England sleeps on
How would post-devolution England differ from today?
“COME ON England” declared last Wednesday’s Western Mail, before immediately pointing out the novelty of such a sentiment from Wales’s self-proclaimed national newspaper. The Ashes may have furnished the pretext, but a general encouragement of England – or English national consciousness to be more precise – has been detectable from Wales’s political class for some time.
The Assembly’s Presiding Officer, Dafydd Elis-Thomas is the latest such figure to suggest that the bottleneck of British constitutional reform lies to the east of Offa’s Dyke, in the guise of devolution for England. Others have long expressed a desire for the English to awaken from their slumber and shake free the British yoke. Nor is a desire to see England stir confined to Welsh nationalism. David Melding, Welsh Conservatism’s brain, recently advanced the case for a reformed and federated union with devolved legislatures for each of the UK’s home nations.
This is not to suggest there is commonality in purpose between the two positions. The former may believe in success, but it fears a slow and perhaps unsuccessful attempt to prise Wales from her British moorings. Welsh nationalism sees in nascent English nationalism an opportunity to radically transform the landscape, exploding the British state and leaving independence for Wales to go by happy default. Unionists, by contrast, perceive in the status quo an asymmetry that threatens the viability of Britain, and which by extension threatens Wales. Just as devolution for Wales was supported by unionists and nationalists for opposite and irreconcilable ends, some in Wales want the English to seize their birthright to preserve the union, while others hope they will do so in order to rent it asunder.
What neither have is a particular interest in what the English want. So it is perhaps fortuitous rather than functional that the evidence appears to suggest a degree of support for an English Parliament. Around two-thirds of those most recently polled (Ipsos MORI, May 2009) favour such a proposition. There is also evidence that support for greater English self-determination is emerging on the political left as well as its more traditional home of the far right. Against this, there is little sign of any of the mainstream parties endorsing English home rule, as all now do for devolution in Wales and Scotland.
A more searching question, however, is what exactly devolution gets the English? So far the currency of the debate has been the alleged devolution dividend apparent in Scotland and Wales, with freebies such as prescriptions and higher funding fuelling English resentment. Leaving aside the veracity of such claims, it is questionable whether this is enough to give life to a proper, popular campaign – or to its propulsion via mainstream politics. And nobody has yet suggested that English devolution would deal with this alleged resentment, at least not in a way that the other parts of the union would find acceptable.
Instead of the usual questions about what a UK Parliament would do to justify its existence in the context of an English Parliament granted a full measure of devolved authority, the focus should be on what difference it would make to the people of England. Welsh and Scottish devolution was predicated on new institutions, closer to the people on whose behalf they governed and imbued with a new political culture. An English Parliament, by contrast, would likely look and act very much like Westminster, and would control an agenda and statute book almost indistinguishable from the status quo. To the people, it would offer little in terms of innovation. Nor do the English seem to feel their identity would benefit greatly from home rule. Indeed, there is evidence that English and British identity remains fused in a way not seen in Wales or Scotland.
Taken together, these factors add up to a significant drag on support. There is no identity felt in need of protection, nor a credible promise of more responsive (or more generous) government. The English do occupy a distinct position in Britain’s unfolding constitutional debate, as they have the least to gain and the least to lose from any reform. Until and unless that basic inertia is transformed, Wales’s politicians may find their urgings falling on largely deaf ears.
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This is a very interesting issue and one which will come to the fore if a Conservative government is elected. More than ever,new Conservative candidates are openly.questioning the entirity of the !ritish/English conundrum.The automatic, knee jerk and passionate reaction to constitutional change does not run throughout the party as once it did.
This could make for an interesting situation if the Scots vote for independence during a Cameron government.
Lots of ifs and buts, but reckon we could find out how much English Conservative MPs think about defending the status quo pretty damn soon.
Must buy the Melding book though – keep meaning to!
Echoing what Daran is saying re: interesting times with a Conservative Government.
Wont this be the first time (assuming Cameron wins) that there will be no one party in power in two UK institutions? This brings a very interesting mix.
I support devolution for England, because I feel we cannot have a sensible debate on the future of the UK until we solve that asymmetry. The problem is such debates are always through the prism of self interest – why else has Gordon Brown tried to pump what it means to be British with such vigour? Although there is never going to be perfect symmetry, given the absence of a constitution, it seems the biggest danger to all of us is actually allowing it to fester. Reductions in MPs, more AMs, English votes for English laws are live issues that will need sorting.
Cameron will be a very strong position, Labour is unlikely to win a GE even with Welsh and Scottish MPs, let alone if it was purely English. Plaid and the SNP will need to consider their response to federalisation, particularly given I feel they seem to think EU federalism is great, but UK is not.
RE: the scots voting for independence.
This actually is why Plaid should not be hung up about 2011, I would imagine an independent Scotland would mean Wales could probably ask for a vote for powers far beyond what are on offer now.
If a Cameron government does opt to offer the Scots a vote on independence, this will certainly cause resentment in England unless the English are offered one too.
Despite consistent support for an English Parliament, as noted by your correspondent but which has been supported by similar percentages in credible polls since 2006, England has never voted on a devolved Parliament, let alone on independence. The Unionists persist in saying that there is ‘no demand’ for devolution to an English Pariament but the real reason in their refusing a referendum is that English cannot be relied upon to vote the ‘right way’. In this, the Tories are behaving just as the EU does and no doubt Cameron secretly hopes he will not have to offer a vote on the Lisbon treaty either.
As your correspondent also correctly points out, support for a devolved English Parliament is increasing on the left altough the Unionists have tried to suggest that such a policy attracts only right wing extremists. One of those ‘extremists’ is Frank Field, the sort of MP most of us would be glad to vote for, irrespective of our political preferences. In fact, it is only very recently that the most ‘right wing’ British party (one which is nevertheless largely socialist), that is the BNP, has endorsed the idea. Whereas in the past, the BNP paraded the Union flag, now it frequently appropriates the flag of St George.
Many Unionsts ,such as Cameron, are ‘Greater Englanders’ for whom ‘Britain’ is merely a disguise for England and of course that is why they hate what Cameron calls ‘Little Englanders’ who do not wish to rule over other peoples nor to be ruled over by them. (The greatest ‘Little Englander ‘of all, incidentally, was also one of the greatest Welshmen, David Lloyd George.) Cameron has said that he does not want to be PM ‘just of England’ because he wishes to control Scotland and Wales as well, even if those countries reject Tory government. Labour Party HQ once replied to a complaint from me about the lack of devolution for England with the statement that Scotland and Wales ‘deserved more independence from England’. To them, Wales is still an English colony, one which has been given some ‘home rule’ to discourage the desire for independence. You know what you can do – just as the Tories have only one MP in Scotland, do the same to them in Wales. Force them to face the fact that they are an English party.
Paradoxically, English itself has now in effect become a British ‘colony’, one ruled by the UK government, and one to which it will never grant home rule if it possibly can avoid it. The policy it prefers for England is ‘divide and rule’, that is regional governments, a policy favoured by colonial regimes. Ask why Wales was not offered a full law-making assembly in 1998. It was said by the Labour Government that Wales was ‘not ready yet’ for full devolution – aint that just a good old colonial phrase??