City region "devolution" means the end of England

The most important policy in Wednesday's Queen's Speech wasn't the EU Referendum Bill, it was the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill which finally marks the end of the English nation.

The British establishment has defiantly held firm on its policy of denying any recognition of the English nation and is now using the increasing demand for an answer to the West Lothian Question to break England up into artificial regions and wipe the country off the map.

The Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill will see local government in England reorganised around city regions with powers and investment sucked out of rural areas and urban areas outside of the sphere of influence of the city regions. Town hall empire builders will be able to choose to dismantle the local government system in large swathes of the country and replace it with a "metro mayor" who will have executive powers over their city region.

There will be very little decentralisation involved in the city region plan with most of their powers being centralised on the city region from local government but there will be very limited powers handed down from the British government to the city regions. Unlike in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland where local government answers to their national governments, the British government will still control English local government and set an agenda that benefits the interests of Big Britishers rather than those of 50m English people.

With its economic and industrial heart ripped out, there will be very little to keep England together and we will become West Midlanders, North Easterners and Bristol City Regioners. Within a generation, English will be replaced with made-up regional identities as the British government, the BBC and the British education system unite to put the final nail in the English coffin.

City regions will never be able to compete against countries on the international stage, they won't even be able to compete against Scotland, Wales and NI within the UK. They will give the illusion of localism and prosperity but it is just centralisation on a regional scale and prosperity for cities at the expense of the rest of the country.

130 MPs vote for EU referendum amendment

Not happy

About 110 Tory MPs and 20 from other parties have voted in favour of an amendment to the motion welcoming the Queen's Speech to express concern at the lack of an EU referendum in the speech.

The names of the MPs who either don't trust Cameron or understand that promising an EU referendum in the next parliament is worthless because no parliament can bind its successor have yet to be published.

Actions speak louder than words: Cameron says he can't hold an EU referendum

David Cameron responded to Lord Lawson's statement that any attempts to renegotiate our relationship with the EU would be futile by promising "a proper choice" in a referendum.  Now he says that he can't actually back up his promise of a referendum with the legislation he promised in this parliament because the dastardly Lib Dems won't support it and it wasn't in their coalition agreement.

The Tories have been blaming the Lib Dems for all sorts of things over the last couple of years despite the fact that just six of 32 ministers are Lib Dems and there being about 5 times as many Tory MPs as Lib Dems.  There's nothing stopping Cameron offering a referendum on membership of the EU other than him not wanting to.

Despite having no intentions of holding an EU referendum, Cameron has clearly decided that he needs to hedge his bets.  Today's Queen's Speech contained a promise to legalise an EU propaganda scheme.  Actions speak louder than words.