“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
Noam Chomsky
From time to time, as resources allow, our Party intervenes in planning matters across our region, seeking to challenge the ‘growth agenda’ that is so rapidly destroying what makes it so special.
We are more astonished at the ignorance of planners than at the arrogance of developers but both sides are in league to ruin Wessex today, while simultaneously making it more difficult for us to adapt to the post-oil world of tomorrow. Planning has become a never-ending pantomime in which planners argue that the growth figures are high enough and developers try to convince some Government growth junkie that they aren’t. Who speaks the truth, that even the lower figures are insane and need to be slashed to nothing?
Our most recent intervention has been in the preparation of the ‘South Wiltshire Core Strategy’, which proposes the building of nearly 10,000 new homes, largely to accommodate London overspill, including damaging greenfield extensions to Salisbury and Amesbury. Under past legislation, objectors were guaranteed the right to present their case before a Government Inspector. Now, under legislation pushed through by Labour, Inspectors are free to decide what evidence they wish to hear. Or not hear. We asked to expose in detail the false reasoning behind this massive level of growth. And were ignored. The Inspector will hear evidence on how consistent the growth figures are with the aim of promoting growth: the regime’s ears are closed to anything sensible. As we wrote today to the officer organising the hearings:
“We are profoundly disappointed to read that the Inspector will disregard any further evidence critical of the County Council’s policy of collaboration with the London regime in imposing unsustainable development on the area. The need to move away from ecocidal policies of economic growth and population expansion is now desperate.
The London regime and its servants must surely understand that obstructing the presentation of the truth is not a rational basis for policy-making. Over the long-term, it threatens the very survival of the communities of Wiltshire and of Wessex generally. We can only conclude that that is the intention.”
Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Still Hating Thatcher?
Our stall at the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival is becoming a well-recognised feature. Yesterday, we found a place in the marquee beneath the Portsmouth RMT banner (left, with Nick Xylas), which caused a little confusion until eventually its owners came to take it out for the traditional parade through the village.The RMT’s Wessex Region banner bears a splendid gold wyvern. Sadly, we weren’t able to catch a glimpse of it on this occasion, although we were assured that it was around somewhere.
The only rail-related items on the stall were some membership forms for the New Somerset & Dorset Railway that we were hosting as a favour, and which were also among the most popular material. New S&D have certainly struck a chord with folk in rural Dorset now inching towards the points-change that will take them from ‘Re-opening – 0% probability’ to ‘Re-opening – 100% probability’. In how many years?
Some of our visitors were far-sighted enough to recognise that Wessex Regionalism will make the same transition, being poised today for the kind of take-off that Celtic nationalism achieved in the 60s. The importance of repeat attendance became clear from conversations with those who’d seen us at Tolpuddle before but this time were willing to take a leaflet, buy a car sticker and ponder whether we haven’t been right all along. It can be a wearisome day refuting ignorance and cynicism but that’s the kind of breakthrough that makes it all worthwhile.
Most of the stalls in the marquee had a ‘green’ rather than ‘red’ emphasis this year – a sign of times to come – with land rights prominently represented. Of course, there’s still one or two sad old bolshies to shuffle along and tell us that a One World Dictatorship is the answer and that devolution is divisive. It isn’t. We work with, not against, those in other areas who also want to take back power to make our own decisions, in our own communities, and not have them over-ruled by folk who think they know better because they live in the right London suburb and can pull the right strings.
If there was any theme, it had to be Maggie. Folk singers in the marquee wailed on about the miners’ strike and at least two different versions of a T-shirt circulated with the words ‘I Still Hate Thatcher’. After 21 years, 13 of them under New Labour, the insincerity is insensitive. How many of the wearers voted for Blair or Brown, and will vote with equal enthusiasm for any other red-rosette-wearing, warmongering control-freak who claims the corpse of radicalism from the morgue of British politics?
