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Sunday 31 March 2013

Happy Easter England!



I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and all our supporters a very Happy Easter.

England is a country one of whose key foundation stones is Christianity.  From the conversion in 597AD of the Kentish King Ethelbert by St Augustine and fromwhen Alfred the Great codified our laws in the 890s, our culture, architecture, law, governance, monarchy and way of life has been deeply marked by the Christian message.

So this weekend, please remember the true message of Easter, and also give a prayer for England and her people!

These are exciting times, and I believe we may be about to ride a wave of exciting opportunity that will propel us into a strong position by the end of 2014.

Firstly, it is becoming more obvious with every passing day that there exists in this country a huge groundswell of discontent and disenchantment with the political elite, and the general direction that England is going in.

It is also obvious that UKIP are at present benefiting from this huge reservoir of discontent and, to many, seem poised to become the “voice of the silent majority”.

But, next year will see a seismic shift in the political debate because of the impending Scottish referendum on Independence.

UKIP have stated in their Policy document “Restoring Britishness” that English nationalism is “increasingly resentful” and “arguably the most serious threat to Britishness”. As political debate focuses more on the issues of devolution and national identities, we can use the European Elections to give England the voice she needs as the counter-weight to Scottish nationalism. We should aim to be the spearhead of the growing English national awareness that will result from the Scottish Referendum.

It is a unique opportunity combined with an election that uses proportional representation and offers mass distribution of literature on a huge scale: a “perfect storm” for our party, and all this will happen next year!

What will UKIP offer during the independence debates next year? Not much - they have already committed themselves to opposing Scottish Independence!

Only the English Democrats will be banging the “English drum” at a time when our nation will be increasingly indignant at the misuse of English taxpayers’ money being sprayed into Scotland by Unionists as electoral bribes for the Scottish to vote against the dissolution of the “United Kingdom”.

There are already some early indications that we will be considered by the media to be the voice for England.

For example, the BBC wrote this about our response to the recent McKay Report on the “English Question” >>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21920010


We have long prepared for the coming year. Let’s prepare to make the most of it!

Scottish referendum + political focus on the future of the UK coupled with the growing signs of resurgent English patriotism….2014 should the year that England awakes!

Since the formation of our Party over 10 years ago, this is the moment that we have prepared for.

So please join with me and all the other English patriots who are preparing to fight for England’s future over the next year, through the tumultuous European Elections and the Scottish independence poll.

This is our “window of opportunity” to seize for our Cause a large share of that “reservoir of discontent” that UKIP is frittering away at the moment.

Exciting times for the English Democrats and for England are ahead.

I wish you and your family a very Happy Easter!

Afterwards let’s get to work!

Tuesday 26 March 2013

Check out:- Comment: The McKay commission is not enough – we need an English parliament

 
Check out:- Comment: The McKay commission is not enough – we need an English parliament

Here is something that I wrote which got published today


Please do forward to friends and family and anyone that you think may be interested!

Friday 22 March 2013

English Fools Day Demonstration 1st April

The above picture has already had over 120,000 views on Facebook within 36 hours of posting up and I have just sent out this press release, what do you think?
 
PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AND DIARISING
English Fools Day Demonstration 1st April
The English Democrats are organising a demonstration on April 1st in Whitehall, London outside the Department of (English) Health in protest over continued unfair Prescription Charges - which are going up again on that day in England!
The English Democrats’ Demonstration will take place on Monday April 1st at 10am to 1.00 pm at Dept of (English) Health, Richmond House, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2NS.
The English are now the last nation within the UK not to have free prescriptions as the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish have all got free prescriptions for all their people. To add insult to injury the Government has announced that it will be putting up the prescription charges from £7.65 to £7.85 in England only.
The cost of NHS prescriptions in England will rise 20p to £7.85 from 1st April. Not only are we English the April fools to allow this but the British government is imposing this as their idea of an Easter present!
Doctors leaders have already said the current system is unfair and needs to be reformed in England – the English Democrats agree.
A British Medical Association spokesperson said last year that the current system needs reforming:-
“It’s unfair for patients as whether you pay depends not only on what part of the UK you live in, but also on what kind of condition you have. The bureaucracy to administer the charging and exemption regime is also cumbersome and costly. The BMA believes it would be best to abolish prescription charges in England altogether.”
English Democrats’ Chairman, Robin Tilbrook, said:- “We agree whole-heartedly with the BMA. Prescription charges should be scrapped in England – just like they have been in the rest of the UK. This is just another example of the anti-English bias of a British government hell bent on profiteering from English taxpayers. The English Democrats are committed to fighting this kind of injustice and getting fair and equal treatment for the English”.
We are attaching a graphic ilustration of this discrimination.
Contact:-
Robin Tilbrook
Chairman,
The English Democrats
Key facts about the English Democrats
The English Democrats launched in 2002. The English Democrats are the English nationalist Party which campaigns for a Parliament for England, First Minister and Government, with at least the same powers as the Scottish ones within a Federal UK; for St George’s Day to be England’s National holiday; for Jerusalem to be England’s National Anthem; for a Referendum to leave the EU; for an end to mass immigration; for the Cross of St George to be flown on all public buildings in England.
The English Democrats are England’s answer to the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru.
The English Democrats’ greatest electoral successes to date include winning the Directly Elected Executive Mayoralty of Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council and the 2012 referendum; We won the referendum which triggered a referendum to give Salford City an Elected Mayor; In 2012 we saved all our deposits in the Police Commissioner elections and came second in South Yorkshire; In the 2009 EU election we gained 279,801 votes after a total EU campaign spend of less than £25,000 (giving the English Democrats by far the most cost efficient electoral result of any serious Party in the UK!)

Monday 18 March 2013

Scottish Business advantaged in Singapore?

I recently received an email from an English Democrats member who works in Singapore. He has pointed out that, just like the story about the goings on in the Gulf where Scottish business was being much more effectively promoted than English business, the same is happening in Singapore.

There is now a Scottish section of the British Chamber of Commerce, but not an English one.

We English really do need to start raising our game otherwise things will certainly go from bad to worse for us. Who will we be able to blame but ourselves?

Here is the correspondence duly anonymised and below that is a copy of the section in the Singaporean British Chamber of Commerce with a link in case you want to check the original.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

From: katie@britcham.org.sg [mailto:katie@britcham.org.sg]
Sent: Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 5:09 PM
Subject: Scottish Business Group - Newly Formed!

SCOTTISH BUSINESS GROUP - NEWLY FORMED!


Dear Member,

We are delighted to announce that the Chamber is going to establish a Scottish Business Group (SBG) and that the Scottish Business Association of Singapore (SBAS) will be merging with the British Chamber of Commerce.

The SBAS was developed in 2011 and has grown to such an extent, they have decided to use the support of the British Chamber to provide a wider network as well as the administrative back up required to run an association.

The newly formed SBS committee will be chaired by Jason Grant who runs Scottish Development International’s Southeast Asian office in Singapore, supporting bilateral trade and investment between Scotland and the Asean member countries. Jason and the current committee will work out an engagement plan for the remainder of 2013.

We are excited by the further enhancement of our Business Group offering and as you are now able to select up to 3 business groups, we would welcome you to join the group online through your members profile. You may also join their LinkedIn group or if you are interested in more involvement on a committee level please do not hesitate to let Jason know.

Of course we will keep you informed of the first activities and very much look forward to seeing you there.

Kind regards,
Katie Hudson
Membership Manager


Sent: Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 8:04 PM
To: Katie Hudson
Subject: RE: Scottish Business Group - Newly Formed!

Dear Katie,

With regards to Scottish Business Association of Singapore (SBAS) seting up the Scottish Group in the British Chamber, what happens when the Scottish referendum takes place next year?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-21741448
From: Katie Hudson [mailto:Katie@britcham.org.sg]
Sent: Wednesday, 13 March, 2013 1:11 PM
Subject: RE: Scottish Business Group - Newly Formed!

Hi

Nothing will change, we run as an independent organisation for our members.

