By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk
In an article today for the New Statesman, David Miliband has discussed the idea of Englishness, and what it means for the future of the Labour Party.
As we discussed last week on LabourList, Labour remains strong in the North. However, as Miliband points out:
"If Labour is to avoid becoming a regional or sectional party, we need to confront the task of winning back our support among working-class and middle-income voters across England."
The article is engaging - clearly inspired by the sense of Englishness that pervades the national psyche when England are playing in the World Cup - and rightly points out that Labour must become strong in England again if we are to become a party of government again:
"If Labour is going to gain support outside its metropolitan heartlands and aspire to government again, it needs to speak for England and identify with its traditions and values. In four years' time, as the English football team lifts the World Cup in Brazil, Labour needs to be leading that national conversation."
David uses the article as an opportunity to reject the "Britishness" agenda favoured by Gordon Brown. No doubt Brown found this useful as a Scottish Prime Minister, but Miliband certainly seems to feel unencumbered by any similar feelings, being, in many ways, quintessentially English.
He also asserts that the party is "too centralised, too London-dominated". This is certainly something that many Labour members outside of the capital (and many activists inside the capital) have felt for a long time, and it's good to hear leadership candidates saying such things.
Personally, I have always considered myself British - but I certainly don't see anything wrong with the notion of "Englishness", and I appreciate its political potency. However, I can't help but feel that when Miliband suggests this as an answer to our electoral failures, he's trying to treat a symptom - rather than a disease.
Next week, LabourList will host a feature day on national identity in the run up to the end of the World Cup - which will give us a chance to explore this vexed issue further.
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just what is wrong with celebrating the battle of Trafalgar? fighting against foreigners who were trying to invade this country and make it subject to a french empire run by a despotic dictator? You could criticise the battle of Britain in the same way.
On the left we can be too embarrassed to be patriotic - we think it chauvinist - the result is that the right can simply pick up the flag and wave it in our faces - many british people who have little interest in politics still have an emotional attachment and want to be vaguely proud of the country doen't make them bad people
I hate the way the Right try to define it as something 'timeless' or ethnic - and nobody should ever claim it's about supporting the underdog (yeah, right...).
It's a shame also that groups like the Royal Society of St. George see 'Englishness' as linked to monarchy - and celebrate the Battle of Trafalgar! Yeah, nice - killing foreigners! 'This England' magazine ploughs a similar strange furrow of nationality.
However, an English parliament would certainly mirror well the parliament in Scotland and the Assembly in Wales. We should at least have a referendum on one - I can't see any future in regional assemblies for England.
It's wrong for David Miliband to reject an English parliament. Labour should consult the people on this issue because it's only the people of England who can answer the English Question.
David Miliband may not like the fact that we will choose an English parliament, but if he's a democrat he should not deny us that choice; after all Labour offered the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland home rule, so why deny the English the same?
Incredibly government has never consulted the public on this issue. The Ministry of Justice (nee Dept. Constitutional Affairs) always says that there is no demand for an English parliament, yet they've never conducted any polls/surveys to ascertain what support there is.
I used to believe in formal assemblies at regional level but I now think that city regions and cooperation between local authorities might be more sensible
You used to believe in formal assemblies at regional level but don't now because you have realised that no one in England wants them. So now you support 'city regions'. Do you have any idea as to whether people support this proposal?
Why not just let the people of England decide how they want to be governed? Why does the Labour Party think it should dictate to the people? Why not have a National Conversation for England followed by a referendum on whether we want an English parliament or city regions?
Let the people decide.
Regional assemblies - which I agree probably have little future - at least have a lot more benefits, since they could properly represent the much more defined identities and politics of the regions. The south-west and the north-east are easily as different from each other, and from England as a whole, as England is from the UK as a whole.
And they could provide more balance, with each region of a similar size, in population terms, to Scotland. Just devolving power to Scotland, Wales and England as units would be like splitting the USA into California, New York, and then all the other states put together.
The Union is a union of nations and England has as much right to representation and voice as a nation as any other. Why should England be split up into Scotland-sized units so that Scotland can have national government whilst England goes without? Scotland has far more regional difference (East-West, Highlands-Lowlands) than does England, yet no one suggested that Scotland should be split into regions. No, Scotland had devolution on a national basis, to a national parliament, to the Scottish nation.
An English parliament doesn't preclude some sort of regional aspect to governance. In fact, if elected by PR, it could operate on a regional list system. But that's by the by, the English don't want regional governance but do want an English parliament, or at the very least a solution to the West Lothian Question that allows England to determine its own policies free from foreign interference.
I get the impression that a lot of people opposed to an English parliament are just anti-English bigots. They don't seem to mind self-determination for every other nation on earth, but as soon as someone suggests it for England they start suggesting that England is too diverse, or too big, or too likely to vote Tory. It's an imperialistic attitude spun by Britishness fanatics who want to preserve the sovereignty of the Imperial Parliament (which puny regional assemblies would do nothing to lessen).
Just let the people of England decide, they can't have things decided for them by oiks like Miliband, Cameron or Clegg.
They are both saying that Labour in Scotland has to develop Scotland only policies rather than follow 'UK' (aka English) ones. That further suggests the party leadership is having a schizoid moment - How can you have a national party whose UK policies are opposed by its Scottish arm?
Here's the simplest way to resolve this problem: Westminster returns to being England's Parliament and an elected upper house replaces the House of Lords as a UK Senate to look after the areas of joint interest Defence, Foreign Affairs are about the lot.
Now if England wants to sub-divide itself into 'Regional Assemblies' (unlikely given votes on Prescott's big idea) fine. The bottom line is that increasingly Westminster is not of great importance to the Welsh, Scots or Northern Irish as the majority of the bills that pass through it only refer to England.
The status quo is not the way ahead, time for England's politicians to understand the Empire is no more and the last vestigial parts want the end of the present Union and a construct that reflects what is and not what MP's, sitting in glorious isolation, think it should be.
I'd have no problem with that but I'm not sure that it would necessarily solve the problem. One of the main arguments for Regional/English government is that Westminster is too London-centric.
A lot would depend on the form an English parliament took.
Policies born in London based on london needs have little to do with us in Birmingham and the further North the banking crisis was further proof of this.
If the condems were really serious about 'localism' then they would look at a proper serious form of regional government
and yes if that means a different NHS in the South than Brum so be it.