AN influential English MP has called for voters south of the Border to reconsider their approach to the Union – saying the break up of Britain “might be good for us all”.
Caroline Lucas, who made history when she was elected as the Green Party’s first MP in 2010, has said there is a need for England to catch up with thinking on Scottish and Welsh independence in a major intervention on the constitutional debate.
Writing exclusively in The National today, she said England has struggled to find its way in the modern world and clung to “delusions of imperial grandeur”, which had resulted in “devastating consequences”.
“Boris Johnson may well have slunk away in a blaze of ugliness but he was just a symptom. The disease is something deeper. And it’s still very much here,” she said.
“Seen one way, the problem is our political institutions. The archaic and undemocratic first-past-the-post voting system, an over-centralised governance system, the unelected Lords (although it has to be acknowledged that they’re currently doing a far better job of holding Government to account than the Commons), the populist abuse of sovereignty, the stuffy and outdated conventions and public school atmosphere - the whole lot of it. It breeds a distrust which Johnson always fed off.”
But she argued that once the baggage of “British greatness” had been shed, it would mean England could get on with being another northern European country.
Lucas has outlined her views for the first time ahead of a major conference taking place on Britain’s constitutional future to be held in Edinburgh later this year.
The event will bring together politicians, writers and campaigners from across the UK and Europe to reaffirm Scotland’s right to self-determination and honour the life and legacy of Tom Nairn, known as the “intellectual godfather of the Scottish independence movement”, who died in January at the age of 90.
Former Green party leader Lucas, who recently announced she will stand down as MP for Brighton Pavilion at the next General Election, said that while his significant influence had been acknowledged in Scotland, his death “barely registered” among England’s leaders.
She wrote: “Which is a shame. Because much of his analysis was about my homeland and its seemingly permanent state of political crisis. Perhaps that’s because few of England’s political elite are willing to accept they are “just” English, let alone contemplate the logic of his argument - that the break-up of Britain might just be good for all of us.”
On the forthcoming conference Lucas added: “This won’t be a waffly history seminar, but a restless engagement with reality, with the ongoing forces driving support for Scottish and Welsh independence and Irish unity.
“And with the need for us English to catch up with some of that thinking.”