Thatcher won because she had a vision, one based on a denial of the common good, but she also won because Labour’s deluded insurrectionists drove millions of voters in her direction. That Labour has adopted Thatcherism as its creed is a kind of karma. Why? Because Labour helped to create it by its inability to articulate an alternative both attractive and achievable. Today there is only one party in Wessex still true to its radical roots. One whose voice will be heard increasingly loudly as the generations whom Thatcher and her Labour co-workers dispossessed take back our inheritance.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
The Culture Killers
Patronising smiles are the usual response when we point out that Wessex remains under the Norman yoke. Not so funny is the press release issued by Eric Pickles’ Department for Communities and Local Government today to mark the flying of the Somerset flag outside their London headquarters.
The historic Somerset does not in fact have a flag but the red dragon logo of Somerset County Council has been employed on this occasion to represent Somerset as a whole, including those parts outside the county council’s authority. This dragon is a local variant of ‘the Dragon of Wessex’, first adopted by the council as its emblem in 1906. The colour was changed from gold-on-red to red-on-gold when a coat-of-arms was granted in 1911, presumably so that Somerset would be distinguished from Wessex as a whole. The council’s motto too has a Saxon origin. Sumorsæte Ealle is a phrase from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, meaning ‘all those of Somerset’. It appears in the account of events in 878 that led up to King Alfred’s decisive victory over the Danes.
Imagine the surprise upon reading in Pickles’ press release that “The county of Somerset was a Norman creation.” The use of ‘county’ in place of ‘shire’ may indeed be attributed to the conquerors but to read the press release is to take away the impression that a couple of minor Norman barons are more worthy of acknowledgement than Wessex kings like Ine and Alfred who made a positive difference to Somerset. Any true Cuckoopenner will be reaching for their chequebook and joining the Wessex Regionalist Party this instant.
Our history ignored. Our dialect mocked. Our environment trashed. Our institutions destroyed. Our right to self-government denied. And the best the national debate on devolution can now offer is a Norman-style English Parliament to impose one-size-fits-all solutions and continue a centuries-old onslaught on regional identity. After 945 years, what really has changed?
The historic Somerset does not in fact have a flag but the red dragon logo of Somerset County Council has been employed on this occasion to represent Somerset as a whole, including those parts outside the county council’s authority. This dragon is a local variant of ‘the Dragon of Wessex’, first adopted by the council as its emblem in 1906. The colour was changed from gold-on-red to red-on-gold when a coat-of-arms was granted in 1911, presumably so that Somerset would be distinguished from Wessex as a whole. The council’s motto too has a Saxon origin. Sumorsæte Ealle is a phrase from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, meaning ‘all those of Somerset’. It appears in the account of events in 878 that led up to King Alfred’s decisive victory over the Danes.
Imagine the surprise upon reading in Pickles’ press release that “The county of Somerset was a Norman creation.” The use of ‘county’ in place of ‘shire’ may indeed be attributed to the conquerors but to read the press release is to take away the impression that a couple of minor Norman barons are more worthy of acknowledgement than Wessex kings like Ine and Alfred who made a positive difference to Somerset. Any true Cuckoopenner will be reaching for their chequebook and joining the Wessex Regionalist Party this instant.
Our history ignored. Our dialect mocked. Our environment trashed. Our institutions destroyed. Our right to self-government denied. And the best the national debate on devolution can now offer is a Norman-style English Parliament to impose one-size-fits-all solutions and continue a centuries-old onslaught on regional identity. After 945 years, what really has changed?
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The Hollow State
Privatisation is the social equivalent of selling a kidney to pay the mortgage. Except that, under current circumstances, it’s not even your mortgage you’re paying but that of some crook you’ve never met but whose well-being you’re assured is fundamental to economic stability.
It was no accident that the real start of the privatisation drive co-incided with the rejection of devolution and the first attacks on local autonomy led by Margaret Thatcher’s government. Devolution offered the possibility that many nationalised industries could ultimately have become regionalised industries, subject to the kind of effective scrutiny that an overloaded Westminster Parliament could never provide.
