Letter to the Daily Telegraph, published on 9th September 2014.

Lord Lexden (September 8^th) is surely right to call for a new modern federal constitution for the whole United Kingdom in which Scotland would play a leading part in negotiating as an outcome of its rejecting separation on September 18^th. This is the type of positive future that the “No” campaign should have been advocating with the tacit support of the Westminster parties since day one of the campaign.

Instead of applying himself in this way, Cameron has left our fellow citizens in Scotland to fight a rear-guard battle against the pied piper of West Lothian leading Scotland into Nowhere Land: not in the UK, not in NATO, not in the EU, not in the Commonwealth, not in a Sterling currency Union, with a credit rating about equal to Argentina’s.

A speech was delivered at a Pageant held at St Katherine Cree Church in the City of London on 14th June 2008

Today is the 26th anniversary of the surrender of all Argentine forces on the Falklands to the British Army.

That great victory in which all parts of the United Kingdom were fully represented – the Blues and Royals on Harriet, the Scots Guards on Tumbledown, the Welsh Guards on Sapper Hill, HMS Antrim, HMS Glamorgan, HMS Yarmouth, Glasgow, Sheffield, to name but a few, supporting the Army’s advance, brought near universal joy to all our people – and gratitude to our armed forces who made it happen.

The Regiments of the British Army represent the longest continuing military force on land in (modern) history, starting with the Honourable Artillery Company originating in 1537, the First Regiment of Foot (the Royal Scots) in 1633; the Monmouthshire Trained Bands (1577) precursor of the South Wales Borderers of Rorke’s Drift fame, the Royal Irish Rangers (1700), on the Somme in 1916, serving in Afghanistan today – as always in service and sacrifice for the Crown.

The Royal Navy with its origins in King Alfred’s time (897 –  over 1100 years ago) vanquishing the Spanish Armada in 1588, the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar in 1805, the huge victories over the German submarine menace in two world wars, and the triumph of the Falklands Campaign itself, are only some of the outstanding victories among many other British triumphs (and defeats also let it be said) in which pride is shared by all the peoples of the United Kingdom.

The Royal Air Force, founded in 1918 from the Royal Flying Corps, with its bases throughout the UK and across the world has always been a British and indeed British Empire force, supremely so in those great air battles of the Second World War – the Battle of Britain and the Bomber Offensive over Germany.

The United Kingdom’s achievements are not just military, of course.  The historic and world-shaping deeds of the British Empire now being brought to the public by modern historians like Niall Ferguson and Andrew Roberts, (but without the relentless dirge of carping criticism by lefty historians and self-publicists of the 50 years after 1945) are achievements of all our peoples: most notably in North America, Australasia, India, and the spread of the English language itself.  The energy for all this came from enterprising spirits and dedicated souls (and some rogues too.)  This combination shows up in the Industrial Revolution, the greatest change in human existence since the the beginnings of agriculture and cities, in effect the creation of the modern world.  James Watt from Glasgow, partnering Mathew Boulton in Birmingham, John Dunlop in Belfast are among many British iconic names in industry, in steam power and locomotion, which will stand for all time.

But why then, with these huge achievements in the recent as well as the distant past, are some people questioning the very existence of the United Kingdom?  Why has a political party in one of our ancient nations garnered about 25% of the vote there on a platform of separation?  Why are some people in England – with 85% of the UK’s population – murmuring  that the political arrangements in the UK are unfair to them and they would not be so sad if Scotland were to separate?

Are people really aware of what separation would mean – the break-up of the Armed Forces among so many other institutions, our coastal and air security put at risk, families split by conflicts of identity and loyalty?

The answer to these questions is that the present constitutional set-up as brought into being by this present wretched Labour government with only half-hearted opposition from the other main parties – is unfair to England and lackis any sort of symmetry  and consistency between the four countries of the Kingdom – and because of this it will fail and be replaced by something else.

It behoves all of us today to do everything we can to see that what replaces this spatchcock mess – created by Labour politicians purely to secure themselves a realistic chance of power at Westminster – is NOT separation but a NEW Constitutional Settlement comparable in importance with that which was constructed between the Glorious Revolution in 1689 and the Union of Parliaments in 1707.

We are told, chiefly by contemporary politicians, that the British “don’t do constitutions” (though we have written at least 100 for all the former territories of the British Empire).

Certainly we are not going to imitate our Continental neighbours with their lust for new constitutions every 3 or 4 years.  Someone once asked in the London Library in the 1880s for a copy of the French Constitution to be told, “Sorry Sir, we don’t stock periodicals”.

