In 1998 Mr Blair's government introduced devolution in Scotland and Wales -the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly -but none in England. Only England is governed by the British Government in Westminster precisely as before. Ever since the government has been under pressure to do something about this glaring democratic deficit. That pressure has come from the sheer inescapable logic of the 'West Lothian Question', from campaigners for an English Parliament and from English regionalists. As a consequence the Government is now planning devolution for England in the form of regional assemblies. The policy involves the abolition of county council local government. It merits close scrutiny.

At first sight the following statement might seem sheer fantasy, but it is a fact. England is a country and the English are a nation which politically and constitutionally just do not exist. Politically Scotland and the Scots exist. So do Wales and the Welsh. So does Britain and the British. But England and the English don't. Not politically. Politically the island of Britain now contains three categories of people: those who are only British, namely the people who don't live in Scotland and Wales; those who live in Scotland and so are both Scottish and British; and those who live in Wales and so are both Welsh and British.

For centuries, until 1707, England had politically been one nation governed by its King/Queen and Parliament. Then came the 1707 Act of Union. Both English and the Scottish parliaments were closed down, politically England together with Scotland ceased to exist and Britain as a state came into existence. Wales had lost its political existence centuries before. In 1707 the three nations of the island of Britain became one political nation, the British nation under a British Crown and Parliament; and the English and the Scots joined the Welsh in this state of political and constitutional non-being.

Two hundred and ninety one years later two of them emerged from the vaults of history. In 1998 the 1707 Act was radically amended. Britain as a single nation was terminated. The Scottish Parliament was re-established and the Welsh Assembly founded. Two nations were politically and constitutionally reborn "Scotland is a proud historic nation within the United Kingdom" declared Mr. Blair in his Preface to the Devolution White Paper. The establishment of Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly made the crucial historic declaration, that Scotland and Wales are distinct nations each with their own national identity.

England however was left buried in the vault. It figured only negatively in the 1998 Devolution Settlement, namely as being that part of the island of Britain (though 83% of the population, 50% of the landmass) which was not Scotland and Wales. It continued to be ruled as before -totally by the British Parliament. There was, and there is, no political or constitutional recognition of its existence as a nation whatsoever. In addition there is the West Lothian issue. Scottish MPs can introduce and vote on legislation about every governmental matter concerning England. English MPs are unable to do the same for the 75% of governmental matters which relate to Scotland. It is an enormous constitutional irregularity and injustice.

Culturally the injustice to England was equally significant. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly are engines of national consciousness and culture, both by being the assertion that Scotland and Wales are distinct nations, and through being controllers and providers of culture, arts and sports. Because constitutionally England does not exist, there is governmentally no English dimension to education and culture in England. The British Government has sole control and administration of education, arts and culture in England.

The Scots, catapulted into power at the head of the British government in 1997, seized the initiative with both hands. They acquired for Scotland unique advantages over the rest of the UK. First and foremost Scotland obtained some 75% independence from the rest of the British state. It also has its own negotiating access to EU funds. It has retained the right to participate fully in the government and the economic and cultural control of the whole of the United Kingdom both legislatively and as ministers without reciprocation It has total access to the wealth and employment possibilities of the rest of the UK. Each citizen of Scotland enjoys 27% more expenditure from the UK Exchequer than people in England. Scotland enjoys the best of all possible worlds.

There can be no doubt that in 1998 the Scots pulled off one of the biggest political coups in over a thousand years of English history. The Labour Movement in England had been damaged, almost terminally, by 18 years of Thatcherism. In Scotland however Mrs Thatcher's policies had produced widespread alienation and opposition which benefited Labour and wiped out the Conservative party. No one ever did more to damage the unity of the United Kingdom that that leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party. When by 1997 the Conservatives had finally made themselves unelectable, the reinvented Labour Party was led almost completely by Scots. They seized their moment. They brought Wales in on the act to lend credibility to devolution in Scotland

The British Government was then hoping that if it ignored the West Lothian Question, it might just go away. It hasn't. The absurdity and injustice of Scottish MPs being able to legislate for England on matters where no English voice has any say at all in Scotland is just too grotesque. Also the injustice of the Barnett Formula which provides 27% more expenditure per person in Scotland and Wales than in England is fast becoming untenable. Likewise there is one area of resentment and discontent which bubbles below the surface like a volcano ready to explode at any moment, namely the denial to England of recognition of its own nationhood. England might have a football team, a cricket team, a rugby team. It doesn't even have an assembly, let alone a parliament. Politically England does not exist.

To meet the objection that England has been denied devolution the Government has decided to introduce regional assemblies and break England up into regions. What is driving the government along this road is its hope that it can use them to address the West Lothian Question without establishing the only institutions that can in fact resolve that Question and introduce parity and equality between the three nations of the island of Britain, namely an English Parliament and a Welsh Parliament with the same powers as the Scottish Parliament. The government will pass these assemblies off as devolution in England, when in reality they will be nothing of the sort. Mayor Livingstone has found that out well enough already. Only Scotland has achieved genuine devolution, but these regional assemblies will not have the powers of the Scottish Parliament. In the words of their principal champion John Prescott "People do not expect the equivalent of a Scottish Parliament for the English regions". English regions with powers over education, law, planning, health, transport etc anywhere near those of the Scottish parliament would balkanise England as a nation, setting one region fighting with every other for a share of the national and the European cake. The outcome would be, in the words of the economist Will Hutton, "a witches brew of internecine rivalries". It would be a recipe for utter chaos.