Nationalisation had taken public services out of the hands of local authorities, where democratic accountability knew no bounds, and placed them in the hands of quangos whose managements were accountable to no-one. This was soon made clear by a Speaker’s ruling, in 1948, that MPs could not ask questions of Ministers about ‘day-to-day’ matters because (in theory) Ministers had no formal responsibility for detail (though a great deal of influence in practice). Such ‘inquisitiveness’ was strongly resisted by the Labour government, apparently on the grounds that it risked making Ministers personally responsible for far too much. But if Ministers did not control the industries they claimed to have acquired for the nation, then who did? The managerialist black hole into which great swaths of public life disappeared was no accident either. This was the inevitable result of the Labour Party’s instinctive fear of decentralisation and democracy, of the idea that there might be decisions taken beyond its own control and of which it might not approve. Better by far to leave the decisions to technocrats than to locals of another party.
The Thatcherite solution was to sell the family silver back to the family, who already owned it but understandably, at discounted prices, paid for it a second time and then re-sold at value when necessary to recover the cost. A generation later, the family are having to rent the silver back to be able to eat their dinner. Privatisation has now even reached the shores of the USA, that bastion of collectivism that never even realised just how pinko it actually was.
Initially, Thatcher’s privatisations had some decentralist characteristics. With real autonomy, local bus operators and regional electricity companies regained or acquired a sense of their own distinct identity. Boards were no longer appointed by Ministers in Whitehall but elected by shareholders, often with a substantial regional presence. But within the decade it was all going into reverse, small fry gobbled up by groups that soon went national, then international. The employee-owned ‘People’s Provincial’ in Fareham was hailed as a privatised bus company even a socialist might endorse, then conveniently forgotten about once stalked and devoured by the Aberdeen-based group First. Top managers who bought their companies and then sold out walked away with millions. Simply for being in the right place at the right time. Wessex had seen nothing like it since Jack Horner stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum.
The irony of Margaret Thatcher’s ideology, like that of Enoch Powell before her, was that if you support both national sovereignty and the free market the two will one day collide. And the market will win. In winning it may even boost the national sovereignty of others who refuse to play by these loser’s rules. What was once the South Western Electricity Board is now EDF Energy, a subsidiary of the French Republic. True blue? More like sacré bleu. At least we can say that France is only next door. Other infrastructure is owned by the Spaniards (Bristol Water), the Americans (Western Power Distribution) and the Australians (Bristol Airport). Wessex Water is owned by a billionaire in Malaysia. Did Maggie envisage that?
Our Party insists upon local and regional control over everything that is locally and regionally important. At a recent policy-making meeting it was agreed that land which is publicly-owned – or becomes publicly-owned in future – should be declared inalienable. Capable of being re-assigned, free, within the public sector, yes. Capable of being leased for a fixed term, yes. Capable of ever being sold again, never. Private ownership of land must be subject to limitations on acreage and a residency qualification. We are determined to face down those who believe our communities should be up for sale to the highest bidder. Property rights are our servants, not our masters, and our vision of Wessex is of a region where they are comprehensively re-written for the public good.
There is another vision. It is the vision of the big three London parties, carrying on in cackling consensus their work of eviscerating the State. Their ultimate aim is already publicly stated – a United Kingdom that has sold everything except the police and the military. The police to protect the interests of the super-rich. The military to go wherever in the world finance capital needs a helping hand. A post-democratic State without a heart. Just two hefty armoured fists, paid for by me and you. Their vision? Our vision? Your choice!
It was no accident that the real start of the privatisation drive co-incided with the rejection of devolution and the first attacks on local autonomy led by Margaret Thatcher’s government. Devolution offered the possibility that many nationalised industries could ultimately have become regionalised industries, subject to the kind of effective scrutiny that an overloaded Westminster Parliament could never provide.
Nationalisation had taken public services out of the hands of local authorities, where democratic accountability knew no bounds, and placed them in the hands of quangos whose managements were accountable to no-one. This was soon made clear by a Speaker’s ruling, in 1948, that MPs could not ask questions of Ministers about ‘day-to-day’ matters because (in theory) Ministers had no formal responsibility for detail (though a great deal of influence in practice). Such ‘inquisitiveness’ was strongly resisted by the Labour government, apparently on the grounds that it risked making Ministers personally responsible for far too much. But if Ministers did not control the industries they claimed to have acquired for the nation, then who did? The managerialist black hole into which great swaths of public life disappeared was no accident either. This was the inevitable result of the Labour Party’s instinctive fear of decentralisation and democracy, of the idea that there might be decisions taken beyond its own control and of which it might not approve. Better by far to leave the decisions to technocrats than to locals of another party.
