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(not satire – it’s the Tories!)
The biggest supporters of an English parliament used to be the far-right skinheads of the neo-nazi British National Party and the equally crackpot English Democrats.
Here’s a quote taken from a BNP leaflet called ‘The Need For An English Parliament‘:
"Our party believes that England should have its own Parliament. This straightforward constitutional policy motion was debated and passed by a substantial majority at the BNP's Annual Conference in Blackpool last month."
And here’s how crackpot the English Democrats are:
Could this be the worst party political broadcast ever?
But now some Tories – such as Tory MP Graham Brady – are openly calling for exactly the same policy as the BNP and the English Democrats.
Brady’s no outcast. He’s chair of the powerful Tory 1922 Committee. And Cameron has invited Brady to Chequers to discuss the idea of an English parliament with him tomorrow.
Not long ago it was only crackpots in far-right fringe parties like the BNP and the English Democrats who seriously thought an English parliament was a good idea.
Now it seems it’s the crackpots at the top of the Tory Party too.
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Please feel free to comment. And share. Thanks:
Graham said:
Don’t forget that the policy just about to be trialed of the unemployed having to attend jobcentres five days a week was National Front policy in the 1970s.
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nuggy said:
more politicians more expense claims no thanks.
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overburdenddonkey said:
nuggy
that’s covered, scotlandshire’s oil will pay for it all… http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/citydiary/11109607/Dashwood-BP-boss-Bob-Dudley-raises-a-glass-to-another-50-years-in-the-North-Sea.html
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Patrick said:
Isn’t the vote of Scottish MPs the only reason we have foundation hospitals and higher tuition fees? These would be the same MPs that seem quite content to vote on matters that have nothing to do with them, whilst demanding more control over their own affairs?
Even crackpots can be right from time to time…
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overburdenddonkey said:
patrick
except prof allyson pollock, dr whitford and dr lucy reynolds et al tell an entirely different story…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkTnCtg_Omk
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Pingback: Tory MPs turn crackpot and adoptBNP policy on English Parliament – Pride’s Purge | Vox Political
Patrick said:
If you expect people to seriously consider a video roughly an hour and a quarter long you could at least give some sort of time index where the point is made that’s relevant to this thread. As a regular user of the NHS myself I’m against privitisation but the first few minutes of that interview seem completely irrelevent to this discussion.
In any case we only have foundation hospitals thanks to Scottish votes. On a matter that doesn’t concern them.
An apparent clear case of English MPs saying they don’t want this for England but Scottish MPs forcing it on them anyway.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3282265.stm
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Patrick said:
If it’s right and proper for Scottish people to have control over Scottish matters, why is it crazy to suggest that the English ought to have that same right?
Surely either both countries should have this right or neither should?
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overburdenddonkey said:
patrick
the idea was to watch the whole vid….which you obviously didn’t…this is not twitter..i thought that you might genuinely want to know the whole story..i no longer look at bbc links, sorry you weren’t to know..
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John T said:
I don’t really see what the fuss is about, learn from us, the colonials. In Australia we have State governments which have responsibility for hospitals and education, police and prisons, trains, buses and roads, and similar ‘nuts and bolts’ issues; the States also have some taxing abilities, but not income tax. The federal government covers defence, banking laws, major taxes, health and education (some overlapping there) and national transport policy.
It would surely be a disaster for England (or at least for any Labour government) if only English MPs could vote on English matters, when is the last time a majority of English seats were held by the Labour Party?
Why not a National parliament, with devolution to separate English, Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish assemblies with limited, but fairly far-reaching powers, with the National parliament placing some limits on what the devolved governments can put in place.
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buddyhell said:
Reblogged this on Guy Debord's Cat and commented:
Good blog from Pride’s Purge. I was talking about the English Parliament idea last week and noted that it’s only the right and the far-right that have called for it. English nationalists are almost always ethnic nationalists and lament the loss of Empire. This reveals something about the nature of the Union itself: it was formed through a combination of coercion and bribery. The English also regarded themselves as superior to the other nations and this is reflected in the jokes told about those nations. The Irish (or paddy) joke for example, depicts the Irish as thick and stupid. The joke, itself, therefore acted as a means of subjugation. Then consider the years of occupation and the eventual partitioning of Ireland with the support of the Unionists and Loyalists, who threatened all out war if Ireland wasn’t partitioned along their lines. Any devolution in England needs to happen along regional lines. They could, for example, restore the metropolitan counties that Thatcher abolished in 1986 because of their opposition to her autocratic leadership. However, before any new system comes into being, the old must be swept away in its entirety. That means abolishing the monarchy.
