"Next year I want the Conservative Party to be the leading voice in British politics for an exciting agenda of decentralisation and political reform. A key part of our political vision is to give people more opportunity and power over their lives, and a key aspect of our political approach - the move to a new, post-bureaucratic age - is the devolution of power from Westminster and Whitehall to....
..........the N.Irish, Scottish, Welsh Assemblies"???
A contradiction there surely....how can a self-proclaimed (yes, I still have my doubts about his sincerity) Unionist call for even more decentralisation and devolution of power from Westminster??
Well, it’s not quite as contradictory as it first seems, the sentence I selectively quoted actually reads in its entirety:
"A key part of our political vision is to give people more opportunity and power over their lives, and a key aspect of our political approach - the move to a new, post-bureaucratic age - is the devolution of power from Westminster and Whitehall to local authorities, neighbourhoods and individuals"
Rather more reassuring, he sees a jump in the devolving of powers directly to the local authorites, neighbourhoods and individuals, with no mention of those troublesome devolved "governments" in between. But just as a side-thought about that "move to a new post-bureaucratic age-" he's obviously never had any dealings with Belfast City Council; if he’s serious about achieving that particuliar target, then, really, he doesn’t want to be devolving anything more serious than bin-collection and sorting out the lolly-pop patrols to the local authorities.
But more intriguing is his commitment to the rather vague "political reform" at the beginning of the sentence. Reading between the lines, I suspect that his Union-Jack clad trip up to Scotland last week was really meant to provide some assurance about his Unionist credentials to the "One- UK, One Nation" Tories, before he reveals his proposed solution to the "West Lothian Question" early in the next year. And bearing in mind, the Scottish and Welsh Tories’ apparent commitment to more devolution of powers from Westminster, I’ll make a prediction now that the Conservatives’ "solution" will entail some kind of measure which will separate the English MPs from the rest of the UK’s elected representatives, giving them their own "devolved" powers. If that’s indeed the case, then the best scenario that genuine UK Unionists can hope for is Rifkind’s English Grand Committee. The worst could range from any number of solutions, right up to an English parliament. OK, the latter is still very much an outside chance, but one which could quite possibly command the support of a majority of English Tory MPs.
Whatever "exciting" agenda he has in mind, looks like UK Unionism will have an interesting (and rocky) year ahead
5 comments:
Much rather an English Parliament than any other solution.
There's no putting the lid back on this so might as well break the whole thing up.
Home rule for England - yes please.
What's making you so Incandescent?!!
There's no putting the lid back on this so might as well break the whole thing up.
Just for the sake of it? There's nothing whatsoever worth saving from the UK?
Home rule for England - yes please.
I posted up a ( slightly tongue in cheek) piece about Manchester regionalism last week and having lived for a time both in the north and London, I sense a much more stronger regionalist identity in many parts of England than I think exists in either Scotland or wales and most definitely Northern Ireland.
When I was attending football more regularly, I was astonished at level of antipathy towards the English national team in both Manchester and Liverpool, also in London I worked with people who considered themselves Londoners first and foremost and English/British a very poor second-they a much bigger problem with "the norveners" than they did with Irishmen like myself or even the Scots or Welsh!!! Both Cornwall and Yorkshire have, also, of course, very separate identities from the rest of England.
This regionalism does exist in other W European countries, but to the extent that the names of foreign countries ("Argentina" at Utd) are regularly chanted to wind up the "Cockney Little Englanders" or that people refuse to recognise the anthem (The Merseyside final 1989)? On a slightly less serious level there is no equivalent of the "Yorkshire Republican Army" in Germany or France!!!
Long way round of saying is that I'm not sure that huge swathes of the country would identify any closer with an English parliament than they presently do with the British one.
To borrow and alter a phrase from the late 19th Century, for many English Home Rule=Home (Counties) Rule and they would have as big a problem with that as they do with a Scottish PM or the WLQ.
I suspect that his Union-Jack clad trip up to Scotland last week was really meant to provide some assurance about his Unionist credentials to the "One- UK, One Nation" Tories, before he reveals his proposed solution to the "West Lothian Question" early in the next year.
Spot on. He's establishing his Unionist credentials before the Democracy task force recommends banning Scots from certain sessions of the Union Parliament.
The 'Union Parliament' no longer legislates for many areas of Scottish governance. It seems quite logical to ban Scots from certain sessions of Westminster.
'Home rule for England - yes please'
Why not ? England will still be a world player, plus think of billions of revenue saved without Scotland/Wales/NI.
Post a Comment