Tuesday 21 August 2007

Wendy And The Lost Boys

Another uncontested Labour Leadership Election, this time in the Scottish Parliament, where the winner is Wendy Alexander, former employee of George Galloway and stalwart of Scottish Labour Action (for people who should have been in the SNP but, in those days, saw Labour as a better electoral bet), and (like her brother) late of the CIA's British-American Project.

Put the first and third of these aspects of her history together, and we find a classic neocon: a Marxist who has merely changed the ending so that her own bourgeoisie wins in the end, and who owes to the superstate embodying the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie that transferred patriotic allegiance which Stalinists the world over used to owe to the superstate nominally embodying the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Such people hate Britain (they believe an Irish-American saloon-bar rant about a global Anglophile network either opposed to or manipulating the American Empire), and indeed one of their greatest heroines, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, used her position as American Ambassador to the UN to give very strong backing to Argentina during the Falklands War. So it is no surprise that, as a neocon, Wendy is also a Scottish Nationalist.

For be in no doubt: if devolution is "a process, not an event", as she has now forced Labour to climb down and say that it is, then that "process" can having only one possible conclusion, namely separation. That was the rationale for the Nationalist entryism of Scottish Labour Action, which also wanted the Scottish Labour Party to have full autonomy over policy is its considerably extended list of devolved areas. Watch that space. The Unionist majority in Scotland, and not least the working class, now has the "choice" of four haute bourgeois separatist parties out of four.

Meanwhile, what is the bulk of the United Kingdom to do in the face of yet further devolution. Demand an English Parliament? Certainly not!

There is no West Lothian Question. It does not exist. The Parliament of the United Kingdom may still legislate in any devolved policy area (no matter what those areas might be, and no matter how many more of them there might be), with full effect in Scotland or Wales. And that legislation would prevail over any enactment of a devolved body if the two conflicted. At present, Parliament merely declines to do this. But that is beside the point.

There is absolutely no doubt about this. It is written into the Acts creating the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. The MPs who voted for those Acts, and everyone who voted Yes in either referendum, voted for this. It is high time that they got what they voted for. After all, don’t Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have views on health, or education, or transport in their own constituencies? I rather suspect that they do. And now they have the opportunity to give legislative effect to those views. They should take that opportunity.

Consequently, there is no need for an English Parliament. Which is just as well, since how many more politicians could this country possibly sustain or endure? Imagine who would vote or stand in the elections to such a thing, elections including the use of closed party lists, and thus barely fit to be called elections at all. Imagine the cost of housing, staffing, securing and generally servicing an English Parliament.

No, there is a far better alternative. The Parliament of the United Kingdom should simply resume giving practical effect to the fact, for fact it is, that there is no state in the United Kingdom except the United Kingdom, and no nation except the British nation. In other words, it should simply resume enacting legislation just as it did before devolution, thereby actually implementing, for the first time, the Scotland and Wales Acts in full. It has a duty to do so, a duty not least to the disenfranchised Unionist majority in Scotland.

10 comments:

  1. Why refute a question that doesn't exist?

    I don't mean to get all metaphysical but if a question is asked then it exists. Many people are asking the West Lothian Question and demanding an answer, simply stating that it doesn't exist is...well, let's just say that you aren't doing yourself any favours.

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  2. Sorry, genie out of the bottle. If Brown tried to get back control in domestic matters in Scotland and Wales, what do you reckon the Nationalist Government of Scotland and the part Nationalist Government of Wales would say.

    One nation politics is dead - and has been since 1998. I want representation in my country, England. An English parliament would mean smaller government, Westminster would be rendered virtually irrelevent as over 70% of business time there is taken up with English legislation. A federal UK is an option - but if that cannot be achieved, who cares? Attitudes have hardened in England over the past 5 years because we have been so disenfranchised.

    Democracy is all about the people - recent polls have consistently shown a demand for an English Parliament (between 60 - 70%) - that's a majority in my book.

    And as for your proclaimation that there is no WLQ - just tell that to my kids - they will not be going to Uni, they cannot afford the tuition fees - and the top ups - and the top ups on the top ups.

    All thanks to a piece of legislation passed by a claque of Scots Labour MPs. Oh, and let's not forget the new planning law which will only apply to England and will render all local protests against new nuclear power stations, mega housing estates etc absolutely irrelevent. Almost forgot the road pricing act - brought in by Duggie Alexander - at the time, Transport Minister for England.... The WLQ and the consequences thereof look pretty real to me.

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  3. There is no "road pricing act", Alfie. The Secretary of State for Transport has limited powers to introduce road pricing through the Transport Act 2000, passed when John Prescott had the job.

