David Davis has resigned from the commons to force a by-election in which he’ll stand. He will fight the campaign based on his opposition to the 42 days detention without charge and the slow erosion of civil liberties seen under this government.

BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said it was an extraordinary move which was almost without precedent in British politics.

True, it’s an MP taking a stand on principle (cynical, moi?)

Labour MP Denis MacShane said he was sure Mr Davis would win the by-election but added “I think this will be seen as a stunt” which showed the Conservatives were “utterly unfit” for government.

Thus spake a man who is avoiding the argument on the issue.

In his resignation statement, he said he feared 42 days was just the beginning and next “we’ll next see 56 days, 70 days, 90 days.”

But, he added: “In truth, 42 days is just one - perhaps the most salient example - of the insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms.”

He listed the growth of the “database state,” government “snooping” ID cards, the erosion of jury trials and other issues.

“This cannot go on. It must be stopped and for that reason today I feel it is incumbent on me to make a stand,” said Mr Davis.

“At least my electorate and the nation as a whole will have had the opportunity to debate and consider one of the most fundamental issues of our day - the ever intrusive power of the state into our lives, the loss of privacy, the loss of freedom and the steady attrition undermining the rule of law,” he said

Hear, Hear!

Good luck DD - I do hope that it’s a landslide (and can’t be argued that it’s just the core vote of a safe seat).

This could only be more dramatic if it had been Cameron.

Update: The speech is online (it’s a great speech).

Related:

• Iain Dale
• Labour@Home (who seem be arguing on the party lines, not the issue)
• It might be a publicity stunt, hopisen, but it’s one that we need with this nasty government.
• e8voice (Davis has balls and they’re in the air)

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Make Votes Count has re-branded their campaign, and produced an action plan, which I reproduce below:

If you would like to post this to your website, see the previous post for the code.

Via Toque we see that in a Mori poll, 41% of people favoured an English parliament. This sounds like 59% don’t, but not so:

41 per cent said they favoured an English Parliament ‘with similar law-making powers to the Scottish Parliament’ and Only 32 per cent said they were happy with an unchanged House of Commons.

Source: The Observer via Guardian Unlimited

Presumably this means that 27% are either in the ‘don’t know’ or ‘English votes for English MPs’ category.

This undermines Lord Falconers’ previous statements on the issue, on the ‘Today’ programme he said the following:

That that is so is reflected by the fact that there is no demand at all for devolution to England or the English MPs only being able to vote on English issues.

Under first past the post (which our current government seems to favour) that means that the English parliament idea is the winner.

He also argued that an English Parliament would inexorably lead to the break up of the UK (but a Scottish Parliament would not).

It’s about time I wrote another letter….

Dear Lord Falconer

On Friday 10th March this year, you appeared on "The Today Programme". In the interview you discussed many things, not least of which was the anomaly that is the lack of parity between England and Scotland with regard to representation. There was this exchange:

John Humphreys: Yeah, but, but you’re ignoring the anomaly, and it is a clear anomaly isn’t it?
Lord Falconer: It is a clear anomaly, yes,

You gave reasons why there should not be an English Parliament (namely that it would be bad for the Union), but you did not explain why the Scottish Parliament is not bad for the Union. As such I do not feel that you addressed these issues and so am turning to you in the hope that you have had time to deliberate upon your earlier statements.

One point of particular interest was that you said "That that is so is reflected by the fact that there is no demand at all for devolution to England or the English MPs only being able to vote on English issues."

This was interesting, as this was in direct contradiction to that exact demand from Oliver Heald.

I am writing at this stage due to a poll reported today in the Observer (it’s also reported on "Guardian Unlimited"):

The poll says that 41% favour an English parliament with 32% favouring an unchanged house of commons. Presumably the rest are in favour of "English votes for English MPs" or are "don’t know".

If this were a general election, under "first past the post" the English Parliament proposal would be a clear winner. Given this, have you revised your view that there is no demand at all for devolution to England?

We now have a situation where you have admitted that anomalies exist, though you did not indicate how you would solve them. We also have a situation where you have stated that there is "no demand" for a solution and this has been demonstrated to be incorrect.

I would be interested to hear what your next step will be in resolving this anomaly in our constitutional arrangements. If you do not deem that a solution is needed, then I would ask how a Scottish parliament can be justified and yet an English parliament with similar powers cannot – and why one would necessarily lead to the break up of the Union and the other would not.

I look forward to your considered response.

Yours Sincerely,

Today is the National Day for England, St. George’s Day.

