Home page Where is England? Within the confines of Great Britain a "country" called the United Kingdom is often referred to and it appears to be made up of three countries which have their own regional assemblies. These are Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There is also an assembly for the whole of the United Kingdom located at Westminster in London where MPs who serve in their regional assemblies can also vote. The perculiar reality of this set up is that the England, the country which has the largest population amongst the member nations of the United Kingdom, does not have an assembly. The result of this assembly imbalance, and failure to represent faithfully the contribution of England, to the United Kingdom as a whole, means that Northern Irish, Welsh and Scottish politicians have assemblies within which they can lever their direct influence over issues in their own national interests. On the other hand the English cannot. The English MPs are excluded from the regional assemblies of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland but the MPs from Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland are not excluded and, indeed, have a direct influence over those aspects of English affairs which come before the Parliament in Westminster. A serious issue There are two fundamentally important issues tied to this injustice. discrimination against the English erosion of vital English values Discrimination against the English The politics of each country in the United Kingdom is clearly different with Labour and the Liberal Democrats doing far better in Scotland and Wales. These political parties have therefore ended up with a free hand in running aspects of their own national affairs. The same is true in Ireland where political parties with specifically Irish characteristics are left to run their own affairs. In England there is no assembly so there is no means whereby the politics of England finds expression. The current "New Labour" government has a "majority" of some 66 MPs in the Parliament of Westminster. This essential majority for the survival of this government comes from Scottish and Welsh MPs who contribute some 70 MPs to the Labour Government's double counting system. There is therefore, in the case of England, an imposition of a United Kingdom assembly where the government of the day has manipulated affairs to guarantee a built-in "majority". This is a minority government which has the "support" of less than 22% of the electorate. This grossly unfair system survives because of the ability of Scottish and Welsh MPs to sit in two houses while preventing the English MPs the same priviledge; this is an unacceptable act of discrimination against the English. Erosion of vital English values Historically, in terms of the development of democracy, Englishmen have been unique in identifying, defining and giving voice to seminal values which so many hold dear. These include the right to the pursuit of happiness, the setting of individual freedom as the hallmark of a successful system of justice as reflected in the typically English legal imperatives as the right to equality before the law irrespective of status, the assumption of innocence, the right to trial by jury, habeas corpus and freedom of, and the defence of, free speech. These have largely rode on English Common Law and the ability of Judges and Juries to do a fair job free from political interference. Such imperatives for the survival of freedom were promoted by the Levellers during the English Civil War and by the group associated with John Lilburne. Cromwell had these inividuals kept in prison. With the collapse of the English Republic and with the return of Royalty their essential writings were very much kept under wraps. The spark which gave rise to a mass revolution in the American Colonies was when the British Crown moved to ban juries because too many were preventing the state enforce arbitrary decisions on innocent "colonists". It is notable that the American Constitutional components which relate to the pursuit of happiness, individual liberty and freedom are largely based on the early writings of Lilburne written in the Tower of London, 150 years before. Unfortunately there has been a slow erosion of this essential spark, this recognition of the importance of the defence of individual freedom, as a typical English value. This has occurred gradually since the ascendency of the Scottish influence in United Kingdom politics. Scotland, it should be noted, has a legal system based on the European system, Corpus Juris, a codified Roman Law which is completely distinct and almost alien from English Common Law. This sustains a position which keeps the influence of the community conscience in legal affairs and court decisions at arms length. Elimination through a political Europe The lack of an English assembly prevents the English from protecting their rights to sustain their nationality as English. The European project, Corpus Juris and the European Constitutional Draft are aimed directly at "standardizing law" which means, in the United Kingdom context that Scottish Law will eventually reign supreme. The breaking up of England into so-called EU regions has been a subtle and politically destructive means of destroying the coherence of the English nation. England has become the only country in Europe to have been eliminated without a war but rather as the result of the manipulations of Brussels bureaucrats and dishonest and irresponsible politicians in Westminster serving their party interests over country. Call for action The democracies with the most robust defence and best records for upholding individual freedoms are those whose system of governance are based on the British Parliamentary system founded on the English system and which defend most of the essential elements developed by the Englishman Lilburne and others. These countries include the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. There is no reason why the English should endure the insult of having this essential and historic legacy of democracy and individual freedom buried by bureaucrats and politicians who do not uphold such values or who even wish to destroy them. Fortunately there is a slowly growing realization amongst the English as to what has happened. It is very much associated with the expansion of the "political" European Union and this experiment has gone far enough. History demonstrates that it is not a good idea to try and marginalise the English. This is a call for action to reverse this pernicious process.