Introducing Yes England

A new pro-English organisation – Yes England – has added its voice to the call for an English Parliament. Yes England (YE) joins various diverse pressure groups and political parties such as the Campaign for an English Parliament, English Commonwealth and the National Liberal Party, in calling for self-determination for the English nation.

YE was formed in the wake of – and was seemingly inspired by – September’s Scottish Referendum. Here, Scots were asked if they wanted to become an independent nation. Yes England is slightly less ambitious! It just has one aim – the establishment of an English Parliament. Nevertheless this simple demand is likely to add to Westminster’s woes over the constitutional future of the UK.

Despite YE being just over a month old, it boasts an attractive web-site and Facebook page. The latter is particularly interesting in that it relies heavily on striking artwork to get its message across.

So what is YE? And how does it intend to promote the concept of English self-determination?

First of all, and according to its Facebook page, YE is “a grassroots campaign for an English Parliament. We have one aim and that is to achieve an English Parliament that will benefit all the people of England.

Yes England welcomes anyone supportive of an English Parliament and asks for everyone to respect other people’s views.”

With its sole aim of establishing an English Parliament and welcoming anyone who supports this idea, YE seems to have neatly side-stepped the traditional ‘left/right’ political divide. Indeed, it calls it supporters to “fight for an English Parliament and a better country for all based on Equality, Freedom and Justice.”

The method YE seems to have adopted to campaign for an English Parliamnt is to build “a mass movement of the people, one that welcomes all and fights for a single aim.” And the building blocks of this mass movement will national organisations sponsoring Yes England and individuals supporting YE via social media.

The National Liberal Party wishes YE well in its fight for self-determination. We too would like to see an English Parliament for the English people – in the same way that Scotland, Ulster and Wales have institutions to represent their respective peoples.

At the moment the English are subject to a democratic defecit in that they have no truly national representation. How long can Westminster justify the disenfranchisement of millions of English folk?

• Check out the Yes England Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/yesenglandcampaign/timeline

• Check out the Yes England web-site here: http://www.yesengland.info/