Re: The Union is safe

1707-2007: CELEBRATING 300 YEARS OF POLITICAL UNION
BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND
by Christopher Luke


To someone like me who is half-English and half Ulster-Scots and who
has a Welsh sister-in-law the current state of the Union of the United
Kingdom and, in particular, the growing acrimony between and within
its component parts is deeply distressing. I was brought up to
believe - and still do believe - that no one part of the United
Kingdom is either inferior or superior to the others and that, to
quote one former British Prime Minister, "the sum of the Union is
greater than its component parts".

Just as the United Kingdom is not unlike a family of four members -
with each sharing a common language, history and culture with one
another - so the Union which binds us together is not unlike a
marriage with each country within the Kingdom committing themselves to
one another "for better, for worse: for richer, for poorer; in
sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part,
according to God's holy law"!!!

Like all families and marriages the United Kingdom and the Union have
their moments - periods of happiness and success, and other periods of
sorrow and comparative poverty; periods when the component parts of
the Kingdom are content to be members of the same family and other
periods when they seek independence from each other - but, on the
whole, the Union has been good for each part of the Kingdom and good
for the United Kingdom as a whole, both in terms of the UK's standing
in the world and our being able to achieve much more by being united
than we would have realised were we to have remained, or to once again
become, four smaller independent states.

Although I am no fan or friend of Gordon Brown I nevertheless find
myself agreeing with him when, in his speech in Edinburgh on 8th
September 2006, he said "In the last year, I have been in almost every
corner of the United Kingdom - travelling through England, Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland, visiting communities both urban and rural
- meeting people of many different races, faiths and beliefs.
Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland are not foreign lands to
each other. We are all part of the United Kingdom which we all built
.... By geography we are neighbours. By history we are linked together.
And by economics, we are of course partners. Today, we have to teach
the Conservatives, who were once proud to be the Party of the Union,
that the Union matters...".

My reason for recalling this is that 2007 marks both the 300th
Anniversary of the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland, and
the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. Whilst the
Union of Crowns united the historic Kingdoms of England and Scotland
under one crown - James VI of Scotland/James I of England - in 1603,
it was not until the signing of the Treaty of Union in 1707 that the
English Parliament and the Scottish Parliament were finally abolished
and the Parliament of Great Britain was established in their stead -
thus fulfilling the Biblical prophecy of the union of two sticks
foretold in Ezekiel Chapter 37 - although the United Kingdom
Parliament as we know it today did not come into being until Ireland
joined Great Britain (following the enactment of the 1800 Act of
Union) whilst the 1957 Treaty of Rome laid the foundation stone for
the creation of what was then called the European Economic Community
(now simply called the European Community or European Union) which the
United Kingdom joined in 1973.

The contrast between these two treaties - the 1707 Treaty of Union and
the 1957 Treaty of Rome - could not be more stark although there are
remarkable similarities in the sense that just as the 1707 Treaty of
Union created economic, monetary and political union (including a
single currency and free movement of people) between England and
Scotland, so the "ever closer union" envisaged by signatories to the
1957 Treaty of Rome has led them and the signatories to every
successive EEC/EU Treaty to facilitate the free movement of people and
capital across the EU paving the way for the eventual abolition of the
parliaments of EU member-states, the adoption of a single currency
throughout the European Union (including the United Kingdom) and the
creation of a United States of Europe, with either the European
Commission or European Parliament acting as the supreme legislative
authority for all EU member-states and the European Court of Justice
being the supreme arbiter in all disputes concerning EU law. The on-
going efforts to create a common defence and foreign policy and a
single European defence force (acting under the orders of either the
European Parliament or European Council of Ministers and possibly
superseding NATO) - to which what remains of our own armed forces will
be subordinate - are perhaps the most telling revelation to date that
the architects of the Treaty of Rome never envisaged that its
signatories and the parties to any future "community" of European
nations would remain masters of their own house, but become merely
servants of a European super-state.

Whilst lesser mortals point to the Union of the United Kingdom as a
microcosm of what the European Union could be - claiming that the
peoples of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland share a
common language, history, culture and, yes, free movement of people
and capital between its component parts (and even a single currency
and monetary union with each other) whilst being governed from the
United Kingdom Parliament at Westminster - the diverse peoples of the
United Kingdom and the nations which constitute Continental Europe do
not share common loyalties and ties with each other nor are they
likely to appreciate being governed from the European Parliament than
Scottish, Welsh and Irish Nationalists appreciate being governed from
Westminster!

