GMTV's Sunday programme had a fascinatingm interview with Labour MP Frank Field this morning. Field blames Brown for his ministerial departure from the Department of Social Security in the early years of the Blair government. But it was what he said about devolution which caught my eye..
FRANK FIELD
Well the problem really is twofold. Firstly, English opinion has changed, and if you look at the polls now it’s not people in Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland saying they’re wanting independence. The strongest independence comes from people in England, and at some stage that wish will be granted. And for totally grubby reasons, I think the government should leave that debate rather than be frightened of it. The position the government now holds is no change on anything, and that clearly is not acceptable. The second thing is that we live in a world now whereas in the last century capital moved about and became mobile, now people are. And therefore people’s senses of identity becomes more, not less, important, and I don’t think you can have an identity around Great Britain because it’s a bogus concept which has served us quite well of wrapping round the various countries, like a warm overcoat, making the countries feel secure. The real identities are about England, about Wales, about Scotland and Ireland, and I think those identities need to be asserted if we’re going to successfully make this huge transition from a world where people didn’t move around to one where people move around in huge quantities, and make some people feel very insecure as a result of those changes.
STEVE RICHARDS
Although some argue that’s precisely why the Union should be retained, that the world is becoming a bigger place, you’re dealing with China, India, the United States, why suddenly separate into much smaller units?
FRANK FIELD
What’s so interesting, in where you’re chairing this Steve, is you’re the first person that I’ve heard for months put forward a positive reason for the Union being maintained. I always thought the reason why we were in Europe was that the voices of independent nations can be made effective on the national stage
STEVE RICHARDS
So you’d be happy, actually, for Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England to be four separate entities?
FRANK FIELD
I think there are two things. We’ve got to settle the English Question as far as legislation goes, and I think we should have an imaginative debate rather than the plonking debate we get at the moment over House of Lords reform, which has not changed for a hundred years. I would see the federal status of the old United Kingdom being trailed through a second chamber, whereas at the first tier level there would be individual parliaments in the interests of the constituent countries.
STEVE RICHARDS
OK, let’s explore why it is, one of the reasons why it’s potentially very explosive in this coming year.
Frank Field, how big an issue is it, given you accept this is a very big, rising, turbulent theme, that Gordon Brown will almost certainly become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he is Scottish, at a time when these issues are whirling around Scotland, England and possibly, to follow your thesis, Wales and Northern Ireland too?
FRANK FIELD
Well if I was a Scottish MP wanting to become Prime Minister, I would be endlessly prattling on about British-ness and trying to convince people that somehow that’s what the game was about. That’s been going on for some time, it’s fooled nobody, the polls are leaning in the opposite direction. And I don’t share Oliver’s [Heald] view. I mean, I love England but somehow to think that we’ve got special status in the world because we’re the United Kingdom I just think is tragic to still be peddling that view. I think any greatness that we have comes from other reasons, not because of this artificially engendered union with other countries. And I don’t believe these big constitutional questions should be settled on whether a Scottish Member of Parliament wishes to become Prime Minister or not. I think these are such fundamental questions we ought to settle them on their own merit and not actually think well it would be easier for Gordon Brown if we didn’t raise this question. Or if the electorate didn’t raise the question.
STEVE RICHARDS
Given that assessment, how big a problem has Gordon Brown got, being an almost certain next Prime Minister, Scottish, with all these issues whirling around?
FRANK FIELD
I think he’d have a lot less of a problem if your prediction comes true and he becomes Prime Minister - I don’t quite share your certainty on that - but if he led this debate. And I think there’s huge, as I come back to this grubby reason as I put it forward, put forward this argument, that in part I think we’ve got everything to gain by being seen not frightened to embrace what the electorate might wish, even though in the short run the experts tell us that it would actually operate against the Labour party. I don’t think votes are set in stone, and I think English voters, seeing a Scottish Prime Minister leading a debate on the rightful place of England and its identity, could actually have some very good effects via the ballot box. So I don’t think so negatively. It certainly is negative if not only the next leader but the whole of the government has nothing to offer. The old Mother Hubbard argument – everything is bare, that everything’s perfect, nothing is going to change despite what the electorate think.
STEVE RICHARDS
Just briefly, what do you think, in specific terms, he’s got to offer England if he becomes Prime Minister, and "leads this debate", as you put it.