The Thatcherite solution was to sell the family silver back to the family, who already owned it but understandably, at discounted prices, paid for it a second time and then re-sold at value when necessary to recover the cost. A generation later, the family are having to rent the silver back to be able to eat their dinner. Privatisation has now even reached the shores of the USA, that bastion of collectivism that never even realised just how pinko it actually was.
Initially, Thatcher’s privatisations had some decentralist characteristics. With real autonomy, local bus operators and regional electricity companies regained or acquired a sense of their own distinct identity. Boards were no longer appointed by Ministers in Whitehall but elected by shareholders, often with a substantial regional presence. But within the decade it was all going into reverse, small fry gobbled up by groups that soon went national, then international. The employee-owned ‘People’s Provincial’ in Fareham was hailed as a privatised bus company even a socialist might endorse, then conveniently forgotten about once stalked and devoured by the Aberdeen-based group First. Top managers who bought their companies and then sold out walked away with millions. Simply for being in the right place at the right time. Wessex had seen nothing like it since Jack Horner stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum.
The irony of Margaret Thatcher’s ideology, like that of Enoch Powell before her, was that if you support both national sovereignty and the free market the two will one day collide. And the market will win. In winning it may even boost the national sovereignty of others who refuse to play by these loser’s rules. What was once the South Western Electricity Board is now EDF Energy, a subsidiary of the French Republic. True blue? More like sacré bleu. At least we can say that France is only next door. Other infrastructure is owned by the Spaniards (Bristol Water), the Americans (Western Power Distribution) and the Australians (Bristol Airport). Wessex Water is owned by a billionaire in Malaysia. Did Maggie envisage that?
Our Party insists upon local and regional control over everything that is locally and regionally important. At a recent policy-making meeting it was agreed that land which is publicly-owned – or becomes publicly-owned in future – should be declared inalienable. Capable of being re-assigned, free, within the public sector, yes. Capable of being leased for a fixed term, yes. Capable of ever being sold again, never. Private ownership of land must be subject to limitations on acreage and a residency qualification. We are determined to face down those who believe our communities should be up for sale to the highest bidder. Property rights are our servants, not our masters, and our vision of Wessex is of a region where they are comprehensively re-written for the public good.
There is another vision. It is the vision of the big three London parties, carrying on in cackling consensus their work of eviscerating the State. Their ultimate aim is already publicly stated – a United Kingdom that has sold everything except the police and the military. The police to protect the interests of the super-rich. The military to go wherever in the world finance capital needs a helping hand. A post-democratic State without a heart. Just two hefty armoured fists, paid for by me and you. Their vision? Our vision? Your choice!
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Debt, What Debt?
We have long suspected that the so-called ‘debt crisis’ is an illusion, the result of some highly creative accountancy by City firms and their global chums, aided and abetted by those close to them in the cartel of London parties. David Malone, who blogs as Golem XIV, recently published evidence of just how bad this problem is – and ultimately of how badly we are being served by politicians we elect supposedly to look after our interests.
It is now taken for granted that the so-called ‘free market’ works on the principle that profits should be privatised and losses socialised. We are clearly far too polite to complain as our wallets are lifted from our pockets. Best not make a fuss. Perhaps when the bailed-out banks are sold, squillions of public money written off in the process, we might even get a few pennies back in tax cuts. Or maybe not.
Anger at the banks is not about to subside. But neither throwing tantrums nor throwing bricks will help. What has to change is the attitude that has become ingrained over the past 30 years of kleptocratic government, namely that knowing how to help yourself to the common wealth and get away with it is a sign of how smart you are. The best defence that bankers have is that nothing they have done is illegal. Too true. Most of it should have been illegal and certainly should be illegal in future. To get to that desirable state of affairs we first need a clearout of the current crop of politicians. The London parties are all unfit for their stated purpose and deserve not a shred of respect. All need to be uprooted from the Wessex communities they infest and be replaced by honest men and women who can point out when a banker isn’t wearing any clothes. Banking is a highly complex business that only the finest minds can understand. So too was mediæval theology and the monasteries got their come-uppance nevertheless. Self-serving nonsense is still nonsense, no matter how well-remunerated its exponents. And all it takes to set the ball rolling is for someone to start to say so.
