WHITHER THE ORANGE ORDER ? SCOTLAND ? ENGLAND ?

Could north of England really break away from the rest of Britain and become part of 'New Scotland'?

Nicola Sturgeon criticised the Conservatives' plan to replace the Human Rights Act

BY JON STONE – 15 MAY 2015

A petition calling for the North to secede from England and become part of Scotland has got over 28,000 signatures. How practical would this be?


Where would become part of Scotland?


The authors of the original petition have drawn a line south of Sheffield, Liverpool, and Hull.


The new border would run between the River Dee and the mouth of The Humber, with the three UK regions of the North West, the North East, and Yorkshire and the Humber included.


Stoke, Nottingham, and Derby would narrowly miss out on being part of New Scotland.
Why do people want it to happen?


The petitioners feel that the Government of the UK is “becoming increasingly irrelevant to the north of England”.


The only cabinet minister with a seat in the North of England is George Osborne himself, who represents Tatton and Cheshire.


“The needs and challenges of the north cannot be understood by the endless parade of old Etonions lining the frontbenches of the House of Commons. The north of England should join the newly independent Scotland and regain control over its own destiny,” they say.


“We, the people of the north, demand that in the event that Scotland becomes independent the border between England and the New Scotland be.


The petition comes after an election in which Scotland was swept by an SNP positioning itself to the left of the Labour party, a stance apparently appealing to many northern cities. A poll before the election found that millions of people in England and Wales would vote SNP if given the opption.
How could the North join Scotland?


Northern secession to Scotland would face number of significant hurdles. At the very least, there is a precedent that a referendum would have to be held and won.


After a referendum, the results would have to be accepted by both the UK government and the Scottish government.


But even getting to the point at which a referendum was held would be difficult. The north as a whole has no regional assembly or parliament like Scotland in which such a debate could be conducted and separatist politicians elected to.


Realistically, individual local councils would either have to hold referenda, or a vote would have to be organised independently of the state using civil society organisations.


It would be nigh-on impossible to get all the 70+ northern local authorities to agree to the former, while the latter would probably be ignored by central government.


If a referendum was secured it would be a huge turnaround from the one held under the last Labour government where the North East rejected even having a regional assembly.


Border towns could in theory hold local referendums and secede in a piecemeal manner. Other possibilities like unilateral annexation of the North by the Scottish Parliament or armed insurrection are even more remote possibilities.
Has this ever happened anywhere before?


The good news for secessionists is that transfers of territory between states have historically been fairly common. The bad news is that annexations have unfortunately have historically usually involved violence.


The most recent examples tend to involve Russia. South Ossetia, a disputed territory in the caucasus, is being absorbed into Russia after a brief war in 2008. A 1992 referendum held in the region was not recognised as valid by most countries.


The Crimea has also been annexed from Ukraine by Russia, though again under circumstances of conflict. A referendum was held in the territory in 2014, though again, it was not widely recognised.


It could be argued that conversely, many former constituent republics of the USSR were transferred to the European Union after gaining national independence.


Further reading


Sturgeon pumped up for showdown with Cameron as SNP demand 'priority devolution' of powers over welfare, business taxes, employment and minimum wage and welfare


PM open to devolution powers debate


Draft Scotland Bill 'falls short'

Historical Whitewash: Great Britain 

Must be Held Accountable for its Role in the Nakba

By Nu'man Abd al-Wahid

May 16, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "Mondoweiss" - Nothing more exemplifies the historical whitewash of British rule in Palestine between 1917 and 1948 than the response (or lack of) to David Cameron’s speech in the Israeli Kneeset in March 2014. Therein he briefly propounded the much overlooked fact that Britain was the main western supporter of the Zionist colonial experiment in Palestine from the very beginning.

“From the early pioneers,” boasted Cameron, “the men and women of the Palestine Exploration Fund, who saw the Jewish history in this land and the possibilities for the future to the Balfour Declaration – the moment when the State of Israel went from a dream to a plan Britain has played a proud and vital role in helping to secure Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people.”

Cameron clearly defined the Balfour declaration as the moment Israel went from “a dream to a plan.” This plan was then ‘secured’ which strongly seems to be euphuism for implemented. More so, he then, somewhat self-incriminatory, said that British imperialism “played a proud and vital role in helping to secure Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people.”

Not one commentator in the UK, critical or otherwise, latched on to this crucial point. Presumably, it’s far less taxing on one’s moral conscience to emulate American, Arab and even Israeli commentators on the current Palestinian situation than face up to your own government’s historical criminal culpability – a culpability which Cameron drew attention to at the Knesset of all places?

Obviously, Cameron naturally never outlined how Britain ‘secured’ the homeland for the Jewish people.

However, it was in these years, i.e. 1917-1948, that the “only democracy in the Middle East” as Zionist propagandists lovingly refer to their colonial project was secured by Britain by first, denying Palestinians representative democracy which would have inevitably limited colonial immigration to their country. Secondly, when the first Palestinian uprising finally exploded in 1936 it was the British that led the repression against the Palestinian resistance and in doing so, also educated the nascent Zionist-settler forces on how to military crush and oppress the indigenous population.[1]

By the time the state of Israel was declared on 14th May 1948, 400,000 Palestinians and 250 villages and towns had already been ethnically cleansed by the Zionist forces under Britain’s secured watch.[2] Further ethnic cleansing took place after the Zionists declared their state. Ghassan Kanafani, the Palestinian revolutionary, was to argue that the Zionists in the late 1940’s were plucking “the fruits of the defeat of the 1936 revolt which the outbreak of the war had prevented it from doing sooner.”[3]

Progressive British activists, writers and politicians rarely acknowledge, if ever, the central role played by their Empire in laying the foundations and facilitating the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Cameron’s and Great Britain’s national hero, Winston Churchill on the other hand, specifically justified the “proud and vital role” of the Empire at the Peel Commission on Palestine in 1937 on this basis:


“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. I do not admit it. I do not think the Red Indians had any right to say, ‘The American Continent belongs to us and we are not going to have any of these European settlers coming in here’. They had not the right, nor had they the power.”[4]

As Churchill strongly implies the Zionist project with its attendant occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, i.e. the Nakba, had nothing to do with Jewish history as discovered by the so-called ‘Palestine Exploration Fund’ and everything to do with racist colonialism backed by the power of the foreign policy of an Empire that has escaped accountability for its role in this ongoing tragedy.

Nu'man Abd al-Wahid is a UK based freelance Yemeni-English writer specialising in the political relationship between the British state and the Arab World. My focus is on how the United Kingdom has historically maintained its interests in the the Middle East. A collection of articles are posted at www.yamyam-yemeni.net .

Notes

[1] Laleh Khalili, “The Location of Palestine in Global Counterinsurgencies”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 42, Issue 3, pg. 413-433 and Matthew Hughes, The Banality of Brutality: British Armed Forces and the Repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936-1939, English Historical Review, 124 (2009).

[2] Rosemarie M. Esber, “Under the Cover of War”, Aribicus Books and Media, Alexandria (V.A), 2009. This book deals with the ethnic cleansing in final six months

[3] Ghassan Kanafani, ‘The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine’, Tricontinental Society, London, 1980, pg. 30.

[4]Quoted in Angela Clifford, ‘Serfdom Or Ethnic Cleansing? – Churchill’s Evidence to the Peel Commission (1937)’, Athol Books, Belfast and London, 2003, pg.34

© 2015 Mondoweis

ITS A LONDON RIOT !

News Blackout on London Protest

By Craig Murray
May 10, 2015 "Information Clearing House" -  The almost total blackout on broadcast media of the police attack on the popular protest by thousands outside Downing Street – with 30 injured and 17 arrests – is in stark contrast to the wall to wall coverage of the staged fake “riot” in Glasgow in which 6 people were slightly rude to Jim Murphy with no arrests and no injuries.
Thanks to the UK’s appalling electoral system, we now have a seriously right wing government with absolute power from an absolute parliamentary majority, but which 63% of voters voted against, and which was supported by only 23% of those eligible to vote. Many of the 38% who did not vote at all, were not apathetic but actively disgusted by a corrupt political system which offers little meaningful choice in most of the UK.
Legitimacy is a different question to legality. The government is undoubtedly legal under the current rotten system, but its legitimacy is a different question entirely. Legitimacy lies on the popular consent of the governed. With an extreme government supported by only 23% of the population, actively planning to inflict actual harm on many more than 23% of the population, there are legitimate philosophical questions to be asked about the right of the government to rule. With so many, particularly but not exclusively young people, now reading sources like this one and not being enthralled by the mainstream media, today’s protest is but a start.

