Gav's View

I presume the lack of comment indicates that no-one can find any countervailing argument And nor can I.

It seems like a no-brainer that the current political disposition in the UK, specially as it affects England and Scotland, cannot last forever. I can’t for the life of me understand why the English equivalent of what, pre-devolution, used to be called the ‘Scottish Grand Committee’ couldn’t be used. Basically that was simply all the Scottish MPs who met together, initially at Westminster and later (when the Major government was really on its last legs), to decide on matters touching solely on Scotland.

A putative ‘English Grand Committee’ would presumably meet in Westminster and probably in the House of Commons, so it would seem logical to take the obvious route and call it the ‘English Parmiament’.

The problem with this rosy scenario, of course, is that the current ‘regime’ would have even more difficulty than it currently experiences in getting legislation dear to its heart passed into law. There lies the conundrum.

Personally I would prefer a return to the status quo ante, pre-devolution, but that is unfortunately unlikely to happen so presumably something else has to change – probably not under this government, though.

PS/ The bit I missed out was that the Scottish Grand Committee used to meet in various Scottish cities occasionally – why it even met in Inverness on one occasion. No reason why an English Parliament (aka ‘English Grand Committee’) couldn’t meet in Hull, or Swindon, I suppose, although I suspect that Westminster would be the favoured and logical place in keeping with English tradition going back a lot further than the UK.

I’m sure Prescott would find an arcane law from somewhere to stop Hull being used!

That should definitely be a start… It’s odd that it has taken eight years for this to come to the fore.

You missed two options; the complete break up of the UK into it’s constituent parts, or the removal of the devolved parliament in Scotland. Both are very unlikely the latter because no politician ever willingly gives up power. The former because with it’s current policies it is more than likely the Scottish Parliament would bankrupt itself within a decade and escape from bankruptcy was the reason for the Act of Union in the first place.

As for the Regions, they are totally artificial and have no historical significance. I’m in the Southwest Region which includes Kernow (Cornwall). But it is also everywhere as far north as Bristol and south as Gibraltar. Yep, we have probably the largest geographical spread of any Region simply because the Rock needed to be tacked onto somewhere and the southwest seemed as good a place as any. Basically for the ease of bureaucracy, much like everything else to do with the Regions.

English votes for English matters, as has already been said, would be like an English Grand Committee. An English Parliament in all but name. It seems to be the only viable way out of the mess made by devolution without addressing the West Lothian Question.

EVoEM deliberately omits the possibility of an English executive… That, and the conflict of interests that English and British MPs would feel in the two roles, are the reasons I am against it.

Independence for Scotland, England or all countries in the United Kingdom may well be the ultimate result of the devolution experiment of 1998. As you say we are never likely to see a reversal of devolution so the UK will increasingly be seen as an unnecessary and irrelevant structure. The UK government will have much less work to do as it haemorrages power to the EU and volunteers power to the devolved parliaments.

I have to say that it is extremely heartening to find that a great number of Scots agree with us. Thanks for putting the link up Gav.