Kind regards,

Katie

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

British Chamber Of Commerce Singapore

Scottish Business Group

The Scottish Business Group is a new cross-sectorial group within the British Chamber of Commerce. It has been established to build on the long-established trading links between Scotland and Singapore, and to promote and advance commercial interaction between the two countries.

The Group is open to businesses and business professionals located, or interested, in Singapore who enjoy an economic, educational, social or historical relationship with Scotland. The group aims to:

promote the development of commerce between Scotland and Singapore

provide a central business contact point for all current and new British Chamber members who have an interest in Scotland, or in Scottish-related business

provide a networking access point for Scottish companies seeking to develop business interests in Singapore and into the wider ASEAN region

manage events that facilitate the transfer of experience and expertise within Singapore’s fast-growing Scottish business base




Chairman:
Jason Grant - Scottish Development International

Jason runs Scottish Development International's Southeast Asian office in Singapore, supporting bilateral trade and investment between Scotland and the Asean member countries. With a background of small company finance, innovation & commercialization and technology transfer he has worked in Asia for over 8-years, the last four of which have been based here in SDI's Singapore operations. SDI in Singapore focuses primarily on supporting Scotland's export development, with a regional focus on increasing Scottish company participation in the Asia Pacific Oil & Gas supply chain, supporting Scottish academic institutions enter the regional education sector and increasing Scottish exports to the growing consumer markets of SE Asia.



British Chamber of Commerce Singapore - Building Networks Connecting Business Creating Opportunities

Wednesday 13 March 2013

George Robertson is not a stupid man!

 
Here is a speech given by David Wildgoose on behalf of the C.E.P. to the English Democrats conference on Saturday. 
 
David is a former vice chairman of the Campaign for an English Parliament and a longstanding English Democrat who was previously a Liberal Democrat and had stood for them as their Parliamentary candidate in Rotherham where he also stood for us in the recent byelection and beat them!
 
Here is his speech:-


George Robertson is not a stupid man. I think his finest moment came shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The USA spends as much money on its armed forces as the rest of the world put together. They had been attacked and... they were ready, able and willing to lash out in response - up to and including the use of nuclear weapons. Needless to say, the world was holding its breath.

Enter George Robertson.

In theory, NATO was a mutual defence organisation set up primarily to counter the threat posed by the Warsaw Pact countries led by the USSR. In practise, the United States provides the bulk of its military capability and NATO membership also provides a convenient excuse for why so much of its military firepower is based abroad in member countries - something that historically would have been viewed as akin to a military occupation, (and for that matter, is still viewed in that manner by some).

That's the theory. The reality of course, is the United States was and is pre-eminent, able to act without military constraint - and they had just been viciously attacked.

Enter George Robertson, NATO's Secretary General.

By insisting on invoking NATO's mutual defence clause that declared that an attack on one would be treated as an attack on all, he managed to give the United States pause and to ensure that a calmer and more considered collective response was the result.

So, given that George Robertson is clearly not a stupid man, what on Earth possessed him to make the ludicrous comment that "Devolution will kill Nationalism stone dead"?

After all, his fellow Scottish Labour MP Tam Dalyell famously described Devolution as "a motorway to Independence with no U-turns and no exits". Moreover, Ron Davies, the architect of Welsh Devolution, said it "is a process and not an event" - that is, presumably, an ongoing transformation whose only clear end-point is Independence.

So how do we makes any kind of sense of the matter?

They knew what they were doing. It is clear they knew what they were doing, obvious to all and sundry. So perhaps a clever politician, concerned about what the History Books might write about him, decided to get his excuse in early? To suggest that his motives were never less than honourable and well-meaning?

Except of course, we English folk already know that with the exception of Tam Dalyell, all the Scottish Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs at that time were anything but honourable and well-meaning. After all, they signed a public oath in the so-called "Scottish Claim of Right", declaring that they would put the interests of Scotland before all else. Not the UK, and certainly not England. Scotland alone. Scotland pre-eminent. And in this, they have indeed been true to their words.

Scotland's MPs have long acted as a block vote. One example of this was when they ensured Speaker Martin was elected simply because he was Scottish - and openly boasted that that was what they were doing, even placing bets on it. And there are many more examples.