Time Bomb in Cameron Government. A Future “Little Britain”, separated from Scotland, subservient to America, outside the EU?

The Irreconcilable opposition of SNP to CFI lobby as well as Trident

By Anthony BellchambersMay 10, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "GR" -  A future Little Britain: separated from Scotland, subservient to America, outside the European Union and beholden to the conflicting agendas of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) lobby and the SNP is a frightening prospect.
A government expenditure of £100 billion to replace the Trident nuclear deterrent would be about as protective to Britain as writing a powerful computer virus which if used would permanently damage our own entire communications infrastructure leaving all state security systems disabled. The Trident weapon of mass destruction has no legitimate purpose: its use would be impossible as huge numbers of civilians, including millions of British citizens, would be unavoidable victims.
The plain facts are that: ‘international terrorism, cyber-attacks and natural hazards as greater threats than nuclear war. The cost of replacing Trident would be enough to fully fund A&E services in UK for 40 years, employ 150,000 new nurses, build 1.5 million affordable homes, build 30,000 new primary schools, or cover tuition fees for 4 million students.’
The Trident so-called deterrent is for status reasons only. It should be scrapped and Britain’s defence infrastructure should be rebuilt without nuclear or chemical weapons of mass destruction and without any collaboration from Israeli-owned arms suppliers. Britain’s defence should not be compromised by the use of equipment sourced from outside the EU or NATO. To do so, potentially places us, in Britain, all in danger in the event of any future conflict.
The Conservative government’s current defence policy is dangerously flawed and with an isolated Britain divorced from Scotland and outside the EU – would be an easy target for international terrorism.

How Big Money and Big Brother won the British Elections
By Nafeez Ahmed
 

May 10, 2015 "Information Clearing House" -  The Conservatives have won the 2015 elections with a slim majority. Labour and the Liberal Democrats suffered unexpected crushing defeats, prompting their leaders, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, to resign. And despite winning a significant percentage of votes, UKIP only managed to win one seat, with its leader Nigel Farage also resigning after losing to a Tory MP.

But the Tory victory reveals precisely why British democracy is broken.

The ultimate determinant of which party won the elections was the money behind their political campaigns — the winning and losing parties correlate directly with the quantity of funding received. Yet there is also compelling evidence of another factor — interference from Britain’s security services.

The best democracy money can buy
 

As of the end of last year, the Electoral Commission found that the Tories received the largest amount of donations, at £8,345,687, the bulk of which came from financiers associated with banks, the hedge fund industry, and big business. Two million pounds worth of donations were associated with hedge funds, and a further £4 million with people attending private dinners hosted by senior Tories.

Next up in donations was Labour at £7,163,988, much of which came from trade unions, as well as corporate donors like PricewaterhouseCoopers, a major proponent of corporate tax avoidance; then the Liberal Democrats with £3,038,500, UKIP with £1,505,055, and the Green Party with £248,520.

That was last year. This year, donations continued to come in. In the final week of the campaign, the Tories managed to raise 10 times more donations than Labour — a total of a further £1.36 million — once again largely from hedge fund managers, property tycoons, and a telecoms firm that has avoided paying corporation tax in the UK since 2007.

Political parties appear to have achieved electoral success in direct proportion to the amount of money received to fund their political campaigns, indicating that the most important precondition for victory in Britain’s broken democracy is the party’s subservience to corporate power.
 

Oligarchy
 

The role of party donors in determining election outcomes — by determining the effectiveness and reach of national public relations campaigns — has consistently been overlooked by the main parties, despite some obligatory lipservice that has gone nowhere tangible.

Over the last five years, 41% of all individual and corporate donations to British party political-related causes have come from just 76 extremely wealthy people, including City financiers, corporate moguls, and owners of multi-million pound businesses.

Public relations spin has increasingly played a critical function in permitting corporate power to translate its wealth into political power.

In their study of the subject, A Century of Spin (2007), Prof. David Miller and Dr. William Dinan, sociologists and directors of the public interest investigations body, Spinwatch, show how the corporate co-optation of PR has been used to subordinate liberal democracies to corporate rule, and to limit the scope of populist grassroots movements to influence the political party system.

Under a climate of economic uncertainty and lack of independent sources of news and information, public opinion has become evermore vulnerable to slick partisan campaigns that mobilise wealth to create highly effective media spin by which to manipulate voters.
 

The Tory-UKIP money machine
 

While UKIP has positioned itself as an independent counterweight to the ‘establishment’ parties, standing up for swathes of under-represented working people, the truth is the opposite.

A large bulk of UKIP’s funding boost came from former Tory donors, millionaire bankers, and corporate executives, pushing the fringe party to receive the third largest percentage of the vote.

But not all these former Tory donors are former Tory donors.

‘Former’ Tory donor Robin Birley, for instance, who owns a Mayfair nightclub and who is one of UKIP’s biggest donors, had also bankrolled the campaign of Tory MP Michael Gove, government chief whip.

Another major former Tory donor, Growth Financial Services, switched to UKIP in 2014, giving the party £90,000 before switching back to fund the re-election campaigns of two prominent Tory MPs, Amber Rudd and Mark Field, who sits on the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.

Similarly, hedge fund millionaire Crispin Odey donated to UKIP in 2014, but in late March 2015 provided funds to support the re-election of Tory MP and climate denier Jacob Rees-Mogg.

In other words, a number of major Tory donors plugged into the heart of the Conservative Party establishment were funding both UKIP and Tory political opponents.

Days before the elections, Tory-UKIP funder Robin Birley told pro-Tory newspaperThe Telegraph that UKIP supporters should strategically vote Conservative in seats that UKIP could not win — which was most of them. In seats that Tories were unlikely to win, he urged Tory supporters to vote UKIP.

This Tory-UKIP switch strategy, he said, would “stop Britain being left with a government being formed by a hard left rabble of parties.”

Ironically, Birley’s recommendations for UKIP supporters to vote tactically for the Tories were vehemently opposed by Nigel Farage, the very leader of the party he had funded.

But the idea of a Tory-UKIP strategic voting bloc had also been endorsed just days before Birley’s announcement by the Bow Group, the oldest conservative think-tank in Britain.

Chaired by Ben Harris-Quinney, who has worked on foreign policy issues for the Conservative Party in the UK and EU parliaments, the Bow Group includes on its board of patrons several senior Tory figures, such as Lord Norman Lamont, Lord Michael Heseltine, Lord Michael Howard, and Lord Earl Howe — who as of 2010 was appointed by David Cameron as Department of Health minister.
 

MI5 and The Bow Group
 

The Bow Group’s Conservative Party patrons had all served in senior Cabinet positions, under either Margaret Thatcher or John Major. All four of them made a point of publicly distancing themselves from their chairman’s exhortations to vote UKIP, which were published by The Telegraph.

But also on the board of patrons is renowned philosopher, Prof. Roger Scruton, who has been connected to dubious anti-left intelligence information operations. Unlike his colleagues in the Tory party, Scruton was silent throughout this affair.

In the 1980s, Scruton was a member of the neoconservative Hillgate Group, a network of British academics who coordinated various policy publications to influence government. Their focus was hyping up the threat of Marxist, leftwing or “radical” infiltration of British universities and schools. Scruton admitted to historian David Callaghan, however, that the Group’s policy reports were “quietly encouraged by 10 Downing Street to concoct an outside pressure group to influence policy.”

Scruton’s Hillgate Group was run by Baroness Caroline Cox, another senior Conservative Party figure with a history of political agitation on behalf of British intelligence. In 1977, Cox was part of a study group behind a report on how leftwing “radical minorities” were subverting “capitalist, free market civilisation.” The report was published by the Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC), a “think tank” created jointly by the British and American intelligence services, specifically the CIA, an MI5-MI6 linked intelligence unit in the Cabinet Office, and the Foreign Office.

The Bow Group’s role in promoting the Tory-UKIP voting strategy was therefore not a curious aberration. Rather, it reflected a strategy being explored by senior elements in the Tory establishment and its elite support-base in the corporate oligarchy.

Scruton’s role in the Bow Group further raises questions about the role of Downing Street and Britain’s intelligence services in the use of UKIP to ramp up pro-Tory votes.

Roger Scruton could not be reached for comment.
 

MI5 and UKIP
 

Unbeknown to many, UKIP too had early roots in Britain’s intelligence services.

