A Scottish no vote will be the end of the union

A YouGov poll released Saturday night is the first to show a majority yes vote for the Scottish independence referendum. A further poll by TNS-BRMB has it at 50/50.

The YouGov poll for the Sunday Times found a statistically negligible 2% lead for the yes camp which means that the referendum could go either way. It was enough to prompt yet another promise of more devolution of powers to the Scottish government from the Brits though with a pledge to hold another Scottish Constitutional Convention to decide what extra powers the Scots want if they vote no over and above the extensive new powers already promised to them by the British government.

If the Scots vote no on September 18th the union is done for. The democratic deficit in England will turn into a huge democratic gulf with Scotland having all the benefits of independence with none of the responsibilities and England still the only country in Europe with no representative national government under a British government so consumed with pandering to the rebellious Scots that they have forgotten we even exist. The people of England are finally seeing that England means nothing to the British, we’re just there to make up the numbers and pay the bills. Giving Scotland yet more powers on top of the extra powers they’re being bribed with to stay in the union whilst refusing to even acknowledge that England has wants and needs is one insult too many.

I’m glad the yes camp is in the lead and I hope with all my heart that the lead increases in the run-up to the election and that the Scots vote for independence on the day. With a bit of luck that will precipitate the end of the union and the return of democracy to England.

Future of England Survey

Tucked away on the BBC News website is a video mentioning the results of the Future of England Survey conducted by the Universities of Cardiff and Edinburgh for YouGov.

With the Scottish independence referendum a month away you’d thing a poll on English attitudes to devolution, independence and the relationship between Scotland and England after the referendum would be major news but no, it’s hidden away in the video “features” section. I can’t find an actual article about the poll at all, just this video which is using a new interactive video format the BBC are trialling which doesn’t work on mobiles or in Internet Explorer, thus limiting the already limited prospective audience who watch video even further.

The findings of this survey are very interesting and as far as I’m aware it’s the only survey of English opinions on the subject of Scottish independence and English governance that have been carried out during the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum.

[fruitful_tabs type=”accordion” width=”100%” fit=”false”]
[fruitful_tab title=”English Identity”]

Which, if any, of the following best describes the way you think of yourself?
English not British 11
More English than British 20
Equally English and British 41
More British than English 12
British not English 6
Other 4
Don’t know 5
Recently, people in England have become more aware of English national identity
Agree strongly 11
Tend to agree 34
Total Agree 45
Neither agree nor disagree 27
Tend to disagree 16
Strongly disagree 4
Total Disagree 20
Don’t know 8

[/fruitful_tab]
[fruitful_tab title=”Independence”]

Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 19
No 59
Don’t know 22
Should England be an independent country?
Yes 22
No 59
Don’t know 18

[/fruitful_tab]
[fruitful_tab title=”What if Scotland votes yes?”]

An independent Scotland should be able to continue to use the pound
Agree strongly 9
Tend to agree 14
Total Agree 23
Neither agree nor disagree 15
Tend to disagree 18
Strongly disagree 35
Total Disagree 53
Don’t know 9
People should be able to travel between England and Scotland without passport checks
Agree strongly 45
Tend to agree 24
Total Agree 69
Neither agree nor disagree 11
Tend to disagree 6
Strongly disagree 7
Total Disagree 13
Don’t know 6
The rest of the UK should support Scotland in applying to join international organisations, like the EU and NATO
Agree strongly 9
Tend to agree 17
Total Agree 26
Neither agree nor disagree 26
Tend to disagree 16
Strongly disagree 20
Total Disagree 36
Don’t know 12
The UK’s standing in the world will be diminished
Agree strongly 9
Tend to agree 27
Total Agree 36
Neither agree nor disagree 24
Tend to disagree 19
Strongly disagree 10
Total Disagree 29
Don’t know 10
Relations between England and Scotland will improve
Agree strongly 3
Tend to agree 7
Total Agree 10
Neither agree nor disagree 26
Tend to disagree 35
Strongly disagree 18
Total Disagree 53
Don’t know 11

[/fruitful_tab]
[fruitful_tab title=”What if Scotland votes NO?”]

