Stick to the campaign (for an English Parliament)

I'm new to the blogosphere, but I'm not new to the bizarre nature of the UK's devolution/federal arrangements, the case for an English Parliament, the somewhat underwhelming case for English regions, and the knotty question from West Lothian. Certainly the asymmetric federal arrangements currently in place in the UK are not necessarily going to be final arrangements for dividing political power in this country. However, several things annoy me about how these issues are often presented and debated in the blogosphere. First, there seems to me to be insufficient consideration of the long historical sweep of events which have got us to where we are. Instead, masses of energy is devoted to saying: "well, this or that, has been given to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. What about England, then? Why are we being fobbed off with regional assemblies." The cultural and economic lessons of history are not sufficiently fed into the debate. Think: is England really a stateless nation? Then, there is the question of Europe. Typically, the case for independence or substantial autonomy of stateless nations in Europe takes the form of "x in Europe". In other words, the political case is made recognising the constructive role that can be played by European integration. Why do I get suspicious about English nationalism when I see it almost invariably coupled with a high degree of EU-hostility? And finally, they don't stick to the issue. Over at Della and Sarah's blog on behalf of the East Riding of Yorkshire Branch of the Campaign for an English Parliament a rant against the sad prevalence of sectarianism in Scotland is used as a pretext for arguing in favour of regional assemblies in Scotland, and amounts in effect to a thoroughgoing attack upon Scotland in general. I note they have now edited out some comments to the effect that "they don't tell you this in the tourist brochures". Well of course not. They don't tell you about this in England either. The case for a separate regional assembly for the Islands (and by the way the Celtic Western Isles would presumably resist incredibly vigorously being lumped with the Norse Northern Isles) is a completely separate question, and obviously one we need to debate actively over the coming years. The debate about asymmetric federalism is not over in the UK. It's barely beginning, and maybe we have things to learn from elsewhere about the sustainability or not of various types of arrangements.