English Identities and Interests and the Governance of Britain

Abstract

Are the identity and interests of the English nation still sufficiently protected by the British state? (the English question). And can the British state still secure sufficient loyalty from all its citizens? (the Britishness question). The omission of England from the programme of devolution implemented by Labour governments since 1999 has not led to a strong demand in England for its inclusion. One reason for this is that most English identities do not need an English parliament for their further articulation. There is an ease of fit between English identity and Britishness as recently reformulated by Gordon Brown and his colleagues. This does not, however, dispose of the English question. England still needs a stronger political voice to protect its interests. The Barnett formula divides annual increases in public spending for a wide range of services between the four parts of the United Kingdom in a way that is unfavourable to England. The British government is unwilling to reform or replace it and, polls suggest, this is widely resented in England. The West Lothian question refers to the anomaly whereby Scottish MPs continue to vote at Westminster on matters pertaining only to England when English MPs cannot vote on equivalent matters pertaining only to Scotland because responsibility for them has been devolved to the Scottish parliament. This, polls suggest, is also widely resented in England, but the British government is disinclined to do anything about it. The only work in hand addressing the Barnett formula and backed by the major British parties (but not the Scottish National Party) is that of the (Calman) Commission on Scottish Devolution set up by the Scottish parliament. Its first report does not anticipate radical change. The only proposal by one of the major parties to answer the West Lothian question is that of the Conservatives’ Democracy Task Force for a version of English Votes on English Laws (EVoEL) that meets many of the objections to earlier versions of EVoEL.