The Scottish Parliament should be given control over the majority of taxes raised in Scotland
Agree strongly 11
Tend to agree 31
Total Agree 42
Neither agree nor disagree 21
Tend to disagree 17
Strongly disagree 8
Total Disagree 25
Don’t know 12
The Scottish parliament should be given the power to decide its own policies on welfare benefits
Agree strongly 11
Tend to agree 29
Total Agree 40
Neither agree nor disagree 22
Tend to disagree 17
Strongly disagree 9
Total Disagree 26
Don’t know 11
Would you say that compared with other parts of the UK, each of these gets pretty much their fair share of government spending, more than their fair share, or less than their fair share?
England
Gets their fair share 25
Gets more than their fair share 8
Gets less than their fair share 31
Don’t know 36
Scotland
Gets their fair share 20
Gets more than their fair share 38
Gets less than their fair share 4
Don’t know 38
Levels of public spending in Scotland should be reduced to the levels in the rest of the UK
Agree strongly 25
Tend to agree 31
Total Agree 56
Neither agree nor disagree 21
Tend to disagree 6
Strongly disagree 3
Total Disagree 9
Don’t know 13
Scottish MPs should be prevented from voting on laws that apply only to England
Agree strongly 35
Tend to agree 27
Total Agree 62
Neither agree nor disagree 15
Tend to disagree 9
Strongly disagree 3
Total Disagree 12
Don’t know 10

[/fruitful_tab]
[fruitful_tab title=”English governance”]

With all the changes going on in the way different parts of the United Kingdom are run, which of the following do you think would be best for England?
For England to be governed as it is now with laws made by all MPs in the UK Parliament 18
For England to be governed with laws made by English MPs in the UK Parliament 40
For each region of England to have its own assembly 9
For England as a whole to have its own new English parliament with law-making powers 16
Don’t know 17
Thinking about possible arrangements for making laws for England two options are often mentioned. If you had to choose which ONE would you prefer?
For England to be governed with laws made solely by English MPs in the UK Parliament 36
For England to be governed with laws made solely by English MPs in the UK Parliament 25
Keep things as they are at present 22
Don’t know 17
A Secretary of State for England in the UK cabinet
Agree strongly 22
Tend to agree 31
Total Agree 53
Neither agree nor disagree 23
Tend to disagree 7
Strongly disagree 4
Total Disagree 11
Don’t know 12
UK government ministers for each of the regions of England
Agree strongly 18
Tend to agree 33
Total Agree 51
Neither agree nor disagree 22
Tend to disagree 10
Strongly disagree 6
Total Disagree 16
Don’t know 11
An English Parliament
Agree strongly 26
Tend to agree 28
Total Agree 54
Neither agree nor disagree 20
Tend to disagree 9
Strongly disagree 6
Total Disagree 15
Don’t know 10
Changing the rules in parliament, so that only English MPs can vote on laws that would apply only in England
Agree strongly 40
Tend to agree 29
Total Agree 69
Neither agree nor disagree 14
Tend to disagree 5
Strongly disagree 3
Total Disagree 8
Don’t know 9
England and Scotland will still continue to drift apart
Agree strongly 8
Tend to agree 29
Total Agree 37
Neither agree nor disagree 29
Tend to disagree 17
Strongly disagree 4
Total Disagree 21
Don’t know 13

[/fruitful_tab]
[/fruitful_tabs]

There is clear support here for preventing MPs not elected in England from voting on English laws and for cutting the amount of taxpayers’ money Scotland gets so England gets its fair share. Most people want to keep open borders with an independent Scotland but don’t think they should be allowed to keep the pound. The majority are in favour of Scotland getting more powers over taxation and benefits spending and think England should have its own parliament. Over half think each English euroregion should have its own UK government minister but less than 1 in 10 think England should have regional government.

So, if the UK was a truly representative democracy with a government that listened to what people wanted and acted on it we would have a devolved English Parliament with a Secretary of State for England in the British government along with a minister for each English euroregion and the £11bn or so subsidy that’s given to Scotland would be abolished and shared equally with England. What we have instead is an ever increasing bill for Scotland’s profligate spending, MPs elected in Scotland making laws that only affect England, no English government of any sort and a sustained campaign to break England up into artificial regions.

Stone Cross St George's Day Parade

What does Scottish independence mean for England?

There has been very little coverage of next month’s Scottish independence vote down here in England (much like the Scottish devolution vote in 1997 actually) and what media coverage there has been from a purely Scottish viewpoint. So what does it mean for England?