It is now taken for granted that the so-called ‘free market’ works on the principle that profits should be privatised and losses socialised. We are clearly far too polite to complain as our wallets are lifted from our pockets. Best not make a fuss. Perhaps when the bailed-out banks are sold, squillions of public money written off in the process, we might even get a few pennies back in tax cuts. Or maybe not.
Anger at the banks is not about to subside. But neither throwing tantrums nor throwing bricks will help. What has to change is the attitude that has become ingrained over the past 30 years of kleptocratic government, namely that knowing how to help yourself to the common wealth and get away with it is a sign of how smart you are. The best defence that bankers have is that nothing they have done is illegal. Too true. Most of it should have been illegal and certainly should be illegal in future. To get to that desirable state of affairs we first need a clearout of the current crop of politicians. The London parties are all unfit for their stated purpose and deserve not a shred of respect. All need to be uprooted from the Wessex communities they infest and be replaced by honest men and women who can point out when a banker isn’t wearing any clothes. Banking is a highly complex business that only the finest minds can understand. So too was mediæval theology and the monasteries got their come-uppance nevertheless. Self-serving nonsense is still nonsense, no matter how well-remunerated its exponents. And all it takes to set the ball rolling is for someone to start to say so.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
When Will Wessex Flag Ban Cease?
We are the dispossessed. Dispossessed of our liberties by the Norman Conquest. Dispossessed of our livelihoods by the enclosures. And now dispossessed by the Coalition as it flogs our communities’ assets to pay bankers their bonuses. Bonuses then spent squeezing us out of our homeland to make way for commuter mansions and weekend cottages. The speech of King Alfred is mocked as that of rustic idiots, while quislings in our councils try to gag users of our dialect. Today is St Aldhelm’s Day, still unacknowledged by the UK authorities as the feast day of our patron saint, as important to Wessex as St Andrew is to Scotland and St David is to Wales.
At least we can freely fly the flag of Wessex, the Wyvern, recently added to the Flag Institute’s UK Flag Registry, the first step towards its long-awaited official recognition. Surely we can?
No. We can’t. We can freely fly the Scottish flag in Wessex. Or the Welsh flag. Or the Cornish. Or the national flag of any country anywhere, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. But it is technically an offence to fly the Wessex flag in Wessex, unless planning permission has been obtained. Which can cost up to £335 and has to be renewed every five years.
This month the Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, announced his “intention to launch a consultation to allow a wider variety of important and historic flags to be flown by people keen to celebrate their local and national heritage and culture”. We can’t wait. The last time the rules were reviewed, under Labour, county and saints’ flags were deregulated but regional flags were not. East Anglia’s flag, dating from the early 1900’s, has continued to be widely flown regardless. The Wessex flag is also flown by a growing number of individuals and organisations, including local councils. Labour, control-freakery at Warp 10, refused to decriminalise these harmless expressions of identity and continued to levy what is in effect a ‘stealth tax’ payable on our patriotism.
Pickles too has chosen his words with care: “local and national heritage”, not ‘regional’. His press release tells us that the Coalition will “make it easier for communities wanting to celebrate the contribution of our armed forces by easing rules on flying local regimental flags. Other local flags, and projects like environmental awards, could also all be freed up from existing bureaucratic restrictions.” The man himself says, “If people want to celebrate something that is important to them by flying a flag they should be able to do so without having to fill in forms or paying town hall officials for the privilege. We will make it easier for people to celebrate their allegiance to a cause, a county or a local organisation if they choose to do so.” The ‘R’ word we are looking for is still conspicuously missing. Ominously, the press release ends with the warning that any flags outside the extended categories will “continue to be prohibited without express consent.” No doubt Pickles, deluded fool that he is, genuinely believes that the United Kingdom is a model of human rights and democracy. One where it is expected that folk will ‘celebrate’ the contribution of the Queen’s Own British Murderers to the needless deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. But that it must remain out of the question to allow an oppressed minority the freedom to fly our own flag in our own land.
