Political Economy

The Conservative, Labour and Liberal-Democrats do not want to give the people of England their own Parliament. The reasons they give are varied. Some, such as Straw and Prescott are quite happy to insult the English cultural identity and care not that this is a deeply racist action, under the Race Relations Act, and also offensive, confident that their position will give them protection.

Some of them mutter on about England being 80% of the population of the UK and therefore do not need a separate parliament. This argument is either based on an ignorance of Pareto’s principle or an attempt to manipulate people by misquoting it (see my blog at http://www.politicaleconomy.me.uk/2010/01/only-english-mps-voting-on-english-matters/).

None of them mention democracy. liberty, equity, dignity, rights, fairness, self-determination, birth-right, entitlement. All words one would expect a serious and committed parliamentarian to use with respect to this issue. But notice how in this election campaign they have promised “fairness for all” in order to get your vote! How dishonest can they be?

You will, therefore, probably not be surprised that the real reason why they do not want a parliament for England is quite different from the one they give, and infinitely grubbier. Yes, it concerns money, lots of your money and my money, in fact £2,000,000 of our money. Money that they do not deserve, money that they are happy to scam off you and I, just as they did with their expenses

They are trying to kid us that they have cleaned up the financial systems in Parliament, that they are squeaky clean, that it will never happen again. What is “it”? Quite simply “it” is the same greed that made them unable to tell when a rule is immoral, dishonest, or unethical. Remember that MPs caught out ‘flipping’ their houses to make untaxed capital gains off the taxpayer, or claiming repairs to their boyfriend’s house? All said “We were only following the rules” (see my blog at http://www.politicaleconomy.me.uk/2009/10/how-the-rich-and-powerful-scam-the-rules-for-their-own-benefit/ .

Well here is another big, fat, round £2,000,000 rule they are quite happy to follow even though in doing so they are taking money they have not earned, money that comes from me and you, money that they should not be getting. Not that is if they were men and women of integrity.

Many of the plum jobs as Secretary of State or Minister in the Westminster cabinet are for devolved matters. That is those that matters such as Education, Health, Justice and Transport to name a few. These matters have been devolved to national parliaments or assemblies either in part or whole. Westminster Secretaries of State basically administer only England in these matters. They should get paid the same as their equivalent in the Scottish Parliament. In the case of a secretary of state this is £44,000 less, of a minister £24,000 less if they were in an English Parliament (they would also get £7,000 less for their salary). There are around 70 of these plum jobs to be handed out after the 6th May adding up to excess pay of around £2,000,000.

Now you get “it”, the real reason why they do not want an English Parliament. Men of Honour? I do not think they know the meaning of the phrase.

I currently find myself, somewhat late in life, a prospective parliamentary candidate in the Stevenage, Hertfordshire constituency for  the election on the 6th May 2010 for the English Democrats Party (EDP). The EDP are an English party that occupies broadly the same political position in England as the Scottish Nationalist Party in Scotland or Plaid Cymru in Wales.

Being part of a small, fairly new party, the EDP are eight years old, means that you have to do pretty much everything yourself. As a result my wife I found ourselves a week ago on Sunday, with the EDP candidate for Broxbourne, at a car boot sale to raise funds for our campaign. We were onsite and fully decked-out with four England car window flags fluttering in the wind, election posters on the car and our table covered in a large England flag.

Car Boot Sale

The car boot sale proceeded as car boot sales proceed with one exception. We were amazed at the number of  people who came up to us and told us how brave we were to do what we were doing! I was shocked. The individuals all spoke in low voices and were clearly afraid to speak up. How could this be? We were in England flying the flag of England. What could be more normal? And yet to these people, we were doing something dangerous, something that required fearlessness and courage, something that made a forbidden statement, that broke the law, that was somehow illegal, in England!