But a revised Constitutional Settlement ever 300 years is hardly a periodical, but should be a practical reflection of the tremendous changes of those 300 years.  Such a settlement would need to be agreed to individually by each of the four countries of the UK and as such be fair to each of them.  [I personally believe this can only be on the basis of four parliaments with broadly similar powers over internal affairs, plus a UK parliament drawn from the members of these four parliaments, i.e. NOT an additional bunch of politicians.  The UK parliament would be responsible for all external affairs and those internal institutions and systems like major trunk roads and railways which are essentially island-wide.]  The United Kingdom would be strengthened thereby.

Away with defeatism; let us as a practical people give ourselves a decent constitution, and go forward together into the future with all its external uncertainties, but with the internal certainty of a truly United Kingdom, having our 1200 year old Monarchy as its symbolic head.

A letter to eurofacts which was published on 11th March 2005.

After its behaviour in the North East referendum, the Electoral Commission’s approval of the Government’s choice of question in the Referendum Bill was hardly unexpected, but the Conservative leadership’s endorsement of the question is extraordinary.

As you say, the question implies the Treaty establishing the Constitution is something remote from the British citizen – like say the treaty which established the International Maritime Organisation – while the reality is totally different.  As big a difference in fact as lies between the two questions, “Do you approve of the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Mrs Parker Bowles?” and “Would you like to marry the Prince of Wales/Mrs Parker Bowles?”

Any referendum question should reflect the reality of the change in the status quo.  In this case the simplest question which does this is: “Do you agree the proposed Constitution for the European Union should apply to the United Kingdom?”  This question, with its focus on the application of the Constitution to the United Kingdom, would also force the Electoral Commission to tackle the issue of informing the people about the main provisions of the Constitution, e.g. Clauses I-6 to I-16.

A speech to a Conservative Party lunch on 20th September 2002, at the County Hotel, Bramhall, Greater Manchester.

To read the text please click on the link to the “Nationism” page of Britain Watch.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 24th June 1999.

Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, made it clear in his Belfast speech last week that the concerns of Irish republicans, dedicated to wrenching the United Kingdom apart, are as valid as those of Unionists, dedicated to upholding it (report, June 15th).  The Unionists are portrayed as the obstacle to setting up devolved government because they decline to do what no other democracy has ever done, namely admit into government a party linked to a terrorist organisation.

As one act of appeasement of the IRA follows another, the Sinn Fein proportion of the nationalist/republican vote rises in step.  In the 1992 general election, which ushered in the “peace process”, the proportion was 28 per cent; in the recent Euro-elections (with a Northern Ireland turnout of almost 60 per cent) the proportion has risen to nearly 40 per cent.

The unambiguous plan for the handing over of arms by the Kosovo Liberation Army announced by Nato contrasts with the endless prevarication over the same issue by Sinn Fein/IRA.  Imposing moral principles on Serbia by virtually risk-free bombing is one thing.  Upholding democratic principles in the face of an opponent such as Sinn Fein/IRA, able and willing to inflict real damage – well, that for Mr Blair is evidently a different matter altogether.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 27th November 1998.

Tom Utley suggests that English Conservatives should forsake the establishment of an English parliament in order to “fight shoulder to shoulder with Donald Dewar” to preserve the Union of England and Scotland (article, Nov. 20th).

There is a persistent belief among the well-to-do English political class that if only we, the long-suffering English people, would appease and subsidise a bit more, the beneficiaries will be deflected from their settled purpose.  As in Europe, Northern Ireland and now Scotland, such appeasement merely whets the appetite for more.

There has been little sentimental attachment to the Union in Scotland for years.  If in due course people in Scotland vote to break the Union with England, it will be because the sentimental attachment to a separate Scots state will have taken precedence over a hard-headed calculation of the disadvantages which separation will bring.  These include the loss of career opportunities – in the Armed Forces, science, corporate business, media – which would follow the Scots’ transfer of citizenship from a major to a minor state.  The cost of the offsetting jobs – all those new embassies for instance – would be borne 100 per cent by the Scottish taxpayer.

While probably a majority of English people today would prefer the Union with Scotland to continue, this could change rapidly once the manifest unfairness of the new constitutional arrangements becomes full visible.  England does not need the Union to support it.  It is a powerful nation of 50 million people, the sixth largest economy in the world, and contains all but two of the strategic industrial and military installations of the United Kingdom.

The re-establishment of the English parliament, while indispensable for democratic fairness to the English people, will also give status to Scotland as a partner in a proper federal United Kingdom.  It should therefore receive the support, not disapproval, of those people such as Mr Utley who support the Union.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 19th March 1998.

Lord Alderdice, leader of the Northern Ireland Alliance Party, manages to discuss devolution and what he calls the “totality of relationships among these islands” (article, March 17th) without once mentioning England.

Likewise, Robert Jackson, the Conservative MP, managed to write a long letter about national identities (March 14th) without once mentioning the English people, although there was plenty about Scots, Welsh and Irish.

