Britannist

In view of his alleged remarks about supporting "anyone but England" in the last World Football Cup, I always look forward to Murray's defeat in tennis.

If it were another Scot who had made no such remarks I would support him/her - but Murray losing at tennis is a pleasure for me to see.

I don't like him anyway.

I also believe that a lot of people in England are fully aware of his alleged comments - a reader of the Daily Mail website left a message after an article about him recently stating "I have never forgotten what he (allegedly) said about not supporting the England football team."

But I also think that many Scottish people were embarrassed by Murray's alleged England football team comments - I think a large part of the Scottish tourist industry rely heavily on visits from England.

If English people feel that Scotland is becoming hostile to them many can easily afford an air ticket to Ireland instead for a break - and for southern and central England Wales is, of course, nearer than Scotland for a holiday within the UK.

Britannist

Thank you for your reply, Cassie. I don't mean to be pedantic. I am a Royalist and I am not the 'citizen' of anywhere (least of all the EU of course). I am a British subject living in the English part of the UK.

Britannist

'Nationalism' is a strong word.

All I want is equality for England with Scotland within the UK.

I would be very pleased if all the devolved bodies (i.e. the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly) were all abolished and that we went back to the Unitary UK we used to have before Blair/Brown and their Lie-bour Party (backed by the europhile Liberal 'Democats') messed it up.

But I think that in the case of Scotland the people of Scotland might not vote (in a referendum) in favour of scrapping Holyrood (i.e. the rival Parliament to Westminster in Edinburgh).

Therefore, those of us here in England are left with no alternative but to seek constitutional equality with Scotland in a devolved Union of the UK.

Britannist

Thank you for your kind comments Andrew and for your response to the article I linked through to in the first posting to this thread.

Just for the benefit of new readers I would point out that we share the objective of ending the status quo whereby England is held down deliberately by the anti-English UK Labour regime in power and denied her own Parliament and the right to self-determination. You believe that the UK is finished (or should be formally dissolved) - I support maintenance of the Union of the UK as long as England gets equality within itwith other parts of the UK (i.e. the same devolved powers for England which Scotland has had since 1999). but we both agree that the disgraceful status quo (where English people get less UK public money per head of population than each Scot in Scotland does and where Scottish constituency MPs are voting in the Commons on English matters with English constituency MPs not being allowed to do the same back) must end.

Regarding your question (quoted above), Andrew, about Britishness.

You want me to be candid: I have to admit that the overwhelming majority of Scottish people in Scotland now appear to regard themselves as Scottish first and British second (with little reference from many of them to Britishnes at all). I first noticed this apparent trend in the late 1970's when Scotland did well in the World (football) Cup competition and the football stadium where the Scottish team was playing was full of blue and white Scottish (Saltire) flags with not a Union Jack (UK Flag) to be seen anywhere. When the English football team played in the late 1970's most of the flags waved by England supporters were UK Union Jacks.

As you know, Andrew, the fact that the majority of Scottish people in Scotland use the term British infrequently (or not at all) - is backed up by opinion poll research. Only a minority of Scottish people in Scotland seem to be calling themselves British at all either when they are in the UK or when they are abroad. However - I haven't come across one Scot (apart from members of the europhile anti-UK Scottish so-called 'National' Party who has said s/he wants to give up his/her British Passport. I would suggest that in a referendum in Scotland on Scotland's future in the UK a big majority of those who do not use the term British to describe themselves would still vote to remain a full part of the British nation state and to keep their UK passports.

I would add that I think the word British is used frequently in Wales and Northern Ireland (except by the minority of anti-UK separatists).

In England I have noticed increasing numbers of people calling themselves English and not British - a trend which possibly started when Scotland got devolution nine years ago. America's Time Magazine (a few years ago) did a front cover about the "English Tribe" - the feature inside the publication showed the crowd supporting England at the World Cup final in 1966 - a mass of Union Jacks. Next to that picture was one of a more recent football match (in the early part of this decade) in which England was playing - the crowd were waving mostly England St. George flags and not UK Union Jacks.