In 2001, former Conservative Party chairman Norman Tebbit called for an independent inquiry into revelations that UKIP had been infiltrated by MI5. In a televised interview on BBC News, Tebbit said:

“A chap came to me and said UKIP had been infiltrated by the British intelligence services and then he gave me two names of people and from various ways I came to the conclusion that I was absolutely and completely certain that these people — although they had left the service and the Foreign Office some years earlier — in fact had been intelligence agents.”

As Tebbit explained in a Spectator article that even Douglas Murray recently endorsed, he “half-heartedly” made his “own inquiries” after a source inside UKIP raised the concerns with him, “and unexpectedly struck gold… I am perfectly sure that the individuals had been active agents, although both would claim to have retired some years ago.”

Tebbit had not suggested that UKIP’s leadership was aware of the intelligence operation. At the time, Nigel Farage admitted that he could not discount Tebbit’s allegations.

It eventually turned out that the two people identified by Tebbit — Heather Conyngham and Christopher Skeate — had indeed been former MI6 officers, who had worked together at one time in Latin America. They were also both senior figures in the now defunct Referendum Party, Skeate as a candidate in 1997.

Robin Birley, the major Tory-UKIP donor who had urged a Tory-UKIP mutual tactical voting strategy, was at that time operations director of the Referendum Party, a Eurosceptic party similar to UKIP. Both Conyngham and Skeate had transferred their allegiance to UKIP after the death of Referendum Party founder, Sir James Goldsmith (Birley’s stepfather).

Birley and his Referendum Party also had a wider relationship to Latin America, specifically Chile. In 1998, Birley had recruited Referendum’s communications director, Patrick Robertson, to work with his campaign group, ‘Chilean Supporters Abroad,’ in support of notorious dictator Chilean General Pinochet, who had been supported by Margaret Thatcher herself.

The late Pinochet had been installed in a brutal military coup in 1973, which had been planned and backed by the CIA and MI6 since the democratic elections that brought leftwing nationalist President Salvador Allende to power in 1970. Birley’s ‘Chilean Supporters Abroad’ published a pro-Pinochet pamphlet that promulgated a range of MI6 and CIA disinformation about Allende.

Senior Tory pro-Pinochet apologists Norman Lamont and Michael Howard are today senior patrons of the Bow Group.

It later transpired that Tebbit’s original informant was then UKIP press officer Chris Jones, who months earlier had written a formal letter to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Tribunal about his “allegation, based on detailed circumstantional [sic] evidence gathered over 5 months that UKIP has been penetrated and is largely controlled by British Intelligence agents.”

The letter requested that the Tribunal:

“… call upon files on UKIP: myself: Dr R AE North: G Franklyn-Ryan: Nigel Farage MEP: Heather Coyningham a former FCO official; Christopher Skeate also FCO: Tony Stone: Mark Daniel (alias): Janet Girsman and G Lance Watkins.”

The curious overlap of MI5-MI6 officers with the Referendum, UKIP and Tory parties, and the movement of donors between all three parties, raises questions about the manipulation of the popular vote by a nexus of powerful British interests encompassing a network of corporate elites and Whitehall officials
 

MI5 and SNP
 

The Tory-UKIP nexus is not the only instance offering disturbing evidence of the interference of British intelligence in our national elections.

Last month, The Telegraph  — which had also promoted the Tory-UKIP strategy put out by the Bow Group and Robin Birley — published an ‘exclusive’ about a leaked FCO memo, which purportedly recorded Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon telling the French Ambassador she would prefer a Tory government.

But as former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan and longtime Foreign Office (FCO) official, Craig Murray, remarked about the alleged memo, “both sides of the alleged conversation categorically deny it was said. Nicola Sturgeon denies she said it and the French Embassy deny she said it.”

Supposedly, the confidential contents of Sturgeon’s meeting with the French Ambassador had been passed to the Foreign Office and transcribed by a Whitehall official as a matter of FCO protocol.

“The extraordinary thing is, this is just a lie,” said Murray.

“As someone who worked in the FCO for over twenty years and was an Ambassador myself, I can assure you there is absolutely no protocol requirement on the French Ambassador to give the FCO the content of the meetings she, her Consul-General or anybody else from the French Embassy held in Edinburgh. That claim is absolute nonsense.”

Even more bizarrely, it turned out that the Foreign Office itself denied being the source of the alleged ‘leaked memo.’

Drawing on the example of the MI6-forged Zinoviev letter ‘leaked’ to the Daily Mail in 1924, which triggered the fall of the Labour government, Murray concluded: “The fake FCO memo has MI5 written all over it. This is the worst example of British security services influencing an election campaign since the Zinoviev letter.”

“I have been warning the SNP that we are going to be the target of active subversion by the UK and US security services. We are seen as a danger to the British state and thus a legitimate target,” the former Ambassador added.

“That the attempt to destabilise Nicola Sturgeon originates with the UK government and the Telegraph should give everyone pause. It is very obviously a security service effort. How otherwise is an account which the French Embassy says is completely false, contained in an official memo to be leaked? This episode raises very serious questions. But they are not questions about Nicola Sturgeon. They are questions about the subversion of democracy by the security services, and the willing complicity of the corporate media.”

There is thus alarming evidence that not just Big Money, but Big Brother, made a concerted effort to disrupt the SNP and co-opt UKIP, as a mechanism to sideline what Birnley characterised as a “hard left rabble of parties,” cementing a Tory parliamentary majority.

The next five years promises more of what we have already seen over the last five years: austerity, corporate empowerment, privatisation of public services widening inequality, continued obfuscation on climate change, subservience to Big Oil and nuclear lobbies, and a return of the snoopers’ charter — previously blocked by the Lib Dems — that would enshrine excessively intrusive surveillance powers into law.

So we should make no mistake. This is not a victory for British democracy. It is a victory for Britain’s increasingly draconian corporate-security complex.

Lessons of the Tory Victory

By Jonathan Cook 
May 10, 2015 "Information Clearing House" -  There’s much that could be said about the Conservative party’s victory today in Britain’s election. Not least David Cameron has emerged stronger: he now has a small but absolute majority in parliament, compared to his last government, in which he had to share power, a little of it anyway, with his minor coalition partners, the Lib Dems.

