The left need to offer a collective, forward-looking, dynamic and all-inclusive vision of England and Englishness that the people of England can sign up to.
Our guest writer is Dave Dyke, creator and facilitator of England Left Forward
One of the major successes of the past 13 years, depending on your point of view, has been devolution. The establishment of the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly, coupled with the advances in the Northern Ireland peace process that seemed impossible 20 years ago, have transformed the governance and the culture of three of the four nations within the Union.
However, this has left a big question at the heart of government, which has also had a knock-on effect culturally:
“How should England be governed?”
This is often referred to in the media as “The English Question”; it is a question that the major political parties have, so far, avoided answering in a satisfactory manner. In fact, the major parties seem to avoid any mention of England and Englishness altogether.
They have either pushed the British agenda or wished to impose the regionalisation of England against the will of the people. The failure of the English regional assembly referendum in the North East in 2004 was due to the proposed assembly being no more than a glorified county council, whose geographical area and powers were dictated from the centre, without consultation with the grassroots.
But there has also been a current of thought, especially on the left, that to debate England and Englishness is inherently racist. This has led to a subsequent reluctance to either encourage the flying of the flag of England or to celebrate St George’s Day.
This has acted as a marvellous recruiting sergeant for parties and organisations of the right and far-right, such as the BNP, with their promises of an English “Folk” Parliament – with its ensuing visions of Apartheid-era South Africa – and the English Defence League.
This is why I have established the England Left Forward network, and the aims are two-fold. The first aim is to provide a space for those of us on the left, whether politically active or otherwise, to articulate, debate and resolve the various aspects of the English Question, in particular with respect to providing England with a legitimate political voice.
The second aim is to identify a vision for the various aspects of England and Englishness that is not nationalistic in nature, but draws on the experience and contributions of all who engage in the debate. For England is a country; it is not a colour, a race or a religion.
Where there’s disagreement on the aims, we hope to come to an accommodation that’s acceptable to all involved. Where there’s agreement, we intend to articulate the most appropriate way of taking things forward.
Currently the left seem to be playing a game of catch-up with the right over the English Question. If we can offer a collective, forward-looking, dynamic and all-inclusive vision of England and Englishness that the people of England can sign up to, as opposed to the nationalistic jingoism and flag-waving of the right, the game, although anything but, will be back on equal terms.
Let’s get working on that vision!
61 Responses to “The left-wing case for an English parliament”
Dave Dyke
@jdennis_99
Thanks for the insight. Some of us on the left have always acknowledged this issue. Unfortunately the leadership of the left hasn’t…
You ascribe to a civic nationalist vision, akin to the ones envisaged and successfully articulated by the SNP in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales? The problem for those of us on the left who acknowledged the issue has been that even if we’d argued the civic nationalist vision of England, we’d have been accused of being racist.
I can see where you’re coming from with the BNP argument. On the Political Compass website, the x-axis (left – right) relates to your economic viewpoint, whereas the y-axis is your social viewpoint. On the UK Parties 2008 page:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/extremeright
The BNP’s economic policy is on the left, but socially they are strict authoritarians.
When I took the test, my result came out slap bang in the middle of the libertarian left quadrant, around the same point as the Greens.
Alexander Mitchell
I am a Scot, who has some doubts over whether the Holyrood parliament was a good idea constitutionally. Yes it has given us a more powerful say in our affairs, which was a demand which grew exponentially under Thatcher and her economic policies over heavy industry, and it is a good forum for debate on purely scottish matters. It has done a lot of good, free personal care for the elderly, smoking bans, much needed modernisation of some areas of Scots law and helping Scotland regain a form of civic confidence it has been lacking. I do not subscribe to any notions of independence, the majority of Scots are loyal to the union in and see it’s benefits, in contrast to the view put across by the elected SNP administration (elected by a promises on education and universities and the NHS in Scotland which had nothing to do with Independence). But I do see a fatal flaw in it’s founding, the constitutional basis. It and the welsh assembly fail to notice the effect on creating constitutional in-balance between us and the English.
In that case an English parliament, or what ever form of representative body chosen, would be able to address this by establishing a federal Britain. 4 Constituent Nations, each with equal powers to each parliament and a federal government controlling matters of national (fed.) tax, macro-economic matters, foreign affairs (defence esp.) and co-ordinating the judicial, educational and health services of the 4 Union states. This would quell nationalism in Scotland and England and prevent the break up of a very effective union. I do stress this as a Scottish Unionist’s opinion, but it would be such a progressive move forward that it could help address matters like the West-Lothian/English questions and establish a modern co-operative union based on mutual respect and assistance to one another.
Through in proportional vote elections for all bodies (already existing in Scotland, Wales and NI) especially at Westminster, a constitutional document and reform of the House of Lords and the English question could give a UK wide answer to solve the constitutional mess of devolution and help create a fairer Union.
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Paul Z. Temperton
An English Parliament is a terrible idea. The main purpose of devolution is to decentralise power. An English government would not be noticeably any more decentralised than the UK government — which is far too centralised in my view. Also, with the possible exception of football teams, there is no clear emotional entity called “England”, unlike Scotland and Wales. When people say “England” they means all sorts of different things. The basis for equivalence with Scotland and Wales must be the English regions.
Martin Sage
The bizarre way in which the UK is organised politically makes it hard for those of us who were born and live in England to feel a part of any entity apart from a county. Few foreigners could understand how Scotland and Wales have their own Government but England does not (apart from Brussels of course) I can never understand why Scottish sports results are trotted out on the BBC as if those of us in England are any more interested in them than those from France or Azerbaijan.