Support our Nation today - please donate here
News

Former Welsh Secretary claims EU ‘refused to put England on maps’

16 Aug 2021 2 minute read
John Redwood MP by Richard Townshend (CC BY 3.0)

A former Welsh Secretary has claimed that the EU has “refused to put England on their maps”.

John Redwood, the Tory MP for Wokingham in Berkshire, accused the European Union of breaking up England into “unpopular Euro regions”.

But he added that he was “relieved they allowed Scotland and Wales to escape whole and unscathed”.

He made the claim in a letter to the Archbishop of York in which he said he was “pleased to hear” his view that there needed to be more recognition of England and Englishness to complement the recognition of Scottish and Welsh cultures” in the UK.

Writing in the Telegraph, Archbishop Stephen Cottrell said many people in England feel left behind by “metropolitan elites in London and the South East”, are “patronised as backwardly xenophobic”, and he called for “an expansive vision of what it means to be English”.

In his article, he also called for Wales to sing God Save the Queen before international sports games.

He suggested that when the different nations of the UK play each other in sporting contests that they “belt out our individual anthems” before they “sing our national anthem together”.

‘More recognition’ 

In his letter, John Redwood said: “I was pleased to hear reported your view that there needs to be more recognition of England and Englishness to complement the recognition of Scottish and Welsh cultures and interests within the UK Union.

“I was not however persuaded that you do understand the nature of the English view when you went on to propose the international and EU elite solution to the English problem, more devolution to regions.

“England has rejected EU/Whitehall proposals to create artificial regions with elected governments.

“Many of us resented the way the EU refused to put England on their maps but broke us up into unpopular Euro regions.

“We were relieved they allowed Scotland and Wales to escape whole and unscathed. We are now concerned about the EU’s aggressive approach to Northern Ireland.”


Support our Nation today

For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
6 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Steve Duggan
Steve Duggan
2 years ago

When is Redwood going to realise that unless England does decentralise it will end up splitting up and it will have nothing to do with the EU (we are no longer part of it you clown) but everything to do with Westminster colonial pig headedness.

Cynan
Cynan
2 years ago

Not nice is it Deadwood?
Being marginalised by bigger, richer nations who say they are your friends.
what goes around comes around.
Where can I get one of these exciting maps? Other than in Deadwood’s mind, do they exist anywhere real?

Last edited 2 years ago by Cynan
Cynan
Cynan
2 years ago
Reply to  Cynan

I checked the lying gobbler Driftwood made it up. No such map exists. Just the disunited kingdom is shown in the grey appropriate to non-members.
Unfortunately Cymru and Alba are also shown in grey, so that’s lie No 2 (today) from Wormwood

Last edited 2 years ago by Cynan
Kerry Davies
Kerry Davies
2 years ago

It is such a sad state of affairs when Archbishops and ministers of the crown cannot read. All the answers to their sad insecurities lie in the book “Englishness” by Ailsa Henderson and Richard Wyn Jones.
It is an academic study and thus “dry” but it speaks with some authority on the causes of English nationalism and why they are forced through inadequacy into a form of fascist exceptionalism.

Shan Morgain
2 years ago

There is no ‘Englishness’. There’s London (E, W, S, N, and Central), the SE, Anglia, the North (or NE and NW), the Midlands, the Southwest. These are not ‘artificial’ regions but well marked territories mainly deriving from ancient kingdoms in the 1st millennium, and before Rome. The Saes/ Saxons/ English cobbled it together by conquest. The different types of English language also reflect this, and social attitudes along with it. When I lived as a Londoner in the first half of my life pre-1989 I knew very little about ‘England’; it was a foreign country with a loosely common language.

Y Cymro
Y Cymro
2 years ago

John Redwood should wipe away those crocodile tears regarding the EU not wanting to recognise England on any maps. Total balderdash. This is another tale from the Boris Johnson Book of Bullshipping , and is right out of his EU straight bananas and Manx kippers ice pillows patronising prose. May I remind John Redwood. It was Conservative policy to suppress Wales with the choking stench of oppressive Unionism. Who can forget their attitude regarding Welsh manufacturing, where Corgi Toys. Ingersoll watches and Marx Toys etc… were all labelled as ‘Made in Britain”, not Wales. The same cannot be said of… Read more »

Last edited 2 years ago by Y Cymro

Our Supporters

All information provided to Nation.Cymru will be handled sensitively and within the boundaries of the Data Protection Act 2018.