Tosh rules!!

Below: three posts from the English Democrat Facebook page:


English Democrats - "Putting England First !" [ X ]

One key aspect of political correctness is that a person, an institution or a government is politically correct when they cease to represent the interests of the majority, and become focused on the deliberate subversion of English national culture and interests, the denigration of English history and of the English themselves, and the promotion of the objectives of minority pressure groups...

• • English Democrats - "Putting England First !" [ X ] Political correctness is grounded in the capture of state institutions, with official spokespeople, legislative powers and sanctions for breaches of political correctness. It is this capture of state institutions which makes political correctness so oppressive and dangerous. This must end..
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English Democrats - "Putting England First !" [ X ]

There are many good constitutional and financial reasons for creating an English Parliament but the over-riding argument is that the English are a nation and as such they are entitled to a parliament which will acknowledge and promote their identity and culture.

Tosh on stilts, to paraphrase Jeremy Bentham, although one has to take the statements made by the administrators of the page as being ex cathedra policy pronouncements.

Civic nationalism is a rather dry constitutional matter.  In the United Kingdom the issue arose in the 1970s with what is known as 'The West Lothian Question' and has now been given an urgency as a consequence of devolution to Wales and Scotland. Basically, civic nationalism in the English context is that only MPs from English seats should be entitled to vote on bills which affect England only.  Currently,  MPs from constituencies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland can, and do, vote on such bills.  One strange effect of devolution is that whilst a Scottish MP can vote on a bill at Westminster concerning the English National Health Service, he/she cannot vote on a bill concerning the Scottish NHS as that is a devolved matter solely for the Scottish Parliament.

There are of course other issues: should the four nations be independent or part of a federal structure, should there be an English parliament with its own first minister as opposed to the idea that all that needs to be done is to exclude non-English constituency MPs from debates and votes on English matters?

As I said, all pretty dry constitutional stuff.  The English Democrats (ED) state they are civic nationalists.  However, from the statements on the ED Facebook page we read:

• subversion of English national culture and identity
• the over-riding argument (for creating an English Parliament) is that the English are a nation and as such are entitled to a parliament which will acknowledge and promote their identity and culture.

Strong stuff.  Civic nationalism is grounded on the concept that all people within a defined geographical area have the right to have laws made only by people who represent that area.  What is being stated in the quotations above is something very different and in my view sinister. Whom I ask is English in the context of the quotations above?

I do not wish to become involved in a debate about multi-culturism or ethnicity. However it is but a short step from the statements expressed on the ED Facebook page to a policy of ethnic nationalism. Now that ex-BNP members are joining the ED and long-time civic nationalists are leaving the risk must be that the ED will gravitate in the direction of ethnic nationalism.

It is forgotten by people who talk of 'English culture' that under the influence of postmodernism we have recognised that we live in a pluralist society, that there are no over-arching cultural or ethical norms which all should follow - indeed if there were such norms, promoted and defended by an English parliament it would be a form of political correctness.  But, not a new one.  Germany underwent a period of a national cultural identity to which all had to submit unswervingly and with total loyalty.  Mental patients, gypsies, homosexuals, non- Aryans and intellectuals did not fit the model and were disposed of in concentration camps. 

Instead of the fixation on English identity and culture the ED should be concentrating on supporting those with little or no voice in our society.  That would be a magnificent vision for the party: to support the 'have-nots' in our nation, to be the party that espouses their cause and gives them hope.

It won't happen of course, instead the ED is trapped in a time warp, nostalgia for the past: a past that never existed except in their imagination.