Tories offer DUP £1bn bribe for Northern Ireland

Theresa May has caved in to demands from the DUP for yet more English money to subsidise their spending in return for supporting the Tories at Westminster.

Labour politicians up in arms about the £1bn bribe have short memories since it was a Labour government that introduced the Barnett Formula which guarantees extra spending per head of population in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland compared to England and successive Labour governments have used the Barnett Formula to buy Scottish and Welsh votes.

The Barnett Formula currently gives a subsidy of £1,623 per head to Scotland, £1,180 per head to Wales and £2,347 per head to Northern Ireland. This comes to £4.25bn for Northern Ireland with the Tories now promising to add another £1bn on top to secure the DUP's 10 votes.

A Labour government introduced the Barnett Formula in 1979 which was conceived by Labour MP Joel Barnett (who now campaigns against the use of his own formula). Successive Labour governments have abused the Barnett Formula to buy votes in their former Scottish and Welsh strongholds. The Labour government led by Tony Blair introduced devolution for Scotland and Wales, deliberately leaving out England and successive Labour (and Tory) governments have blocked access to the minutes of the Cabinet meetings where that decision was made. Labour courted the DUP in both 2010 and 2015 with the offer of more money for Northern Ireland. Whilst still a Labour MP, Jack Straw said "the English as a race are not worth saving". Former (Scottish) Labour Lord Chancellor for England, Charlie Falconer, said that there would never be an English Parliament. Labour have consistently fought any attempts to give financial or political equality to England.

The Labour Party never has and never will be the party that represents English interests. The same goes for the British nationalist Conservative Party. UKIP is the only mainstream party that is calling for an English Parliament, the abolition of the Barnett Formula and an end to the institutional discrimination against England. We are the only party that represents English interests and the hypocrites in the Labour Party complaining that the Tories are copying their ideas should hang their heads in shame for their past and present actions.

Whatever Scotland decides, it's time for an English Parliament

The Scots will vote in their first ever independence referendum tomorrow and it's statistically neck and neck. Most polls have a 3% margin of error and there's less than a 3% gap in two of the five polls conducted in the last 30 days and a whopping 7% in favour of independence in one.

	Yes	No	Don't Know
Survation	42%	48%	10%
TNS-BRMB	38%	39%	23%
YouGov	45%	50%	6%
ICM	49%	42%	9%
Panelbase	46%	47%	7%

The referendum really could go either way but whatever the result the next piece of business that needs taking care of is how England is governed. This is something that should have been taken care of in 1997 when the Scots and Welsh voted for their devolved governments but that didn't suit the regionalisation agenda so the union has been left seriously unbalanced for more than a decade.

Gordon Brown on Monday demanded guarantees that Scotland would have a say in how England (or "the regions" as he calls England) is run if they vote no tomorrow, that England's wealth would continue to be redistributed to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and that the Barnett Formula which subsidises Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will remain in place forever. David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg all agreed to those demands yesterday.

David Cameron is facing a revolt by his own MPs after agreeing to Gordon Brown's demands and promising more powers for Scotland with nothing for England. Some Tory MPs have promised a "bloodbath" if he tries to get the extra powers through the British parliament and several Tory MPs have said they want to ban MPs elected in Scotland from voting on things only affecting England. This means an English Parliament would have to be created because anything that costs money affects the amount of money available for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get, thus giving their MPs a vote on it.

Social media and the comments sections on newspaper websites and blogs are awash with outrage at the promises being made to Scotland and demands for an English Parliament. UKIP has long had a policy of redressing the balance with an English Parliament of sorts, first with the daft English votes on English laws idea that could never work and lately for a devolved English Parliament. Nigel Farage has said many times that UKIP would create a devolved English Parliament and Paul Nuttall wrote a policy paper on how it would work. It has always been sidelined at the last minute by whichever Big Britisher has been in charge of policy but now is the time to dust off Paul Nuttall's policy on an English Parliament and show the people of England that we really are the peoples' party, listening to what they want and promising to act on it.