Stephen Moriarty
[This has been promoted from a comment on David Webb’s latest post]
A good article, but there are reasons to be less pessimistic. First, there is a good deal of inter-racial marriage. Second, not all Muslims, for example, are the same and thus they may not form a “bloc”. Third, the most intelligent members of every group are probably appreciative of Western civilisation and have no desire to go “back”. We are suffering from what someone called “away-team-itis”: the hand we hold is not nearly so weak as we fear. Our main effort should be to create a clear argument for English civilisation. We will find allies in all quarters. Here is my suggestion:
London should become an independent city-state.
Northern Ireland should be partitioned further between the Republic and an independent Protestant state.
Scotland should be granted independence. The Welsh should be free to choose the same.
What will remain will be recognisably England. Reinstating the pre-1974 counties in this England would simultaneously restore local and national pride and allow for further dismemberment if required.
In England, government should be returned to the pre-1999 model. All citizens should be schooled in their restored privileges and duties as Englishmen and women: habeas corpus, jury-trial, freedom of expression, religious tolerance (see below), the vote (see below). These rights should be clearly defined in statute and not subject to qualification via human rights laws: “When I hear of men’s laying aside all engagements for some wild notion of what in every man’s conception is just or unjust, I tremble at the consequences.” (Ireton). Nevertheless, there should be legislation against monopoly and over-large estates.
England would not be opposed to membership of international organisations, but it would refuse any treaty that infringed the sovereignty of the English Parliament.
Foreigners would not be allowed to own property or reside permanently in England, but citizenship would be available to those who sincerely wish to be English. Englishness would not be defined by race, rather by a commitment to those rights and duties mentioned above.
There would be suffrage for all over thirty years of age who are not in net receipt of state assistance. “For where is there bound or limit set if men that have but the interest of breathing shall have voices in elections?” (Oliver Cromwell).
A Test Act should be instated, including the rule that only members of the Church of England may hold public office (remember that most of those who will find this impossible have been offered Lancashire or London). Membership of the Church should be on easy terms, however, such that those who found it impossible to join would lay themselves open to an accusation of unreasonableness (not unlike today). All would be welcome at CofE services.
The Church would return to the Book of Common Prayer (which it has not completely abandoned): “And grant, that all they that do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity, and godly love. We beseech thee also to save and defend all Christian Kings, Princes and Governors; and specially thy servant ELIZABETH our Queen; that under her we may be godly and quietly governed: And grant unto her whole Council, and to all that are put in authority under her, that they may truly and indifferently minister justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of thy true religion, and virtue.”
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