Compared to St. David, St. Patrick or St. Andrew, I expect very few English people to notice.

Scots, Irish and Welsh have an obvious sense of identity, whereas the English do not in quite the same way. In the six nations tournament, each country had it’s own anthem, and England got… ‘God Save the Queen’ - the Anthem for the UK as a whole. Similarly, England is the only nation in the UK without any control of it’s own destiny, we have no parliament.

Historically as the most dominant country in the UK we did not define ourselve by reacting against ‘the other’ and so outward displays of national pride can be seen as distasteful by the English. It’s too showy, too ‘in your face’. Visiting the USA can sometimes give that ‘over the top’ feeling!

The English, on the whole, tend to prefer understatement. Indeed, unthinking national pride is a bad thing for lots of reasons, not least of which is that it suspends the critical faculties and doesn’t allow one to consider the view of ‘the other’. The flag itself (like the Union Flag) has been appropriated by racists and bigots - patriotism can so easily slide into nationalism. ‘My country right or wrong’ is potentially very dangerous.

As a result of the flag being appropriated by bigots I have grown up not feeling an affinity for this flag. It’s very weird, but a pretty safe rule of thumb is that if someone is walking toward you carrying a Union or English flag, they’re probably not someone you’re going to want to stay on the same side of the road for. It’s quite a terrible thing. I recognise it. I resent it. Yet the association is still there. The same is sometimes true for the Union Flag.

I googled around a little on the subject, and came to this nice post which was made a year ago.

I just don’t feel any affinity for the symbol of a group that I have very little to do with. To be either proud or ashamed of being English or British seems ridiculous to me; you didn’t have anything to do with the World Cup, or the British Empire, or any of that, how can you feel proud or ashamed of something you didn’t do? My sense of responsibility is limited to how I affect the community as a current part of it, and so I am somewhat ashamed of, say, how asylum seekers are treated, because I could do more to stop it. But that never goes as far as me feeling a personal affinity to any flag.

That pretty much sums it up for me.

To be English is probably best summed up as being fairly confident in who you are, whilst at the same time being a little bit reticent about showing that confidence. The English as a whole do not to have the need to wave a flag to demonstrate identity, and they find that need somewhat distasteful (at the same time, the reasons for this distaste are incredibly hard to articulate!)

As I mentioned, England is the largest country in the Union, whereas historically one could imagine the other countries in the Union threatened by England, and hence with a need to demonstrate their own identity. For many English, the words ‘English’ and ‘British’ are (unfortunately) synonymous. The same is not true of, for example, the Welsh (note to Americans, a Welshman is usually happy to be called British, but never English!) If you take a British person at random, chances are that they will be English.

Though England is dominant in the Union, the other countries in the Union have a disproportionate power. For example, Scottish MPs have been known to tip the balance of a vote on a bill which does not affect Scotland. Similarly, like it or not, more votes in England went to the Tories in 2005 than to Labour, not only do we have a labour English majority in the house, but this is augmented by MPs from the other parts of the Union. These MPs can vote on matters which do not affect their own constituents, but do affect English ones.

So why this post at all? Primarily it’s about the future, in the UK, England has laws made for it by Scottish MPs, elected by Scots, and those laws have no role in Scotland. This can’t be just - and over the long term is likely to divide the Union due to a growing sense of injustice. I don’t want to Union divided, I like the Union - but the solution is not to have a second class of MP as proposed by the Tories (’English votes on English matters’). We need a UK parliament (probably seated at Westminster), which has true jurisdiction over UK-wide law (including Scotland and Wales), we need national parliaments which vote on national issues - for each of the countries that make up the Union. Currently Wales has an ‘Assembly’ with much fewer powers than the Scottish Parliament, and England has no seperate voice. A seperation of bodies would clearly allow English versus UK matters to be clearly defined, if it’s in the UK parliament it’s a UK wide issue. If it’s not, it isn’t. What goes where would be clearly defined. Our piecemeal approach that we have at the moment cannot be sustainable, and that is bad for the Union.

If raising the profile of the symbol that is the English flag can help that end in some small way, if we can reclaim the flag from the bigots, then so much the better.

At the moment the flag still has unfortunate associations as for so long it was appropriated by thugs. I do resent this, and hope that we can claim it back for civic purposes, removing that association.

Even if successfully reclaimed, it’ll probably still remain that flag waving for the sake of it will, for many English, seem, well, ‘tacky’. It will also remain the case that most of the world (and some English) won’t understand this.