We can and will fight back. Fly your Wyvern with pride. Drop Pickles a line. Let him know that our region is here to stay. And that he cannot fine or jail everyone who cares for Wessex.
UPDATE 1: here
UPDATE 2: here
UPDATE 3: here
At least we can freely fly the flag of Wessex, the Wyvern, recently added to the Flag Institute’s UK Flag Registry, the first step towards its long-awaited official recognition. Surely we can?
No. We can’t. We can freely fly the Scottish flag in Wessex. Or the Welsh flag. Or the Cornish. Or the national flag of any country anywhere, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. But it is technically an offence to fly the Wessex flag in Wessex, unless planning permission has been obtained. Which can cost up to £335 and has to be renewed every five years.
This month the Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, announced his “intention to launch a consultation to allow a wider variety of important and historic flags to be flown by people keen to celebrate their local and national heritage and culture”. We can’t wait. The last time the rules were reviewed, under Labour, county and saints’ flags were deregulated but regional flags were not. East Anglia’s flag, dating from the early 1900’s, has continued to be widely flown regardless. The Wessex flag is also flown by a growing number of individuals and organisations, including local councils. Labour, control-freakery at Warp 10, refused to decriminalise these harmless expressions of identity and continued to levy what is in effect a ‘stealth tax’ payable on our patriotism.
Pickles too has chosen his words with care: “local and national heritage”, not ‘regional’. His press release tells us that the Coalition will “make it easier for communities wanting to celebrate the contribution of our armed forces by easing rules on flying local regimental flags. Other local flags, and projects like environmental awards, could also all be freed up from existing bureaucratic restrictions.” The man himself says, “If people want to celebrate something that is important to them by flying a flag they should be able to do so without having to fill in forms or paying town hall officials for the privilege. We will make it easier for people to celebrate their allegiance to a cause, a county or a local organisation if they choose to do so.” The ‘R’ word we are looking for is still conspicuously missing. Ominously, the press release ends with the warning that any flags outside the extended categories will “continue to be prohibited without express consent.” No doubt Pickles, deluded fool that he is, genuinely believes that the United Kingdom is a model of human rights and democracy. One where it is expected that folk will ‘celebrate’ the contribution of the Queen’s Own British Murderers to the needless deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. But that it must remain out of the question to allow an oppressed minority the freedom to fly our own flag in our own land.
We can and will fight back. Fly your Wyvern with pride. Drop Pickles a line. Let him know that our region is here to stay. And that he cannot fine or jail everyone who cares for Wessex.
UPDATE 1: here
UPDATE 2: here
UPDATE 3: here
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
We & They
Our website currently includes a page of links to movements for autonomy among our neighbours – the Cornish, the Welsh and, within England, the Mercians. Our southern neighbours the Bretons and, within France, the Normans, are not neglected either. In a Wessex-centred perspective, within the Europe of Regions, we have no false loyalties to wider unities that do not, or will not, work for us. Cross-channel ferries are part of our economy, generating jobs in our coastal communities. Tartan tins of shortbread are not. In theory, what goes on in East Anglia or Northumbria, let alone Scotland, should be no more relevant than what goes on in Poitou and Picardy, our other neighbours’ neighbours. And as for Scotland, it might as well be on the moon.
In practice, what goes on in Scotland is very interesting indeed, because Scotland is the motor of constitutional change within our Disunited Kingdom. Thirty years ago, in the aftermath of a referendum defeat, even a relatively weak Scottish Assembly seemed a pipedream. A Scottish Parliament with an SNP majority was a foolish fantasy. That is not to say that the Union today is in jeopardy. A referendum on Scottish independence may well do to the SNP what the referendum on AV is now doing to the LibDems. Misreading the voters’ mood can have devastating consequences. Be careful what you ask for; ask only if you confidently command the charisma to carry it through.
