Albion Street 02/27/2011
 
Imagine this scenario: you have a steady job which pays well, but house prices are sky high and you are not able to leave the parental home. You share the house with your lazy, dishonest father whose name the (re)mortgage is in, who favours your grumpy half-siblings (they don't like you, but are quite happy to be kept housed and fed), and even strangers who your father has taken a shine to and invited in off the streets. Your feckless father has no intention of working for a living, but is fond of spending money – yours. Even though you are the main breadwinner, he insists as a condition of living under “his” roof, that you hand over all your wages, out of which he distributes to everyone in the household a small allowance to buy essentials. He keeps the majority of your wages for himself, and if he's spent too much in the pub or had a bad run of luck at the bookies, you will have your allowance cut even further – there's no way he's doing without his luxuries, even if you have to. Even though you are working, you are no better off than the siblings and “guests” who don't.

Does this sound like a fair situation, one that you'd personally be happy with? Well, if you're an English taxpayer, this is already happening to you. I'm sure once you realise that the “lazy father” in this parable represents the British Government, you won't have too much trouble identifying the other characters. Please, read on.

Eventually, a small house comes on the market locally which is affordable. You decide to buy it, and inform your family that you intend to move out, but their reaction is one of bitterness and anger,  with statements like: “after all we've done for you!” and “you won't manage on your own!”.

With some sadness, you pack your belongings and move into your new home. Your family disown you and you lose contact. Time passes and you decide to visit them to see if tempers have cooled,  but when you turn the corner back into Albion Street, you find that your old house is boarded up, with a “For Sale at Auction” sign. There is no sign of your dysfunctional family, or the lodgers.

All over England, local councils are being ordered by the British government to make cutbacks, even in essential services, because Whitehall is withholding their funding to “balance the books”. The English Radicals believe that the present system where central government keeps all taxation revenue and then rations funding to local authorities is wrong, and should be scrapped. Where does this taxation revenue come from in the first place? From taxpayers all over England! Why should taxes raised in Exeter, Birmingham or Newcastle automatically be sent to that corrupt middleman - the British government in Whitehall - who keep the bulk of that cash and decide what we in the “sticks” should be able to spend? And then they have the audacity to tell us, that we need to make cutbacks? That pile of money they are sat on was ours in the first place!

As outlined in a previous article on this website, the English Radicals believe the whole system of taxation in “broken Britain” is in serious need of overhaul. Instead of all taxation going straight to the British Treasury, it should first pass through the local area where the tax is generated. At least 50% of all revenue should be kept for local government funding, and only then should any remaining revenue be passed on to central government. This system is not new, similar ones exists already in places like Germany and Switzerland, who you may have noticed are weathering the recession much better than we are.

With this system, local government would have more funding than it does now, and central government would have to make do with less – it would have to live within its means, as we do.  And perhaps if the British had less money to play with, they might be less inclined to prop up the EU, go to war, or donate foreign aid to India – a country rich enough to fund a space programme!

If David Cameron is truly serious about creating a “Big Society” (which we doubt), then it will only happen when there is “Smaller Government”. But the Tory Unionists, by definition, are intent on keeping the British government as big as possible – the Home Nations are the last remnants of Empire, and will be kept prisoner at all costs. There will be no help from any of the main parties in securing a fairer deal for English taxpayers, and so our taxes will continue to be taken and misused.

The British government would do well to realise that you can only push people so far before they push back, as the student riots in this country demonstrated, and as recent events have shown in North Africa. And they would do well to remember what the American people told a previous British government in 1776 - that there should be “no taxation without representation” - they were being taxed by the British but had no voice in the British parliament - and we all know how that turned out. The English taxpayer of 2011 is in exactly the same boat as the American of 1776. We pay more tax than ever, but we see our public services diminish – because we have no say in how those taxes are spent. In effect the British government is one of occupation in England, as surely as it ever was in America or Ireland. Seriously - isn't it time England moved out of Albion Street?

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The Con-Dem Government and their nu- Labour predecessors have argued a lot over taxes and spending. However when taxes are increased and cutbacks made, it is often the poorest in society which are hit the hardest.

When considering cutbacks all the major three parties ignore two areas which definitely need cutting back – these being our membership of the European Union and the present United Kingdom. 

