by Alexander Thynn – speech given to the Devolve! think-tank (April 2000).
Please note that this text is archival and does not necessarily reflect current WR opinion or policy.
My initial concept of politics was about as right-wing as can be, and might be summarised by the belief that we of the aristocracy were doing quite a good job in organising the grass roots of Britain, but we were under siege with our privileges being confiscated. So the requirement was to fend off the challenge, as a matter of upper-class solidarity. The personal influence of some of my family also happened to be dangerously authoritarian. So at the age of thirteen, I emerged as the Captain of the School at my preparatory school, preaching to those under me a doctrine that verged on Fascism, under the slogan perhaps that the wolf-pack should always follow its leader. But the disillusionment in what I had been taught followed fast, so that after absorbing a more liberal spirit from my subsequent education at Eton and Oxford, I was reduced to a state where I simply didn’t know where my political loyalties might lie. I was even refraining from taking up my right to vote because I was undecided whether my sympathies were with the Tories, or with Labour. I did in fact vote both Labour and Liberal during the years that followed this. But when voting Labour, I was sensitive to the criticism that (almost self-evidently) I could hardly claim to belong to their ranks. So I avoided any militancy, while seeking to discover within my own thoughts where my true identity might be coming down.
My interest in Regionalism first arose while travelling abroad, throughout Western Europe in particular. It was so striking that the identity of any particular country was never as homogenous as I had formerly supposed. The contrast for example between Flanders and Wallonia, within Belgium, or between Saxony and Bavaria in Germany, or between Catalonia and Andalusia in Spain, were what I myself was finding especially interesting during these travels. It got me wondering how England might appear in their eyes, when they were visiting Britain; and in particular it got me wondering if Wessex might still be validly described as the region to which my own identity belonged. There were several years during which I pondered this idea, while formulating the ideas which it might entail if I were to take this concept as central to my political orientation; always perceiving that an electoral system based on this manner of geographical constituency just might be the solution for a truly democratic world order.
The thought in my head was also that I myself wasn’t the right person to preach either social elitism, or social equality. But I just might be the right person to promote this idea of regional equality, and of regional individualism; and it just might be that these particular concepts were going to emerge supreme amongst the formative ideas within our contemporary political arena, where so much else had already failed, and where the world at large was still looking, quite desperately, for the ideology of the future. It would involve a political doctrine that had yet to be stated, with its implications to be fully explored. The Scots and the Welsh were already campaigning in a fiercely nationalistic vein; but none of the English regions had yet proclaimed that they too might require similar measures of autonomy, with the thought in mind that this could be how the ultimate goal could be reached; where the concept of ‘one man, one vote’, could evolve into the concept of ‘one region, one vote’, for the attainment of this truly democratic world order.
When I first stood as a candidate at the General Election of February 1974 on a solitary ticket for Regional Government for Wessex, there was one lady who came up to me during the campaign, and even before my 521 votes had been proclaimed, to say that the ideas were good, but that they were twenty years before their time. That was a prediction, perhaps, that they would be ready for acceptance by the British electorate by the year 1994. So it might be said that I am running five years behind schedule, but I am encouraged that the Liberal Democrats at least, (whose ranks in the House of Lords I joined back in that particular year of 1994,) are now debating whether the time is finally right to demand Regional Government for Wessex – in the same manner that it has already been offered to both Scotland and Wales. It was always to be expected that Scotland and Wales would beckon the way by the attainment of such a degree of autonomy within the United Kingdom. Their sense of having a distinct identity had always been a subject that was deeper rooted in their regional culture and more to the forefront of the public’s attention. But if regionalism is to take off as the political movement of the coming century, which is looking increasingly probable, then it needs more than the residual European nations to front that drive. It requires that the half-suppressed regional cultures, (which became over the last millennium a casualty of nationhood, in the quest for a more centralised proficiency,) should now be encouraged to re-emerge. If we can point the way on how a regionalist system might operate, we’ll be setting the pattern for the European regions to follow suit, until a United Regions of Europe has truly come into existence. And we might advocate at the same time that this could turn out to be the best possible solution for the real trouble spots, like Ireland, or even for Yugoslavia. It could be the start of a devolutionary evolution that will be taking place throughout Europe over the coming century. But it involves a process, which does have to start somewhere; and I am suggesting that the place could be England.
The attraction of regionalism is that it brings government closer to home, without in any way requiring us to move out from the sheltering embrace of the more centralised concept of the protective state. Those who govern us are the more likely to be known to us as people that we can actually see, or meet, than the figureheads who rise to the forefront within our Parliament of today. But regionalism also generates a concern about local problems in a manner which ensures that they do not long get omitted from the political agenda for action; and most important of all, perhaps, is that regionalism furnishes the means by which the democratic ideal can be advanced to its ultimate realisation, in terms of the one-man-one-vote definition being taken that essential step further, to become one-region-one-vote. I am taking the line that in these early days while we are still in the process of endeavouring to launch this novel approach to government, we might confine our attention to the regional heartlands of England. We need to propose modest boundaries for the rebirth of each region, while fully anticipating that they will subsequently be expanded once the advantages of regionalism are more generally appreciated. But it is important that the control of its particular quality of life should have been devolved into the hands of its governing assembly, which in the case of Wessex will probably go by the name of the Witan.
