Quote:
Originally Posted by cassie
It won't wash! Why should the fifty million people of England have less favourable treatment in this (as in other matters) than the other ten million in other parts of the UK which have three 'parliaments' between them?
There are 129 MSPs in the Scottish assembly. An English Parliament similarly constituted would amount to over 1,290 members of an English Parliament, not taking account of the AMs in Wales and members of the NI Assembly. I am not advocating an English Parliament of 1,500 members or more, but cite these figures to illustrate the difference in treatment.
The UKIP policy conveniently skips over these aspects, and very often its proponents are not English and omit to say so.
|
But you don't know what our policy is. I have just spent a fair amount of time writing the paper and discussing with the policy group.
Devolution will exist, but it will be applied equally to all nations of the UK. The devolved parliaments will be scrapped with national MPs taking up the role. There will be no asymmetric devolution which discriminates aginst the English. Funding on devolved issues should be raised locally, but what remains national should be treated as such and funding allocated fairly.
UKIP believes in fairness, but we also believe in the Union which requires some give and take.
Also on the point about Scotland getting all sorts for free that the English do not - with devolution you will end up with different nations adopting different policies and giving their residents different entitlements, that is the point of devolution; however people get angry that it is paid for by a massive English subsidy which is out of date. We propose to redress the funding balance, but variations in policy will still exist.