Our membership of the EU is well documented – and England puts more in than it gets in return. Membership makes no sense when trade agreements can be written, joint projects conducted and travel across Europe arranged without membership of the EU. The fact remains membership of the EU only benefits large global corporations who feast from the top table whilse the rest of us scavenge for crumbs.

Membership of the United Kingdom is something else which the taxpayers of England subsidise. Every minute taxes raised in England flow across the sea to Northern Ireland and over the borders into Wales and Scotland to fund their government’s. The fact is the other home nations have devolution and the taxpayers of England pay the bill.

When will the English people wake up to the fact that if we liberated ourselves from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland AND the EU, not only would we be able to do away with the proposed savage cuts to the English public services, but we would also be free to protect English firms from hostile takeovers (Kraft) and halt the imminent mass immigration from places such as Bulgaria and Rumania (and Turkey if Cameron gets his way). English independence is the logical conclusion of the current EU and devolution mess and the definite solution to the West Lothian question.

 

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Following the recent general election, the Conservatives could cleverly engineer a situation which would eventually allow them to achieve two things – form a comfortable majority government, and make some massive public spending savings without upsetting their core English vote. How can they do this? By biting the bullet and accepting they will never have a mandate to rule in Scotland.

There are now two democratic deficits in the “United” Kingdom: the perennial one of England being the only home nation that does not have its own parliament, and now the blatant Labour/Tory split between Scotland and England. The Conservatives returned only one MP in Scotland, while Labour won an outright majority with 41 of the available 59 seats.

Bad times are coming to Britain, the chickens of 13 years of continuous Labour misrule, plus the effects of the capitalist generated recession are about to come home to roost in the form of massive cuts, tax hikes and redundancies. One thing is worth remembering however – ALL the main parties, support the capitalist system which dragged us into recession and which allows multinational corporations and banks to dictate to national government.

ERA believes the United Kingdom is dead in all but name anyway – how can you call it political union, when the three smallest nations have their own parliaments or assemblies, while the largest one, England, does not? Westminster is the BRITISH government, and allows Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish. MP's to vote on matters affecting only England – a classic example is the third runway at Heathrow, deeply unpopular in south east England, but pushed through anyway by Labour dragging their Celtic MP's down to vote for it. 

How could the Tories achieve the aim of an English parliament? By being patient and not entering into coalition with the Lib Dems. The Lib Dem's only other option is to work with Labour, who are already discredited in the eyes of the English public, so to work with them is to be tainted by association.

Once the IMF come in and enforce the inevitable spending cuts and tax increases that have to be implemented – of which England will bear the brunt - who will the electorate blame? The Lab/Lib Dem government! It would not surprise us if another election has to be called within a year – if the coalition breaks down, Britain would be ungovernable, and a new mandate would have to be secured. If the Tories stood on a ticket of cutting England loose from Labour-dominated and state subsidised Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, they would easily secure enough seats in England to have an absolute majority in the British parliament at Westminster.

An English only government would do away with the Barnett formula, which is an English taxpayer funded, British government subsidy to the celtic nations for everyone who lives there – how do you think the Scots can afford free care homes for their elderly? Free prescriptions? Free university education? The Scots constantly remind us that North Sea oil revenue should go straight to Scotland – but who foots the massive unemployment benefit bill in Scottish, mostly Labour, constituencies, or the massive public sector employment wage bill in Scotland? The English taxpayer. We would be quite happy for Scotland to keep their oil revenue, if it meant they  used it to pay for all the good stuff listed above, that the English can only dream about having. The oil will run out one day, as things stand the subsidy never will.

By formally breaking up the Union, a new English government would only be concerned with England. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland would once again be separate self governing nations, and more importantly, self financing. A “Council of the Isles” could be convened once a month to discuss issues that affect inter-nation issues, other than that England would have little need to concern itself with the internal affairs of our celtic neighbours. 

We could say be patient Mr Cameron – another six or twelve months in opposition, and the prize will be there for the taking and you can deliver fairness to the people of England with the first steps towards a new independent English nation. However in reality, just as the leopard never changes its spots, we suspect Cameron’s Conservative & Unionist Party will not take the final plunge and dissolve this dis-United Kingdom. In any case, independence is just one step towards liberating the people of England. The other is delivering political and economic systems that inspire our nation, and which offer opportunity, aspiration and fairness. Sadly neither Mr. Cameron’s Tories nor any of the other political parties offer such a package. For that you have to turn to the English Radicals.
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