I do not hold that this would entail an additional tier to government, nor even one that requires an additional round of elections. I envisage that the first Witan will be attended (in whichever host-county’s county-hall) by the party-selected County Councillors, who will be assembled for this very purpose. Moreover, the system will probably evolve whereby elections for the Witan replace those which are currently held for the County Councils, with the business of the latter subsequently being fully covered and implemented by the Wessex Witan.
Broadly speaking, the division of power between the national Parliament and the regional assemblies will be along the lines that the latter will control the quality of life within the borders of their region, whilst Parliament will continue to be in charge of everything else, which will include the economy and general defence. Concerning what the regional assemblies will have at their disposal to spend, however, I envisage that a system of taxation will eventually be devised whereby, from out of the revenue collected by the national exchequer, there will be an automatic (per capita and per hectare) rebate to each regional exchequer, to spend however they might think fit. And it is quite possible that small local taxes might be levied in addition to this.
As to the way in which the region of Wessex should be represented within the councils of the United Kingdom as a whole, (or even within Europe for that matter,) I envisage that our General Elections by local constituency will continue to be held in the same manner as they are today. But I would like to see, and I did suggest this in a speech that I made in the House of Lords, that each regional assembly should send a delegation, to sit within the Second Chamber for a specified number of years as Life-Peers: a peerage that would be renewable perhaps, although only up to a specific age limit, which might be given as 75. It could be left to each individual region how their delagation should be composed; but it would be by appointment, rather than by election: or rather by secondary election, in that the assembled councillors who would be appointing them would themselves have been elected into their office; and it would be the responsibility of these Life-Peers not only to watch over the interests of the region, but also to liaise with the regions throughout Europe, to perceive what improvements might arise from doing things their way, instead of ours, and to help generate a spirit of entente between Europeans as a whole.
I am not supposing that Wessex is going to be the only English region to demand its recognition over these coming years. To present a picture of what I envisage the regional map of England might look like at the end of this process, I might name the following regions as having their boundaries defined upon any future map of England: the greatest difficulty being to decide on what will happen to London when the new boundaries are agreed. Please forgive me for the admittedly controversial suggestion that London should be split along the Thames, with most of the home counties thrown in with the region of North Thames, while the entire south-east of England would be included within the region of South Thames.
So the list of emergent English regions will then read Wessex, South Thames, North Thames, Anglia, the Midland of Mercia, Lancastria, Yorkshire, Northumbria: eight of them in all. By the date at which this will have come to pass, I hardly think that it will make good sense to think of there being additional regions around the borders of Wessex, for example. After establishing a Wessex heartland from our present endeavours, we should anticipate that the surrounding counties will decide to identify their territory along with ours, for the benefits that will by then be starting to accrue: although that decision will of course need to be their own.
We should anticipate that there would be a whole series of local referenda to determine on which side of an emergent border any particular portion of a county might belong. While I fully anticipate that Hampshire, Berkshire and Devon will throw in their lot with Wessex, it remains a far more open question on the direction in which West Sussex, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Herefordshire and Cornwall might move. But it is important that we should not be taking a parochial view on where any of our separate identities might lie. If regionalism is to work, we must coherently promote the idea of there being regions of a substantial size, without splintering into districts which are too small for any effective measures of autonomy. And a good example of this predicament is Cornwall, who has long resisted absorption into the political body of Wessex. Being half Cornish myself, through my mother, I have much sympathy with their unique situation. Nor should anyone assume that they have little alternative than to accept this absorption. The problems in going it alone might not after all prove insurmountable. Or they could associate more directly with Wales and Brittany, if the Welsh and the Bretons regarded that as a good idea. But I am more inclined to suppose that they will seek (and it must be of their own volition,) to throw in their lot with Wessex, provided that special provisions are made so that they remain individually in control of certain key areas within their cultural development, and provided too, perhaps, that the region as a whole be named ‘Wessex and Cornwall’, rather than Wessex on its own.
Wherever the ultimate borders of Wessex are to be drawn, we should be ready for the tide of regionalist fervour that will be unleashed as Europe itself begins to move down that road. It will introduce a special climate of cultural individualism, where all regions will be encouraged to display whatever might be special about themselves, while furnishing for others an inspiration to produce things equal, better, or even in contrast. I have great hopes for this coming period of political evolution in Europe. Nor should the vision be brought to a halt at that point. With a United Regions of Europe on display as the model of what can be attained in terms of political order, I anticipate that the United Nations Organisation will discover its own means to follow down that track; because once it is Regions as opposed to Nations, that are assembled in this bid for democratic co-operation, all votes that are cast on the floor of such an assembly will have a far better chance to count as level-pegging. The vote will then reflect the outcome of what should eventually transpire, with each region exercising power on a basis that equates with that of any other region in the world. Only then will international democracy be seen in operation.
Wessex Regionalists 