England should declare independence from Wales and Scotland argues Peter Hitchens
England should declare independence from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, journalist and commentator Peter Hitchens has said.
Writing in the Daily Mail, he said that England should get ahead of the independence movements elsewhere in the UK and “leave them instead”.
He said that any party that put English secession from the UK in its General Election manifesto would “win a smashing majority”.
However, he added that it would not constitute independence as Englan had never been dependent on the rest of the UK, and would simply be a restoration of England as a stand-alone nation.
“It would be surprisingly easy, since so much of our government and law is already English, borrowed by others from us,” he said.
“We have a Queen of England. We have the Church of England. Many of our government ministries nowadays only operate in England.
“The Parliament at Westminster is English already, since the days of Simon de Montfort, and has simply given hospitality to others during the long adventure of the Union.
“By becoming wholly English again, it could recover much of its force and its purpose. ”
He added that the days of the British Empire were now over: “Look around Europe and see those nations that are happiest. They are the small compact ones which concentrate on their own business and contentment rather than stomping about the world pretending to be great powers when they long ago ceased to be so.”
Challenged online on what currency England would use, he said that it would continue to use the pound, and “I suspect that without all those subsidies it will be stronger and our credit better than now”.
“If Scotland and Wales want hard borders, they are coming anyway. If not, no need.”
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Great suggestion …..well done 🏴……oh just one thing before you go
…..where will you be getting your water from ?
How would the power the midlands? bye bye #IndyWales
Shhhh, don’t tell them 😉
Don’t remind them about our water or our electricity please. Unless they’re willing to pay for it, let them sort it out by themselves.
Wrong address, this is Cymru, you twerp! Lay off the sauce.
100 per cent ‘ crap ‘ mate. I served on the consumer council for Water 💦 for 8 years and this U.K. Gvt Consumer body regularly was told by the members of the Water industry in England about the major issues on transfer and lack of infrastructure moving the waters of their north down south – they had looked at using canals etc. indeed large areas of the ‘ south ‘ couldn’t even move suppliers around and the house builders were being held back by lack of supply! Check your facts mate – nothing to do with ‘ nats ‘… Read more »
I’m Afraid you don’t give your Dr title credit Hitchins is arguing from y “Fi Fawr” standpoint, ie arrogance.
His attitude is “we are better than you, if you keep arguing for a fair share, we’ll leave the party.” It’s the equivalent of thumbing your nose in a playground spat. PATHETIC at every level.
Import it from Scotland
That would be great. Even better, imagine, if you would, the sight of Andrew RT and Mark Drakeford howling in common grief at the perfidiousness of the English. Do it England, pleeease!
Like him or loathe him, many of his articles promote some interesting discussions and many make s good deal of common sense. I have on my posts frequently recommended that England should seek Independence. One of the benefits would be that the other three members of “The Union” could do their own thing without being dictated to by Westminster. Wales Scotland and whatever course Northern Island decide upon would be free of the CORRUPT activities of the CONSERVATIVES. Think of the savings we three members of the current Union would be. I cannot speak for Scotland and N.Ireland but the… Read more »
Yes I grudgingly agree. The Hitchens brothers are clearly very smart and provoke interesting discussion. Both quite abrasive. Sadly, of the two, my favourite Hitchens brother passed away. Peter is also clever, but just so irritatingly right wing and often intolerant. He is what Ben Shapiro dreams of being. Someone who is far right authoritarian AND smart. But his slavish patriotism muddles his thinking enormously. Never mind though hey? A breakup of the enforced “union” is long overdue. I don’t care who wields the hammer. We must just not let them set the terms because as we know, they cannot… Read more »
Simon de Montfort, the French guy who massacred the Jews in London, the one responsible for parliament being English? An England that has never been dependent on the other nations? Think coal, iron, copper and water. An English ( Germanic) Queen. The Church of England who are Johnny come lately’s when it comes to Christianity on this island. However, the author who promoted disinformation during the pandemic is welcome to keep this rhetoric going and do us all a favour. Although I do look forward to the independence marches.
Copper ore came from Zambia. Not Wales.
Where is Wales’ large scale crop growing area? East Anglia. That’s right.
Try Anglesey, North Wales and S west Scotland and also Cornwall among other places in the u.k. For a time, Swansea produced over half the world’s total output of smelted copper. The city was called Copperopolis. The argument is not about where the most copper came from, but how industrial exploitation in the poorest areas of the UK paid to make London a world leader in trade and commerce with then made an elite clique of mainly aristocratic individuals even wealthier whilst the rest of country remained poor. Large scale crop growing will be inadequate soon and other more scientific… Read more »
Google Mynydd Paris, Si r Fon
Many Welsh separatists have misconceptions about our history, misunderstand the history of our neighbours and tend towards narrowly political rhetoric that pre-supposes and guides their values too. Yet their goal remains. Even if they are corrected, the broader ideal remains. I’m with Mr. Hitchens here – on the goal. He won’t not make a great diplomat or trade envoy when it comes time for our two great nations to mend historic wounds and form an historic relationship that could become the envy of the world; a model for peaceful co-existence and a reaffirmation of the concept of the nation state… Read more »
Please leave out the “beacon of the world” -stuff. Softly softly, and No foreign entanglements. Just look what’s happened to the USA since Eisenhower.
