Thread: CEP: Brown and Straw express concern over the Campaign for an English Parliament

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Another CEP Press Release.

Friday, 26 Sep 2008 08:52

The demand for an English Parliament unnerves Brown and Straw.

‘Our campaigning for an English Parliament’, stated Mrs Scilla Cullen, chairman of the Campaign for an English Parliament in her email message to the CEP membership on the occasion of the close of the Labour Party conference, ‘has forced both Gordon Brown and Jack Straw, speaking separately at meetings in Manchester, to register their concern at the way in which the case for an English Parliament is not only being taken up nationwide but is also penetrating the Parliamentary Labour Party itself. Brown has declared he will himself now speak out against it. There can hardly be stronger evidence that we are making huge inroads into the opposition we have experienced over the past ten years than Downing Street itself in the person of the Prime Minister himself coming out against us.

‘Brown’s statement at his Manchester meeting was: “There is also an English lobby for a separate English parliament. The case for the UK and the integration of it has got to be put and that’s what I intend to do over the next few months.” And in the same week at a separate meeting the Justice Secretary Jack Straw warned against what he called ‘the rising threat of an “English parliament” campaign.

‘Both Brown and Straw in their speeches argued that an English Parliament would threaten the existence of the United Kingdom. They have obviously agreed upon a joint formula of attack upon us. Their argument is nonsense of course. Nothing will better serve the unity of the UK than all three nations of this island, England, Scotland and Wales, standing in the same relationship to the Union government and to each other; and nothing has so strongly threatened the Union that the degree of home rule and the immense benefits Brown himself got for his own country of Scotland in the 1998 Devolution legislation which he was very careful to deny to England and Wales.

‘It is the best endorsement of the power of our campaigning that now Downing Street itself has in the person of the Prime Minister has decided to take us on.’

Contacts:

Mrs Scilla Cullen Chairman CEP Tel: 01438 833155

http://www.politics.co.uk/opinion-formers/press-releases/cep-brown-and-straw-express-concern-over-campaign-an-english-parliament-$1242372$479240.htm

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Of course they'll be concerned. Brown is a Scot who wants to break up the UK - turning the 'English' into 'Europeans'. Jack Straw is known to have given a speech at a well known Marxist school in which he states '..the English, as a race, are not worth saving'.

So no surprise really, is there?

Straw is a snake and possible a snake of the worst kind,an unpatriotic one.

Originally Posted by Hunter

Of course they'll be concerned. Brown is a Scot who wants to break up the UK - turning the 'English' into 'Europeans'. Jack Straw is known to have given a speech at a well known Marxist school in which he states '..the English, as a race, are not worth saving'.

So no surprise really, is there?

By definition if the UK breaks up then Westminster becomes the English Parliament.

I think you're all being a bit naive! If the UK breaks up, Scotland and Wales will immediately turn to the EU, simply because they are too small to survive on their own. This would leave England on it's own and the Urbanites who live within the M25 will insist that we cannot survive without the EU! Unfortunately by then the days of the ballot box in this Country will be over and England will have to toe the line.

Originally Posted by kernow

I think you're all being a bit naive! If the UK breaks up, Scotland and Wales will immediately turn to the EU, simply because they are too small to survive on their own. This would leave England on it's own and the Urbanites who live within the M25 will insist that we cannot survive without the EU! Unfortunately by then the days of the ballot box in this Country [??????????] will be over and England will have to toe the line.

Yes, I suppose it is stretching some folks' imagination to expect 85% of the current UK to survive alone which it managed to do until 1707 . . . and since with albatross nations around its next including the EU!


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That's a good point of view cassie,when you look at it,England has been supporting NI,Scotland,Wales and the EU for decades,we need to push such clarity of thinking out to those who consider themselves English,just to remind them of how much better things will be in the future for them.

Originally Posted by cassie

Yes, I suppose it is stretching some folks' imagination to expect 85% of the current UK to survive alone which it managed to do until 1707 . . . and since with albatross nations around its next including the EU!


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Dream your dreams of England standing alone if you like, I wish you luck! In my opinion if the Union ever does break up whilst we're still in the EU, England will disappear as a sovereign Country!

Originally Posted by kernow

Dream your dreams of England standing alone if you like, I wish you luck! In my opinion if the Union ever does break up whilst we're still in the EU, England will disappear as a sovereign Country!

Actually, I don't 'dream' of England standing alone but it seems that many Scots want separation, and you cannot force reluctant partners to stay together for ever!

The fact is that England as a nation is not receiving anything remotely akin to parity of treatment and, if the price of acquiring such parity and true democracy as well is dissolution of the UK, then so be it! It must also be borne in mind that when a similar number of matters [Education, Health, Health Care, Transport, Planning including Housing, Farming, Home Affairs etc] are devolved to a separate English Parliament to no less an extent than in Scotland, there will be precious little for the current crop of MPs to do, especially those from outwith England.

Scots in government started this process in 1997 [some would say much earlier], and the English will have to finish it!

As an Englishman, I find your opinion interesting, but that is all!

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Originally Posted by kernow

I think you're all being a bit naive! If the UK breaks up, Scotland and Wales will immediately turn to the EU, simply because they are too small to survive on their own.

What's the right size to survive on your own outside the EU? Iceland is a lot smaller than Scotland and Wales, but survives pretty well.

But if they want to turn to the EU, let 'em.