The indispensable Malvern Gazette informs me that Harriett Baldwin has dubbed her Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill"The English Question".
Regular readers of Toque, or indeed anyone who takes more than a passing interest in the identity politics of the United Kingdom, will know that the phrase 'The English Question' tends to encompass a broad sweep of constitutional, political and cultural questions. However, it would appear that the Conservatives have been trying to make The English Question as narrow as possible.:
Of course, calling the problem the West Lothian question makes it sound somewhat obscure to most voters. We had a go at rechristening it the English question, but that never seemed to work, so I shall use the old nomenclature. - Mark Harper
I acknowledge that the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire has highlighted through her Bill is important and that the Government want to tackle the West Lothian question or, as she rechristened it on the ConservativeHome website, “the English question”—we have been trying to do that for some time, but we have never quite managed to make that name stick. - Mark Harper
This rechristening could lead, no doubt, to the eventual claim that Conservative MPs have answered The English Question. Such a claim would be poppycock. British parliamentarians can find a parliamentary solution to the West Lothian Question but they cannot answer the English Question because they have no mandate to do so. Only the people of England can decide how England should be and how it should be governed, and we have not been asked.
But good luck to Baldwin in her attempt to mitigate the asymmetry and unfairness of the multinational UK constitution from within Parliament, because if she is successful it will undoubtedly lead more urgent attempts to answer The England Question outwith Parliament.
My advice to Baldwin and Harper is to try rechristening the West Lothian Question as The British Question. Because on this I am for once entirely in agreement with Jack Straw.
The West Lothian question is not an "English question," a "Welsh question," a "Scottish question" or a "Northern Ireland question"--it is a union question.
Jack Straw (2007), Prospect Magazine
