Michael Knowles
Member of the National Council of the Campaign for an English Parliament.
Paper given to Panel 2 ‘Englishness’ of the conference on UK Ideologies
Politics Department, University of Liverpool, July 5th 2007.
Englishness is what the people of England are, what over many centuries up to the present day they have done, achieved, created in their cultural, civic, economic and political life, it is the way of life of the people of England. Englishness therefore is fluid, dynamic, varied both over time – over a long long time – and at any one period including the present.
With a family it is kith and kinship that bestows identity. With Englishness it is living in, contributing to and participating in whatever goes on in England. The best practical definition of what it means to be English, I would suggest, is that which sport organisations use: a specific geographical territory, and if you have been born there, or have lived there for a specific amount of time, you qualify as English. Englishness is not a matter of race. Englishness is rather the collective, the amalgamation, of both a common culture and the disparate, often opposing, even competing, cultures of the people who live in England. It is a creation of past and present, the former impinging and influencing the latter at every turn. There is nothing mystical about it. It is simply the way people everywhere are. Yet, there is a struggle going on over Englishness, by which I mean, let me repeat, what the people of England are and do.
England is what politically, culturally and economically matters most in this island. It is 60% of the landmass, 85% of the population, it produces 90% of the UK GDP if not more. England is the wealthiest, agriculturally most fertile, industrially, economically, and culturally most productive part of the island of Britain,. England has mattered for centuries and matters now, far in excess of Scotland and Wales -by reason of its size, its wealth, its power, its language, its immense contribution to science, arts, culture, literature, its language, parliamentary democracy, representative democracy, trade unionism, the Common Law, the jury system, party politics, capitalism, supremacy of parliament over autocracy, a culture in which sport and leisure are uniquely important. England is the economic, political and cultural powerhouse of the UK . England is what matters and control of England therefore is what matters.
Yes, there is a struggle over Englishness. There are powerful political elements within the UK which consider Englishness to be a grave threat both to the existence of the Union and to Scotland and Wales, particularly Scotland, as the politically distinct countries they have become within the Union since Devolution 1998. Scottishness and Welshness, on the other hand, were not considered a threat to the Union when Scotland and Wales in 1998 were given their own governments. Indeed, the establishment of a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly was presented as a way of solidifying the Union against Scottish and Welsh nationalism. Scottish unionist MPs like Gordon Brown and Donald Dewer made a lot of that argument for devolution. In sharp contrast Englishness was denied, and is being emphatically denied, any political expression, has not been given self-rule as Scottishness and Welshness have been with their own parliament and assembly. There is no ’English Claim of Right’ on the lines of the Scottish Claim of Right framed and signed with ardent intent and deliberation by Gordon Brown and his Scottish colleagues in the Scottish Constitutional Convention of 1989. That Claim of Right was entitled ‘Scotland’s Parliament, Scotland’s Right’ and what Brown and co-signed was this: ‘As a Member of Parliament elected by a Scottish Constituency, I hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all my actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.”That declaration and pledge needs to be read out loud in the hearing of every British citizen.
Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of UK and self-declared Grand Master for the Promotion of Britishness, pledged that in all his actions and deliberations the interests of the Scottish people would be paramount. Little wonder, then, that in his 10 years of being Chancellor of the Exchequer he handed over £60 billion more public money to Scotland than to England. Every year since 1997 Scotland has received an extra £5.7 billion to share among a population a tenth the size of England’s. £281 is paid by every English taxpayer to keep Scotland, which fiscally to the extent of some £11 billion per annum does not pay its way, in the style, the growingly enviable style, to which Scotland has become accustomed. No university tuition fees, free installation of central heating, free bus travel countrywide and free personal care in nursing homes for pensioners, no requirement for them to sell their houses, the most up-to-date heart, cancer and anti-Alzeimer drugs available, its own parliament, self-rule in at least 75% of government while retaining total right to legislate for England and be ministers for English matters.