According to the rules of the British system, he has won a supposed mandate to carry out all his party’s policies, even though the Tories gained the support of slightly less than 25% of the total electorate, and little more than a third of those who actually voted. That in itself should be enough to discredit the idea that Britain is a democracy in any meaningful sense.
But I want to focus on two issues that this particular election highlighted. Although this refers to the British election, the lessons apply equally to US elections.
The first is a debate that gripped some on the far left after Russell Brand interviewed Labour leader Ed Miliband and subsequently gave Miliband his backing. This was quite a surprise – and disappointment – given that Brand had shaken up British politics over the previous 18 months by arguing that the whole political system was inherently flawed and undemocratic. He had called on people not to vote as a way to show that the system had no popular legitimacy, and invest their energies instead in a different kind of grassroots politics. Britain’s two main parties, Brand and others argued, represented the interests of the big corporations that now dominate Britain and much of the globe.
The labels of Conservative and Labour are the misleading vestiges of a time when there was some sort of class politics in Britain: the Tories representing the unalloyed interests of the capitalist class, and Labour the interests of organised labour. But the  Tories under Margaret Thatcher long ago destroyed the power of the trade unions. Labour became a shell of its former self, its finances and ability to organise workers crumbled as the corporations entrenched their power, assisted by the Tories.
Under a power-hungry Tony Blair, Labour allowed itself to be captured by those same corporations, famously illustrated by his Faustian pact with media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Labour sold what was left of its soul, becoming a Tory-lite party, and winning the support of Murdoch and his media empire as a result.
Brand seemed to understand this, arguing that what we needed was to turn our back on sham elections every five years between two parties representing the interests of the 1%. Instead the people needed to foment a non-violent political revolution, and take back power. How did voting for Miliband, a man who had largely adopted the Blair credo, make sense in the light of Brand’s earlier claims?
Brand justified his change of mind using a familiar argument. He admitted Miliband was far from perfect but was still the preferable choice because he was prepared to listen to the people, unlike Cameron’s Conservatives. He was the “lesser evil” choice.
The problem with his logic – aside from its faith-based component – was that the same argument could have been used about any recent British election. It was an excuse to avoid engaging in real politics.
Supporters of Tony Blair, even after he committed the supreme war crime by invading Iraq, could have argued quite convincingly that the Tories too would have invaded Iraq – plus they would have done worse things at home, inflicting greater damage on the health and education systems. Thus, on the lesser-evil argument, it was legitimate to vote for the war criminal Blair. A man like Blair could destroy another nation, cause suffering on a scale unimaginable to most of us, and yet still claim the moral high ground because the alternative would be even worse.
The faulty logic of the lesser-evil argument is apparent the moment we consider the Blair case. If there is no political cost for committing the ultimate war crime, because the other guys are worse, what real leverage can the electorate ever have on the political system. The “left” vote will always gravitate to the slightly less nasty party of capital. No change is really possible. In fact, over time the political centre of gravity is likely to shift – as has in fact happened – ever more to the right, as the corporations accrete ever greater power.
Further, where does Brand’s logic take us now that Miliband has lost. If we were supposed to have faith that Miliband would have listened had he achieved power, then why not extend that faith to his successor? If we are satisfied by the lesser-evil argument, why not wait till the next election to see if we can get another slightly less nasty candidate into Downing Street? We can defer the choice to demand real change indefinitely.
The second point is that the programme of extreme austerity at the heart of Cameron’s manifesto has been fully discredited by most economists over the past few years. Not only does it penalise the overwhelming majority of the population by redistributing wealth away from the working and middles classes to the financial elite, but it also inflicts great damage on the long term health of the economy. In other words, British voters look like supreme masochists. They voted to seriously harm their own, and their country’s, interests. Are Britons collectively insane?
Of course, not. So how can we explain their insane choice this week? The answer is staring us in the face. In fact, Blair showed us what was required to win a British election. A party hoping to win power needed first to seduce the corporations, and their media divisions. Without most of the media on your side, no party stands a chance of winning because the media subtly controls the narrative of the election: what count as “the issues”, how the leaders and their platforms are presented, what and who is considered credible.
Miliband’s failure was that, unlike Blair, he looked a little half-hearted about his desire to be the 1%’s mouthpiece in parliament and Downing Street. Maybe what seduced Brand about Miliband was the sliver of humanity that was still just visible below the surface of the corporate employee the Labour party had groomed their leader to become.
The revolution that we need in Britain and the US has to start with a disengagement from the mainstream media’s representation of events. We have to discard their narratives. Even more important than an overhauled electoral system, one that fairly reflects the electorate’s preferences, we need a grassroots media that is free of the control of fabulously wealthy proprietors and major corporations, that does not depend on the massive subsidies of corporations (in the form of advertising), and that does not rely, like the BBC, on funding from government. We need independent journalists, and we need to demand a new funding model for the media. And we need to do all this while the mainstream media entirely control the narrative about what a free media is.
It is a huge challenge – and one that reflects the extent of our own ideological confinement. Just like the political parties, we have been captured by the 1%. We cannot imagine a different world, a different economic system, a different media landscape, because our intellectual horizons have been so totally restricted by the media conglomerates that control our newspapers, our TV and radio stations, the films we watch, the video games we play, the music we listen to. We are so imaginatively confined we cannot even see the narrow walls within which our minds are allowed to wander.
As long as the media represent the span of interests of the 1% – from the psychopathic Murdoch empire to the capitalism with a little heart of the Guardian Media Group – our politicians will range from the Blue Tories of the Conservative party to the Red Tories of the Labour party. And we will remain enslaved.

SCOTTISH REFERENDUM RESULT IS FUK Federal UK

As an Irishman, I find the result of the Scottish Referendum difficult to accept but accept it I do,  firstly out of respect for the Scottish people's voice. Secondly from my Irish experience, there has already been too much bloodshed by principled people from all sides. However I do believe, that the Labour party has betrayed the people it purports to represent, but that is a matter for the Scottish people to decide for themselves. I hope working class people stay United, in the face of certain forces, that will try to divide them. In the interest of that unity, I call on my class to 'Keep their Powder dry' and keep their eyes on in the long term vision, as  was so clearly articulated by that man from Edinburgh, James Connolly.

Labour MP'S stood up and cheered in the House of Commoners at the news of James Connolly's execution by being shot in a wheelchair, by a firing squad of the British Army.The British left of the day condemned him for going to Ireland at all, including the Imperialist Social democrat leader Hyndman who believed in Socialism within the British Empire.

#indyref, News, POWER, SCOTLAND, SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE, SNP, SCOTTISH PEOPLE, uk politics, SCOTLAND, Irish, SCOTTISH REFERENDUM, RESULT, FUK, Federal UK,

Federalism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


This article is about the political concept. For theological federalism, see Covenant Theology.


Unitary states
Federations
Part of a series on
Politics


Primary topics[show]

Political systems[show]

Academic disciplines[show]

Public administration[show]

Policy[show]

Organs of government[show]

Related topics[show]

Subseries[show]
Politics portal


v
t
e


Federalism is a political concept in which agroup of members is bound together by covenant (Latin: foedus, covenant) with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of government in which sovereignty isconstitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units (such as states or provinces). Federalism is a system based upondemocratic rules and institutions in which the power to govern is shared between national and provincial/state governments, creating what is often called a federation.



Contents [hide]
1 European vs. American Federalism
2 Examples of federalism
2.1 Australia
2.2 Brazil
2.3 Canada
2.4 Colombia
2.5 India
2.5.1 Asymmetric federalism
2.5.2 Coalition politics
2.6 South Africa
2.7 Federalism in Europe
2.7.1 French Revolution
2.7.2 European Union
2.8 Russian Federation
2.9 United States
2.10 Venezuela
2.11 Federalism with two components
2.11.1 Belgium
2.11.2 Other examples
2.12 Proposed federalism
2.12.1 China
2.12.2 Libya
2.12.3 Philippines
2.12.4 Spain
2.12.5 United Kingdom
3 Federalism as the anarchist and libertarian socialist mode of political organization
4 Christian Church
5 Constitutional structure
5.1 Division of powers
5.2 Organs of government
5.3 Other technical terms
6 Federalism as a political philosophy
7 Federalism as a concept: history
8 See also
9 Notes and references
10 In Literature
11 External links


European vs. American Federalism[edit]
Main articles: Federal Europe and Federalism in the United States

In Europe, "Federalist" is sometimes used to describe those who favor a common federal government, with distributed power at regional, national and supranational levels. Most European federalists want this development to continue within the European Union. European federalism originated in post-war Europe; one of the more important initiatives was Winston Churchill's speech in Zurich in 1946.[1]

In the United States, federalism originally referred to belief in a stronger central government. When the U.S. Constitution was being drafted, the Federalist Party supported a stronger central government, while "Anti-Federalists" wanted a weaker central government. This is very different from the modern usage of "federalism" in Europe and the United States. The distinction stems from the fact that "federalism" is situated in the middle of the political spectrum between a confederacy and a unitary state. The U.S. Constitution was written as a reaction to the Articles of Confederation, under which the United States was a loose confederation with a weak central government. Further, during the American Civil War, members of the Confederate States of America, which seceded in favor of a weaker central government, referred to pro-Union soldiers of the United States government as "Federals."[2] Thus in the United States "federalism" argued for a stronger central government, relative to a confederacy.

In contrast, Europe has a greater history of unitary states than North America, thus European "federalism" argues for a weaker central government, relative to a unitary state. The modern American usage of the word is much closer to the European sense. As the power of the Federal government has increased, some people have perceived a much more unitary state than they believe the Founding Fathers intended. Most people politically advocating "federalism" in the United States argue in favor of limiting the powers of the federal government, especially the judiciary (see Federalist Society, New Federalism).

In Canada, federalism typically implies opposition to sovereigntist movements (most commonly Quebec separatism).

The governments of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, India, and Mexico, among others, are also organized along federalist principles.

Federalism may encompass as few as two or three internal divisions, as is the case inBelgium or Bosnia and Herzegovina. In general, two extremes of federalism can be distinguished: at one extreme, the strong federal state is almost completely unitary, with few powers reserved for local governments; while at the other extreme, the national government may be a federal state in name only, being a confederation in actuality.

In 1999, the Government of Canada established the Forum of Federations as an international network for exchange of best practices among federal and federalizing countries. Headquartered in Ottawa, the Forum of Federations partner governments include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Mexico, Nigeria, andSwitzerland.

Some Christian denominations are organized on federalist principles; in these churches this is known as ecclesiastic or theological federalism.
Examples of federalism[edit]
Australia[edit]
Main articles: Federalism in Australia and Federation of Australia

The States and Territories of Australia, consisting of The Australian Capital Territory (red), New South Wales (pink), Northern Territory (yellow, top), Queensland (blue), South Australia (purple), Tasmania (yellow, bottom), Victoria (green), and Western Australia (orange).

