Growing up, it never occurred to me that I should have to fight for England to be heard in its own land. My family has roots here going back at least four centuries: farm labourers, factory hands, soldiers, small shopkeepers – the kind of people who built and paid for this country, generation after generation. Yet today, looking at the way England is run, it no longer feels as if England is governing itself at all. It feels as if we are being managed from above by a British machine that neither understands nor truly cares about the places we actually live in.
From English roots to British rule
When your family story is entirely English, you grow up thinking of “England” as something real: the towns that shaped you, the accent in your grandparents’ voices, the local customs, even the particular way people queue at the bus stop. But when you step into the world of politics, England suddenly disappears. Everything becomes “the UK”, “Britain”, or “the nations and regions”, as if England is just a vague grey background behind everyone else’s flags.
England has no parliament of its own, no government that exists to serve England first, and no clear constitutional voice that speaks in our name. Laws that affect only England are made in a British Parliament where MPs from outside England still get a say, while England has no equivalent say over their devolved matters. The message is subtle but relentless: England is expected to carry the weight, but never to stand on its own feet.
The decay of our towns is not an accident
Walk through too many English towns and cities and you see the same story: high streets hollowed out, boarded-up shops, neglected parks, crumbling public buildings, overstretched local services. This didn’t just “happen”. It is the result of decades of decisions made by MPs and ministers who see England as a unit on a spreadsheet rather than a living country full of real communities.
Local councils have had their powers stripped and their budgets squeezed, yet they carry the blame when streets are dirty, bins aren’t collected, or youth services disappear. Central government talks the language of “levelling up” or “growth”, but vast amounts of money and power are still concentrated in Whitehall, in institutions that answer to party whips, lobbyists, and unelected bodies before they ever answer to local people. The result is a slow managed decline that ordinary English families never voted for and do not accept.
Unelected influence, unaccountable agendas
What grates most is the sense that so much of what shapes our lives is set by people we never chose and can never remove: civil servants, quangos, global NGOs, think tanks, corporate lobbyists, professional associations, and political societies with long ideological agendas. These bodies often speak the language of “British values” and “international obligations”, but rarely the language of English self‑government or local accountability.
Decisions on planning, immigration, policing priorities, speech and protest, and even what our children are taught are often nudged and steered by networks of unelected influencers who will never have to knock on a door in Derby, Doncaster or Dover and explain themselves. MPs increasingly behave as if their job is to manage us on behalf of these institutions rather than to stand up for us against them. That is the reverse of how a healthy democracy should work.
When “British politics” forgets England
The current voting system makes everything worse. Governments are formed on minority vote shares, then claim a sweeping mandate for policies that were never honestly debated, let alone explicitly approved, by the English people as a nation. Parties chase “UK‑wide” branding and internal faction fights, while England’s particular needs – its housing stock, industry, transport, culture, and demographic pressures – are treated as an afterthought.
It is possible to go through an entire election campaign without hearing a serious discussion about an English parliament, English local power, or English self‑determination. England is expected to swallow British decisions, British compromises, and British ideological experiments, then keep quiet while being lectured about “our shared values” by people who seem more embarrassed by England’s past than committed to England’s future.
Reversing the decay: putting England first in England
If the decay of our cities and towns is political, the repair must be political too – not in the party‑tribal sense, but in the sense of reclaiming power. That starts with a simple principle: decisions about England should be made by bodies that are clearly, openly, and proudly accountable to the English people.
That could mean:
- An English parliament or national assembly, with real powers over domestic policy.
- A serious shift of money and authority away from Whitehall and into local councils and mayors, tied to strict transparency and recall powers.
- Clear rules that end the habit of using England as a testing ground for policies designed by and for non‑English priorities.
Alongside this, there needs to be a firewall between law‑making and the unelected networks that currently steer so much of public life. If a think tank, society, or NGO helps shape policy, that influence must be visible and contestable. English communities should not be governed by opaque, inherited ideologies passed down through closed clubs whose members never have to stand in front of the ballot box.
An invitation, not an ending
This is not a call to hate anyone outside England or to retreat into bitterness. It is a call to recognise that a country whose people have lived, worked, fought, and paid here for centuries deserves to rule itself openly and honestly in its own name. English pride does not have to be aggressive; it can be rooted in responsibility – the determination to fix our own streets, rebuild our own towns, and hold our own leaders to account.
The first step is admitting what many of us already feel: that “the British system” as it stands does not serve England well. The next step is to start talking – at the dinner table, in the pub, at local meetings, on blogs like this – about what a genuinely English democracy, focused on the real life of our cities and towns, should look like. This post is not the final word; it is an invitation to others who feel the same to stop apologising for being English and start thinking about how we take responsibility for England’s future back into English hands.
If this has struck a chord with you – whether you agree, disagree, or are still undecided – please share your thoughts. Tell your own family’s English story, how you see the state of our towns and cities, and what “English self‑government” should mean in practice.
Share this on Facebook, tag friends and local groups, and let’s have an open, honest debate about England’s future. Real change starts when ordinary English voices refuse to stay silent and begin speaking up for the places and people they love.