As I have said, there is a struggle over Englishness. The opposition to Englishness having political expression in anything like the way Scottishness and Welshness have been given political recognition and expression is widespread among the UK Establishment. The three main political parties emphatically all oppose an English Parliament. Labour because it needs the votes of Scottish and Welsh MP, thinks an English Parliament will be Tory dominated, and because influential elements within it harbour an ingrained hostility towards England, The Tories because they think an EP will mean the termination of the Union and they still harbour futile illusions about having a future in Scotland. The LDs because they are still led by unionist Scots such as Menzies Campbell who have not yet been able to adjust mentally to the broader requirements of the 1998 devolution legislation. The LD younger English MPs, who are the Party’s future, have still to make their mark. And of course, for all Scottish MPs the present situation in which their responsibilities for their Scottish constituencies have been enormously reduced and transferred to MSPs while they still draw the same full pay as an English MP and still can be ministers for England is the best of all possible worlds.
The BBC does not want it an English Parliament either. It has organised itself in ‘nations and regions’, Scotland and Wales being the ‘nations’, not England. There is a BBC Scotland and a BBC Wales but no BBC England. For the BBC England is just a conglomeration of ‘regions’, its distinct identity as a nation not recognised. I revert to mentioning the Prime Minister. This conference is about UK ideologies. An ideology is defined as ‘any wide-ranging system of beliefs, ways of thought and categories that provide the foundation of programmes of political and social action.’ (The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy OUP 1994. S. Blackburn.) In Brown’s case Scottishness is the ideology that is foremost in his system of beliefs and thought, as his signature to the Scottish Claim of Right exposes; and Scottishness is the foundation of a disproportionately large element of his programme of political and social action, as I have outlined. Mr Brown is concerned not just to achieve every possible political, constitutional, cultural and financial benefit for Scotland. There is a further element, as he displayed in his outline of his government legislative programme to the Union Parliament. It is to refuse any and every political and constitutional policy measure which would give England recognition as a distinct nation, whether it is English Votes on English Matters or an English Parliament. He consistently speaks of Britain being composed of ‘nations and regions’, Scotland and Wales being the nations, not England, and English regions being the regions. However, there is another UK ideology finding its voice, something quite different. The masters might be opposed, but the masses are stirring. England is stirring. The people of England are finding their voice, feelings and emotions are now running like rivers, not underground any longer but full flood in the open. And they cannot be suppressed any longer. The Mori Ipsos poll July 2006 found support for an English Parliament at 41%, the ICM poll November 2006 found it to be 68%, the BBC poll on January 16th this year found it at 61%. The flags, the display everywhere of the ancient English flag, the t-shirts, the painted faces, the painted hair, flags in cars, in vans, on lorries, in gardens and in windows. The flag of England was nowhere ten years ago. Now it is everywhere.
I said at the beginning of this short contribution –too short of course to do the subject justice- that Englishness is a collective, the amalgamation, of both a common culture and of other disparate, often opposing, cultures of the people who live in England. As throughout its long history England is once more an arena of struggle between ideologies There is the ideology represented by the UK Establishment, embodied in Gordon Brown, which has reorganised the UK in a new constitution, one in which Scotland and Wales have political and constitutional recognition and immense advantages, while England receives no such recognition but is dealt with as if it is the United Kingdom while in reality it is not but is in fact a part of the United Kingdom. And there is the other ideology represented by a person such as myself and my organisation, the Campaign for an English Parliament, which demands that no constituent nation of the UK should receive different ie. preferential, treatment from the UK government such as Scotland receives but that each constituent nation should stand in exactly the same relationship to the Union government and to each other.
Gordon Brown is passionately committed to his ideological perspective on the United Kingdom, and he controls vast funds and a monumental government machinery to implement it with. Our campaign has no such funds, no such machinery. But let us see who triumphs.
English Commonwealth 