On January 1, 1901 the Australian nation emerged as a federation. The Australian continent was colonized by the United Kingdom in 1788, which subsequently established six self-governing colonies there. In the 1890s the governments of these colonies all heldreferendums on becoming a unified, independent nation. When all the colonies voted in favour of federation, the Federation of Australia commenced, resulting in the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. Whilst the Federation of Australia emerged in 1901, the States of Australia remained colonies of Britain until 1986 when the UK and Australia passed the Australia Acts. The model of Australian federalism adheres closely to the original model of the United States of America, though through a Westminster system.
Brazil[edit]

Brazil is a union of 26 statesand one federal district, which is the site of the federal capital,Brasília.
See also: States of Brazil

In Brazil, the fall of the monarchy in 1889 by a military coup d'état led to the rise of the presidential system, headed byDeodoro da Fonseca. Aided by well-known jurist Ruy Barbosa, Fonseca established federalism in Brazil by decree, but this system of government would be confirmed by every Brazilian constitution since 1891, although some of them would distort some of the federalist principles. The 1937 Constitution, for example, granted the federal government the authority to appoint State Governors (called interventors) at will, thus centralizing power in the hands of President Getúlio Vargas. Brazil also uses the Fonseca system to regulate interstate trade.

The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 introduced a new component to the ideas of federalism, including municipalities as federal entities. Brazilian municipalities are now invested with some of the traditional powers usually granted to states in federalism, and although they are not allowed to have a Constitution, they are structured by an organic law.
Canada[edit]
Main article: Canadian federalism

In Canada, the provincial governments derive all their powers directly from the constitution. In contrast, the territories are subordinate to the federal government and are delegated powers by it.

In Canada, the system of federalism is described by the division of powers between the federal parliament and the country's provincial governments. Under theConstitution Act (previously known as the British North America Act) of 1867, specific powers of legislation are allotted. Section 91 of the constitution gives rise to federal authority for legislation, whereas section 92 gives rise to provincial powers.

For matters not directly dealt with in the constitution, the federal government retains residual powers; however, conflict between the two levels of government, relating to which level has legislative jurisdiction over various matters, has been a longstanding and evolving issue. Areas of contest include legislation with respect to regulation of the economy, taxation, and natural resources.
Colombia[edit]

In 1858 the unitary government of Colombia, then known as the Republic of New Granada, was dissolved and replaced by the Granadine Confederation, a decentralized federal state. While the Colombian Civil War (1860–1862) resulted in the dismantling of the fledgling confederation, the United States of Colombia that replaced it operated on similarly federal theories, though their actual policies generally differed. Today, however, the Republic of Colombia is a unitary constitutional republic.
India[edit]
Main article: Federalism in India

Indian state governments led by various political parties

The Government of India (referred to as the Union Government) was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of a federal union of 29 states and 7 union territories.

The government of India is based on a tiered system, in which the Constitution of India delineates the subjects on which each tier of government has executive powers. The Constitution originally provided for a two-tier system of government, the Union Government (also known as the Central Government), representing the Union of India, and the State governments. Later, a third tier was added in the form of Panchayats and Municipalities. In the current arrangement, The Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution delimits the subjects of each level of governmental jurisdiction, dividing them into three lists:
Union List includes subjects of national importance such as defence of the country, foreign affairs, banking, communications and currency. The Union Government alone can make laws relating to the subjects mentioned in the Union List.
State List contains subjects of State and local importance such as police, trade, commerce, agriculture and irrigation. The State Governments alone can make laws relating to the subjects mentioned in the State List.
Concurrent List includes subjects of common interest to both the Union Government as well as the State Governments, such as education, forest, trade unions, marriage, adoption and succession. Both the Union as well as the State Governments can make laws on the subjects mentioned in this list. If their laws conflict with each other, the law made by the Union Government will prevail.
Asymmetric federalism[edit]

A distinguishing aspect of Indian federalism is that unlike many other forms of federalism, it is asymmetric.[3] Article 370 makes special provisions for the state of Jammu and Kashmiras per its Instrument of Accession. Article 371 makes special provisions for the states ofAndhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland andSikkim as per their accession or state-hood deals. Also one more aspect of Indian federalism is system of President's Rule in which the central government (through its appointed Governor) takes control of state's administration for certain months when no party can form a government in the state or there is violent disturbance in the state.
Coalition politics[edit]

Although the Constitution does not say so, India is now a multilingual federation.[3] India has a multi-party system,with political allegiances frequently based on linguistic, regional and caste identities,[4] necessitating coalition politics, especially at the Union level.

South Africa[edit]

By the definition of most political scientists, South Africa counts as a federal state in practice.
Federalism in Europe[edit]

Several federal systems exist in Europe, such as in Switzerland, Austria, Germany,Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union. Germany and the EU offer the only examples in the world where members of the federal "upper houses" (the Bundesratand the Council) are neither elected nor appointed but comprise delegates of the governments of their constituents.

Modern Germany abandoned federalism only during Nazism (1933–1945) and in East Germany during from 1952 to 1990. Adolf Hitler viewed federalism as an obstacle to his goals. As he wrote in Mein Kampf, "National Socialism must claim the right to impose its principles on the whole German nation, without regard to what were hitherto the confines of federal states."[page needed] Accordingly, the idea of a strong, centralized government has negative associations in German politics, although prior to 1919 or 1933, many social democrats and liberals favored centralization in principle.[citation needed]

In Britain, an Imperial Federation was once seen as (inter alia) a method of solving theHome Rule problem in Ireland; federalism has long been proposed[by whom?] as a solution to the "Irish Problem", and more lately, to the "West Lothian question".[5]
French Revolution[edit]

During the French Revolution, especially in 1793, "federalism" had an entirely different meaning. It was a political movement to weaken the central government in Paris by devolving power to the provinces.[6][7]
European Union[edit]

Following the end of World War II, several movements began advocating a European federation, such as the Union of European Federalists or the European Movement, founded in 1948. Those organizations exercised influence in the European unification process, but never in a decisive way.[citation needed] In 2011 also a European political party calling for the creation of a federal Europe was established, the European Federalist Party.

Although the drafts of both the Maastricht treaty and the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe mentioned federalism, the representatives of the member countries (all of whom would have to agree to the term) never adopted it. The strongest advocates of European federalism have been Germany, Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg while those historically most strongly opposed have been the United Kingdom and France; while other countries that have never campaigned specifically for a particular means of governance in Europe are considered as federalists.[citation needed] Some[who?] would consider this the case with states such as Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Hungary. In recent times[when?] the French government has become increasingly pro-European Union, while countries like the Czech Republic have taken on the roles of primary opponents to a stronger EU.[citation needed]


Those uncomfortable using the “F” word in the EU context should feel free to refer to it as a quasi-federal or federal-like system. Nevertheless, for the purposes of the analysis here, the EU has the necessary attributes of a federal system. It is striking that while many scholars of the EU continue to resist analyzing it as a federation, most contemporary students of federalism view the EU as a federal system (See for instance, Bednar, Filippov et al., McKay, Kelemen, Defigueido and Weingast). (R. Daniel Kelemen)[8]
Russian Federation[edit]
Main article: Russian federalism

The post-Imperial nature of Russian subdivision of government changed towards a generally autonomous model which began with the establishment of the USSR (of which Russia was governed as part). It was liberalized in the aftermath of the Soviet Union, with the reforms under Boris Yeltsin preserving much of the Soviet structure while applying increasingly liberal reforms to the governance of the constituent republics and subjects (while also coming into conflict with Chechen secessionist rebels during the Chechen War). Some of the reforms under Yeltsin were scaled back by Vladimir Putin.

All of Russia's subdivisional entities are known as subjects, with some smaller entities, such as the republics enjoying more autonomy than other subjects on account of having an extant presence of a culturally non-Russian ethnic minority or, in some cases, majority.
United States[edit]
Main article: Federalism in the United States

Federalism in the United States is the evolving relationship between state governments and the federal government of the United States. American government has evolved from a system of dual federalism to one of associative federalism. In "Federalist No. 46," James Madison asserted that the states and national government "are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers." Alexander Hamilton, writing in "Federalist No. 28," suggested that both levels of government would exercise authority to the citizens' benefit: "If their [the peoples'] rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress." (1)

The United States is composed of fifty self-governing states and several territories.

