The C.E.P. excluded from “Governing England: Devolution and Identity in England”conference

Dear Followers,

On the 5th July, the British Academy in association with the Carnegie Trust, is holding a one-day conference entitled “Governing England: Devolution and Identity in England”.

The Campaign for an English Parliament has not be included in the line-up of speakers. The e-mail tree below is an insight into how difficult it is for our team to highlight our position. Martin Rogers did not want to have a telephone conversation with me.

The resistance from the British establishment continues and your support is always helpful and encouraging to our team. Please be assured that the Campaign for an English Parliament will not rest to we have achieved our goal. We have every right to have our own parliament and government.

All the Best

Eddie Bone

Campaign Director

Campaign for an English Parliament

 

The e-mail tree.

Dear Martin

 

In response to your e-mail dated 29th June 2017 

 

Your exclusion of the Campaign for an English Parliament, although disappointing, was not a surprise. I had already looked at your profile and realised that both your internships were with Labour MPs. Anne Snelgrove being a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who vigorously promoted the break-up of England by Regionalisation.

Not having the option of an English Parliament properly included in the line-up shows your hand as undemocratic and partisan and leads us to believe that this event is now just another anti- English attempt to promote Regionalisation of England again. You will be essentially talking to yourselves in this event and do not wish to be confused by any facts or any opposing views. Your exclusion of us is damning because it shows that you had no intention to give the option of an English Parliament a fair debate.

We strongly believe that your exclusion of the Campaign for an English Parliament, who are the leading non-party political advocates of an English parliament, has made this event no more than a biased political gathering where the discussion will be predominately against England’s collective interests.

For clarity, I also thought your two comments, in your previous e-mails, were contradictory. To say it is now too late to include us was bizarre because it was you who excluded us in the first place!

You acknowledged that you did the inviting and had overlooked the main area of contention. You must see the irony of having an event about ‘governing England’ which excludes the main organisation advocating an English Parliament from the event.

(Please do not think that giving Frank Field, ‘5 minutes’ on the subject of an English Parliament in any way makes us believe that this event is unbiased)

We believe that your political bias is also demonstrated by overloading the event with speakers advocating Regionalisation of England without counterbalancing it with speakers wanting a collective voice for England.  This risks damaging the reputation and integrity of the British Academy itself.

This is a pity for an organisation that has a distinguished past.

I shall, therefore, give you a final chance to step back from excluding the Campaign for an English Parliament from the line-up of speakers and to allow all the options of ‘governing England’ to be fully debated.

Regards

Eddie Bone

Campaign Director

Campaign for an English Parliament