The important thing to remember is that a No vote in Scotland will be a disaster for England. I don’t mean because Scotland will continue to drain English taxes to pay for their unsustainable public spending and prolong the forced marriage for at least another 50 years but because it will lead to a widening of the democratic deficit in England and we won’t get another chance in our lifetime to finally put the union out to pasture with all the other anachronistic supranational bureaucracies that have expired in recent years.

The British government have already promised extensive new powers to the Scottish Parliament in the event that they vote No on 18th September. They’re getting even more tax raising powers to go with the ones they haven’t bothered to use for the last 17 years and they’re getting some powers over the Scottish benefits system. All three Scottish LibLabCon parties have signed a declaration promising more powers for Scotland and reiterating their commitment to a strong and powerful Scottish Parliament:

We support a strong Scottish Parliament in a strong United Kingdom and we support the further strengthening of the parliament’s powers.

The Scottish Labour Party, the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party and the Scottish Liberal Democrats have each produced our own visions of the new powers which the Scottish Parliament needs.

We shall put those visions before the Scottish people at the next general election and all three parties guarantee to start delivering more powers for the Scottish Parliament as swiftly as possible in 2015.

This commitment will deliver a stronger Scottish Parliament in a stronger United Kingdom.

The British Labour, British Conservative & Unionist and British Lib Dem parties have no vision for England other than taking powers off local authorities and giving them to unaccountable, ineffectual regional and sub-regional quangos. There is no intention of recognising and respecting the sovereign right of the English people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs.

The British nationalist Better Together campaign is only interested in making the case for the union in Scotland and only Scottish politicians have been allowed to front it – Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown, John Reid, David Cameron, Michael Gove. UKIP wanted to join the Better Together campaign but was refused because it isn’t a Scottish political party. No irony there. Better Together might be headed up by British nationalists but it isn’t about British interests, it’s about Scottish interests. Scotland gets the best of both worlds as they say on their website – they can spend money without worrying about where it comes from and make decisions without having to worry about the costs or implications because if it goes wrong it’s always London’s fault for not giving them more money.

Here are the facts about the Scottish independence vote that an English person needs to know:

Scottish independence doesn’t mean the end of the UK. If you’re English and a unionist you can take comfort from the fact that the British union will continue to exist if the Scots declare independence, just the same as it did after the Irish Free State left the union in 1937. If you’re English and want an end to the British union then bad luck, Scottish independence isn’t the silver bullet for the union.

Scottish independence won’t turn Westminster into an English Parliament. The British Parliament will continue to be the British Parliament for as long as the UK exists. The British Parliament was still the British Parliament after Irish independence and it would continue to be so after Scottish independence.

Scottish independence won’t make an English Parliament inevitable. If there was a slim chance of England getting a devolved government with Scotland in the union there’s bugger all chance of it happening without Scotland. England currently comprises 85% of the population of the UK which is one of the excuses the British use to argue that we don’t need an English Parliament. Without Scotland it would be over 90% of the population, making it even harder to sell the benefits of an English Parliament.

No vote won’t make an English Parliament inevitable. The run-up to the Scottish independence vote has been all about Scotland and whatever the result, it’s all going to be about Scotland afterwards. A fair and democratic settlement for England isn’t going to register. the Brits will be too busy negotiating Scotland’s departure from the union or slapping each other on the backs for their “victory” in securing a No vote.

The UK’s international standing won’t be diminished without Scotland. Most people won’t even notice the difference either here or abroad. The UK would retain its membership of all the international bodies it is a member of, all treaties would remain in force and the UK would still be the sixth largest economy in the world by GDP. The UK’s economic power and international standing comes from England, not Scotland or even from Britain.

You won’t need a passport to go to Scotland. You can travel to the Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man and Channel Islands without a passport so there’s no reason why you should need a passport to travel to Scotland if they become independent.

Your Scottish friends and relatives are already foreign. They might be British by law but they’re Scottish. Does it matter? If Scotland votes for independence and a Scot wanted to stay “British” then they could move from Scotland to the rump of the UK. If they don’t want to because they want to live in Scotland then they need to make their mind up whether they’re Scottish or British.

