spain other than foreign relations and defence.  It is only a matter of time before Basque declares unilateral independence from Spain.

Scotland is also on the verge of leaving the UK but it’s proving difficult for the SNP to convince the Scots to cut the apron strings and go it alone.  This is, I think, partly to do with the fact that they want to leave a union that they control and benefit from financially to a European Union in which they will be an irrelevance and will probably end up being a net contributor to.

Kosovo could be the key to independence for many nations in Europe and ultimately the dissolution of the European Union.  The UK, Italy, France and Germany have written to other EU member states asking them support Kosavan independence if they declare it.  Italy, France and Germany don’t have much to worry about from a precedent for recognising independence because they don’t have strong seperatist movements but the British government does.  There are two possible reasons why No Mandate Brown would support setting a precedent for recognising unilateral declarations of independence – either he thinks that he could take power in an independent Scotland or he really is stupid enough to think that the union will last beyond the next 10 years.

No matter what the reasons the powers that be have for supporting independence for Kosovo, it has the potential to give English people what they want – self-government (one way or the other) and the break-up of the Federal Europe.  For these reasons, every Englishman should actively support the Kosovan independence movement.  A vote for Kosovo is a vote for England!

Technorati Tags: Kosovo, England, Scotland, Wales, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Federal Europe, Independence

It has been mentioned that the winning consortium contains QinetiQ (formerly DERA – Defence Evaluation and Research Agency) which is 21% owned by the British government and it has been suggested that this may have influenced the decision.

However, what hasn’t been mentioned is that around 18 months ago, RAF Cosford was told that it was not allowed any public money to refurbish facilities but RAF St Athan was given £184m of public money by the Welsh Assembly to build the super hanger which clinched the deal for St Athan.

Bearing in mind that Wales is running at a multi-billion pound budget deficit which is plugged with English taxes, this means that effectively English taxes have paid for the facilities that have enabled St Athan to take the business off RAF Cosford.

He tells the Welsh that “the contribution of Wales to the industrial development of Britain was enormous, helping to create prosperity and to turn us into a world power.  In return, Wales has long benefited from support from the Treasury, with Welsh public spending almost £1,000 per head higher than in England.”

He repeated the Ignorant Jock‘s claim that nationalists and the Tories were trying to balkanise Britain – something Labour has already done with the regionalisation of England and the re-establishment of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as “nations” within his “nations and regions of Britain”

“By trying to whip up and then harness nationalist sentiment in England, they risk unleashing forces which can lead to only one thing: the Balkanisation of Britain. That would damage Britain and damage Wales.”

“Unless we see it off, it will prove a one-way street to the disintegration of the United Kingdom – and a one-way street to irrelevance for Wales.”

Not only is Hain a bigot but he is also a hypocrite.  He openly reminds the Welsh that they are reliant on English taxes to balance the books and that without England, Wales is an irrelevance.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Wales and in the past Welsh coal and water has helped our economy boom but nowadays Wales is a drain on English resources.

For the benefit of English taxpayers and for the benefit of Wales’ self respect, a fully federal union or complete independence is the only way forward.  The balkanisation of Britain has already happened thanks to New Labour and their anglophobic devolution project.  It’s too late to stop it happening and nationalism will keep rising no matter how many times these self-serving politicians talk about “shared values”.

This is the latest in a line of increasingly high profile supporters of devolution for England.

Don’t get too excited though – Lord Elis-Thomas’ vision of the UK is a “United Kingdom in a United Europe”.  Which would make him one of the minority of people in the UK who want to preserve the union and one of the even tinier minority who are interested in being part of a United Europe.

Predictably, the story isn’t anywhere on the England pages on the BBC News website but it did make it to the British politics page which is an inprovement over the usual policy of burying anything to do with an English Parliament somewhere English people won’t look for it.