FRANK FIELD
As the Chancellor, he says we need a huge debate about renewal. But we don’t actually ever get onto the debate, all we have is heraldries: "We want this debate!" Now you couldn’t have a bigger debate than about the nature of our constitution and I would’ve thought the first move is along a Bill that I proposed but Labour members voted it down, and that was that Scottish members couldn’t vote on English matters when they can decide those matters in Scotland…
22 comments:
With a man of Frank Fields stature
giving support to the "English question"gives me hope for 2007 and beyond.
We mustn't destroy the UK. Great Britain is not an artificial creation, it came into being over many years through the union of the crowns (James VI of Scotland became James I of England after the death of Elizabeth I) and the union of the parliaments (Act of Union 1707).
The UK is not like the EU. We are one geographical entity, with one language, and 300 years of full political union in which all four nations have been hugely successful, far more successful than had we been sepperate. None of this applies to the EU.
A divided UK is just what the EU wants, can't people see what is happening? It's divide and rule. There would be borders and guards, so they'll peddle the Schengen Agreement, and an EU immigration policy, then defence policy. We are an island nation, let's keep that strength.
They have reduced England to football alone, don't let them get Britain.
Frank Field is right.There is a huge amount of resentment building up in the English and Brown refuses to address it..
In fact the Labour Party as a whole refuses to address the problem because they realise they are kept in power through Scot Welsh and N.I voters.
I can promise Labour that if they wont address the matter the people of England will because we are fed up being ruled by a Scots Mafia.This is the phrase used by of all people Jeremy Paxman and I pinched it.
Frank Field is always a thoughtful, intelligent contributor. Could you get him on 18 Doughty Street, Ian?
He was treated very badly by Tony Blair. Told to think the unthinkable he thunk it. His ideas were promptly vetoed by the big clunking fist of Gordon Brown and he promptly resigned.
Tony Blair, in an episode of gross discourtesy, did not stay to hear Frank's resignation speech in the Commons.
Faith is restored Iain thats a brilliant spot . How fascinating ."Prattling on" about Britishness ..well quite . This issue is one of a few when the increasingly irrelevant political class have a vested interest in stopping a proper settlement.
We are in Islignton and Harringey are also having plenty of fun with the SUZ story which is luverly .
Whilst I don't disagree that reform is needed, based on what this government has done so far are they really the right people to lead this debate...?
Gordon - can either support or not support a seperatism.
If he supports it then and England has it's own Parliament then ... what the f**k is a Scot doing leading England!!
If he doesn't support it and the Scots get to vote on English matters then ...what the f**k is a Scot doing leading England!!
Heads we split tails we split.
Brown's Scottishness will *inevitably* lead to the break up of the UK. If Gordon does not want this to happen then he shouldn't stand.
"I think these are such fundamental questions we ought to settle them on their own merit and not actually think well it would be easier for Gordon Brown if we didn’t raise this question"
This is why I have a lot of respect for Frank Field. Whatever your views on devolution, west lothian question etc. etc. it cannot be ignored. Especially not for the convenience of party politics.
It seems to me that Frank was not advocating the dissolution of the Union. Rather, he was advocating that the House of Lords should become a federal chamber, with the Commons becoming the English Parliament. Sounds eminently sensible to me.
trumpeter lanfried said
He was treated very badly by Tony Blair. Told to think the unthinkable he thunk it. His ideas were promptly vetoed by the big clunking fist of Gordon Brown and he promptly resigned.
Yes indeed. He had the most radical plan for welfare reform of any recent government on the table when Brown grabbed the whole issue with the Treasury's Tax Credits scheme. As Saatchi said in the Times today, Brown is a dyed-in-the-wool soviet socialist committed to getting as many of the working age population as possible either in government jobs or receipt of welfare benefits. Field is clearly worried by a welfare bill that now tops £80bn pa excluding pensions with 14% of the working age population out of work.
Again a monstrous error of judgement on Blair's part (along with all the others) to back Brown against Field.
It was a general failure to spot the implications of the 'A Europe of the Regions' EU federalist policy that largely contributed to this mess in the first place. Fine for German Laender. Crap for the UK. And makes it even more important that a directly responsible relationship between the European Parliament and Commission and Scotland and Wales that bypasses the UK Parliament is not allowed to develop.
It seems that there is now no other option at some stage in the future than some form of English Parliament. Not an option I am at all easy about.
Home rule for England!
Frank Field is a man of wisdom, integrity and courage. Would that we had just fifty Fields in Commons. His sacking by Blair/Brown tells you all you need to know about this corrupt duo. That Beckitt, Hewitt, Morris, Dobson, Byers, Banks, Blunkett and others have wrecked their departments and received favours and protection from Blair highlights the strange case of Field's banishment. Cameron recruit this man.