Mischievous provocations by Unionists, however, such as suggesting a UK-wide referendum that gives English voters a veto over dissolution, will only stiffen Scottish resolve as the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn approaches. Even to float the suggestion is counter-productive and serious politicians will recognise that. The reality is that Labour is in deep trouble whatever form the referendum takes and whatever its outcome. Whether the SNP becomes the natural party of government in a devolved Scotland or takes it on to independence, the prospects for a Labour majority at Westminster are going to be severely dented. English regionalists should not think that Labour will soon be in a position to deliver devolution here, even if it wanted to. This realisation, which cannot spread quickly enough, leaves regionalist parties as the only viable option for those who advocate decentralisation and democracy. There are no shortcuts.
Meanwhile, the next four years at Holyrood will be interesting times. Thatcher hated Livingstone for building, across the Thames, a working model of everything she most despised. Salmond will be giving Cameron the same delightful treatment. The prospect of two Scots with two very different visions facing each other from their respective Parliamentary bastions will enliven political life for everyone. Abolition won’t be a way out for the PM this time. The lessons start with that simple fact, that devolved government is a constitutional, not simply administrative device. Nothing less than a civil war could remove it now. That is the kind of security against Westminster bullying that Wessex too so desperately requires.
That the SNP now dominates the Holyrood Parliament is another outcome we can welcome. Not because we care who the Scots elect to govern themselves, but for the boost this gives to a re-territorialised politics. More nationalist – and ultimately regionalist – MPs at Westminster would mean fewer Conservative, Labour and LibDem ones. That is the politics we support, because it is bottom-up politics, in which MPs work as advocates for the communities who sent them there, not for ideological factions manipulated by London-based think-tanks, funded by creeps and crooks, whose primary objective is the smoothing-away of the differences and distinctions that give variety and value to life.
A well-informed Cornish blogger, commenting on the AV referendum result, has suggested that the ‘No’ campaign won partly because UK politics overall are insufficiently ‘Scottish’ in outlook, in the sense of putting community first. (This defect was to lead AV to defeat even in Scotland itself.) There is something in this. The LibDems and all their works were punished, but in a range of cruel and unusual ways in different areas. They alienated their most ardent and hope-filled supporters by allowing themselves to become Tory glove puppets. They alienated floating voters by not providing a more responsible lead on over-population and over-development. Where they were strongest they suffered huge losses; where they were weakest they ended up entrenching still further the peculiarly nasty politics of the sado-monetarists, the slavering, reptilian denizens of a Daily Mail world of imperial destiny, swivel-eyed xenophobia and the mine, all mine social Darwinism that stalks the southern shires.
Such a stereotype also happens to be that of the typical campaigner for a ‘one-size-fits-all’ English parliament, gleefully envisaged as the means to spike all regionalist guns. We do not campaign for an English parliament. We cannot, because we cannot put the interests of England, or anywhere else, ahead of the interests of Wessex, nor put the latter ‘on hold’ indefinitely for the sake of somebody else’s priorities. If Celtic independence-all-round delivers an English parliament by default then we shall work within it, but the job of removing power from London goes on regardless. Without Celtic pressure, the decentralist cause within England would undoubtedly suffer a setback, which only a renewed drive for Europe-wide regionalisation might be expected to reverse. For Wessex to succeed, it must be seen as the equivalent of Scotland and Wales on the European stage and folk must be willing to look for such an equivalent. Instead, viewing the world from a truly parochial perspective, they will sometimes complain today that Wessex is ‘far too big’, then paradoxically declare that they prefer an English parliament that would be seven times bigger!
The task of differentiating Wessex from its neighbours, while working with them to undermine the foundations of uniformity, is acknowledged to be huge. It is also hugely worthwhile and, pursued with passion, can be hugely enjoyable too. The region is going to become the key political, economic and cultural unit of the post-oil age as old state structures render themselves irrelevant. Those who regionalise first will be those best placed to make the inescapable transition in a humane and democratic fashion. The Scots are way ahead. We’ll need to run if we’re to keep up.
In practice, what goes on in Scotland is very interesting indeed, because Scotland is the motor of constitutional change within our Disunited Kingdom. Thirty years ago, in the aftermath of a referendum defeat, even a relatively weak Scottish Assembly seemed a pipedream. A Scottish Parliament with an SNP majority was a foolish fantasy. That is not to say that the Union today is in jeopardy. A referendum on Scottish independence may well do to the SNP what the referendum on AV is now doing to the LibDems. Misreading the voters’ mood can have devastating consequences. Be careful what you ask for; ask only if you confidently command the charisma to carry it through.