Because the states were preexisting political entities, the U.S. Constitution did not need to define or explain federalism in any one section but it often mentions the rights and responsibilities of state governments and state officials in relation to the federal government. The federal government has certain express powers (also called enumerated powers) which are powers spelled out in the Constitution, including the right to levy taxes, declare war, and regulate interstate and foreign commerce. In addition, the Necessary and Proper Clausegives the federal government the implied power to pass any law "necessary and proper" for the execution of its express powers. Other powers—the reserved powers—are reserved to the people or the states.[9] The power delegated to the federal government was significantly expanded by the Supreme Court decision in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), amendments to the Constitution following the Civil War, and by some later amendments—as well as the overall claim of the Civil War, that the states were legally subject to the final dictates of the federal government.

The Federalist party of the United States were opposed by the Democratic-Republicans, including powerful figures such as Thomas Jefferson. The Democratic-Republicans mainly believed that: the Legislature had too much power (mainly because of the Necessary and Proper Clause) and that they were unchecked; the Executive had too much power, and that there was no check on the executive; a dictator would arise; and that a bill of rights should be coupled with the constitution to prevent a dictator (then believed to eventually be the president) from exploiting and/or tyrannizing citizens. The federalists, on the other hand, argued that it was impossible to list all the rights, and those that were not listed could be easily overlooked because they were not in the official bill of rights. Rather, rights in specific cases were to be decided by the judicial system of courts.

After the American Civil War, the federal government increased greatly in influence on everyday life and in size relative to the state governments. Reasons included the need to regulate businesses and industries that span state borders, attempts to secure civil rights, and the provision of social services. The federal government acquired no substantial new powers until the acceptance by the Supreme Court of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

From 1938 until 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court did not invalidate any federal statute as exceeding Congress' power under the Commerce Clause. Most actions by the federal government can find some legal support among the express powers, such as theCommerce Clause, whose applicability has been narrowed by the Supreme Court in recent years. In 1995 the Supreme Court rejected the Gun-Free School Zones Act in the Lopez decision, and also rejected the civil remedy portion of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 in the United States v. Morrison decision. Recently, the Commerce Clause was interpreted to include marijuana laws in the Gonzales v. Raich decision.

Dual federalism holds that the federal government and the state governments are co-equals, each sovereign.

However, since the Civil War Era, the national courts often interpret the federal government as the final judge of its own powers under dual federalism. The establishment of Native American governments (which are separate and distinct from state and federal government) exercising limited powers of sovereignty, has given rise to the concept of "bi-federalism."
Venezuela[edit]

The Federal War ended in 1863 with the signing of the Treaty of Coche by both the centralist government of the time and the Federal Forces. The United States of Venezuelawere subsequently incorporated under a "Federation of Sovereign States" upon principles borrowed from the Articles of Confederation of the United States of America. In this Federation, each State had a "President" of its own that controlled almost every issue, even the creation of "State Armies," while the Federal Army was required to obtain presidential permission to enter any given state.

However, more than 140 years later, the original system has gradually evolved into a quasi-centralist form of government. While the 1999 Constitution still defines Venezuela as a Federal Republic, it abolished the Senate, transferred competences of the States to the Federal Government and granted the President of the Republic vast powers to intervene in the States and Municipalities.
Federalism with two components[edit]
Belgium[edit]

This section contains information of unclear or questionable importance or relevance to the article's subject matter. Please help improve this article by clarifying or removing superfluous information. (September 2009)
Main articles: Belgian federal government, Belgian federal parliament andCommunities, regions and language areas of Belgium

Federalism in the Kingdom of Belgium is an evolving system. Belgian federalism reflects both the linguistic communities (French and Dutch, and to a lesser extent German) and the economic regions (Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia). These correspond to the language areas in Belgium. Although officially there are three language areas, for all practical purposes only two languages are relevant on the federal level, Dutch and French:
Brussels is officially a bilingual area, but it has a French-speaking majority.[10]
Flanders is the region associated with the Belgium's Dutch-speaking majority, i.e. theFlemish Community.
Due to its relatively small size (approximately one percent) the German-speaking Community of Belgium does not have much influence on national politics.
Wallonia is a French-speaking area, except for the East Cantons. French is the second most spoken first language in Belgium, following Dutch. Within the French-speaking Community of Belgium, there is a geographical and political distinction between Wallonia and Brussels for historical and sociological reasons.[11]

On one hand, this means that the Belgian political landscape, generally speaking, consists of only two components: the Dutch-speaking population represented by Dutch-languagepolitical parties, and the majority populations of Wallonia and Brussels, represented by their French-speaking parties. The Brussels region emerges as a third component.[12] This specific dual form of federalism, with the special position of Brussels, consequently has a number of political issues—even minor ones—that are being fought out over the Dutch/French-language political division. With such issues, a final decision is possible only in the form of a compromise. This tendency gives this dual federalism model a number of traits that generally are ascribed to confederalism, and makes the future of Belgian federalism contentious.[13][14]

On the other hand, Belgian federalism is federated with three components. An affirmative resolution concerning Brussels' place in the federal system passed in the parliaments ofWallonia and Brussels.[15][16] These resolutions passed against the desires of Dutch-speaking parties, who are generally in favour of a federal system with two components (i.e. the Dutch and French Communities of Belgium). However, the Flemish representatives in the Parliament of the Brussels Capital-Region voted in favour of the Brussels resolution, with the exception of one party. The chairman of the Walloon Parliament stated on July 17, 2008 that, "Brussels would take an attitude".[17] Brussels' parliament passed the resolution on July 18, 2008:The Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region approves with great majority a resolution claiming the presence of Brussels itself at the negotiations of the reformation of the Belgian State.[16] July 18, 2008

This aspect of Belgian federalism helps to explain the difficulties of partition; Brussels, with its importance, is linked to both Wallonia and Flanders and vice-versa. This situation, however, does not erase the traits of a confederation in the Belgian system.
Other examples[edit]

Official flag of Iraqi Kurdistan Ratio: 2:3

Current examples of two-sided federalism:
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a federation of two entities:Republika Srpska and Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Historical examples of two-sided federalism include:
Czechoslovakia, until the Czech Republic and Slovakiaseparated in 1993.
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, from 1992 to 2003 when it became a confederation titled the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. This confederation expired 2006 as Montenegro declared its independence.
The 1960 Constitution of Cyprus was based on the same ideas, but the union of Greeksand Turks failed.
United Republic of Tanzania (formerly United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar), which was the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
Iraq adapted a federal system in 15 October 2005, and formally recognized theKurdistan Region as the county's first and currently only federal region. SeeConstitution of Iraq for more information regarding Iraq's method of creating federal entities.
The Federal Republic of Cameroun operated between 1961 and 1972
Proposed federalism[edit]

It has been proposed in several unitary states to establish a federal system, for various reasons.
China[edit]
Main article: Federalism in China

China is the largest unitary state in the world by both population and land area. Although China has had long periods of central rule for centuries, it is often argued that the unitary structure of the Chinese government is far too unwieldy to effectively and equitably manage the country's affairs. On the other hand, Chinese nationalists are suspicious of decentralization as a form of secessionism and a backdoor for national disunity; still others argue that the degree of autonomy given to provincial-level officials in the People's Republic of China amounts to a de facto federalism.
Libya[edit]

Shortly after the 2011 Libyan civil war, some in the eastern region of the country (Cyrenaica) began to call for the new regime to be federal, with the traditional three regions of Libya (Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan) being the constituent units. A group calling itself the Cyrenaican Transitional Council issued a declaration of autonomy on 6 March 2012; this move was rejected by the National Transitional Council in Tripoli.[18][19][20][21]
Philippines[edit]

The Philippines is a unitary state with some powers devolved to Local Government Units(LGUs) under the terms of the Local Government Code. There is also one autonomous region, the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. Over the years various modificationshave been proposed to the Constitution of the Philippines, including possible transition to a federal system as part of a shift to a parliamentary system. In 2004, Philippine PresidentGloria Macapagal Arroyo established the Consultative Commission which suggested such a Charter Change but no action was taken by the Philippine Congress to amend the 1987 Constitution.
Spain[edit]