Scotland can continue using the pound. It doesn’t matter whether the British government says they can or not, they can use whatever currency they want if they declare independence. A large number of countries use another country’s currency either alongside its own domestic currency or as legal tender in that country. An independent Scotland can choose to adopt the pound as legal tender and there’s nothing the British government can do to stop them.

England would benefit economically from Scottish independence. It costs over £11bn a year to subsidise Scottish public services and that bill is paid by the English taxpayer. The Scottish nationalists think that north sea oil and gas tax receipts cover that bill and claim that they have in fact been subsidising the UK’s spending for decades. It’s nonsense but that’s Scotland’s problem not ours. Just removing the burden of subsidising Scotland’s profligate spending would give the English and rump British economy a boost.

Scottish independence would help eurosceptics. Scotland is by far the most europhile part of the UK and their views skew public opinion which in England is very much eurosceptic. If a referendum was ever held on our membership of the EU then Scotland could well swing it in favour of staying in. Scotland also votes almost exclusively for openly europhile British MPs – with the exception of the one EU reformist Tory, all the British MPs in Scotland are Labour, Lib Dem or SNP and openly in favour of ever closer union.

The British flag won’t change. It didn’t change when the Irish Free State declared independence so why would it change if Scotland declared independence? If you like the BNP logo then don’t worry, it doesn’t need to change.

Oliver Cromwell
You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately.

Depart, I say; and let us have done with you.

In the name of God, go!

RIP Andrew Ian Dodge

I’ve seen the sad news today that Andrew Ian Dodge passed away on Friday after losing his second battle with cancer.

Andrew was a seasoned campaigner who couldn’t help but try and right any wrongs he came to know of. He had a strong sense of right and wrong and his desire to effect change led him to stand for election as Senator for Maine for the Libertarian Party.

Andrew was a supporter of an English Parliament, a eurosceptic, a prolific blogger and a rock/metal fan. We had a lot in common!

RIP AID.

Andrew Ian Dodge

Best. Photobomb. Ever.

Alex Salmond COSG photobomb

Commonwealth Games home nations update

We’re most of the way through day 9 of the Commonwealth Games and England are leaving the opposition for dust.

For a couple of days England and Australia were leapfrogging each other at the top of the table but England have pulled well into the lead with 43 gold medals to Australia’s 36.

Here are the all important standings for the home nations.

Country Gold Silver Bronze
England 43 38 38
Scotland 14 12 16
Wales 4 10 14
Northern Ireland 0 1 1
Isle of Man 0 1 0

 

A new Magna Carta would legitimise the illegal deprivation of our rights and freedoms

Left Wing think tank, Unlock Democracy, recently ran a survey on what should go in a replacement Magna Carta. They didn’t want to know if people wanted a replacement Magna Carta of course because their raison d’être is to push for a new constitution written in a single document.

The thing is, we don’t need a new Magna Carta. All we need is for Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights and the other constitutional laws – the European Communities Act excepted, obviously – to be upheld by judges rather than dismissed out of hand to protect multi-billion pound state-controlled rackets like on the spot fines (illegal under the Bill of Rights) or unacceptable assaults on our constitutional rights such as restrictions to the right of trial by jury (illegal under Magna Carta) or internment (illegal under the Habeas Corpus Act).

We already have all the rights we need and any attempt to supersede these fundamental rights and freedoms with a modern bill of rights and responsibilities would put a heavy emphasis on responsibilities at the expense of some carefully worded and heavily caveated rights that would legitimise the illegal deprivation of our rights and freedoms perpetrated by successive British governments.

Magna Carta

England dominating the Commonwealth Games

I’ll never get tired of hearing the words “And now the national anthem of England“.

England are topping the Commonwealth Games medals table at the moment with 16 golds, closely followed by Australia. But the important question is how are we doing against the rest of the British Isles? The answer is, we’re thrashing them!

Country Gold Silver Bronze
England 16 12 12
Scotland 9 6 7
Wales 2 6 6
Isle of Man 0 1 0
Northern Ireland 0 0 1

Are you enlightened?

Ingress Enlightened

The BBC says the English don’t want devolution

The BBC is asking “Why don’t the English want more power” in response to the Scottish independence referendum in defiance of the evidence that actually they do.

