We are pleased to present an essay by Gerard Dugdill of the British Counties Campaign for it demonstrates what so many nation states have lost as the European political class set about creating their supranational State. The Counties and provinces of European nations (which were replaced by the new regions of the Euro-State) represented the loyalties, histories and cultures of peoples and nations. But they were expendable.
INTRODUCTION
Rodney Atkinson
In 1971 a Foreign Office Paper (FCO 30/1048) noted the consequences of the UK joining the European Economic Community for local Government within the UK:
” The transfer of major executive responsibilities to the bureaucratic Commission in Brussels will exacerbate popular feeling of alienation from government. To counter this feeling, strengthened local and regional democratic processes within member states and effective Community regional economic and social policies will be essential”.
In other words the revolutionary take over of our nation state by a supranational power meant that a revolution in Government within Britain (as within other EU states) was necessary.
There were two abiding characteristics of the building of the European Superstate by the German political class. First was the central authority which it imposed on the previously free and self governing nation states (while often exempting itself from those constraints). This was sold as a mere “common market” for trading purposes.
Secondly the use of regional policy (Hitler’s “Regional Principle” – first emphasised in the book Treason at Maastricht published in 1994, see Publications on this site) in order to break down sovereign authority in EU member states by creating regional authorities which could be linked directly to the new administrative centre – Brussels. In turn Brussels would be controlled politically by the German and French elitists. Today, as many predicted then and others had predicted even in 1945, German economic power would eventually dominate and German political control would arise out of that dominance.
The worst excesses were delayed by the division of Germany which came to an end in 1989. Shortly afterwards the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 removed even more autonomy from nation states, set the “acquis communitaire“, created “European citizenship” and set in motion the creation of the Euro.
Those who betrayed the whole constitution and Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1972, by signing the Treaty of Rome (the Heath Government) also introduced a revolution in British local Government with the old counties and Cities (some of which were also counties) being ignored or disfigured in the service of the new corporatist elitist power in London and its ultimate master the supranational version in Brussels. Monmouthshire was moved to Wales. Newcastle upon Tyne became “Tyne and Wear” the ugly “Humberside” robbed the citizens of the great port of Hull and the county of Lincolnshire, Cumberland and Westmoreland were abolished in favour of “Cumbria” and southerners have as a result taken to calling Northumberland “Northumbria” (which does not exist).
Sonya Porter traced the EU’s first steps in 1958 when a cross border entity between Holland and Germany was created. http://freenations.net/eu-imperial-power-by-regionalisation/
In 1994 we, in the UK, voted in our Counties at the European Elections for the last time. If you lived in Cornwall, for instance, you sent an MEP from Cornwall to sit in the European Parliament. But by the next EU election in 1999 as far as the European Union is concerned, the counties had been superseded and the country split into twelve Regions.
This was the start of the NUTS — Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (nomenclature d’unites territoriales statistiques), or the division of all EU countries into areas ostensibly for statistical purposes. The basic countries have a two letter code — UK, for instance — and each Region is an NUTS1 and has an additional letter. If you live in the South East Region, then you reside in UKJ, while those living in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland reside in UKL, UKM and UKN respectively.
This Orwellian division into soul-less letters and figures began with the attack on ancient counties, their historical significance and their loyalties. It continued with the deliberate break down of the borders of the nation states themselves. Indeed it had started in 1966, long before the UK joined the EEC, when the Arc Manche area was set up in 1966. It subsequently included the French areas of Brittany, Nord-pas de Calais, Lower Normandy, Upper Normandy and Picardy together with the English counties of Dorset, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, and West and East Sussex.
The imperial EU even extended this arrogant slicing up into regions to non EU States. As Sonya Porter noted:
Largely unknown to the Swiss population (and certainly not voted for by them), this most democratic of countries is being split into three huge Metropolitan Areas — Zurich, Geneva and Basel — ready to act as ‘European Motors’ and to play leading roles in Europe in a number of respects such as economic performance, decision-making, etc.
