Friday, September 30, 2005

News from elsewhere

One of the most worrying stories of the week was the expulsion from the Labour conference. Not the story in and of itself you understand, we've come to expect this sort of behaviour from the nanny-staters. It was the bit when I looked at the newspapers and fond myself agreeing 100% with a front page Daily Mail headline. Consider Phlebas has a nice little round up. He also gives us a nice link here to the Virtual Stoa. I always liked Locke myself, although I prefer Mill. However, Nosemonkey wins the best title award for the news summary of the event.

Reclaiming the nation for the liberal majority

Great Britain, not little England

That's what the nation state I belong to is, Great Britain. Yet it's under threat, not from some foreign menace, not from an overseas power, and not even from those who intentionally wish to break up the Union. It's under threat from it's own Government, which is determined to destroy the civil liberties and open minded ideals that made Britain great. It's under threat from small minded 'nationalists', who want to stop the world and get off, abandon our position as a great trading nation and blame Brussels for everything they dislike in the world. It's also under threat from reactionaries who want to set the constitution in aspic and refuse to reform or adapt. Let us remake Britain for the 21st Century.

An increasingly centralised, Westminster run society is losing touch with it's roots, and attempts to reform are either ridiculed or watered down so badly that they become counter productive. England has a democratic deficit, but those campaigning to fix it with a Parliament of its own would destabilise the Union in a much more damaging manner than this Government could ever manage. We support reforms to the constitution of this nation that decentralise and it's elected institutions and give them real power. The Scottish and Welsh devolutions are the first step, but we must ensure that future devolutions have genuine powers and do not threaten the existence of the state.

We reject ID cards, we reject attacks on our freedoms of speech, we defend the rights of an Englishman to live in his own castle. Voltaire was right, freedom of speech is an absolute. The reprehensible views of racists cannot be censored, they must be answered. Reason can, and must win through, to arrest someone for "glorifying" an act is to assualt the basic principles of this nation.

Great Britain was founded in 1707, nearly three hundred years ago. The anniversary approaches. Are we doing anything about it? Let's be proud to be British, and remember that we are also English, Welsh, Scottish or whatever. Let us look to the future and be proud of our heritage, not look to the past and try to bolt the doors.

I'm a Devonshire, Westcountry, English, British European. I can be, and am, proud to be all of these things. Maybe it's because I've actually read a few history books?