The current Liberal Democrat leader is famously European and most definitely not English. His predecessor, Menzies Campbell, was Scottish. His predecessor, Charles Kennedy, was Scottish. His predecessor, "Paddy" Ashdown, was Northern Irish. His predecessor, David Steel, was Scottish.

Let's look at Labour. Labour's last leader, Gordon Brown, was Scottish. His predecessor, Tony Blair, was Scottish. His predecessor, John Smith, was Scottish. His predecessor, Neil Kinnock, was Welsh.

Even the Tories exhibit the pattern. The current Tory leader is half-Scottish and has famously talked of how proud he is of the "Scottish blood in his veins" and how he intends to "stand up to the sour little Englanders". His predecessor, Ian Duncan Smith, is Scottish. His predecessor, William Hague, is actually English. And when he became leader we saw the furious reaction that it was not appropriate for someone with a Yorkshire, that is, an English accent, to aspire to be Prime Minister.

Looking at that record, you wouldn't believe that 85% of the UK population is English, would you? It does rather seem as if you can only succeed in politics if you aren't English (and are preferably Scottish), or if you publicly disassociate yourself from the English - such as Jack Straw and his infamous comments that the English used their "propensity for violence to subjugate Ireland, Wales and Scotland".

Some subjugation, eh?

Perhaps that is why Thatcher's government was such a shock to them. For once, they weren't in control. I watched an excellent new series on BBC4 recently, called "The Sound and the Fury", about modern classical music. They had a female Scottish academic making some observations. Remember that this was a recent programme about modern classical music and yet there she was, having a rant about Margaret Thatcher, a completely unrelated subject and someone who hasn't even been in power for over 22 years!

It is no secret that they were determined to ensure this could never happen again and so they decided to re-fashion the Union so as to guarantee Scottish dominance. A separate Scottish Parliament to look after Scotland's interests whilst they worked to undermine England and English unity, beginning by breaking England up into competing artificial "regions". It's not for nothing that the former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, (another Scot who signed the "Scottish Claim of Right"), when speaking at a conference in Scotland was applauded as he exulted that Devolution was intended to "call into question the idea of England itself".

And as Andrew Neather's boasts showed, and despite Labour's protestations only this week, it was not accidental but rather a deliberate policy to flood England with immigrants, undercutting the wages of the working classes, taking their jobs, their housing, their hospital beds and their school places. When Mrs Duffy tried to take Gordon Brown to task over this matter he merely sneered that she was "a bigoted old woman".

We know all this. Damning as it is, all these facts are a matter of public record. What is not a matter of public record though, are the British Cabinet discussions with regards to Devolution and its intentions. Only two such Cabinet discussions have been sealed and refused disclosure despite repeated Freedom of Information Requests. One is the discussion prior to our joining in the War on Iraq - something which has ongoing international sensitivities, and so is understandable. The other, is the Devolution discussions. So, given everything else we already know, that they have already admitted, just how explosive must they be for them to be so desperate to keep them under lock and key?

We already know that they didn't have our best interests at heart. It seems pretty clear that our Scottish ruling classes intended to breakup and subjugate England within an unbalanced Union dominated by a united Scotland. In Gordon Brown's memorable phrasing, to make us just "the regions of Britain". However the desperation to keep the Cabinet Devolution Discussions hidden implies that it wasn't just about ensuring Scottish dominance, it must also have been fired by deliberate anti-English malice.

Now we begin to understand George Robertson's comment that "Devolution will kill Nationalism stone dead". Nationalism in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has always been anti-English. They intended to kill this Nationalism by killing England.

What they didn't count on was that England still has her own patriots. First of all, the cross-party Campaign for an English Parliament, founded in 1998 in direct opposition to their Devolution plans. And then in 2002, the English Democrats, determined to take the fight to the ballot box itself. Still the only major party campaigning for an English Parliament and seeking to defend England's interests.

