‘For too long the left in England has been relying on Scots and, to a lesser extent, Welsh politicians to sustain left-of-centre politics in the union.

‘The real mid-term question in UK politics is this: can the English left find some way of reinventing itself, and soon? Otherwise the union will break up, and England will be condemned to a more or less permanent Tory oligarchy, while Scotland and Wales will move forward as states of the soft left.’

However, the outcome foreseen by Reid sends shivers down my spine for two reasons. Firstly, the thought of the union breaking up: not appealing for a federalist who prefers to envisage a re-cast union as a federal partnership of nations of equal standing. Secondly, the idea of a more or less permanent Tory oligarchy: money, social climbing (as opposed to social mobility), oneupmanship, old boys’ clubs and the old school tie. As someone who may have seen the benefit (education-wise at least, social-wise definitely not) from a private education, I came across this line of thought continually as I went through school, and on into adulthood with certain groups of ‘friends’. It is not something I would wish to envisage to be permanently inflicted on those of us who live and work in England.

I used to run a blog called England Left Forward, now sadly defunct. The aim of the blog was to encourage fellow members of the left to engage with issues that affected England, in particular the democratic deficit. I set up England Left Forward initially because I got fed up with the intransigence of the other members of the left over the issue, and the hypocrisy in allowing three out of the four nations within the union to have self-government while denying the same opportunity to the fourth. However, it faltered because fellow members of the left refused to engage, amid accusations of nationalism. But I am a socialist, a democrat and a libertarian. Is not one of the central tenets of socialism ‘equality of opportunity’? Should England not have had the same opportunity as that granted to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

In 1993 Tony Benn, one of the most respected figures on the left, whilst disagreeing with dissolving the union, argued the case for a parliament for England and a federal union in his book with Andrew Hood, Common Sense: A New Constitution for Britain:

‘But England is also entitled to its own cultural and political identity. The cultural identity of the English has been submerged by a history of dominating the United Kingdom and the world, such that the common people of England have been persuaded that in return for status as subjects of a king or queen-emperor, they somehow shared the glory of that empire. In fact England, like Scotland and Wales is the colony hat never secured its own liberation from that monarchical power.’

However, for some reason the idea of England embarrasses the English left; indeed they sneer at it. George Orwell hit the nail on the head when he said English intellectuals are the only ones embarrassed by their own country.

It is time for that ‘embarrassment’ to be put to bed. If Labour want to reconnect with those who live and work in England, they need to start listening again to their hopes and fears. For all their success, the ultimate downfall of New Labour was the fact that it took its core vote for granted whilst seeking new bedfellows. The spectre of the Rochdale exchange between Gordon Brown and Gillian Duffy at the 2010 general election displayed the chasm that had grown between the leadership and their loyal voters. As Jonathan Rutherford writes in the latest issue of Soundings:

‘But in England something more fundamental has been lost, and that is a Labour language and culture which belonged to the society it grew out of, and which enabled its immersion in the life of the people. Labour is at risk of losing large swathes of England, and it has lost the ability to renew its political hegemony within the class which gave it life.’

That hegemony was about community, work, country and a sense of humour.

The establishment of an English Labour party, or just England’s Labour, maybe, as a sister party to Scottish Labour and Welsh Labour/Llafur would be a small but positive step. Or at the very least a manifesto for England at the general election. A commitment to addressing the democratic deficit in England would not go amiss either. But on this one, the party should avoid the route of 2004 with the proposal of English regional assemblies. On the question of the democratic deficit in England, no doubt a thoroughly English compromise may be arrived at: for example a Council of England instead of an English parliament, consisting of the elected mayors of England’s cities and elected leaders of England’s counties and unitary authorities meeting together as a legislature, with its own executive, in its own right (note this is an example, not a proposition). A solution that addresses the local as well as the national.

But it will all take time. First Labour needs to be able to speak the word ‘England’ and start talking about ‘England’, rather than conflating England and Britain, or using ‘our country’. And this will not happen overnight either. The discussion and decision making would be akin to a five-day test match rather than a 90-minute game of football. Once Labour becomes comfortable about talking about England, the rest should hopefully follow suit.

I finish with the end of Harry Reid’s article from May 2011:

‘But who speaks for the lost, the dispossessed, the powerless, the outcast, the weak, the exploited and the marginalised in England? There are millions of people in England who need a genuine party of the left to speak up and stand up for them. Currently, that party does not exist.’

England’s Labour can be that party, if the will is there.