From the Samizdata last week on the English regional assemblies:
This is not a devolution of power and decision-making, this is a retrenchment of power at the top; a mere administrative reshuffle to create yet another fantastically expensive tier of labyrinthine bureaucracy in what amounts to nothing more than giant job-creation scheme for technocrats, busybodies and form-fillers. Nobody is going to gain more control over their own lives and no community is going to have any more local power bestowed upon it. It is just another greasy pole for the social-working class to climb up.
To the Spectator this week on the English regional assemblies:
In theory, stronger regional government might seem like a good idea, serving to counter the centralising instincts of Whitehall and the parochialism of town halls. But in practice it does not work out like that. All that happens is that we end up having to fork out for another lot of party careerists and pointless bureaucrats, while the Civil Service and municipalities carry on as before. And so, with no real role to perform, the new regional bodies create endless work for themselves to justify their own existences, desperately hyping up every one of their unwanted initiatives and reports.
And from Samizdata on the role of Brussels:
The regional assemblies are being created as civilian Gauleiters in order to ensure that the laws and directives of the EU Commission are administered and enforced at local level and to jockey with each for the chunks of redistributed largesse handed out by the various arms of the Euro-state. Their job is not to represent the will of the people to those in power, it is to ensure that the will of those in power is applied to the people.
To the Spectator on the role of Brussels:
Regionalism is part of an insidious agenda to end the nation state, so Britain can more easily slot into the new United States of Europe. Brussels, hope Euro-enthusiasts, will be able to bypass national governments and instead work directly with the regional assemblies. Indeed, one of the favourite phrases of the European Commission is ‘a Europe of the regions’.
This could be the start of a consensus.
Yes, for a moment there I thought you were going to argue that the Spectator steals itself from us. But after all, the more reasonable an opinion is, the more reasonable it is that separate people should both arrive at it.
Besides which, I doubt that this is the first time they’ve said this kind of thing. So maybe we got it partly from them.
As you say, maybe the start of a new consensus.
As the noble Lords recently noted, Christopher Booker has been going on about this for years. A quick search shows this example quoted from 1997. His argument is even exalted as a euromyth by the Commission here… in a truly glorious example of evasion of the point.
The real trouble with arguments about regional structures and policy is that it is about as uninteresting and abstract to the general public as itis possible for a subject to be, however important it may be as a bureaucratic point d’appui. –Indeed that is probably why it makes such a good choke-hold. Even I, in all my wonkishness, find myself nodding off almost as soon as the world “regional” is uttered.
Does the offer of regional assemblies to three northern constituencies arise out of an EU agenda? No, this decision was forced on ministers by circumstance.
Everone understood the injustice that would be perpetrated on England once the Scottish & Welsh Assemblies were established. Just this week we have seen it at work in the Commons. Since an English Parliament seems to be disliked for one reason or another by just every “MBP” and since Blair won’t forego his Scottish legions on important English votes, it had to be regionalism. Since most of us don’t want it, it had to be restricted to northern bods who might just feel sorry enough for themselves and dislike southerners enough to go for it.
But what political strategist, in his right mind, would sit down one fine day and draw up a programme like this as first preference, with or without prompts from Brussels?
Is it of utility to the EU agenda? Well, if you accept that the intention is to destroy the nation state and export its sovereign and primary executive powers to Brussels, you have to agree the logic of exporting lesser executive functions to servile and dependent assemblies in the regions. The one demands the other.
Does anyone know how the French elite is developing this argument? I think there is even less popular enthusiasm for regionalism than there is here.
It isn’t an argument; it’s a process, Guessedworker. Nobody is either persuading or being persuaded among the voters… It is just happening: through the medium of conferences and comittees, liaisons and boondoggles.
The idea that the English are worse off and seething because they are denied another layer of government available to the Scots and Welsh (to different degrees and with different powers) seems ludicrous to me. The injustice is to the poor old Scots and Welsh, rather.
There may however be pressure on the government to set aside more luscious grazing for English political hacks, who feel hard done-by by comparison with their celtic counterparts. The demand for, and the loyalty to be gained by, giving pompous party worthies important things to do is something every political strategist considers. Add to this the prospect of boosting the payroll vote, and one can see why it might be tempting even without incentives from Brussells.
France has been regionalised for yonks, BTW. There’s a whole tier of regional government, roughly reflecting the traditional provinces, above/parallel to the department structure.
Guy,
Yep, it’s a process. But my understanding from press reports over the last decade or so was that Brussels’ preferred model for regionalism, based on Germany, was opposed by French politicos. How did it end up? What are the French actually doing about it? These seem fair questions if one goes along with the Samizdata/Spectator worldview that it is all an EU plot – which I don’t, altogether.
On regionalism here, it is not cast as another layer of government, Guy. Blair has protected himself from that accusation by combining regional and local tiers. But not many on the right seem to have realised it yet.
Notwithstanding your sympathy for the Scots and Welsh, the argument over their assemblies was dead when John Smith declared “the settled will of the people of Scotland”. Pity them all you like, but that left my lot in an invidious position. Personally, I AM seething about that.
The road accident which is the present proposal for regionalism is the result. It’s so chaotically thought through, though, it doesn’t even address the great Question – which you don’t, either. Is your solution to take away the Scots and Welsh Assemblies?
Just a short point, following the failure of the French government to get a yes vote in Corsica A yes vote would have increased the regiuonalisation agaenda aloing German Lander models, French politico’s in Brussels and Paris are going into a blue funk.
The Corsica vote was seen as a way to persuade the French public of the benefits of regionalisation. they did not buy it.
The worst trouble with this mess is that even if it “works” (eg: the regional parliaments start absorbing the functions of the central bureaucracy, rather than merely layering overtop) then it risks co-opting and polluting real regional sentiment.
I like “the south of england”, I’m even mildly “patriotic” for it, but would I be able to continue being so when people start associating region with ministate just as they currently equate nation and state? Bleh.
Brian,
No we didn’t get it from them and I certainly don’t think they lifted from us. My point was that my highly negative view of this regionalisation thing is not just the product of my customary jaundice. Other people have come to the similar conclusions.