Judging by these and many similar writings, a visitor from outer space would never realise that the English not only exist, but constitute by far the great majority of the population of the United Kingdom.

Lord Alderdice, Mr Jackson and others evidently take for granted the English people’s continue acquiesence in their virtual obliteration by the media.

It is also assumed that the English will always subsidise parliaments, assemblies, language support systems and endless arrays of quangos in parts of the British Isles that are forever proclaiming their differences.

With a Socttish parliament only a matter of months away, the time is now long overdue to settle the “West Lothian” question once and for all.  The English people do not want their country broken up into artificial “regions” as part of a devolution fudge to help keep the Labour Party in power.

There is now no stopping point between a unitary state and a proper federal constitution that is remotely democratic.

Only the restoration of a Parliament for England will do.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph, the first three paragraphs of which were published on 3rd January 1995.

One wonders what sort of distribution of industry Mr Hamish Mitchell envisages with his talk of betrayal of Scotland in the last 10 years.  The fact that England has two major steel plants and Scotland none doesn’t mean that Scotland has been “betrayed”.  Steel plants have been closed all over England, and indeed in the whole Western World; likewise naval shipyards.

Scotland has less than 9% of the UK’s population.  When the number of industrial plants of a given type is down to one or two for the whole UK, is Mr Mitchell seriously suggesting that Scotland should always have one of every type?  Every government for years has made strenuous offorts to keep existing industry going in Scotland to encourage new industries to locate there with generous subsidies not available, for example, here in the North West of England.  And the policy has indeed been successful for Scotland which now has a computer industry of a size far greater than its population would warrant unless seen as part of the United Kingdom.

Poll-tax experiment or not, the fact is also that Scotland has long received substantially more public funds per head from UK taxation than has England.  Nobody I know in England resents that, but we do resent ill-founded accusations of betrayal.

England and Scotland have travelled a long way together for nearly 300 years.  It would be the worst sort of tragedy for that union to break up asa result of the sort of ill-informed rancour evidenced by Mr Mitchell’s letter.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 27th October 1994.

Anne Applebaum (article, Oct. 25th) is right to point out that, unlike the Palestinians, the Catholic Irish do have their own state, but she is wrong to say that the fight in Northern Ireland is over a “resource-free tract of land”.

On the contrary, by hard work and dedication over the centuries, the Protestant people have created the network of efficient well tended farms which has so distinguished Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland.  In addition, the Unionist population has made contributions to British technology, and to the British Army out of all proportion to its numbers.

Despite the mayhem and economic sabotage systematically carried out by the IRA, northern Ireland continues to deliver the best secondary school results and to have one of the most skilled and willing industrial workforces in the whole of the United Kingdom, as I have direct reason to know.

For a government to say, as this one does, that it is neutral about whether such citizens go or stay is a shameful disgrace.  Perhaps it cares more about mineral rights.  If the Republic of Ireland finally manages to get its hands on Northern Ireland, it would also obtain rights to around 1,700 square miles of the Continental shelf.

A letter to the Times which was published around 30th August 1984.

As is not unusual in articles on Ulster, Phillip Whitehead (August 28th) talks of the Ulster Unionists’ “fear” of joining the Republic of Ireland.

Individual Unionists will speak for themselves, of course, but in my view Unionists see their Britishness and specifically, loyalty to the Crown, as fundamental to their national consciousness.  Doubtless most present Labour party politicians find this difficult to comprehend, being themselves pretty lukewarm about these concepts, but a large number of Britons on the mainland recognise and respond to the devotion of the Ulster majority to their British heritage in the face of terrorism and the grudging support from the Government at Westminster.

Phillip Whitehead correctly discerns that there are two nationalisms in competition for space in Ireland.  What he does not seem to recognise is that one of the nationalisms is British – ours.

It is about time that the fight against terrorism in Northern Ireland should be seen as our fight, not just some local squabble, with the British Army holding the ring.  The Unionists in Ulster are, by and large, descendants of English and Scottish settlers from the seventeenth century.  Proportionately they occupy much less territory in Ireland than the nationalists.  The legitimacy of their political status is older and greater than that of most states in the New World and not a few in Europe.

Ulster people have made their full contribution to British national life, most notably in the military and technological spheres.  Besides our people there, the land itself, the corresponding continental-shelf mineral rights and airspace are valuable assets for the United Kingdom which should be vigorously, not half-heartedly, defended against acquisition by the Republic of Ireland.

Contrary to much political and media opinion the Republic of Ireland, whatever the views of its individual citizens, is not a particularly friendly state.  Throughout its sixty years’ existence as free state and republic it has taken a generally anti-British stance in foreign affairs and has consistently acted as a haven for wanted terrorists.  In EEC matters it is usually ranged against Britain.

To surrender Northern Ireland to it would be another abject British defeat and seen as such by friends and enemies alike.