Freenations is pleased to publish this essay by Gerard Dugdill of the British Counties Campaign. His justified tale could be told all over Europe as the ancient counties and provinces of the nation states were sacrificed by the Euro-elites on the altar of their new European Supranational State. This decades old process is further proof that we did not join a free trading association of nation states but a controlling, anti democratic empire bent on destroying our traditional loyalties in favour of a new allegiance to “the country called Europe”.
GERARD DUGDILL:
FREE nations must protect their history – you can argue this is essential if they are to remain free. If they throw it in the bin, they run the risk of losing control of their own destiny. They become rudderless, alienated from their culture and history.
This is what our country has done since the 1960s with something as seemingly harmless as county identity. The London government act 1963, the local government act 1972 and the lieutenancies act 1997 have all taken successive hammer blows at county identity, present in England, Scotland and Wales for a thousand years and more.
Counties such as Ross-shire, Lanarkshire, Monmouthshire, Caernarfonshire, Cumberland, Westmorland, Rutland, Warwickshire, Middlesex, have been destroyed, occasionally brought back, sometimes half brought back, at other times left to rot.
April fool
At the same time – and here’s the rub – the government has repeatedly denied its actions, like a vandal next to a ruin with a sledgehammer and a couple of JCBs saying, “Welcome home, my friend”.
On 1 April 1974, as the 1972 act came into force, The Times commented:
“The new county boundaries are administrative areas, and will not alter the traditional boundaries of counties, nor is it intended that the loyalties of people living in them will change despite the different names adopted by the new administrative counties.”
Not so. Ask any media outlet. Didcot is now in Oxfordshire. Stranraer is in Dumfries & Galloway. Gateshead and Sunderland are now in Tyne & Wear. Leeds is in West Yorkshire (goodbye the old “Ridings” of Yorkshire). Well actually, Goole is in:
Historic county, Yorkshire, West Riding
Unitary authority, East Riding of Yorkshire
Police area, Humberside (this area being “abolished” in 1996).
The government had already explained that people were to live in new areas and there was nothing you could do about it. All traces of the past and all explanations of what happened, are nowhere to be found. Vandals of course have a reputation for vandalism. Our repeated acts of destruction have been carried out with not just insouciance, but with brutality.
No or little consultation, the public’s responses ignored, people simply assigned their new identity. You are no longer in Hampshire, you are in Dorset. Forget Nairn, or Glamorgan. Messages going out all over the country. The new counties are in place, new councils. New names for the media and the postbox. Counties and their history – gone. As one woman was told – “your baby was not born in Lincolnshire, but South Humberside. Stop crying.”
As this Campaign’s Pam Moorhouse, our petition founder, says: “Why should they get away with forcing a whole nation to comply? It is so unfair, especially in a democracy, using a form of violence against innocent people.”
Geography matters. History matters. Ask any 20-something in Warrington who thinks they are now in Cheshire. It really matters. But the young are now being used against the old, with the older generation’s sensitivities ignored. What will the young face when they in turn grow old? If we can have preservation orders on historic buildings, why not counties?
BREXIT FREEDOM AND THE COUNTIES
Our nation needs to step into the cold shower. Just for a moment. It needs to recognise that aspects of our national identity and culture such as counties are being eroded and destroyed, and that does not bode well for the continuation of our country, happy or otherwise.
As Pam Moorhouse rightly says: our culture is important for everyone, so everyone should know about it. People do care about counties. Counties matter.
In our post-Brexit world (assuming we get there), one way of showing we have got our freedom back is to show we are free to keep our past and rescue, preserve and cherish our counties for generations to come. In short, our goals are:
- Remove all definitions of counties except the historic ones, with their clearly defined boundaries
- Align the lieutenancies to the historic counties for ceremonial purposes
- Start to remove the confusion of names used for councils, services, police, media outlets, all of which clash with the names of the traditional counties.
We can start to knit the geographic and cultural fabric of the country back together again, using our cherished counties as a template.
Please support our campaign by signing our petition, visiting our website, commenting, liking, sharing and emailing.
Petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/p/counties
Website, www.britishcounties.org
Gerard Dugdill
