England is in John Bright’s phrase the Mother of Parliaments.  It was the rule as early from the times of Saxon Kings for them to take wise counsel from the witan, the most powerful men of England.  Various constitutional development continued after the Conquest and in November 1236 the word “Parliament” was first used of a court assembly in England when Henry III adjourned a legal case to the “Parliament” due to meet at Westminster in January 1237. 

Today in 2008, there are few nations without a Parliament or its equivalent.  India, the USA, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Scotland all have their national assemblies, sometimes even called their Parliament.

Both England and Scotland as part of their Acts of Union of 1707 lost their own national Parliaments and instead Westminster became, and remains home to, the Union Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The devolution legislation of Prime Minister Blair (The Scotland Act 1998 and the Government of Wales Act 1998) produced change on a massive constitutional scale, especially in Scotland.  Few people in England understand the scale of that change.  The Scottish Parliament and Government are now largely responsible for  economic development, local government, the environment, agriculture and fisheries (with EU constraints), personal social services, education, law and order, public health, transport, housing and a good deal else besides.

The real anomaly in the UK’s uncodified but written constitution lies in England, where there is no Parliament to represent the English nation, and where in particular the historic role of the Labour Party’s power base in Scotland has produced the current unprecedented situation whereby both the current Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer sit for Scottish constituencies and where backbench MPs from Scotland routinely vote on laws and policies that only affect England.  For some controversial legislation, these Scottish MPs votes are crucial in getting laws passed where the majority of MPs who sit for English constituencies are out-voted.

 

How to bring about change to England’s democracy

One of the key developments in bringing about a national movement for better political institutional arrangements for Scotland (and which led to the present Scottish Parliament) was the signing by many of the leading Scottish politicians of The Scottish Claim of Right. 

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  In early 2008 a small group of Englishmen thought that the English should have their own equivalent of The Scottish Claim of Right.   We tried to improve on the wording of The Scottish Claim of Right, but came to the conclusion that it was hard to improve.  We have therefore more or less taken the wording of The Scottish Claim of Right  and replaced “Scotland” with “England” and “Scottish” with “English” along with the demand that an English Constitutional Convention be called.

We think The English Claim of Right  should work as well as The Scottish Claim of Right in allowing the English people (whom we define in a strictly civic sense) and their political representatives to declare their loyalty to the English nation and to commit to make the improvement of her political institutions the focus of their political ambitions and energies.

This English Claim of Right was launched for St George’s day on 23 April 2008 and will continue to be kept up to date and live until England regains her own Parliament and once again the English people have control of their country’s future.  The decisions made by that revived English Parliament and the political future of England are outside the ambit of the The English Claim of Right.  

We hope and expect that all men and women who are standing for political office (whether in elections for councils, Parliament or the European Parliament) in England in English constituencies should be prepared to sign The English Claim of Right.  Those who have are welcome to describe themselves as “Signatory of the The English Claim of Right”,  but we call even on our fellow citizens not standing for political office to sign The English Claim of Right too and to vote only for those candidates that have signed it.