We are all standing up for England

Monday 11 March 2013

My Doncaster Spring Conference Speech


Ladies & Gentlemen
I am glad to see you all here today and delighted to be back in Doncaster (Doncaster Logo) for our Spring Conference this year. Doncaster is a highly suitable venue for us today as one of the important things that we are doing today is announcing our candidate for the Mayor of Doncaster.
As I am sure you all know, at the last Doncaster Mayoral election four years ago, the English Democrats won the Mayoralty and got our candidate, Peter Davies, (picture) elected.
We had made a big effort for Peter and we had paid to have the whole of Doncaster leafleted, but, after the initial excitement of our electoral success had worn off, Peter proved himself consistently to be something of a disappointment, certainly to me, who had to put up with a constant barrage of threats from him to resign often over the most trifling of things.
Peter is now an ex-supporter of six parties - including UKIP. Amusingly, when Nigel Farage was trying to persuade me to become UKIP’s Deputy Leader (if I pulled the plug on the English Democrats), Peter was one of the people Nigel was not terribly keen on having back into UKIP. Peter had obviously left an indelible impression of egotism and disloyalty on Nigel Farage!
Peter refused point blank to appoint an English Democrat as his political advisor and instead appointed, in due course and without telling me, one of his former pupils to that £35,000 a year position.
Peter also refused point blank to do anything about helping us get St George’s Day properly celebrated in Doncaster. When I mentioned this refusal in my press release Peter was asked about it by the Local Government Magazine and he said, and I quote,: - “I have never celebrated St George’s Day. I certainly think, in a racing town like Doncaster, that meeting fraternal colleagues in Perth is a far better use of my time than dancing around with a bunch of Morris dancers”.
Ladies and gentlemen I am sorry to say that I think that that and other things that he also said proved beyond any reasonable doubt that Peter’s commitment to English Nationalism was not even skin deep.
For example Peter told the BBC last year that he had not been mayor very long before he “realised that being an English Democrat was a total irrelevance”.
Peter told ITV that:- “A good Mayor is a Mayor without a party. English Democrats policies have never played any part in my running of the town.”
This time however I am confident that we have a much better and much a more genuinely patriotic candidate to offer to the electorate of Doncaster and I am looking forward to formally introducing you to him later. I am also looking forward to this May to see whether we can win the Doncaster Mayoral Election for the second time running.
Since we last met in September we have been busy standing in various by-elections and in the Police Commission Elections, with, of course, various different results depending on the extent to which we have managed to build up any local brand awareness.
Before I talk about those results let me turn briefly to talking about the other political parties.
Amongst the “Big 3” political parties there remains almost no difference in policy terms. They are all internationalist, neo-liberal, social democrats and they also all have in common that they all hate the very “idea of England”.
Then on the so called “Left” we have Respect (logo), which is now in some disarray and also the much better organised Green (logo), the Watermelon party:- “Green on the outside and ……….”? The Greens nevertheless have only limited appeal outside of socially quite idiosyncratic places like Brighton.
We also have the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (logo) who are making brave efforts at standing in various parliamentary by-elections but have yet to make any significant headway.
On the so called “Right” we have the BNP (logo), which has continued to decline and fracture and also several newly created splinter parties which have so far not made any significant progress, the British Freedom Party (logo) with its EDL connections and recently the British Democratic Party (logo) with its much more clearly defined Far-Right ethno-nationalist agenda.
Then of course there is also UKIP (logo), which is now doing very well in by-elections but has still not yet achieved any actual breakthroughs despite being far better resourced than any other party in the whole of the UK, except the big three.
You do have to bear in mind if we do compare ourselves with UKIP we are comparing a party which has no full-time paid officials and only such little money which we raise from your subscriptions and donations, all of which are of course extremely welcome and actually make it possible for us to campaign for England and the English Nation, but which on the face of it this would hardly seem to compare with the dozens of full-time salaried party activists that UKIP has and its income from the EU which alone is worth nearly £5m a year.
Despite all this income and resources, and despite acres of press coverage and huge coverage on the broadcast media UKIP have, as yet, failed to get a single person elected to Westminster, unlike I might add the far less well resourced Respect and Green parties.