Mischievous provocations by Unionists, however, such as suggesting a UK-wide referendum that gives English voters a veto over dissolution, will only stiffen Scottish resolve as the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn approaches. Even to float the suggestion is counter-productive and serious politicians will recognise that. The reality is that Labour is in deep trouble whatever form the referendum takes and whatever its outcome. Whether the SNP becomes the natural party of government in a devolved Scotland or takes it on to independence, the prospects for a Labour majority at Westminster are going to be severely dented. English regionalists should not think that Labour will soon be in a position to deliver devolution here, even if it wanted to. This realisation, which cannot spread quickly enough, leaves regionalist parties as the only viable option for those who advocate decentralisation and democracy. There are no shortcuts.
Meanwhile, the next four years at Holyrood will be interesting times. Thatcher hated Livingstone for building, across the Thames, a working model of everything she most despised. Salmond will be giving Cameron the same delightful treatment. The prospect of two Scots with two very different visions facing each other from their respective Parliamentary bastions will enliven political life for everyone. Abolition won’t be a way out for the PM this time. The lessons start with that simple fact, that devolved government is a constitutional, not simply administrative device. Nothing less than a civil war could remove it now. That is the kind of security against Westminster bullying that Wessex too so desperately requires.
That the SNP now dominates the Holyrood Parliament is another outcome we can welcome. Not because we care who the Scots elect to govern themselves, but for the boost this gives to a re-territorialised politics. More nationalist – and ultimately regionalist – MPs at Westminster would mean fewer Conservative, Labour and LibDem ones. That is the politics we support, because it is bottom-up politics, in which MPs work as advocates for the communities who sent them there, not for ideological factions manipulated by London-based think-tanks, funded by creeps and crooks, whose primary objective is the smoothing-away of the differences and distinctions that give variety and value to life.
A well-informed Cornish blogger, commenting on the AV referendum result, has suggested that the ‘No’ campaign won partly because UK politics overall are insufficiently ‘Scottish’ in outlook, in the sense of putting community first. (This defect was to lead AV to defeat even in Scotland itself.) There is something in this. The LibDems and all their works were punished, but in a range of cruel and unusual ways in different areas. They alienated their most ardent and hope-filled supporters by allowing themselves to become Tory glove puppets. They alienated floating voters by not providing a more responsible lead on over-population and over-development. Where they were strongest they suffered huge losses; where they were weakest they ended up entrenching still further the peculiarly nasty politics of the sado-monetarists, the slavering, reptilian denizens of a Daily Mail world of imperial destiny, swivel-eyed xenophobia and the mine, all mine social Darwinism that stalks the southern shires.
Such a stereotype also happens to be that of the typical campaigner for a ‘one-size-fits-all’ English parliament, gleefully envisaged as the means to spike all regionalist guns. We do not campaign for an English parliament. We cannot, because we cannot put the interests of England, or anywhere else, ahead of the interests of Wessex, nor put the latter ‘on hold’ indefinitely for the sake of somebody else’s priorities. If Celtic independence-all-round delivers an English parliament by default then we shall work within it, but the job of removing power from London goes on regardless. Without Celtic pressure, the decentralist cause within England would undoubtedly suffer a setback, which only a renewed drive for Europe-wide regionalisation might be expected to reverse. For Wessex to succeed, it must be seen as the equivalent of Scotland and Wales on the European stage and folk must be willing to look for such an equivalent. Instead, viewing the world from a truly parochial perspective, they will sometimes complain today that Wessex is ‘far too big’, then paradoxically declare that they prefer an English parliament that would be seven times bigger!
The task of differentiating Wessex from its neighbours, while working with them to undermine the foundations of uniformity, is acknowledged to be huge. It is also hugely worthwhile and, pursued with passion, can be hugely enjoyable too. The region is going to become the key political, economic and cultural unit of the post-oil age as old state structures render themselves irrelevant. Those who regionalise first will be those best placed to make the inescapable transition in a humane and democratic fashion. The Scots are way ahead. We’ll need to run if we’re to keep up.
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