My own approach to this is - I describe myself as English at home and abroad. My country is England but my nation is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I have always addressed my letters sent abroad "from England/UK". I refuse to use the term "Britain" myself for several reasons: 1. it does not include the "Great" prefix - we are "Great" and the prefix "Great" should be used if the word "Britain" is used 2. if abroad some people might confuse the word "Britain" with Britanny in France. 3. "Britain" is a word which does not make clear if Northern Ireland is a part of it or not whereas as the more Royalist "United Kingdom" does, of course 4. usage of the name UK puts us next to the USA in those international institutions (such as the United Nations) where seating is determined on alphabetic order - if we use "Britain" we end up sitting next to lesser important nations.

It seems to me that the less the Scottish in Scotland are using the word "British" the less the people of England are using it. I was with a UKIP friend driving through a village last year (during an international football competition in which England was playing) and all the flags flying in people's gardens -except one - were English. My UKIP friend (a member of the party) - who I had thought was a staunch UK Unionist said when I mentioned that a Union Jack was flying in front of one house "That's a bit out of date - it is useless now".

The UK Union Flag is a design classic - a world famous flag which I am sorry to see fall into lesser use. But I read that most flag shops in Scotland aren't stocking or selling any of them now.

I remain in support of the Union of the UK if England can get equality within it (with the other parts of the UK) but awareness of English identity in England is growing after decades of suppression of it - and I welcome this resurgence in Englishness as all English patriots will. If the people of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland can celebrate their history, culture and identity so can we English. And we will - more and more.

Prime Minister Brown's absurd attempt to promote Britishness in England only is a desperate rearguard action by a man in an anti-English party (Labour)
which naively and arrogantly failed to see in the middle of the last decade when it was formulating its policy of setting up a rival Parliament to Westminster in Edinburgh that devolution to Scotland and Wales in 1999 would have a knock-on effect in England by reviving English identity and pushing 'the English question' (equality for England within the UK) into the mainstream.

Now the English genie is out of the bottle this man Brown and his party are not going to get it back into the bottle again. The people of England can see that we no longer live in a unitary UK and that Britishness is not being enthusiastically supported by all in the different parts of the British nation.

Due to Labour's botched devolution the unity of the Union of the UK has been damaged. The single nation state UK I felt we should have kept has been weakened and diluted by Labour and the europhile Liberal 'Democrats' - a bunch of political amateurs who thought they could get away with ignoring the huge English part of the British nation when they started to mess around with the constitutional setup of the UK a decade ago.

If England is not given equality with the other parts of the UK then resentment about anti-English Labour's unfair devolution will rise to the point where the majority of voters in England will back ending the Union of the UK altogether - according to one opinion poll about 31% of electors in England (about 11 million people) already want England out of the UK.

That figure will rise substantially if Labour do not drop their anti-English policy rapidly.

mkpdavies

Voluntariy collectivism isn't a bad thing, as long as you don't use the power of that collective to abuse others.

Sadly, with the screwed up way the world is now, unraveling this all will be very difficult, if not impossible.

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cassie

Britannist, I suspect that my position about the UK is very near yours. Whilst I am not now an ardent 'Unionist', I should regret it if the UK were to be dissolved!

As you have correctly divined, Brown & Co cannot keep shoving the collective adjective 'British' down English throats whilst leaving Scots and Welsh free to reject it and thereby changing its intended meaning to being merely another name for the English which others, unlike the English, are free to adopt and discard at will!

Perhaps we have the EEC/EC/EU to thank for much of the current situation; it has certainly focussed attention via the matter of sovereignty on the widespread question of what is one's true nationality.


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cassie

As usual, you make some good points Britannist.

The fact is that Wales is linked, enmeshed if you like, with England in a way and to an extent not replicated with Scotland. Therefore, I think it would be very difficult for Wales to be as independent of England as Scotland could be, and seems much less likely to become independent.