Could England survive on its own is the question Peter Hitchens should ask himself. Where would they get their water from that is piped from Mid & North West Wales to Liverpool, Birmingham and other areas. Not to mention their LNG piped from Pembrokeshire to Gloucestershire through Wales, or their electricity from those hydro-electric plants? That stopping would bring the English Midlands to a standstill. He shouldn’t be too cocky and think England is self-sufficient because it isn’t. I’d just say to him. Nobody’s stopping England from becoming independent but England is Scotland & Wales. I wonder why, eh?
Or the power generated from our promised new Nuclear plants.
Best not to build them in Wales and site them in, say Manchester, Surrey and the Lake District instead.
Same with wind farms
Not without Welsh water
Plenty of water in the Thames they probably wouldn’t know any different lol
Why don’t they use it instead of building dams in Wales?
London is served by multiple local reservoirs, most notably the River Lea and a number of reservoirs to the south of Heathrow and Slough. The former running through the north east of London and is dammed for most of its journey through Greater London and the latter being a half dozen or so reservoirs just north of the Thames as it bends around Egham. There are also a selection of smaller reservoirs dotted on the outskirts of Greater London. Of course the issue at hand more concerns the West Midlands and Merseyside who get most of their water supply from… Read more »
Maybe someone should help you out with a few facts.
LNG is used in Wales to generate electricity. LNG travels to Europe from Pembrokeshire at that is increasingly important now that Germany is giving up Russian gas.
What are you going to do? Pick a geo-energy war with Germany?
80% of Wales’ electricity is fossil fuel generated. Its a small amount in the wider scheme of things in terms of export volume
Your fantasies of turning Birmingham into Mariupol will have to remain in your English obsessed head.
Could England survive on its own
England can crash and burn for all I care. Just so long as it doesn’t drag Wales, NI and Scotland down with it.
What currency would they use?
They can keep the pound. We’ll have the Euro instead.
That’s independence out the window then.
Up to them
The Anglomark
GitCoin?
Actually there is nothing to stop us carrying on using Sterling in an independent Wales if we wanted to. The question is not can we but do we want to. Personally I think we should adopt the Euro or the US Dollar just to annoy them.
Just wait a while, the World is undergoing big change………….
Beware of the Euro! I love the concept, but the European Central Bank is a very very right wing institution and has always pushed right wing policies where Keynesian Socialist ones would have been better for the people of the EU (See Greece)
30 pieces of silver ?
So Cymru borrowed government and law from England ?? Hmmm, I seem to remember – we didn’t have any say in the matter! It was forced upon us, we had our own laws and government until it was taken away from us by by the now apparently aggrieved English. He’s acting as if Cymru had imposed itself on England, how he conveniently forgets history!
His article sounds more like satire than a serious proposal. It is hardly an illuminating comment on the political tensions in the Union. Much does unite us but, as ever, there is much division between the nations of Britain. But I suppose that at least we should want equitable co-operation rather than the sort of implacable internecine strife that led to the tragedy we see in Ukraine, or indeed which still fuels the bitter hatreds of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Agreed. The English are a nice enough bunch. They just vote over and over again for those unsuitable for high office and who don’t care about Cymru other than what they can take from us. I don’t think the voters do it deliberately to spite us. I think they just like excessive authoritarianism. We can definitely be friends. Just not in any way dependent on an undependable lopsided administration.
It’s not often that I find myself largely in agreement with Peter Hitchens. Bring it on!!
Well I read the original article and I thought “good for you.” Not that this is any surprise. Conservative members were polled a few years ago and asked if they thought Scottish secession was a price worth paying for Brexit and the majority thought it was. Not a very “Unionist” party is it? One last point – on his response online. I figured that notion of “subsidising the others” would pop up somewhere. Someone should point out the figures for capital expenditure per head by nation and region. It quickly becomes apparent which part of the UK is being subsidised.… Read more »
You’re right, Arwyn – it isn’t a very ‘Unionist’ Party (despite the word being in the Party’s full name); it’s a hegemonist Party – that is to say, England’s hegemony on the island of Britain. One only needs to read R.R.Davies’ book ‘The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles: 1093–1343’, to understand the origins of this mindset.
Great idea, but they would never do that because then they could not pretend that the whole island of Britain is England
Great idea and Wales should make sure no Welsh water gets to England by building a dam on the river Severn. No Esh water for England keep it in Wales
Unless they pay a fair price for it
As long as he remembers that the Bank of England is bolstered by money from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
That’s up to the English people. In the same way, our right (and Scotland’s) to choose our own direction should be respected.
“Look around Europe and see those nations that are happiest. They are the small compact ones which concentrate on their own business and contentment rather than stomping about the world pretending to be great powers when they long ago ceased to be so.”