Ladies and gentlemen to stand against all these parties there is only one party which cares for England; there is only one party that cares for the English Nation; there is only one party that cares for Englishness; there is only one party that seeks to put England first (logo). Ladies and gentlemen we are that party.
We owe it to England to take the rough with the smooth and to keep going until we do get ourselves fully established in the English publics’ mind with everyone knowing what the English Democrats stand for. Only then will we have brand awareness.
Interestingly our results show that we are already starting to build brand awareness in some parts of England.
Consider our Police Commissioner election results. We stood five candidates. We had to put a deposit of £5,000 for each candidate and we had to collect 100 signatures, so there was quite a steep entry price to the elections of not only money, but organisation and effort. We had almost no help with communicating with the electorate. We only got a single entry on a rather lacklustre Government website to put up 300 words about what we were standing for. That was my entry. 
Despite all these difficulties we saved every deposit. I think those who are here deserve a big hand.
Here in South Yorkshire where in the past we had not only got our Mayoral candidate elected and leafleted all Doncaster in the EU elections, but had also stood Kevin Riddiough in the Barnsley by-election, we came second on first preference votes. I am told that had we got onto counting the second preferences in South Yorkshire, that the vast majority of those were for us. This of course gives us great hope for the coming Mayoral election in Doncaster. That election is on the supplemental vote system like the Police Commissioner vote and like London’s Mayoralty.
We have since stood in the Rotherham by-election where our candidate, David Wildgoose, had previously stood as the Liberal Democrat candidate. We got 703 votes that is 3.3% and beat the LibDems (415 votes – 2.1%)!
In the recent Eastleigh by-election we again stood as our candidate a former Liberal Democrat, Mike Walters. We didn’t do so well there which shows the importance of brand awareness. We were beaten by the Monster Raving Loonies! (Logo). But ladies and gentlemen do remember that UKIP were regularly beaten by them until the mid 2000’s.
Also just for some more recent perspective (if we are comparing ourselves to UKIP), between 2005-10, UKIP contested 9 parliamentary by-elections.
In 4 of these it received less than 1% (including 2 which were less than 0.5%). Here are the results for UKIP between 2005-10:-
Livingstone – 0.4% - 2005
Dunfirmline and West Fife – 0.6% - 2006
Ealing Southall – 0.8% - 2007
Glenrothes – UKIP 0.3% - 2008
So ladies and gentlemen we can see that every smaller party has its ups and downs and given UKIP’s current profile we can see that the downs have no long term significance provided we “keep calm and carry on”!
Over the years we in your National Council have come to understand better where our votes come from. In Kent our Police Commissioner candidate, Steve Uncles, was up against Harriet Yeo who is a member of Labour’s National Executive Council.
Those of us who know Steve will not be surprised to learn that he cheekily asked her if Labour would agree to stand down to let us take a swing at a Tory safe seat at the next General Election.
She gave him a peculiar look (just as many of us have!). And she said: “but you are taking our core vote”.
Labour refer to their core vote as the “white working class”.
Now we do have a recent and statistical and authoritative picture of what the so called “white working class” call themselves and I am sure that most of you will long have been aware of this but the 2011 Census now proves beyond all reasonable doubt that what Labour calls the “white working class” think of themselves as and call themselves “ENGLISH”.
Indeed in the Census over 32 million people, that is over 60% of the people of England, called themselves “English Only”. A further, just short of, 10% call themselves “English and British”.
Of those that call themselves “British Only” the majority are of non-English ethnic origin.
Of these the people who are most vociferously against any mention of Englishness are, as the famous historian, A J P Taylor, pointed out over 50 years ago, British Scots, like David Cameron (picture), who with his “quite a lot of Scottish blood in these veins”, promised to fight “the sour little Englanders”; like William Hague (picture) who considers English Nationalism “the most dangerous form of all nationalisms”; like Michael Gove (picture), the Brit/Scot who is the Secretary of State for English Education and is busy creating changes to the national curriculum to promote Britishness. This is a list that could go on and on!
We also now know from the 2011 Census (picture) results why the British Establishment parties are so worried about Englishness – because if we English Nationalists were once able to galvanise even half all those people who consider themselves to be “English Only” to vote for an English Nationalist party, then that party would not merely win elections, it would be in government.
