You are in:
- Contents » Liberty
Territorial Integrity
Welcome to Manche Zone One
Is England dying the death of 1,000 cuts?
Isn't a government supposed to control national borders? One could be forgiven for thinking that New Labour is allowing the country to fall away, piece by piece. Yesterday we looked at government proposals to surrender a large part of Norfolk to the sea rather than go to the expense of reinforcing sea walls. On St George's Day, the European Union's scheme to divide areas of England up into its "Atlantic Zone" and "Manche Region" along with northwest France raised its ugly head again.
And today, we read that an apparent majority of citizens of the English village of Audlem would prefer to be Welsh!
The good citizens of Audlem in Cheshire share their aspiration with the folk of Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland, where the possibility of rejoining Scotland after 500 years is being considered.
Inhabitants of both towns cite better social services as the reason for their plans to redraw the border. "Their English location means the residents have to pay higher prescription prices and hospital parking charges than their Welsh neighbours, some of whom live just 10 miles away", says the Independent of Audlem. Wales plans to end prescription charges altogether.
Equally, six in ten voters in Berwick welcomed overtures from Scottish Nationalists across the border: The lure of free medical tests, personal care for the elderly and free school meals, as well as reduced or non-existent university fees makes Scotland a better deal as they see it.
So far, the government has failed to treat the potential split as anything more than a joke. The organiser of the Audlem campaign says that he's happy to have highlighted the benefits Wales enjoys while England suffers high charges. Ministers ought to worry about potential precedents, though. How long before the people of Londonderry, where nationalists are in a majority, clamour to join the Republic of Ireland rather than wait for demographics and British disinterest to do their work to remove Northern Ireland?
Labour's devolution of Scotland and Wales made it possible for the Assemblies of each nation to enact laws to make life better for their citizens. Furthermore, Labour failed to hand over tax-raising powers to Edinburgh and Cardiff. At the time it was claimed this would protect the sanctity of Westminster as central government; however, in retrospect it might have taught the Scots and the Welsh fiscal responsibility, as Englishmen now grumble that Scotland's largesse is paid for by subsidies from England. (The Scots counter that "their" North Sea oil actually subsidises London).
In any case, devolution has plainly failed to secure Britain: If anything, it has driven many in England to believe that if Scots and the Welsh want independence so much, they ought to have it, not least because this would rid England of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and much of his cabinet.
In a preposterous article on St George's Day in the Daily Mail, Home Secretary Jack Straw spoke of the glories of Englishness - though he spent the greater part of his article warning of the dangers of the British National Party (BNP). Of course, this was the same Straw who said eight years ago that the English were "potentially very aggressive, very violent."
He added the English had used their "propensity to violence to subjugate Ireland, Wales and Scotland. Then we used it in Europe and the empire."
Left-wing commentator Nick Cohen complained that Straw's "absolute loathing" for his country has consequences:
"Consider the political implications of dismissing the English as rapacious brutes.
"Inevitably, you will tell immigrants that there is no point in integrating into such a debased nation. True to form, Straw turned his back on liberal British Muslims and worked tirelessly in the Home and Foreign offices to promote the reactionary clerics of Jamaat-i-Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood as the authentic voices of British Islam."
Straw warned at the time that devolution risked giving birth to the new danger of English nationalism (then Opposition leader William Hague agreed with him on this) but he reckoned New Labour's Engineers of the human soul could create a new benevolent English identity to counter this.
Only New Labour could imagine rebuilding a 2,000 year old national identity in a matter of years. Well, New Labour and the Khymer Rouge, perhaps. It's not something you run up in marketing brainstorms and then run past focus groups!
Perhaps remaking England is the key to the New Labour project. The Foreign Secretary has already spoken of his wish to make Britain a "hub of ideas" - as the Scots and the Welsh have their own national visions, thank you very much, he clearly means England. English constitutional law has been dismantled and English identity overwritten. Immigrants are encouraged to take part in photogenic flag-waving activity but little effort is channelled into integrating them in a wider Englishness - indeed, some groups are encouraged to set up their own courts.
Perhaps those parts of the country destined to fall into the sea are the lucky ones!