Spain is a unitary state with a relatively 'high' level of decentralisation (i.e., a regional state). Federalism is accepted by parties, such as Podemos, United Left and, more recently, Spanish Socialist Workers' Party . The Spanish Socialist party -traditionally a guaranty of centralism in recent Spanish democratic era, as confirmed in the years of centralism developed during Felipe González's government- has recently considered the idea of building a Federal Spain, in part, due to the increase of the Spanish peripheral nationalisms and the Catalan proposal of self-determination referenda for creating aCatalan State in Catalonia, either independent or within Spain.[22][23][24]
United Kingdom[edit]

Since the 1997 referendums on in Scotland and Wales, and after the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, three of the four countries of the UK have some level of autonomy outside of Westminster's rule. To counter the increasing popularity of Scottish nationalism and Welsh nationalism, both of which threaten the unity of the United Kingdom (see Unionism in the United Kingdom) there have been some calls for the UK to adopt a federal system, with each of the four home nations having its own, equal devolved legislatures and law-making powers. This is supported by various Liberal Democrats and the Green Party of England and Wales, and would provide a solution to the West Lothian Question.
Federalism as the anarchist and libertarian socialist mode of political organization[edit]
Main article: Decentralization § Libertarian_socialist_decentralization

Anarchists are against the State but are not against political organization or "governance"—so long as it is self-governance utilizing direct democracy. The mode of political organization preferred by anarchists, in general, is federalism orconfederalism.[citation needed] However, the anarchist definition of federalism tends to differ from the definition of federalism assumed by pro-state political scientists. The following is a brief description of federalism from section I.5 of An Anarchist FAQ:"The social and political structure of anarchy is similar to that of the economic structure, i.e., it is based on a voluntary federation of decentralised, directly democratic policy-making bodies. These are the neighbourhood and community assemblies and their confederations. In these grassroots political units, the concept of "self-management" becomes that of "self-government", a form of municipal organisation in which people take back control of their living places from the bureaucratic state and the capitalist class whose interests it serves.[...]The key to that change, from the anarchist standpoint, is the creation of a network of participatory communities based on self-government through direct, face-to-face democracy in grassroots neighbourhood and community assemblies [meetings for discussion, debate, and decision making].[...]Since not all issues are local, the neighbourhood and community assemblies will also elect mandated and recallable delegates to the larger-scale units of self-government in order to address issues affecting larger areas, such as urban districts, the city or town as a whole, the county, the bio-region, and ultimately the entire planet. Thus the assemblies will confederate at several levels in order to develop and co-ordinate common policies to deal with common problems.[...]This need for co-operation does not imply a centralised body. To exercise your autonomy by joining self-managing organisations and, therefore, agreeing to abide by the decisions you help make is not a denial of that autonomy (unlike joining a hierarchical structure, where you forsake autonomy within the organisation). In a centralised system, we must stress, power rests at the top and the role of those below is simply to obey (it matters not if those with the power are elected or not, the principle is the same). In a federal system, power is not delegated into the hands of a few (obviously a "federal" government or state is a centralised system). Decisions in a federal system are made at the base of the organisation and flow upwards so ensuring that power remains decentralised in the hands of all. Working together to solve common problems and organise common efforts to reach common goals is not centralisation and those who confuse the two make a serious error -- they fail to understand the different relations of authority each generates and confuse obedience with co-operation."[25]
Christian Church[edit]
See also: Subsidiarity

Federalism also finds expression in ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church). For example,presbyterian church governance resembles parliamentary republicanism (a form of political federalism) to a large extent. In Presbyterian denominations, the local church is ruled by elected elders, some of which are ministerial. Each church then sends representatives or commissioners to presbyteries and further to a general assembly. Each greater level of assembly has ruling authority over its constituent members. In this governmental structure, each component has some level of sovereignty over itself. As in political federalism, in presbyterian ecclesiology there is shared sovereignty.

Other ecclesiologies also have significant representational and federalistic components, including the more anarchic congregational ecclesiology, and even in more hierarchicalepiscopal ecclesiology.

Some Christians argue that the earliest source of political federalism (or federalism in human institutions; in contrast to theological federalism) is the ecclesiastical federalism found in the Bible. They point to the structure of the early Christian Church as described (and to many, prescribed) in the New Testament. This is particularly demonstrated in theCouncil of Jerusalem, described in Acts chapter 15, where the Apostles and eldersgathered together to govern the Church; the Apostles being representatives of the universal Church, and elders being such for the local church. To this day, elements of federalism can be found in almost every Christian denomination, some more than others.
Constitutional structure[edit]
Division of powers[edit]
Not to be confused with Separation of powers.

In a federation, the division of power between federal and regional governments is usually outlined in the constitution. It is in this way that the right to self-government of the component states is usually constitutionally entrenched. Component states often also possess their own constitutions which they may amend as they see fit, although in the event of conflict the federal constitution usually takes precedence.

In almost all federations the central government enjoys the powers of foreign policy and national defense. Were this not the case a federation would not be a single sovereign state, per the UN definition. Notably, the states of Germany retain the right to act on their own behalf at an international level, a condition originally granted in exchange for theKingdom of Bavaria's agreement to join the German Empire in 1871. Beyond this the precise division of power varies from one nation to another. The constitutions of Germanyand the United States provide that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government are retained by the states. The Constitution of some countries like Canada andIndia, on the other hand, state that powers not explicitly granted to the provincial governments are retained by the federal government. Much like the US system, the Australian Constitution allocates to the Federal government (the Commonwealth of Australia) the power to make laws about certain specified matters which were considered too difficult for the States to manage, so that the States retain all other areas of responsibility. Under the division of powers of the European Union in the Lisbon Treaty, powers which are not either exclusively of European competence or shared between EU and state are retained by the constituent states.

Satiric depiction of late 19th century political tensions in Spain

Where every component state of a federation possesses the same powers, we are said to find 'symmetric federalism'. Asymmetric federalism exists where states are granted different powers, or some possess greater autonomy than others do. This is often done in recognition of the existence of a distinct culture in a particular region or regions. In Spain, the Basques and Catalans, as well as the Galicians, spearheaded a historic movement to have their national specificity recognized, crystallizing in the "historical communities" such as Navarre, Galicia,Catalonia, and the Basque Country. They have more powers than the later expanded arrangement for other Spanish regions, or the Spain of the autonomous communities(called also the "coffee for everyone" arrangement), partly to deal with their separate identity and to appease peripheral nationalist leanings, partly out of respect to specific rights they had held earlier in history. However, strictly speaking Spain is not a federalism, but a decentralized administrative organization of the state.

It is common that during the historical evolution of a federation there is a gradual movement of power from the component states to the centre, as the federal government acquires additional powers, sometimes to deal with unforeseen circumstances. The acquisition of new powers by a federal government may occur through formal constitutional amendment or simply through a broadening of the interpretation of a government's existing constitutional powers given by the courts.

Usually, a federation is formed at two levels: the central government and the regions (states, provinces, territories), and little to nothing is said about second or third level administrative political entities. Brazil is an exception, because the 1988 Constitution included the municipalities as autonomous political entities making the federation tripartite, encompassing the Union, the States, and the municipalities. Each state is divided into municipalities (municípios) with their own legislative council (câmara de vereadores) and a mayor (prefeito), which are partly autonomous from both Federal and State Government. Each municipality has a "little constitution", called "organic law" (lei orgânica). Mexico is an intermediate case, in that municipalities are granted full-autonomy by the federal constitution and their existence as autonomous entities (municipio libre, "free municipality") is established by the federal government and cannot be revoked by the states' constitutions. Moreover, the federal constitution determines which powers and competencies belong exclusively to the municipalities and not to the constituent states. However, municipalities do not have an elected legislative assembly.

Federations often employ the paradox of being a union of states, while still being states (or having aspects of statehood) in themselves. For example, James Madison (author of theUS Constitution) wrote in Federalist Paper No. 39 that the US Constitution "is in strictness neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both. In its foundation, it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the Government are drawn, it is partly federal, and partly national..." This stems from the fact that states in the US maintain all sovereignty that they do not yield to the federation by their own consent. This was reaffirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reserves all powers and rights that are not delegated to the Federal Government as left to the States and to the people.
Organs of government[edit]

The structures of most federal governments incorporate mechanisms to protect the rights of component states. One method, known as 'intrastate federalism', is to directly represent the governments of component states in federal political institutions. Where a federation has abicameral legislature the upper house is often used to represent the component states while the lower house represents the people of the nation as a whole. A federal upper house may be based on a special scheme of apportionment, as is the case in the senatesof the United States and Australia, where each state is represented by an equal number of senators irrespective of the size of its population.

