Labour in denial about their act of consitutional vandalism
They still don't get it. I've just read this article reproduced on Labour home from Tribune.
It mentions a number of things - not least calling the West Lothian Question arcane and suggesting that the Conservatives are in league with the SNP to break up the Union. They are still making excuses and denying the impact of there own actions in putting the Union on the road to break up with the Celtic devolved settlements. Their default position is to blame England and the English for not being willing to be mugged by MacLabour and the Celtic Lib Dems.
Now the denial has reached the level that they think they are defending the Union ! Since they believe in so little these days it may just be what their focus groups have told them to say.
( Does anyone remember Labour refusing any significant national celebration of 300 years of the Union of the crowns of England and Scotland ( this is all I could find - I remember the Queen being refused permission to attend some celebrations by Mr Blair )? Or surely you'll remember the street parties they organised for the 200 year anniversary ? No ... We'll Labour were still playing the nationalist card in Scotland and Wales at the time.)
24 hours to save the Union ? That was John Major, New Labour said that creating unbalanced and unjust devolution would strengthen the Union, but then they lied on so much in 1997 ( and kept going ... ).
Any serious debate and attempt to bring justice to England will need all of the people who will in the future be involved in English politics, and that includes the Labour party. And the process must start with a unreserved apology from the Labour party for the cavalier and unprincipled way it damaged the Union for its own political advantage. Once that is out of the way we can get on with building and English political system - inside or outside the Union or EU.
Labour needs to stop its denials about what it has done and smears on other parties and admit it was wrong and ask for forgiveness. Then the rest of us should accept that apology and move on.
After all we have a New Jerusalem to build.
Update See Simon Heffer in Weds Telegraph "The Union of England and Scotland is over".
3 comments:
If the Conservatives can put together and publicise a sensible set of proposals on this issue, they could really steal some votes from Labour in England and Scotland. Occasional headlines won't be enough.
You mean like an English Parliament? Because you surely don't mean EVEM, do you?
For the record I'm in favour of an English Parliament, with an English executive answerable to it.
I have no problem with the John Redwood idea of having a federal parliament which comes together for UK issues, and then functions as the devolved bodies else where.
As an Englishman I like this idea as it will cost the least. If the Scots, Welsh and Irish want more politicians then it should be ensured that they pay for them.
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