For example, the recently published 2011 Census results show that the Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council area has 215,861 people (71.4%) who have stated they have only English National Identity and a further 30,413 (or 10.1%) who stated that their National Identity is English and British. However there is only a mere 37,581 (or 12.4%) in Doncaster who claimed to be “British only”.
So the tired old British Establishment Parties better watch out – or the rising sense of Englishness could sweep them away – just as ‘Scottishness’ is doing in Scotland!
Let us hope we can soon persuade a significant proportion of those English people to vote for England’s only national party. The English Democrats!
This May, we are also hoping to put up as many candidates as we can in the coming county council elections.
There is no deposit to pay to stand in county council elections and what I want us to try to achieve is what the well organised Greens do, which is to stand sufficient numbers of paper candidates to ensure that they get a Party Election Broadcast.
I have now had confirmation from the BBC that we need 394 candidates standing in the 31 English counties where there are elections. This year if we achieve that figure then we will get a Party Election Broadcast on all the broadcast TV channels and on many of the radio channels and we will also get coverage in the BBC news coverage about the elections of at least 6 minutes during the course of the election.
I accept that this will be a struggle but all of this would be highly valuable to a party which is still seeking to build up its brand awareness.
Ladies and gentlemen just consider for a moment what we are seeking to do here which is build up our brand awareness for the EU elections next year. We hope and intend to win some EU seats which will then get us some of the money and media exposure which at the moment is being frittered away to so little effect by UKIP.
Ladies and gentlemen I can assure you that if WE get an MEP elected that WE will apply the same approach as the Greens have and also the same determination and focus to getting English Democrats’ MPs elected - as it is only in Westminster that we can really start to make a difference for England.
Ladies and gentlemen, last but not least, I should mention that we need to understand that as we build our party and make progress we will be attacked more and more by our opponents.
Most of our opponents it seems are prepared to use dirty tricks and lies to smear us and cause trouble. We need to accept that this is what is happening and to ride it out.
I would not like us to descend into the same gutter tactics (picture) that our opponents are prepared to use, whether they be from UKIP’s “Black Ops” (picture), or from Labour’s dirty tricks department “Hope Not Hate.
I like to think of the RAF’s moto “Per Ardua ad Astra” (picture) which means ‘through difficulties to the stars’.
Ladies and gentlemen our generation is lucky that we haven’t got to fight and die for England, as did my uncle who was a Spitfire pilot during the Battle of Britain and was killed in the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau incident.
Ladies and Gentlemen at this point I must tell you that David Lane always seems to think that I am about to drop dead at any moment and that then you will all be left having to elect your new leader and Chairman, but just to reassure David that I didn’t actually know my uncle, as he was killed long before I was born, so you may not have that difficulty for a few years yet!
We do however have to remember the old Scottish adage that – “no one bothers to kick a dead dog!”
Another way of putting it was that of Mahatma Gandhi (picture) who said “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I don’t know about you but I am looking forward to the day when we prove that Mahatma Gandhi was right, that is the day when we win! (If I am spared! David!).
Ladies and gentlemen I do not believe that that day is very far away in the grand scheme of things, but it is of course still at least a couple of years away (ED logo). But think of where we have come from in just over 10½ years, from a room in 2002 with about 20 people in it, to now when we are now a national party.
We are creating such an impressive impression of size that I was asked this week by a Doncaster journalist whether our conference would be a boost to Doncaster’s economy!
In 2002 at that time almost nobody would dare to call themselves English or mention England; we have now made that mainstream; from that time when almost nobody was aware of the British Government’s discrimination against English interests, we now have made the electorate very aware of it; from that time when we had nobody elected to a time now when we already have a few people elected, let us go out from this conference and work not only towards building up the brand awareness of our Party and of our Cause, but also to get some of our candidates elected in this May elections!
Ladies and gentlemen thank you for listening to me and thank you also for coming to our 2013 Spring Conference. I hope you enjoy the day. I always think our conferences are highly enjoyable. It is always a pleasure to meet so many others who care about our Cause! Ladies and gentlemen thank you very much!

