Fear and Lothian in Westminster. The English question is not going to go away

The next sentence might offend about 171,000 people. The main ‘claim to fame’ of West Lothian - in spite of its being “the happiest place in Scotland”, in the words of its own tourist authority - is through a much-quoted 1977 speech in Parliament by Tam Dalyell, then MP for the West Lothian constituency.

“For how long will English constituencies and English Honourable Members tolerate [...] Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on English politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?”

The problem that Dalyell identified went to the heart of his belief that devolution threatened to destabilise and eventually fragment the United Kingdom. This became known as the West Lothian Question.

So why has this venerable question been back in the news again? It’s all related to this year’s pre-election hopes and fears of a hung parliament, as the smaller parties jostled for attention, setting out their stalls for the larger parties to select suitable post-election partners in the hope of securing a parliamentary majority.

Foremost among the minority parties were the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru, neither newcomers to the world of coalitions and minority administrations, who agreed to work together.

Under Britain’s electoral system, minor parties can be forgotten when general elections produce clear dominant winners, but their importance blossoms when small majorities can be upset in critical votes. Views change over time, swayed by new perceptions of electoral advantage.

By this year’s election, the Conservatives were promising new legislation to ensure that measures affecting only England could not become law “without the consent” of England’s MPs, an ‘English votes for English laws’ policy. On the other hand, Labour’s manifesto made no mention of the issue, and critics might attribute that to the benefit that Labour derives from its support in westerly and northern Britain. To put it another way, the Conservatives have little to lose in floating free of the Celtic fringe: the electoral map of Britain paints England considerably bluer than either Wales – where Labour’s losses cut them back to 26 of the 40 seats – or Scotland – where Labour even increased its share of the vote, taking 41 of the 59 seats and leaving the Conservatives in fourth place.

The same solutions – reducing ‘over-representation’ of Scottish and Welsh MPs, English devolution, English votes for English laws – have been chewed over for more than 130 years and dismissed as ineffective, unworkable or incompatible with the survival of a United Kingdom.

Directly elected assemblies for the English regions were briefly seen as the answer, but a 2004 referendum in the North East (chosen because its bristling identity made it seem likely to favour a regional voice) firmly rejected the idea. An idea put forward by the 1919 Speaker’s Conference on Devolution – that Grand Councils of English, Scottish and Welsh MPs should debate bills relating to their own areas – has had the dust blown off and again found favour. Committees and commissions have been established and have reported, but England remains “the gaping hole in the devolution settlement”.

Whether you call it the Irish Question, the West Lothian Question, or the ‘English Question’, the truth is that this conundrum is a political problem as much as a constitutional problem, and it is going to require much more radical debate. “If it had been solvable”, observed Tam Dalyell recently in a BBC interview, “they would have solved it in the 1880s and 1890s - and certainly in the 1970s those clever men John Smith [former Labour leader] and Bruce Millan [former Secretary of State for Scotland and EU commissioner of regional policy] would have found an answer. There isn’t an answer to be had.”

http://www.re-constitution.org.uk/news/articles/30

For Labour, they have a minority in England and carried through elections thanks to the cumulative effect of Wales and Scotland's Labour MPs. An English Parliament will nearly always be slightly dominated by the Tories.

They have some excellent policies. I'm biding my time at the moment, I may give up my support for them if this carries on.

Amazed by Nick Clegg's feigned indignation at the accusation of 'Cleansing' of the poor from London due to the reduction of housing benefit...he said it was "deeply offensive to people who have witnessed ethnic cleansing".....like the English you mean Nick or don't WE count ??

BecMacFeegle wrote:My party for example - the Free Chocolate for Everyone and a 3 Working Day a Week party - has some very attractive policies

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:There is a simple solution, give England its own Parliament. The problem is that it is not in the interests of either of the two main parties.