Correct. I’m looking forward to Wales being among these small but happy nations.
Lets be honest here, if the union was not in England’s interests, they would have got rid of the Celts years ago. It is as simple as that.
Yes, but Brexit wasn’t in their interests either, and yet they voted for that. If most of the population can be persuaded that the Union isn’t in their interests, let’s support them.
An intriguing idea. Should this ever be implemented it would inevitability lead to further fragmentation. Those like Hitchens who moan that England is subsidising the other nations in the union are being disingenuous. The plain fact is that London props up every other part of the union. It – today – makes the money. This was not always the case. Indeed the so called economically depressed areas of the union – the North of England, the English Midlands, Scotland , Northern Ireland and Wales – were at one time the wealth producing areas of the UK. Wales put more in… Read more »
Absolutely! Brilliant! I rarely agree with Peter Hitchens, but this would be the simplest solution. One referendum funded entirely by the English, instead of three.
Whilst England going independent is to be welcomed, the 40% drop in financecthey would have to deal with would put far more pressure on the poorer parts of England to feed the ravenous beast in the SE. I suspect Yr Hen Ogledd might want to secede from England and join the Celtic Alliance. However much regaining our land there would be welcomed, remember these are the ones who voted strongly for Brexit and are now loyal far right Tories. Would we want to welcome them and the threat of a right wing surge in out new free Alliance of equals?… Read more »
It is the Daiy Fail, the nationalist paper.
Peter Hitchens teasing us with a good time I see
They just need to sort out the trillions in reparations they will need to dish out, ask permission, contend with ridicule…. Clearly they will be unable to cope… Then they can go ahead.
Off you pop then!
Yes please!
I fully support England’s quest for independence. Please just get on with it.
I got as far as “borrowed by others from us” before laughing. “Forced upon others by us” might have been more accurate.
To be honest, I think we’d all benefit if England declared independence. The one thing the region’s missing is its own government, a shortcoming that causes most of its population to believe it rules all of the Untied Kingdom as the last vestige of its empire.
Peter has abandoned the “Britain” he always talked about, in favour of “England”, which is what he really meant all along. Everything he mentions proves that we are a mere vassal state. How much more clarity does Drakeford need? Indy asap!
When you think about it, it does reveal a certain mindset; “England already has this and that institution already” and so on and so forth. BUT, wait a sec, Peter: If England leaves the UK, British institutions, such as the parliament building, Whitehall, etc, will BELONG to Cymru, as the sole country remaining in the UK when Scotland leaves. So may one suggest we turn part of Westminster, the chapel, into Our parliament, and the rest convert into “luxury flats, with Thameside views” to pay for upkeep. The fate of other buildings and institutions owned by our rump British State… Read more »
“borrowed by others from us” should read “imposed by us on others”. Apart from that, quite a reasonable set of comments.
If unionists were smart they would promote a sense of “England needs Scotland and Wales, just as much as Scotland and Wales need England.” But unionists are not smart, there tactic is to treat England and the UK as if they are the same thing and then attack Scotland and Wales’ right to self-government.
England has a right to be an independent country just like Scotland and Wales do. I just hope they don’t regret breaking up the union and try to resurrect it decades later, like Putin is trying to resurrect the USSR.
Give the other nations the boot and spend our money on ourselves
England is the powerhouse of all the nations .
Aww, love him. He thinks because something like the pound or the monarchy has the word English in it, it belongs to England. Scotland can have all the best detectives then, when they have their ‘Yard’ back. This is the reasoning of a child!? I’m not even sure whether he is just denying facts or just incredibly poorly informed. Since when does being wealthy part of a country that doesn’t rely on others mean it secretly remained independent nation? Dear Peter, England merged into a Union in 1707 and ceased to exist as an independent country. Go for it by… Read more »
What a good idea, unusual for a conservative. England can bugger off and leave the Celtic nations to create their own economic state with a goal to return to the EU. England can then be free do continue its merry path to self-destruction.
Full blown English exceptionalism. I’m all for independence, but his take on Englands place in the union is well wide of the mark.
England are more than welcome to do this if they like. But it wouldn’t be a declaration of independence. It would be a total dissolution of the union. All the international treaties that created the United Kingdom are held with England. And it Westminster that has full executive authority over those treaties. Neither Scotland, Wales nor Northern Ireland have any such treaties with each other.
What this article really highlights is the level of ignorance the English have over how the UK came to be, how it’s put together and how it functions.
England’s future is up to the English people. Theirs to decide.
Wales’ future is up to us. Ours to decide!
And, both countries deserve better than the corrupt, elitist system that has been ruling over the ‘union’!
I favour a Czech / Slovak style split. No hate, just an agreed ‘divorce’ that allows both countries to separate yet remain friends while resolving differences amicably.
Perhaps Mr Hitchens should speak with Welsh and Scottish separatists to work out a path towards this.
Fantastic. Then they could go back to where they came from and the Celtic nation could have it’s land back. But, before they go, they need to be searched just in case they are taking what isn’t 100% theirs. In other words they leave with 25%. The rest stays here.