Friday 1 March 2013

Scottish Unionists plead their case


Below is a link to a very interesting document which sets out to try to damage the case for national independence for Scotland and by implication necessary extrapolation that of independence for England or Wales, or indeed the unification of Ireland. 

The document shows that the Unionists within the British Government like Micharl Moore are already using substantial amounts of English taxpayers’ money to fight the SNP’s fight for Scottish independence.  In doing so they yet again demonstrate their total disregard for English interests and a mind-set which is happy to breach the trust which should be at the heart of any democratic Government’s attitude to tax money. 

Neither of the Law Professors instructed to do the opinion have biographies which would suggest any sympathy with nationalist aspirations for any of the constituent nations of the “United Kingdom”.  Nor, judging from their comments, do they have any understanding of the history of the nations within the British archipelago.

This Opinion should be read as being merely the legalistic argument of one side, akin to Counsel’s “skeleton argument” handed into a court prior to the hearing of a case.  It is of no greater weight than that and is not, by any stretch of the imagination, definitive.  As it candidly explains in its opening remarks, instructions have come from one side only and the authors, I would respectfully suggest, have been worthy of their, no doubt, handsome fees in the way that they have carefully disguised the weaknesses in their arguments. 

As a litigation solicitor in practice, I am regularly dealing with Counsel’s opinion and with skeleton arguments and it is therefore of professional interest to me to see the ways in which they have carefully limited the factors that they are going to consider to exclude the arguments which wouldn’t work in their paymasters favour. They have often cited historical precedence, which, on the face of it sounds good for their case, but which once examined in any detail with an understanding of the history of the example, simply don’t stand up to scrutiny as being equivalent to the dissolution of the Union between two historic nations, that of the English and the Scottish, or to use the terms of the 1707 Act of Union, the historic kingdoms of England and of Scotland. 

A good example of the historical ignorance of the authors is over the question of how illustrative it is that England and Scotland in 1707 didn’t have separate diplomatic arrangements.  With respect to the learned professors, I would suggest that anyone who knew anything in any depth of the history at the time would know that diplomatic arrangements at the time were entirely within the royal prerogative powers of the monarch.  As the monarch of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland had been one and the same person since the time of James I/VI, it is not very surprising that there was no change to the diplomatic arrangements in 1707 during the reign of Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart Dynasty. 

The comparisons with the breakup of other countries also betray a lack of awareness and/or deliberate obfuscation.  For example Singapore becoming independent from Malaysia is not two historic kingdoms or nations dividing back to their constituent parts, as neither had any significant history ante-dating British imperialist occupation of the Malayan Peninsula.  The Dissolution of the United Kingdom would in my opinion would be more accurately compared with the Dissolution of theUnion between Austrian and Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War. 

Despite their best efforts to argue their paymasters case, the two learned professors still have to concede that both states after Scottish independence may well be new states or the resurrection of the two historic constituent kingdoms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain.  It is certain in any case that the UK would not be able to continue to exist without further fundamental constitutional legislation resolving the consequences of the Act of Union and terminating the “United Kingdom of Great Britain”, as obviously this couldn’t continue without Scotland. 

The extent of constitutional turmoil is also exemplified by the effect in Northern Ireland where Mr McGuiness has already pledged a referendum on dissolving the link between the Province and the British crown in 2016.  In Wales, Plaid Cymru are beginning to talk up the prospect of Welsh independence and the dissolution of the 1536 Union between the Kingdoms of England and the Principality of Wales.  In the case of Wales the “Welsh Nationalists” seem to be trying to have their cake and eat it in the sense of seeking to maintain the wholly inconsistent idea that they should still be able to benefit from English taxpayers’ funded subsidies. 

Whichever way you look at it however this report is to be welcomed as a sign that the tectonic plates underlying the UK constitutional structure are on the move and that is a good sign for the future of English Nationalism!

I look forward to seeing whether the lawyers for the SNP do as good a job in arguing for their paymasters.  Also I will note with interest whether the SNP are as cavalier with public money as the Unionist politicians who commissioned this report have been.

Here is a link to the report >>>  https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/79408/Annex_A.pdf