Even so, this opinion does not take full account of the strength of feeling amongst some 'Celts' and, regardless of the fact that many English are (whether or not they realise it) themselves Celtic, could combine to form a 'Celtic Union' of Wales and Scotland which excluded England.


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Britannist

Thank you for your reply and for your agreement on this Cassie.

Like UK I don't wish to see the UK end - but it is not going to last too much longer (in my view) as a Union if Labour carry on trying to hold England and the people of England down with it.

There has definitely been a shift within Unionist opinion in England with many English Unionists now saying that their support for the Union of the UK is conditional on England getting constitutional and financial equality with Scotland within the UK.

I may be wrong on this but I am sure I read somewhere that new flag flying regulations stipulate that the Union Jack (UK Flag) must be flown on the poles above Government buildings in England but not in Scotland - and that Brown (or was it the awful Straw) who approved this rule.

Brown and his anti-English Labour shower think that promoting English will halt the rise of English national consciousness but they are naive in that assumption. Flag shops are selling far more English than British flags and - as much as I think the Union Flag (Union Jack - UK Flag) is a design classic (probably the most recognised flag in the world) I do not see that trend reversing however much Brown tries to push Britishness within England.

Andrew Constantine

Britannist

What a heartfelt, comprehensive and well reasoned post.

I cannot and do not wish to make quick shots at your personal views, but I hope you will see some reason in these observations:

Is it possible for a reformed Union to allow England to have equality? Say we have an English Parliament representing over 80% of the UK population. Will that Parliament and the majority in it constituting an English government allow some federal UK government to overrule it?

For example, if you were an English MP in this English Parliament and your constituents asked you to vote against England staying in the EU, but all foreign issues were a matter for the Union government (perhaps composed of the English pro-EU opposition plus Scottish nationlists etc), would you find that acceptable?

Would not a reformed Union with an English Parliament have in-built instablity as each home nation would both try to get a better deal from the Union and try to influence affairs in the other home nations? For example, what would there be to stop the English Tory party funding the Scottish Tory party? What would there be to stop the English Labour party giving away England's interests to help the Scottish Labour party so both Labour parties could form the Union government?

I think that the idea of a reformed UK with a fairer treatment for England sounds attractive, but when you start to look at its likely dynamics, many of the dysfunctional spects of the present would still exist - and might get extra vim.

The above logic points to the present UK being dissolved, and independence being the best way forward for Scotland and England. And what's wrong with that? You as an Englishman do not wish to rule Scotland, do you? Similarly, I do not wish to be governed by a Scot elected for a Scottish constituency.

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Britannist

Thank you for your kind comment, Cassie.

Yes, Wales and England are enmeshed - and a good thing too in my opinion. As you well know, England and Wales effectively unified centuries before Scotland joined the UK and if Scotland quit the Union of the UK the Union would just carry on with her (i.e. it would then consist of England, Wales and Northern Ireland - with Wales recovering her position as 'the number two' in the Union which she held long before Scotland's entry into what is now the UK).

As for the scenario of a Celtic Union (of Wales and Scotland). If one were formed it would, of course, not be geographically linked (i.e. as we know Scotland has no border with Wales) - which might make it a bit difficult for it to run and operate as a single nation state. It would also be very small in population terms when compared to England and would not have English financial subsidies. As England is going to quit the EU, if a Celtic Union of Wales and Scotland stayed in it there would, of course, be no automatic right to enter England from Scotland in order to reach Wales. Separatists in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland must understand that breaking away from England could mean the introduction of border controls by an English Government.

On a related point to the scenario of a Celtic Union of Wales and England (possibly also including the Irish Republic) I would totally oppose any attempt by any Celtic union to try to get English Cornwall (which as you know has a Celtic dimension to much of her population) to participate in such a thing. We must keep England unified at all costs - and that includes Cornwall which is English as is her people whatever their ancient origins.