In an article promoting the balkanisation of England into artificial regions, they make the ridiculous claim that 19% of English people support regional government and only 15% support an English Parliament. Toque has been keeping tabs on English Parliament opinion polls since 2002 and not once has support for an English Parliament dipped that low – in fact, in a 2007 ICM opinion poll for the Telegraph 15% supported English independence. Are we to believe that just because people have stopped asking the question in the last year and a half, the support for an English Parliament that has consistently been between more than 50% and almost 70% depending on the question asked has suddenly nosedived to just 15%? That’s rubbish and the BBC know it which is why they’ve left it unsourced.

You can gauge the support for an English Parliament quite easily by just asking any random sample of people – your family, friends or work colleagues – whether they think England should have its own government like Scotland does and unless your circle of friends are ill-informed hardcore British nationalists, most of them will say yes.

The case for an English Parliament does need to be made again because there hasn’t been an effective campaign highlighting the issues and the solution since the Campaign for an English Parliament collapsed into a mere parody of itself a few years ago but support for an English Parliament is still high. Support for regionalisation is still low but increasing in Yorkshire and Cornwall where Labour and Mebyon Kernow respectively are peddling their divisive, anti-English politics.

The message for Yorkshire and Cornwall – and elsewhere in England for that matter – is that an English Parliament and regional devolution aren’t mutually exclusive. There is no reason why Cornwall or Yorkshire shouldn’t have an assembly of its own if that’s what the majority of people there want but that power has to be devolved democratically from an English government, not given away by the British government to frustrate the wishes of the English people. A Cornish Assembly or Yorkshire Assembly could never compete with the Scottish Parliament or Welsh or Northern Irish Assemblies let alone a G20 country but England in its own right would be a G8 country, one of the largest economies in the world. The British government won’t devolve meaningful power to a region and that’s one of the reasons why the regional assemblies were rejected by the electorate but a devolved English Parliament with greater autonomy for county or regional government under that English government could deliver local decision making where it’s more efficient or a national approach isn’t appropriate without breaking up England.

The message for the BBC is that we do want our country back and you can quote all the dodgy, unsourced statistics you want and give as many column inches to the regionalists as you like but you won’t change the facts. The majority of people in England want an English Parliament.

The British want to teach Britishness in English schools again

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is StrengthThe British Minister for English Education, Michael Gove, has called for British values to actively promoted in English schools.

Gove says that promoting British values in English schools will stop the illegal indoctrination of children in schools run by Islamists and David Cameron thinks it’s a jolly good idea.

The British values that the British Minister for English Education says English children must be indoctrinated with are:

  • How citizens can influence decision-making through the democratic process
  • An appreciation that living under the rule of law protects individual citizens
  • An understanding that bodies such as the police and the army can be held to account by the people, through the democratic organs of government
  • An understanding that the freedom to hold other faiths and beliefs is protected in law, and an acceptance that other people having different faiths or beliefs to oneself (or having none) should not be the cause of prejudicial or discriminatory behaviour
  • An understanding of the problems of identifying and combating discrimination

Now, let’s just examine these British values a little more closely from the perspective of an Englishman.

How citizens can influence decision-making through the democratic process

It wasn’t all that long ago that we had a British Prime Minister who was elected in Scotland with a cabinet stuffed full of MPs elected in Scotland spending roughly three quarters of their time making laws for England. Nobody in England could influence their decisions making because the British govern England directly from London. It’s also not all that long ago that we had Tony Blair’s former flatmate, the unelected Lord Chancellor England, Lord Charlie Falconer (a Scot, naturally) telling us that we would never be allowed to have an English Parliament. I also recall the murmurs of discontent when the big supermarkets in England went to Alistair Darling (who of course is only accountable to voters in Edinburgh) to ask for Sunday Trading laws to be abolished in England like they are in Scotland but he said no. I don’t think many people who take an interest in politics or the English question will ever forget that we only have university tuition fees and foundation hospitals in England because MPs elected in Scotland overturned the slim majority of MPs elected in England who voted against them. Nobody in England has any influence over those MPs elected in other countries or the unelected lords and bureaucrats that make laws for England. And don’t even get me started on the EU which makes 75% of our laws. Seriously, don’t.

