England is better off alone...

As usual, Dan Hannan has an interesting post today.
As usual, Dan is not following his thoughts through to the logical conclusion, which is that every argument for the UK leaving the EU is valid for England leaving the UK. I really hope one day soon the Eurosceptics in all parties will realise that Unionism (in terms of the UK) is incompatible with Euroscepticism.The only intellectually honest position is to advocate English secession from the UK, which would also acheive secession from the EU at the same time.
Alex Salmond used to have a slogan 'Independence in Europe' which was a way of saying they'd like the whole EU to pay for them rather than just the English.
I have a much more simple slogan for the English independence movement.
It's simply 'Independence.'

Inversion of democracy

Daniel Hannan has been blogging about the prospect of a hung parliament.
This is something I've discussed in the past too.
It is beginning to irk me that the direct democracy movement - a movement I have a lot of sympathy with, and which Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell claim has a lot of traction in the Conservative party, is ignoring the place of England in the direct democracy framework. It is simply an inversion of the principles of localism and direct democracy to ignore the current democratic deficit in England, to talk about taking decisions at the lowest possible level and still have Westminster, in the guise of the British parliament, holding powers over England that have already been devolved to the other nations of the United Kingdom.

Can we get an English Parliament? Yes Witan!

The English People...

This blog deplores racism and does not advocate an ethnocentric view of citizenship. It is true, that once nationality was inherently bound with the concept of ethnicity, and in many places still is, as shown by the Balkan Conflicts in general, the Kosovo situation in particular, the situations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the tensions in Iraq.
The violence and ethnic cleansings in these areas, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pogroms throughout history all show the dangers and indeed reprehensibility of identifying nationhood too closely with ethnicity. The Second World War and the holocaust in particular gave Nationalism a dirty name, by association with belligerence, right-wing dogma, and genocide.