Devolution

I want to resume my one-person campaign in favor of further devolution in the United Kingdom. I very much want to hive off Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which are still part of the UK, leaving England to run its own affairs. The monarch could be allowed to remain head of all these states, just as at present, she is monarch of countries like Canada, without that country being part of the UK. As far as I’m concerned if the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish don’t want to be part of one country, our United Kingdom, they should go it alone, and so should we. That means that each of our countries can be virtually independent, although not entirely so. The reason being that our ruling Labour Party will realize that they would never win the newly independent English parliamentary elections. The proof for this is that whenever they have won the UK general elections in the past, they have done so by winning thumping majorities in Wales and Scotland whereas the Conservatives almost always carry England.

The breakup of the United Kingdom into four smaller countries does fly in the face of all common sense since these countries have not flown solo for several hundred years and simply don’t have the critical mass to do so other than as European backwaters.

As matters stand the population of England is about five times greater than the rest of the nation put together and this disparity is set to become wider. The forecasters calculate that by mid century the population of England will pass the current population of the United Kingdom, sixty million, with the rest taken as a whole, amounting to a further ten to twelve million. This is largely due to large scale immigration.

I think an outcome of separation is a great pity since this diminishes all the parts of the great British Isles. When I was growing up I was encouraged to think of myself as British first and English second. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland it was always clear that they considered themselves Scottish, or Irish or Welsh first, then British. My identity was, admittedly, more confused, because of my Jewish, Eastern European heritage. As a child I always put English behind British as English had an almost tribal connotation to it. How could I, being of Jewish, Polish, Russian and some German background possibly call myself part of this English tribe?

It reminds me of what an American cousin once said to me. He and I were once chatting over how our family had bobbed along on the ebb and flow of the world’s flowing tides. He turned to me and said, “You know that Chamberlain of yours really let us all down.” I paused, unsure of how to reply, after all I was in his home, “Do you mean Neville Chamberlain?” I asked, quite politely, “yes, “ he continued, “what he did at Munich with Hitler.” A thousand thoughts crossed my mind, first was that my cousin had mislaid the fact that America had arrived a little late for that particular war, but then the proper response bubbled to the surface, “How can you be annoyed at Chamberlain for Munich when our common ancestor was probably selling matches on a street corner in Warsaw?”

That’s the trouble with national identity it’s all so totally fake. Most of the people who think themselves to be pure English or Scottish or anything else for that matter have a bit of the mongrel about them, and are, more than likely all the better for it.

But it feels like England has long subsidized and looked after these little brother countries at our borders. It is ironic that during this great debate we have a situation in which our Prime Minister and quite a few of the leading members of the Cabinet that governs our country is born in Scotland, whereas there is no possibility of similar representation of English power in Scotland. We have, in fact, got England being governed by the Scottish, Scotland governed by the Scottish and the UK being governed by the Scottish. This is like Italy being governed by the Romans, oh yes, that was the case wasn’t it, and that was called the Roman Empire. Should we call Britain today, the Scottish Empire?

This is exacerbated by the fact that there is more spent per Scottish person than there is spent on per English person and it’s English people who pay the majority of this bill. The Scots who run our country will protest that is not the case, but their own Treasury department has confirmed these figures. It is time this was stopped and the answer lies with the ballot box. It is time that these inequities were voiced and sorted out by the Conservative and Unionist party. That is what their name means, and it is high time they stood their ground and made themselves clear as an alternative government.