Devolution in normal, everyday, British terms usually means the process of taking apart the central government at Westminster, and giving more regional power to parliaments at Edinburgh, and the National Assemblies at Cardiff and Belfast. Today, however, I will be using the term to mean the opposite of evolution: the process of becoming less intelligent and/or independent.
Now, I would like to make one thing perfectly clear. I'm a liberal. I'm very liberal. However, when it comes to national identity and traditions, one might call me conservative. I believe in the power of the prime minister to appoint bishops and to call a general election. I do not believe in fixed terms for prime ministers or MPs.
I am a supporter of Gordon Brown, and I like his policies, for the most part. For the most part.
He wishes to reduce the power of the prime minister by forcing him or her to a fixed term without the power to call a general election or appoint bishops in the Church of England. Although I believe that a strong legislature is key to success in our ever-changing and increasingly democratic world, I feel that becoming more like the United States government is NOT the way to go.
Two reasons for this:
One - I recently read in the Financial Times that the US is currently on a crash-course for disaster through faulty and expensive policies regarding the military, education, and health. A non-partisan researcher has projected that if the US continues following these disastrous policies, it will cease to exist as we know it within fifty years. It will be forced to declare bankruptcy and will cause the world economy to collapse. For this reason, I feel that the European Union and the United Nations need to stand stronger than ever as rival powers of the United States. The US needs to be made equal to other world powers if the blow it is to imminently deal to the rest of us will be softened at all.
This makes my point that CLEARLY the United States is doing it all wrong. By causing the British government to become more like the United States, we are perhaps setting ourselves up for the same horrific end as they have set up for themselves.
Two - England, Scotland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom have stood as nations longer than the US can ever hope to exist. At one time in history, London was the capitol of the most stable, efficient, and vast empire that has ever existed. The Commonwealth is what remains of that empire; strong ties still exists between London and the countries it once ruled.
The United States, on the other hand, has caused chaos and destruction wherever it has sent its imperialistic hand. Look at Iraq or Viet Nam. On top of that, it is utterly incapable of learning from its mistakes. Its people are disconnected from the rest of the world, causing a sense of self-importance and false national identity and a belief that other world languages are not worth learning. This terrible, self-imposed mindset that the US holds CANNOT be allowed to carry over to Europe, where there is native culture, ethnicity, and nationality. I'm saying that the melting pot is a ridiculous idea proposed to make the disowning of one's genealogical past seem right.
To conclude...
We need to stop Britain from becoming what the United States is.
We need to stop promoting American beliefs of invade-and-conquer (or, as they would say, "spreading democracy to war-torn dictatorships". If I recall correctly, Iraq was much more stable under Saddam Hussein).
We need to make Britain British again.
[Sound right-wing? I bet it does. That's the only place where I fall in line with the right-wingers of the United Kingdom]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
'England, Scotland, ireland and the United Kingdom have stood as nations longer than the US can ever hope to exist.'
The United Kingdom, as well as being an abbreviation of the formal name (The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) is also a descriptive term of the territory of which it is comprised - Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland (since 1922). In 1707 Great Britain was formed when the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England came into effect. You make no mention of Wales, which became part of the realm of England firstly by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 then formally by a statute of the English Parliament in 1536.
I completely understand that Wales is totally and undeniably separate from England in many, many ways, not the least one being language. However, in that post I was really referring to nations that have had power in, well, more recent history. Wales has never had great influence over anything outside its borders, and then, even within it, until recently, had very little authority. I can see now that what I wrote was poorly worded and I'm going to make it a priority to fix it. I won't be including Wales, however, because it doesn't figure into the point I'm trying to make. Notice I didn't say "Northern Ireland" and "the Republic of Ireland", even though the groups occupying the respective regions are very different.
Post a Comment