The whole West Lothian question is a scandal and a complete mess created by New Labour. It is utterly unfair and undemocratic that Scottish politicians can discuss internal Scottish issues where English politicians cannot - yet Scottish politicians can vote on English internal issues.
For example - the manifesto breaking Tuition fee debate was only won by Blair with the help of Scottish MPs even though it only directly concerned England and Wales. I have heard some lame excuses for the current situation. The Poll Tax issue was the democratic tryanny of majority rule. If the alternative is to have seperate parliaments the England should absolutely have one.
So have Bliar and Frown pushed Britain to a tipping point not dissimilar to the post TITO Yugoslavia? There are some parallels perhaps. Tito used force to repress the rampant nationalism felt by Serbs, Croats, Kosovans, native Albanians etc whereas Britain had an act of Union and a constitutional settlement that made The country greater than the sum of it's parts. The death of communism (and Tito himself of course) took the lid off that latent nationalism and sparked the worst bloodshed in Europe since 1945. Whilst that's never going to happen here, Bliars pathetic and ill advised tinkering with a complex but effective constitution has led directly to the current internecine back biting. Well done Tone, your legacy is secure, you started the breakup of the Union. What a pillock you are.
"Beckitt, Hewitt, Morris, Dobson, Byers, Banks, Blunkett and others have wrecked their departments and received favours and protection from Blair highlights the strange case of Field's banishment." said Griswold 6.41.
Not Dobson.
Dobson was banished just as determinedly as Field.
Dobson was spending the money on the Health Service;
not bunging it to Brown's nominated -by-technical- advisors - embedded -in- the -spending- departments PFI syphon of taxpayers money to business supporters system.
(learning German does something odd to compound noun use).
Chameleon you some up everything that is anti English.
Just like Lord Haskins and the rest of the nu Labour Agri barrons with CAP in hand strip are green and pleasant land.
Frank Field is surely making the point that to save the Union we need a new structure, in which England too has its own Parliament and we have a British Parliament in place of the House of Lords. He also makes some valid points about national identities in a changing world.
The Labour Government's partisan, unfair, undemocratic assymetric devolution is the real threat to the Union. Once the English start to ask: What is it for? it is difficult to answer.
It may now be too late - if the Scots vote to leave the Union after the May 2007 elections to the Scottish Parliament the English will have no interesting in dissuading them.
I missed the second part when I believe Lord Falconer and Harriet Harman were on? Did they say anything interesting Ian or was it the same old rubbish?
Oliver Heald indicated that the Tories English Votes policy was not as staight forward as they thought it would be (who's been listening then?)and that Ken Clarke's Task Force were looking at it. (Hurry up Ken or you'll miss the boat!)
When Gordon Brown was refusing to give a straight answer on Andrew Marr he talked about involving the people more. Not thinking about referendums are they as a way of getting out of the mess they have created?
Hatfield Girl re Dobson, I stand corrected.
Re Scotland. I believe that Scotland, dying on its feet, would flourish if independent. Take the Ireland, Iceland model as examples of what can be achieved. Scotland is like a family hooked on benefits. No longer energetic and creative other than small pockets here and there. Set them free of the Union and within a decade we would witness another Celtic Tiger. This would be a beneficial release for England and Scotland. It will happen. Sooner the better. Good luck SNP.
Listen
This is not about who does what to whom it is about what is best for normal citizens.
I would be quite happy with an Englishman ruling an independent Scotland as he would govern in the best interest of the range of factors presented to him.
Ireland has done well deciding for themselves as has Norway and Iceland. Independence is a win win for us all but we must remove bogey men and scare stories from the equation.
yours
An English and Scottish Nationalist
Why can't the English have a vote to devolve ourselves from Scotland? If Scotland wanted a Scottish Parliament with tax raising powers then why do they still rely on the Barnett formula where more British taxpayers money is spent per head on Scotland than anywhere else in Britain?
Next stop English independence.
The point the SNP chap was making is that he'd have no porblem with an person who's English by birth or 'ethnicity' running an independent Scotland.
The problem with Brown isn't so much that he's Scottish but that he represents a Scottish constiuency. The tragedy about Brown and other British nationalists from Sctoland or Wales is that they believe their own propaganda that Scotland or Wales are too stupid to become independent.
Welshman
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