“There is a forgotten, nay almost forbidden word, which means more to me than any other. That word is ENGLAND.” said Winston Churchill, himself, by birth, half English and half American. Being English you see is not a matter of genes or skin colour. It is a matter of the heart. Say those words again but this time imagine a stream of people coming up to you and whispering how brave you are into your ear. If you are not beginning to be afraid then you have not understood what is happening.

Five days later I was on my own manning a stall in the Town Centre of Stevenage. Once again the table was dressed with bunting and posters. No one came up to say how brave I was. Instead three foreigners, two Irishmen and a Spaniard came and all indepe

Stevenage Town Centre Stand

ndently said much the same thing. “Its about time this is happening, good for you”. “The English allow themselves to be pushed aside too often. Well done for what you are doing”. “This is a good day for England. You English suffer from a totally make-believe guilt. Why, I do not know. What you are doing is good”. Notice that they were foreigners. They had no problem being upfront about telling the truth as they saw it. And most importantly no one could blame them for it. They had no reason to be afraid to raise their voices.

Whilst at the University of Chicago in the late 60s studying for an MBA at the business school  I took time out to attend two course in political science given by Professor Hans Morgenthau. Morgenthau was a remarkable teacher. A German Jew who left Europe before the second world war he was a charismatic man whose lectures attracted huge numbers. Given in the largest lecture hall of the time, at the university, you had to get there early if you wanted even a space to stand let alone sit. Applying Morgenthau’s analysis to England to-day the result is clear. We have real problems in our democracy, a major group not only feel but are disenfranchised, violence is existential. It will take just a match to light the powder keg.

Sounds overly dramatic? Think again. A major group do feel frightened and disenfranchised. It is not only I who have noticed it but three different people from elsewhere have as well. The effect is not imagined. What is more, it is happening as a direct consequence of government policy. This is not a mistake. It is real and it is being done on purpose as a piece of viciousness that is difficult to believe. The analysis is valid and credible. I say credible because for a thousand years the only way the English have been able to protect their freedom from the ruling classes has been by violence. And this is not something that happened a long time ago. Only in the last century the women suffragettes, at the start, and the poll tax protestors at the end, had to fight for their freedoms. So it will happen, again.

The people responsible for allowing this state of affairs to happen are, without any doubt, those who have held seats as Members of Parliament (MP)  for English constituencies. Not Scottish or Welsh or Northern Irish MPs, but English MPs. It was their job to make sure this didn’t happen. Why did they not do their job to protect democracy? We now know the reason. Those very few who did stand up for their principles were beaten down and overlooked for important positions. More profitable instead for MPs to ripp-off the taxpayer with their expense claims without, apparently, the integrity to know that it was wrong. Many have claimed that they were merely following the rules, forgetting perhaps that by blindly doing so they were showing themselves open to being corrupted by anyone who chose to create a bribery machine that had ‘rules’. They also showed they were not up to the job. They failed, without apparently even knowing they were being tested. They were totally unsuited to the task, lacking the morale fibre, the power of independent thought and backbone needed by someone in their position.

So I say Shame! Shame on you Mother of Parliaments! Shame!. Bow your head in Shame! I live for the day when you will bow your  knee to the People of England! And by the Grace of God, and the votes of the people of England I will see that day!

As the English Democrats say “Isn’t it Time to Put England First”. Yes it is and a vote for the EDP will do that. So vote English Democrat and if you do not have an EDP candidate standing in your constituency vote for a party that is a member of the “Alliance for Democracy” – there are over 260 Alliance candidates, enough to be the largest party in parliament. If enough of us are voted in to Parliament we may even be able to head off the gathering storm! But that is the view of an optimist. Hans Morgenthau was a realist, his life taught him that!

If you want to know more, and especially if you would like to make a donation go to www.hertsengdem.org. In the mean time as you vote say, to yourself or outloud, the EDP mantra: “Not Left, Not Right, Not Black, Not White, Just English!”