The regional assemblies will nonetheless be imposed. They will be spun and paraded by the government as devolution. In reality they will be nothing more than yet another round of local authority re-organisation. But they will entail the abolition of the historic English counties. They will be a mishmash of counties lumped and stitched together as Whitehall sees fit. The 'region of Yorkshire' will take in all the old Ridings with a bit of Lincolnshire round the Humber thrown in. There'll be one 'Western Region' from the Scilly Isles as far as Wiltshire. Another from the Wash to the Thames Estuary including all of Essex. The South East Region will not include the Greater London Authority which will be its own. Under no circumstances does the government intend to let Ken Livingstone add to his empire. We will have to wait and see how Whitehall re-arranges the Midlands and puts which counties where. How they will cohabit and operate alongside the great English city authorities like Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham and Newcastle, proud and jealous of their histories, their powers, their policies, their commerce and the vision they have of their future, is anyone's guess. Basically England will be carved up like a piece of cheese as party advantage dictates.

The national advantage that is sought is Scotland's. Scottish Labour and Liberal-Democrat MPs at Westminster, both north and south of the border, even at the highest ministerial level, and Labour and
Liberal-Democrat MSPs in Edinburgh, firmly support the break-up of England into regions and its termination as a distinct united country and nation. Mr Gordon Brown, giving his first address as Chancellor of the Exchequer to Labour Party Conference in 1997, proposing economic reasons in support of the pending Devolution legislation, spoke of "the nations of Britain". Till that moment British politicians had spoken only of the 'British nation'. He did not in that speech exclude England as a nation. He did however exclude England as a nation in the next speech he gave on devolution three and a half years later, speaking to the CBI in the Manchester Town Hall in February 2001 well after he had seen the Scottish
Parliament firmly established with powers independent of Westminster This time he used another phrase "the nations and regions of Britain". By "the nations" he meant Scotland and Wales by "the regions" he meant English regions. In his December 10th 2001 letter to this author Jim Wallace MSP, Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and Deputy First Minister of the Scottish Parliament wrote: 'The federal structure, which UK Liberal Democrats aim for, has always been envisaged as one where powers are devolved to the nations of Scotland and Wales and the regions of England'. He could hardly express it more explicitly than that. Charles Kennedy, the Scottish UK Leader of the Liberal Democrats, put it very
straight to his fellow Scots at the Scottish Lib-Dem Conference in Dunfermline on October 16th 1999. "Scotland", he said, "has a parliament. Wales an assembly. Northern Ireland, soon I hope, a working assembly. In England regionalism is growing as never before, calling into question the idea of England itself". It will be a British federal state where England qua England has no part, with Scotland at least equal in population and hence power with any other federal part and the biggest in land mass. The Liberal Democrats, it might be added, totally support the policy for reasons of party advantage as well. It is extremely unlikely they will be ever in power in Westminster but they anticipate that regional assemblies
will become a power base where at the very least they will hold the balance of power as they do in the Scottish Parliament.

But that is the Scottish policy for England. It is possible but, in this writer's opinion, unlikely to come about. England is where the vastly greater amount of British wealth and wealth production, and hence power, reside and the British Government at Westminster will not let it go. It is not likely either that the Scots will continue to dominate Westminster much longer. Consequently the regional assemblies, which it will try to pass off as devolution, will not be devolution at all. Just ask Ken Livingstone. They will be nothing more than the re-arrangement of existing local authority powers to regional bodies. Only the establishment of an English Parliament and a Welsh Parliament with the same powers as those of the Scottish Parliament will be genuine devolution throughout the island of Britain. And that will not impair the Union either. On the contrary, parliamentary devolution across the whole island would be evolution into a fair and equal federal system.

But in the meantime England has completely lost out. For all that the Welsh Assembly hasn't any more powers really than a big county council, it is the Welsh assembly. It stands for all of Wales. Wales hasn't been regionalised, it hasn't been balkanised. The one Welsh Assembly is the assertion that there is one Welsh people, one Welsh nation. The Welsh can only build from it. Whereas The British Government together with the European Government is legislating England out of existence. Together they are creating a 'Europe of the Regions'. In this new Europe the nation of Scotland will be intact. So will be the nation of Wales. France will be too with its French Parliament. Germany will be with its German Parliament in Berlin representing all the Lander of Germany. And Spain with its parliament in Madrid. And Italy with its parliament in Rome. And indeed Britain with its parliament in Westminster. But there will be no England as such. Only English 'regions'.

Strange really. This summer there will be the World Cup and the Commonwealth Games when England will be the only country in the world which fields a team in both, yet has no political or constitutional existence whatsoever. Politically England does not exist and the government intends it to stay that way.