Alternatively, or in addition to this practice, the members of an upper house may be indirectly elected by the government or legislature of the component states, as occurred in the United States prior to 1913, or be actual members or delegates of the state governments, as, for example, is the case in the German Bundesrat and in the Council of the European Union. The lower house of a federal legislature is usually directly elected, with apportionment in proportion to population, although states may sometimes still be guaranteed a certain minimum number of seats.

In Canada, the provincial governments represent regional interests and negotiate directly with the central government. A First Ministers conference of the prime minister and the provincial premiers is the de facto highest political forum in the land, although it is not mentioned in the constitution.

Federations often have special procedures for amendment of the federal constitution. As well as reflecting the federal structure of the state this may guarantee that the self-governing status of the component states cannot be abolished without their consent. An amendment to the constitution of the United States must be ratified by three-quarters of either the state legislatures, or of constitutional conventions specially elected in each of the states, before it can come into effect. In referendums to amend the constitutions of Australia and Switzerland it is required that a proposal be endorsed not just by an overall majority of the electorate in the nation as a whole, but also by separate majorities in each of a majority of the states or cantons. In Australia, this latter requirement is known as a double majority.

Some federal constitutions also provide that certain constitutional amendments cannot occur without the unanimous consent of all states or of a particular state. The US constitution provides that no state may be deprived of equal representation in the senate without its consent. In Australia, if a proposed amendment will specifically impact one or more states, then it must be endorsed in the referendum held in each of those states. Any amendment to the Canadian constitution that would modify the role of the monarchy would require unanimous consent of the provinces. The German Basic Law provides that no amendment is admissible at all that would abolish the federal system.
Other technical terms[edit]
Fiscal federalism – federalism involving the transfer of funds between different levels of government.
Formal federalism (or 'constitutional federalism') – the delineation of powers is specified in a written constitution.
Executive federalism (also known as 'administrative federalism').
Federalism as a political philosophy[edit]
Main articles: Federalism and Federalist

The meaning of federalism, as a political movement, and of what constitutes a 'federalist', varies with country and historical context.[citation needed] Movements associated with the establishment or development of federations can exhibit either centralising or decentralising trends.[citation needed] For example, at the time those nations were being established, factions known as "federalists" in the United States and Australia advocated the formation of strong central government. Similarly, in European Union politics, federalists mostly seek greater EU integration. In contrast, in Spain and in post-war Germany, federal movements have sought decentralisation: the transfer of power from central authorities to local units. In Canada, where Quebec separatism has been a political force for several decades, the "federalist" impulse aims to keep Quebec inside Canada.
Federalism as a concept: history[edit]

The Oxford English Dictionary first records the English word federalism as occurring in print in 1793 with reference to French politics,[26] though anti-federalism appears as early as 1788.[27]
See also[edit]

Federal republic
Asymmetric federalism
Federacy
Forum of Federations
Anti-Federalism
Federal Union
Confederation
Consociationalism
Federalist
Federalist Society
Federation
Pillarisation
Subsidiarity principle
Layer cake federalism
States' rights
Cooperative Federalism
Union of Utrecht
Democratic World Federalists
World Federalist Movement
Devolution (in contrast)
Notes and references[edit]

Jump up^ Winston Churchill's speech in Zurich in 1946
Jump up^ Free Dictionary: Federal soldier
^ Jump up to:a b Indian Constitution at Work. NCERT. pp. 232, 233.
Jump up^ Johnson, A "Federalism: The Indian Experience ", HSRC Press,1996, Pg 3, ISBN
Jump up^ "UK Politics: Talking Politics The West Lothian Question". BBC News. 1 June 1998.
Jump up^ Bill Edmonds, "'Federalism' and Urban Revolt in France in 1793," Journal of Modern History (1983) 55#1 pp 22-53 in JSTOR
Jump up^ François Furet and Mona Ozouf, eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution(1989), pp. 54-64
Jump up^ Kelemen, R. Daniel (September 2005)."Built to Last? The durability of EU federalism" (PDF). Princeton University. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
Jump up^ "THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA With Explanatory Notes". U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs.
Jump up^ (Dutch)”Taalgebruik in Brussel en de plaats van het Nederlands. Enkele recente bevindingen”, Rudi Janssens, Brussels Studies, Nummer 13, 7 January 2008 (see page 4).
Jump up^ Historically, the Walloons were for a federalism with three components and the Flemings for two. (See: Witte, Els & Craeybeckx, Jan. Politieke geschiedenis van België. Antwerpen, SWU, pp. 455, 459-460.) This difference is one of the elements which makes the Belgian issue so complicated. The Flemings wanted to defend their language while the Walloons wanted to defend their economy: It is true that the Walloon movement, which has never stopped affirming that Wallonia is part of the French cultural area, has never made this cultural struggle a priority, being more concerned to struggle against its status as a political minority and the economic decline which was only a corollary to it. (Wallonia today - The search for an identity without nationalist mania - (1995)
Jump up^ Charles Picqué, Minister-President of theBrussels-Capital Region said in a September, 2008 declaration in Namur at the National Walloon Feast : It is, besides, impossible to have a debate about the institutions of Belgium in which Brussels would be excluded. (French Il n'est d'ailleurs, pas question d'imaginer un débat institutionnel dont Bruxelles serait exclu. [1]) The Brussels-Capital Regionhas claimed and obtained a special place in the current negotiations about the reformation of the Belgian state. (FrenchPendant 18 ans, Bruxelles est demeurée sans statut (...) L'absence de statut pour Bruxelles s'expliquait par la différence de vision que partis flamands et partis francophones en avaient: [les partis flamands étaient] allergiques à la notion de Région (...) les francophones (...) considéraient que Bruxelles devait devenir une Région à part entière (...) Les partis flamands ont accepté [en 1988] la création d'une troisième Région et l'exercice par celle-ci des mêmes compétences que celles des deux autres... C.E. Lagasse,Les nouvelles institutions politiques de la Belgique et de l'Europe, Erasme, Namur, 2003, pp. 177- 178 ISBN )
Jump up^ "Brussels". Encyclopædia Britannica.
Jump up^ "Bruxelles dans l'oeil du cyclone" (in French). France 2.
Jump up^ La Libre Belgique 17 juillet 2008
^ Jump up to:a b La Libre Belgique, 19 juillet 2008
Jump up^ Le Vif
Jump up^ "Eastern Libya declares autonomy".Russia Today. 6 March 2012. Retrieved 6 March 2012.
Jump up^ "Eastern Libya declares semiautonomous region". Google News. The Associated Press. 6 March 2012. Retrieved 6 March 2012.
Jump up^ "Thousands rally in Libya against autonomy for east". Reuters. 9 March 2012.
Jump up^ Thomson Reuters Foundation | News, Information and Connections for Action. Trust.org (2012-03-06). Retrieved on 2013-07-12.
Jump up^ Federalism. El País.
Jump up^ El PSOE plantea una reforma de la Constitución para una España federal. El País.
Jump up^ Mas encarga el diseño de un Estado catalán. El País.
Jump up^ Anarchist Writers. "I.5 What could the social structure of anarchy look like?" An Anarchist FAQ.http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionI5
Jump up^ Oxford English Dictionary s.v. federalism: "E. Burke Remarks Policy Allies in Wks. VII. 133 We see every man that the jacobins chuse to apprehend..conveyed to prison..whether he is suspected of royalism, or federalism, moderantism, democracy royal, or [etc.]."
Jump up^ Oxford English Dictionary s.v. anti-federal
In Literature[edit]
In the futurist story On Deception Watch: A World Federation Novel by David H. Spielberg, a plausible high-tech path is created to an economic-based new paradigm for the legitimacy of governance. Leveraged off the successful development of laser fusion energy, the United States and The People's Republic of China join forces to change the world.
External links[edit]
Look up federalism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

P.-J. Proudhon, The Principle of Federation, 1863.
A Comparative Bibliography: Regulatory Competition on Corporate Law
A Rhetoric for Ratification: The Argument of the Federalist and its Impact on Constitutional Interpretation
National
Teaching about Federalism in the United States - From the Education Resources Information Center Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science EducationBloomington, Indiana.
An Ottawa, Canada-based international organization for federal countries that share best practices among countries with that system of government
Tenth Amendment Center Federalism and States Rights in the U.S.
BackStory Radio episode on the origins and current status of Federalism
Constitutional law scholar Hester Lessard discusses Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and jurisdictional justice McGill University, 2011
General Federalism


T.A.L.

OUR DAY WILL COME !