Imagine that you are getting to the end of a not very good meal at your local restaurant. The dessert menu has arrived and you see that only ice cream is still available. Worse still there are only three flavours, vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. You have tried all of them before and found some fault with each. However you are still hungry so you decide to choose, somewhat peversily,  your least favourite flavour, strawberry, in the hope that this time it might be more appealing.

As your ice cream arrives you notice that another table of three is getting quite different flavours, passion fruit and mango, mint chocolate chip and rum and raisin. You complain to the waiter who tells you that he has decided to offer only the three largest sellers as this makes his job easier. To get the others you have to know to ask.

You would quite rightly be upset and probably make a complaint. But this sort of thing is happening all the time at election hustings up and down the country. Only the three largest parties are allowed on the panel and the smaller parties have to make do with submitting their responses in written form for later publication in the hope that some voters may read them.

The silly thing is that with the planned televised debates you are going to hear what these three main parties think. Even worse is the fact that these are the parties who have run parliament for decades and are the primary architects of the mess we are in.  Limiting the panel in this way ensures that the innovative solutions that the smaller parties are espousing may not see the light of day. It is also constraining the democratic process in a way that will increase the likelihood of an adverse outcome for the country.

People are likely to vote for what they hear, or not vote at all. Worse still if there is a hung parliament it will consist of the three larger parties fighting it out to get their old fashioned and out of date ideas accepted. Any negotiation is likely to be along the lines of “You accept this stale policy of ours and we will accept one of your stale policies”. Melding one stale idea with another has little chance of creating one new idea. Or to put it another way. If you have one thousand monkeys typing stale ideas out for a million years the chance they will create one new idea is small.

It will be as though you complained to the waiter and all he could offer as compensation was Neapolitan ice cream with layers of  vanilla-chocolate-strawberry. The fact that you like not one of the flavours makes no difference.

Now you might remark that as the English Democrats Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Stevenage that I would say all of that wouldn’t I? But the fact remains that the English Democrats party does have an important contribution to make.  First we are an English nationalist party in the same way that the SNP are a Scottish nationalist party or Plaid Cymru are a Welsh nationalist party. We will put England first just as the SNP puts Scotland first and Plaid puts Wales first. The English Democrats are the only party that is committed to putting England first. English voters might welcome such voting option as election day approaches and the demands for yet more money by the SNP and Plaid become yet more strident.

Secondly we are the only party with a well thought through but radical alternative to the current constitutional settlement. Our plans have matured over the last eight years and are not a knee-jerk reaction to current problems. So have the rest of the policies in our Manifesto

Thirdly we are not that small anyway. In the 2009 European elections over 280,000 people in England voted for the English Democrats – compare this to around 321,000 for the SNP and 127,000 for Plaid. We will soon be the largest nationalist party in the UK. We plan to field over 100 candidates in the Parliamentary election, much more than the SNP or Plaid. The Alliance for Democracy, of which the English Democrats are a founding member, plans to field 300 or more candidates.

We are in a critical election period. A recent survey said that 38% of the population wanted a hung parliament. It is quite possible that as the election date gets closer this proportion will increase. But do voters know what they wish for? A hung parliament of the three main parties plus the nationalist parties of Scotland and Wales will lead to an unprincipled grab for yet more English taxpayers money for the already over-paid Scots and Welsh.  The three main parties will eagerly connive in this, driven as they are by ego and bombast rather than a true love of country. They have already shown themselves  happy to sell the English down the road in order to get an opportunity to implement their already degraded ideas. They will not stop at this. For the English it will be a bit like a vanilla-chocolate-strawberry Neapolitan ice cream with an added extra – a layer of strong mustard!

The results of this will not be pretty. A severe reaction by the English leading to civil unrest, riots and mayhem by a nation that has already signalled that it has had enough is an almost certain outcome of this scenario.

And all for the want of not allowing the voter to see the full range of ideas and parties open to them. How sad can you get?