NATION STATE
THERE’LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND. AND ENGLAND SHALL BE FREE. IF ENGLAND MEANS AS MUCH TO YOU AS ENGLAND MEANS TO ME. Parker & Charles
BY THESE WERE THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES DIVIDED IN THEIR LANDS; EVERY ONE AFTER HIS TONGUE, IN THEIR NATIONS.
Genesis 10:5
MERCHANTS HAVE NO COUNTRY. THE MERE SPOT THEY STAND ON DOES NOT CONSTITUTE SO STRONG AN ATTACHMENT AS THAT FROM WHICH THEY DRAW THEIR GAINS.
Thomas Jefferson
THERE’LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND. AND ENGLAND SHALL BE FREE. IF ENGLAND MEANS AS MUCH TO YOU AS ENGLAND MEANS TO ME.
Parker & Charles
NATION STATE
We are here, as Citizens, to create a parallel cultural, political and economic system. Citizenship means we are indelibly and intrinsically linked to our respective Nations.
We must be Citizens of somewhere, after all.
And yet this fundamental principle of National Sovereignty is under threat.
- The Westphalian Order
- Globalisation and the challenge of centralised systems
- There'll always be an England
THE WESTPHALIAN ORDER
The concept of Nation States is known to both legal and political scholars as the Westphalian Order. Its origins can be traced to a series of treaties known collectively as the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years War between the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France, Sweden, Denmark, England and the Netherlands. Key principles of the Westphalian Order include:
Sovereignty of states and the fundamental right of political self determination.
Legal equality between states.
Non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state.
The key pillar of the Treaty was that a Nation State’s ‘sovereignty’ was the highest legal power against which there was no appeal. This concept of ‘sovereignty’ has served as the organising principle of the world order for over 300 years.
In the United Kingdom the structural integrity of the Nation State was reinforced by a number of important developments:
Following the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights (1689) a new model of Constitutional Monarchy was established. A Constitutional Monarchy being one in which the powers of the ruler are restricted to those granted under the Constitution and laws of the nation.
In this system the democratically elected parliament and its leader, the prime minister, exercise power, with the monarch holding residual powers and a ceremonial position as Head of State.
The reason for the revised constitutional arrangements are clearly expressed in the following language:
‘that the religion, laws and liberties of this Kingdom might not be in danger again of being subverted’ - Bill of Rights (1689)
And yet we find ourselves in a situation, once again, where that's exactly what's taking place. Our religion, laws and liberties are being deliberately subverted for the benefit of a privileged few.
The Westphalian Order faces an existential threat.
GLOBALISATION AND THE CHALLENGE OF CENTRALISED SYSTEMS
MERCHANTS HAVE NO COUNTRY. THE MERE SPOT THEY STAND ON DOES NOT CONSTITUTE SO STRONG AN ATTACHMENT AS THAT FROM WHICH THEY DRAW THEIR GAINS.
Thomas Jefferson
The past Century has seen a rapid proliferation of multi-national and, increasingly, global corporations which eclipse many countries for sheer economic scale and output. They operate across national boundaries and owe no allegiance to the Nation State. They are hyper-optimised for profit and legally bound to maximise returns to shareholders. Often these shareholders are large institutional investors, many of them global corporations in their own right.
International Civil Society Organisations (ICSO) are also growing in size, power and influence. Examples include the World Wildlife Fund, Amnesty and Greenpeace. They are creations of the centralised, global system. Funded, in large part, by donations from corporations and philanthropic 'stakeholders' representing the interests of the 1%. Similarly, global religious institutions are no longer focused on revelation, but social revolution aligned to the global agenda.
In parallel, a plethora of inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) such as the United Nations, World Health Organisation, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and European Union have been created. One major criticism of these IGOs is that they claim authority but have no democratic legitimacy due to having no directly elected officials. How many British citizens even know who Ursula von Der Leyen is, for example, let alone whether she's fit for public office?
This complex interconnected global web of cultural, economic and political institutions poses a fundamental threat to the Westphalian Order. It is eroding the independence and sovereignty of Nation States, whilst degrading the rights of Citizens and driving the unprecedented levels of inequality we see all around us.
This is the global, centralised system we're working to replace.
THERE’LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND
THERE’LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND. AND ENGLAND SHALL BE FREE. IF ENGLAND MEANS AS MUCH TO YOU AS ENGLAND MEANS TO ME.
Parker & Charles
To defeat Globalisation, we must reunite our people around a shared understanding of what it means to be English. The cultural, economic and political heritage that defines our Nation and sets us apart from all others.
To secure our future, we must rebuild outside of the global paradigm. By distributing knowledge, potential and opportunity back into the hands of Citizens; respecting local cultures and traditions; and unlocking the potential of the unparalleled levels of knowledge, wealth and technical capability that exist within our society.
This requires us to fundamentally reconsider the role of Market, Church and State and create new societal structures that meet the needs of individual Citizens, their families, communities and the Nation as a whole. Crucially, these new structures must be built on the ancient, inalienable rights that have secured our Nation for centuries, protected us as individual Citizens, and provided the freedoms that are the bedrock of our Civilisation.
It also requires us to fully engage in potentially difficult and emotionally-charged conversations about what the Nation is, what it actually means to be English in the 21st Century and the rights and responsibilities that go along with it.
Join the discussion at pattern.mn.co
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E pluribus unum.
Ben Rubin
PATTERN
NB - the opening section of this lesson relating to the Westphalian Order leans heavily on material from 'Your Life In Their Hands', by Martin Edwards. Published by UK Column.
Further research:
Further from PATTERN: