“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to state whether he recognises that England is a nation.”
He continues:
The present Prime Minister's predecessor once characterised Scotland as "a proud historic nation": sentiments which the Prime Minister would doubtless share.
The original statement mentioned and indeed the whole Devolution Experiment, were introduced into the political arena for purely partisan gain for the Labour Party and Mr Blair. The only sentiments Brown would share in this matter with Blair would be:
“If it keeps me in power, I’ll agree to whatever declarations of nationhood you want me to agree to.”
Under devolution, the people of Scotland, Wales and even Northern Ireland are reaffirming their historic nationhood and taking pride in their new national governmental institutions.
Re Northern Ireland, that’s a very big “even”, someone hasn’t been following the news recently.
Re Scottish and Welsh “pride” in their “governmental’ institutions; simply because this is the line the SNP propaganda machine amongst others is constantly pumping out, it doesn’t mean that it is necessarily true...
For example, if people are taking such a pride in their new “national” “governmental” institutions, then why is the voter turnout for the elections to these institutions so low?
For last year’s elections, this figure stood at 51.8% in Scotland and 43.7% in Wales; as a comparison, for the last Westminster elections the figures where 60.8% and 62.6% respectively.
Regarding the last part of the petition, nothing much to argue with there really;
England, too, is a proud historic nation; and a great many people living in England - perhaps the majority - view their national identity as English in the first instance, and British only secondarily. In the light of these trends, we believe the government should state explicitly whether it regards England as a nation in its own right or not. It goes without saying that any acknowledgement of nation status, however qualified, for England should be accompanied by the acknowledgement of nation status for Scotland and Wales, at least - Northern Ireland perhaps being a special case. Equally, if England is not to be regarded as a nation, the same should apply to Scotland and Wales.
...after all he’s only highlighting the greatest hypocrisy upon which Labour’s Devolution Experiment was founded, ie:
"Regardless of the terrible damage it has caused to our collective nation (the United Kingdom), devolution for N.Ireland, Scotland and Wales was a good thing because it initially brought great benefits to he Labour Party.
Devolving power to England now, however, is not a good thing because it will certainly not bring benefits to the Labour Party. What? And...er..oh yeah, it will also cause terrible damage to our collective nation(the United Kingdom). So, Northern Ireland (as long as Dublin continues to agree), Scotland and Wales are all nations and can have their own parliaments; England isn’t and it can’t”
Dave's petition can be found here.
2 comments:
there is no such nationality as English
Don't you have a leader to get rid off instead of trolling on here?
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