The rosy-tinted illusion that "we are all one" appears to be endemic
in the eyes of the chattering classes and the European and Whitehall
Mafias who characteristically proceed to draft and implement
initiatives, legislation and policies, which suppress difference and,
in turn, nurture frustration and resentment from those who feel unable
to express their own identity. It is all very well - and,
incidentally, quite right - to proclaim that the English, Scots,
Welsh and Northern Irish are all British, but that does not mean
each member of the Kingdom should be forced to jettison its own
customs and traditions or be covered in a sweeping legislative
blanket which suffocates local aspirations and identities. Just as
one can only inflate a balloon so much before it bursts, so too one
can only subject each member of the United Kingdom to the customs and
traditions of the others before the pressure becomes too great and the
attempt to emasculate difference explodes, and ends in tears for all
concerned.

It was with this in mind - and to avert growing support for the
separatist Scottish National Party and Plaid Cmyru - that the Blair
Witch Project established the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh
Assembly, and has sought unsuccessfully to restore the Northern
Ireland Assembly but, to date, has declined to establish an English
Parliament, although one has to say that one would much prefer
legislation for each part of the Kingdom to be made by Bill introduced
into the United Kingdom Parliament and only the responsibility to
execute and apply the law and provide/purchase local/public services
to be devolved to locally-elected representatives throughout the
Kingdom to avoid the anomaly commonly known as "the West Lothian
Question". This could still be done if any exclusively Scottish/Welsh/
Northern Irish Bills were given their First and Second Readings on the
floor of both the Commons and the Lords and then considered/amended by
the appropriate Grand Committee (i.e., Scottish Grand Committee/Welsh
Grand Committee/Northern Ireland Grand Committee, although such
Committees need to be established in the House of Lords to compliment
those already in being in the House of Commons) before being put
before each House for the Report Stage and Third Reading, whilst
exclusively English legislation could be made in much the same way
were an English Grand Committee to be established in each House of
Parliament. (U.K-wide matters should, as now, be legislated for by
Bill with all stages of the Bill being dealt with on the floor of both
Houses of Parliament and making primary legislation by non-amendable
Orders-in-Council for any part, or all, of the United Kingdom should
cease forthwith).

The advantage this proposal has over devolving legislative powers to
locally-elected representatives in the component parts of the United
Kingdom is that MPs/Peers' knowledge and understanding of any one part
of the Kingdom is not diminished although the detailed consideration
of any Bill would fall exclusively to Members of both Houses directly
affected by it to maximise their sense of "ownership" of it without
undermining the authority of the United Kingdom Parliament to
legislate for part (or all) of the Kingdom. Such a measure, I venture
to suggest, is more in-keeping with the thinking of Edmund Burke (the
founding father of Conservatism) who, in his speech to the electors of
Bristol in 1774, said "Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors
from different and hostile interests, which interests each must
maintain as an agent and advocate against other agents and advocates,
but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation with one
interest that of the whole, where not local purposes, not local
prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the
general reason of the whole. You choose a Member indeed; but when you
have chosen him he is not a Member of Bristol but he is a Member of
Parliament" than the current Conservative Party Leader (David
Cameron)'s ludicrous proposal for the introduction of Standing Orders
in the United Kingdom Parliament to prevent Scottish MPs/Peers voting
on English matters when English MPs/Peers are unable to vote on
analogous matters already devolved to the Scottish Parliament; and
would help bolster the Union at a time when the integrity and
sovereignty of the United Kingdom appears increasingly under attack
from traitors from within, let alone enemies outside, her boundaries.
Were my preferred option for legislating for Scottish affairs to be
adopted, the Scottish Parliament could easily be transformed into a
solely administrative assembly to administer functions and services
which local authorities in Scotland are unable to provide/purchase
unilaterally (on account of economies of scale) to diminish the need
for administration by quangos, civil servants and Government agencies.

That said, whilst one recognises and appreciates that Scotland has a
separate legal system to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, one
cannot help feeling apprehensive at calls by a growing number of
Englishmen and women for the abolition of the Barnett Formula which
currently affords Scotland a higher proportion of public expenditure
per capita than England without appreciating that the cost of
providing amenities, facilities and services is bound to be higher in
Scotland as the population is more scattered than it is in England.
In fairness to Non-Scots however, one feels equally anxious at the
Scottish Parliament's decision to levy university tuition fees on
English, Welsh and Northern Irish students (but not indigenous
Scottish students) studying at Scottish Universities, and provide both
free personal care for the elderly (when such care is not free in
England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and resources to allow GPs in
Scotland to prescribe Velcade to their patients at the same time as
the National Institute of Health & Clinical Excellence has declined to
licence it (largely on grounds of cost-effectiveness) to allow GPs in
England and Wales to prescribe it to their patients, as such blatant
discrimination serves only to increase the acrimony between Scotland
and the other parts of the United Kingdom.

All this may sound as "interesting" and "inspiring" as watching paint
dry but it goes to the heart of what patriotism is all about. As we
celebrate the Tercentenary Anniversary of the 1707 Treaty of Union,
may we be resolved - collectively and individually - to redouble our
efforts to maintain and strengthen the Union which joins us and the
integrity and sovereignty of the United Kingdom of which all of us are
privileged to be a part.



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