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lescunningham said:
Patrick, the answer is no – they are not the same MPs.
The Scottish MPs who voted on English matters were Labour MPs, who are strongly opposed to more powers for the Scottish Parliament.
The SNP does want more powers, but it is SNP policy that their MPs do not vote on matters which do not affect Scotland.
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lescunningham said:
I find it very ironic that some English people seem to be indignant about the lack of an English Parliament or Assembly. England has about 80% of the total population of the UK. Even is Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were utterly opposed to the creation of an English legislature, they could not block it.
If the UK were to adopt any kind of federal system, an English Parliament or Assembly would be absolutely essential to this. One possibility would be for a Northern Irish Parliament with the same powers as the Scottish Parliament, an English Assembly with the same powers as the Welsh Assembly, and a Parliament for England and Wales to deal with matters devolved for Scotland and Northern Ireland but not to the two assemblies, and possibly consisting of these assemblies in joint session. The UK parliament would have a drastically reduced workload, and so the number of MPs could be reduced and the Lords abolished, freeing up space in the Houses of Parliament for the English Assembly.
Now the main UK parties have promised more powers for the Scottish Parliament, but, as it will be difficult to accommodate these powers within the present system, they have put themselves between a rock and a hard place. They can move quickly to implement major constitutional changes for the UK as a whole, or alienate many of those who voted No to Scottish independence, fuelling demands for a new referendum, with some fudge of limited, probably meaningless additional powers for the Scottish Parliament.
Since the referendum, membership of both the SNP and the Scottish Greens has soared. The issue of Scottish Independence is not going to go away.
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futureindoubt said:
The problem with an English Parliament is that not all regions of England are equal, and local culture can be different (North/South divide). If there ends up being an English Parliament, we’ll likely see the neglected regions ask for their own separate representation at some point.
If they really want to be serious about it, a federal state made up of roughly these regions would likely work best:
Scotland
Northern Ireland
Wales
Northern England
Mid England
South East England
South West England
And maybe London, maybe.
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penniewoodfall said:
OT by now obd or is it?……but I thought you might be interested.
Making sense of Scotland the brazen http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/9/22/europe/making-sense-scotland-brazen via @BusinessSpec
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overburdenddonkey said:
welldone you have just clearly shown how the UK will cease to exist…any shortage in funding allocation from WM will have to made up by local taxation..which means the poorer areas, will become even poorer!
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Nicola said:
This tactic is not even new. You will never guess the first party to come up with the idea of passports for pets.
The Monster Raving Loony Party!
So stealing “crazy” ideas – old hat!
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nedhamson said:
Reblogged this on Ned Hamson Second Line View of the News and commented:
“Now it seems it’s the crackpots at the top of the Tory Party too.” This is *news*?
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goodguy said:
Hi,i’m completely lost about whats actually on the table here, can someone point me in the direction of some informative reading on what’s being proposed for Scotland post referendum and england Wales and n Ireland,it’s hard work being a layman a tell yi.
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overburdenddonkey said:
goodguy
twitter ie #the45, plaid cymru..and then fit the pieces of the puzzle together….
the VOW = nothing called something…i call it devo-devoid-max…atm the tide flows from scotindyref…but we are about to be flooded by england’s devomax…which imv will also be devo-devoid-max, for most…
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goodguy said:
Cheers
It’s putting it together that’s the problem,just a information overload from all angles but I’ll sift through the dung and get there eventually.
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mraemiller said:
The problem is it’s hard enough to get people out to vote once every 5 years. Who wants to have to vote twice-over. Who wants two MPs. All the commentors on this skip the basic point that clearly having devolved institutions in Scotland and Wales is a dilution of the principle of One Person One Vote? So why is it allowed? The only excuse for devolved institutions that makes sense is to protect minorities. If so what is the point of devolved institutions? The Constitutional argument for some Westminster MPs having the power to vote on things that dont directly concern them is that while devolved institutions have power soverignty remains at Westminster. Restricting how power flows out of Westminster is technically easier than restricting how power flows into it. As it is Soverign any limitations put on the powers of Westminster MPs by Westminster MPs they would effectively be able to legislate themselves out of. By, for example, passing one Bill that inserts a new section into another existing bill as happens all the time. Therefore the best you can do realistically is have people chosing not to exercise power. Conversely the devolved parliaments cannot legislate their way up to being the soverign parliament no matter how hard they try because their terms of reference are carefully defined and should they start to veer outside them they can be switched off from Westminster in an emergency (see Stormont). Does that answer the question?
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