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  4. It wouldn't be a matter of "getting back" power, but simply of exercising power that already exists. That's what the devolution legislation says. If the SNP or whoever don't liek it, then they should have oppposed it. They didn't. Very far from it, in fact.

    I remain profoundly unconvinced that Alex Salmond really believes in independence. He might have done once, but if so then his metamorphosis into the Scots Jan Smuts is now practically complete.

    As for student funding, the better deal in Scotland could and should easily be extended to the rest of the UK simply by cutting the cost of doing so from the block grant to the Scottish Parliament.

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  5. Wendy is a Scottish nationalist (like the bulk of Scots), not a Scottish Nationalist. I am a large N, she is a small n - of sorts.

    You are still banging on about Brown picking a fight with the Scottish Parliament, something he campaigned to create from the Red Paper to 1979 referendum to the Scottish Constitutional Convention (of which he was a signatory) to his weekly column in the Daily Record before he became Chancellor to his support in the devolution referendum of 1997. Say what you like about Brown, he is consistent on this particular issue that a devolved Scottish legislature should exist.

    If the Scots wanted to wind back devolution then they had the option at the election of:

    UKIP - Bad (ok maybe that is being a bit hard)
    Scottish Unionist Party - Mad
    BNP - Dangerous to know

    UKIP and BNP had party lists throughout the country and even had a couple of political broadcasts each. Less said about the SUP the better as far as you are concerned as they are not keen on Catholics.

    What do you know about the "working class of Scotland" anyhow? Is this the working class which paid union dues into the STUC to participate in the Constitutional Convention?

    From my own experience, being the son of building worker and all the company of people in that sector, were not very keen on the pre-devolution arrangements.

    Question agin: Would you have hung Gandhi?

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  6. So it doesn't bother you that Scottish MPs vote devolved matters for which they have no democratic mandate (the remit for education and health in Scotland is mandated to MSPs).

    Well, at least we have established that there is such a thing as the West Lothian Question. Here we all are discussing it.

    The Scotsman (1 July 2007) SCOTTISH MPs could be banned from voting on English issues by Gordon Brown’s new regime - even though the new Prime Minister has consistently opposed the move.

    The constitutional reform programme being compiled by Brown’s “deputy” Jack Straw will review the whole issue of the rights and responsibilities of Britain’s MPs. And it will not be able to avoid the weighty issue of the “West Lothian question”, which has troubled British politicians for generations.

    Officials at the Ministry of Justice last night confirmed that the wide-ranging review would cover the vexed question of whether Scottish MPs should be allowed to vote on issues that do not have an impact north of the Border.

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  7. Of course Scottish MPs have a "democractic mandate" on health and education. The Government just chooses not to give them an opportunity to use it.

    It should give that opportunity, partly to make the point, but mostly because even the enactments of a Brown Government are going to be well to the Left of anything dreamt up by what the SNP has become, and really always was. They would certainly be a great deal more agreeable to the STUC, which would pretty much write most or all of it, not something that it could expect from the SNP...

    The Aberdonian, I'm more than happy to believe that the Scottish working class wasn't too happy with the Tories, or indeed with Tony Blair. Well, they can join the club.

    Everything that you cite about Brown is not only from before he became PM (which makes all the difference), but is in favour of devolution, inherent in which is the ongoing supremacy of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (as will not have been lost on a man who has aspired to the Premiership practically since the cradle).

    Oh, and Alfie, I don't see how more politicians, complete with their staff and other hangers on, would constitute "less government". But then, I don't see how "less government" is necessarily a good in itself.

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  8. As for Gandhi, he was overrated even at the time. He was reduced to fasting in Calcutta while the people who really mattered (Nehru, Jinnah and Mountbatten) were doing what they would have been doing anyway, even if Gandhi had never existed.

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  9. "Of course Scottish MPs have a "democractic mandate" on health and education."

    Do they? That means you think it is right for the Scottish Labour Party to vote for Foundation Hospitals and tuition fess for the English whilst the Scottish Labour Party legislates against them for Scots. I'm afraid I have to strongly disagree.

    Each party produces a separate manifesto for Scotland, and it is this manifesto that MSPs are elected on to represent the wishes of the Scottish people on health and education. MPs are also elected by the Scots, but not to represent them in health and education - those areas are covered by a separate manifesto that does not affect Scotland. So whilst the Scottish MPs are elected, as far as devolved issues are concerned, they are not elected by a constituency that is directly affected by their decisions.

    "A contract of trust between citizens and politicians on a defined national community – we can elect you, we can remove you – is fundamental to a democracy."

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  10. You still don't get it, do you, Toque? I don't know why not, because it is very, very simple.

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