An appreciation that living under the rule of law protects individual citizens

This is an interesting one this. “If you don’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to fear” is the rallying call of fascists and big state activists alike. The fact is, it’s virtually impossible not to break the law nowadays because there are just so many of the damn things and of course problematic people need only commit a minor offence to get them into the system and ruin their lives. The book “Taking Liberties” is getting a bit old now having been written (and turned into a film) during the despotic reign of Prince Tony but most of the oppressive laws and the abuses of our hard won rights and freedoms mentioned in the book are still in force and taking place now but they’ve become so commonplace now, nobody bats an eyelid. Remember the woman who was arrested under anti-terrorism laws for reading out the names of dead soldiers outside Downing Street? How about the man charged with terrorism offences for knowing somebody who was friends with someone suspected of terrorist offences, found innocent by a jury and then put under indefinite house arrest by the Home Secretary because the jury got the “wrong” answer? This is the law that supposedly protects us by essentially stripping us of the automatic right to liberty that we’ve had for centuries.

An understanding that bodies such as the police and the army can be held to account by the people, through the democratic organs of government

Another interesting one. How do we hold the police and army to account? The police force is now heavily politicised with the introduction of elected Police & Crime Commissioners which has put nominal control of most police forces in England into the hands of political parties. Since the Police & Crime Commissioners have been in charge have we seen an increase in accountability? No. Have we been asked what we think the police are doing wrong and what we want them to do better? No. Are people unhappy with them? Yes. There is a campaign to oust the Kent Police & Crime Commissioner, Ann Barnes, to resign after bringing the police force into disrepute in an appearance on a TV documentary, the first youth crime commissioner she appointed resigned for making racist and homophobic comments on Twitter and the second youth crime commissioner she appointed was suspended just 3 months into the job for having an affair with a married police officer. She is refusing the stand down. As for what’s left of the army – how do we exercise any control over them? And more importantly, why should we be able to?

An understanding that the freedom to hold other faiths and beliefs is protected in law, and an acceptance that other people having different faiths or beliefs to oneself (or having none) should not be the cause of prejudicial or discriminatory behaviour

This is a good one because I bet the person who went to court arguing that it was religious discrimination for British Airways to allow Sikhs to wear a bangle but forcing her to remove her cross and lost doesn’t think that her religious beliefs are protected. When Muslim street patrols are out in force in Tower Hamlets abusing and threatening women who aren’t covered from head to toe and men who are drinking while the police turn a blind eye, how is that helping to prevent prejudice and discrimination? When the British government pressed ahead with legalising gay marriage in the full and certain knowledge that the EU courts would rule that it was discrimination for the established church to refuse to marry a gay couple despite it being contrary to their beliefs and teachings, how is that helping to protect the freedom of Christians to practice their religion?

An understanding of the problems of identifying and combating discrimination

This is great. Finally, our children are going to be told about the institutional discrimination against England that prevails throughout the British establishment. They’re going to be told about the British government refusing to allow the English a say on how their country is governed whilst allowing the Scots and Welsh devolved government. They’re going to be told how the British are breaking up England – starting with London and its regional assembly, then Cornwall and now a revival of the regional local government reorganisation that they planned with regional assemblies but are now targeting at cities. They’re going to be told that it’s morally wrong and unconstitutional for MPs elected in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to vote on laws that only affect England which are devolved in their own countries. They’re going to be shown the list of attendees of the British-Irish Council so they can see how England has less democratic representation on supranational bodies than the Channel Island, the Isle of Man and Cornwall. They’re going to be told about the laws that only affect England that MPs elected in England voted against but which became law anyway because MPs elected in Scotland voted for them. They’re going to be told about the Barnett Formula and the eye-watering sums of money that are given to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to pay for superior public services. They’re going to be told about the life saving cancer treatments and cures for blindness that are freely available in Scotland thanks to the extra funding the Scottish NHS gets from the English taxpayer that we can’t have in England because there’s no money left to pay for them.

Except they won’t be told any of the above because of the British values they didn’t include in the list:

  • The English are an inferior people
  • There is no cost too great to keep the Scots and Welsh happy as long as the English are paying
  • Englishness must be suppressed at all costs
  • An English life is worth less than a Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish life
  • War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, England is Britain

Are we being prepared for a British rebranding of the English football team?

For years the BBC pursued a policy of denigrating England and suppressing any sense of English national pride or identity. They were eventually forced into changing their attitude towards England by a series of public embarrassments and criticisms that I’m proud to say I played a part in.

It seems that ITV have decided to fill the anti-English void left by the BBC directing marginally less hate towards England though. They have started conflating English and British like the BBC used to and promoting Britishness whilst portraying Englishness as something dirty an dangerous. Their coverage of England’s football matches this week shows the lengths they’ll go to to promote Britishness.

ITV British flag at England gameITV British flag at England game

There were hundreds of English flags in the crowd in the game against Ecuador on Wednesday but ITV managed to find an English flag with a union flag in the corner that they zoomed in on while the British national anthem was played for the English team before panning round the England fans and finally finishing on the flag again but zoomed out so you could see the whole thing.

If it was an isolated incident you could dismiss it as crap camera work but it happened again tonight before the Honduras game – they managed to find what must have been the only union flag amongst the thousands of English flags in the crowd to zoom in on while they played the British national anthem again.

If I was a suspicious person I might wonder if we were being prepared for a rebranding of the English team bearing in mind FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s well known opposition to an English team, the British government’s desire for a British football team and the FA’s willingness to run the Team GB football team for the Olympics despite the very sensible opposition from the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish FAs. I don’t trust the FA, I don’t trust the British government and I don’t trust FIFA. There is more to this than meets the eye.

Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably Priced Love, and a Hard-Boiled Egg!

Lilac

Vote UKIP on Thursday

The EU elections are a little over a day away and they promise to be the biggest defeat of the establishment parties in a national election ever experienced in the UK.

Labour’s vote has held up remarkably well all things considered but it’s not going to be enough to win the election. The Conservative vote has nosedived and the Lib Dem vote has collapsed to the extent that they’re level pegging with the loony Greens and probably going to lose all their MEPs.

Despite the media campaign against UKIP and the trade union funded hate groups attacking (physically in some cases) the party and its candidates, UKIP is on course to win the EU election and become the largest UK party in the EU Parliament. There has been a conspiracy of silence in the media where the wrongdoings of LibLabCon councillors and candidates have been ignored whilst turning over front pages to stories like a UKIP MEP candidate giving the finger to fascist anti-democracy thugs screaming abuse at her. I won’t list the stories of thieving, cheating, lying, bail jumping criminal LibLabCon councillors and candidates in the last month that the national media have ignored but if you want to see what the media don’t want you to see then browse through the last few weeks’ worth of posts on Bloggers4UKIP for all the sordid details.

When it comes to voting it wouldn’t matter if UKIP won every seat in the UK and sent 73 MEPs to the EU Parliament because our national interest will always be overruled by the europhiles that make up the majority but it is still important to return the maximum number of UKIP MEPs for two very good reasons: every UKIP MEP elected means one less europhile MEP and the more UKIP MEPs we have, the more eurosceptic MEPs we will have on committees which is where most of the damage limitation happens.

Beware of cheap imitations on Thursday, look for the £ sign!

Labour’s hypocritical tuition fees attack on the Lib Dems

Nick Clegg Pledge to oppose university taxThe Labour Party are asking people to share a poster on Facebook attacking the Lib Dems over their broken promise on tuition fees.

The Lib Dem manifesto for the last election promised to vote against any increase in Labour’s university tax and Nick Clegg even posed with a giant pledge card saying he would vote against it and pressure the British government for a fairer alternative. Once elected he voted to increase Labour’s university tax from £3k a year to £9k a year.

That Nick Clegg is a weak, dishonest politician goes without saying but people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and Labour really have scored an own goal with this one. Labour contested the 2001 election saying they wouldn’t introduce the university tax and had legislated to prevent it. Like the legislation Conservative supporters are currently clinging to for dear life that David Cameron has told them “guarantees” an EU referendum in 2017, the legislation preventing the introduction of the university tax was utterly worthless and shortly after they repealed it and introduced tuition fees of up to £3k in England.

The English university tax was imposed on England against the wishes of our democratically elected representatives. Since the introduction of devolved government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the British government only had control of education in England so in any real democracy, only MPs elected in England should have voted on the introduction of the university tax but Labour whipped their Scottish MPs to vote it through and overturned a small majority of MPs elected in England who voted against it.

We wouldn’t have the university tax in England at all if it wasn’t for Labour’s broken promise not to introduce it and Labour’s undemocratic use of their Scottish MPs to impose legislation on England that a majority of MPs elected in England voted against. Using the Lib Dems’ broken promises on the the university tax that Labour broke a promise and broke one of the most fundamental democratic principals to introduce is frankly hypocritical and I hope that it blows up in their faces.

Pledge your support for a fair deal for England this St George’s Day

Today we celebrate St George’s Day, the patron saint of (amongst others) England …

Stone Cross St George

Stone Cross St George’s Day Parade. Picture: Express & Star

… or do we?

While people around the world and even in the rest of the UK mark their national days with public holidays, festivals and binge drinking in silly hats, St George’s Day is largely ignored despite opinion polls suggesting that as many as three quarters of us think it should be a public holiday.

Over the years we have been told that Englishness is sinister and offensive and that our national flag is linked inextricably with racists. We have been told that we can never have our own government or national institutions even though there is overwhelming support for it and that we must be British for the sake of the union. British politicians will go to great lengths to avoid saying the word England or even acknowledging the existence of an English identity despite most people in England defining themselves as English, not British.

In 1997 the British government gave Scotland and Wales referenda on creating their own devolved governments and in both cases the people of those nations voted for home rule. In 2004 the British government scheduled referenda in the 9 euroregions of England to create regional governments and cancelled them all after 78% of people in the north east of England rejected it in the first referendum. Since then, Wales has had a second referendum to give the Welsh government more powers and the Scots have their independence referendum later this year. The English have never been given a say on how they want their country to be run and the campaign to break England up into regions has been revived with backing from the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems. There is a determination to abolish the English nation and it is gathering pace.

It is not racist to be proud to be English or to fly the English flag and it is not unreasonable to expect our country to be treated fairly and equally within the union. That’s why I would urge all my readers to pledge to support a new campaign for a fair deal for England …

Happy Zombie Jesus Day

Happy Zombie Jesus Day

British sickness tax goes up in England today

It’s April Fool’s Day today and you all know what that means … that’s right, the British are taking us for fools yet again with the prescription charge in England going up 20p to £8.05 per item.

Whilst the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments have all abolished prescriptions charges in their own countries, the British continue to tax the sick in England to help pay for the subsidies that allow the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish to get their prescriptions for free.

Just one of the reasons why we need an English Parliament.

UK Prescription Charges 2007-2014

British government increases English prescription charges

UK Prescription Charges 2007-2014 TableThe British Minister for English Health has announced that prescription charges will go up again on April Fool’s Day this year from £7.85 to £8.05 per item and NHS dental costs will go up by up to £5.

But only in England.

Prescriptions are free in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland thanks to the lavish subsidies the British government gives then out of English taxes. These same subsidies have allowed the rest of the UK to variously abolish hospital parking charges, abolish means testing for social care, freeze council tax, reduce or abolish university tuition fees and much more whilst we in England continue to pay more and more every year.

Just one of the reasons why we need an English Parliament.

UK Prescription Charges 2007-2014

ATOS want early exit from DWP contract

French company ATOS has announced that it is seeking an early exit from its contract with the British government to carry out fitness for work assessments on disabled people.

ATOSATOS have been given a slating over their handling of the contract for making decisions to send people back to work when they are clearly not fit for work but they don’t deserve all the blame. In fact, most of the blame should fall at the previous Labour-controlled government who contracted ATOS in the first place and the current ConDem government who allowed the injustice to continue unabated.

The problem with what ATOS have been doing is that they were contracted to get x number of disabled people working and they’ve done what they were paid to do. Nobody knew how many disabled people were fit for work because if they knew who was and wasn’t fit for work they wouldn’t have needed to pay ATOS to find out so telling them in advance how many people they had to rule were fit for work is just nonsense. ATOS have been driven by targets on the number of people they declare fit for work even if that means making bad decisions because that’s what they’re being paid to do.

If ATOS were targeted on the quality of their decisions and not the number of people they declare fit for work then there wouldn’t have been such injustice in the decision-making process. ATOS took on a contract that was flawed and immoral but if they hadn’t taken on the contract, someone else would have done and with the same result. The contract is flawed and the only way to fix it is to base the targets solely on quality of decision making and not on the volume of people ruled fit to work.