Campaign for an English Parliament
| Founded | 23 September 1998 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Harry Bottom, Terry Brown, Guy Green, Pearl Linsell, Tony Linsell and Cyning Meadowcroft |
| Type | Company limited by guarantee |
| Registration no. | 03636739 |
| Focus | English politics |
|
Area served
|
England |
|
Key people
|
Steve Davis, Chairman Eddie Bone, Campaign Director |
| Mission | To campaign for an English Parliament |
The Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP) is a pressure group which seeks the establishment of a devolved English parliament. The CEP is the main organisation associated with an English Parliament. It was formed as a non-denominational lobbying group. It is a single-issue campaign, seeking to stand apart from English nationalist currents, and proclaiming its commitment to a civic, rather than ethnic, conception of the English nation.
It was set up in 1998 by six founder-members: Harry Bottom, Terry Brown, Guy Green, Pearl Linsell, Tony Linsell and Cyning Meadowcroft. This was in response to the Devolution acts of that year, which they believed would put the English at a serious political and constitutional disadvantage.
They determined that the CEP would represent all of the people of England, whatever their ethnicity or how they chose to identify themselves, who were legitimately living in England and paying taxes to the UK government.
The first meeting took place in London in June 1998 and members leafleted the three main political parties (Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative) at their conferences in the autumn of that year. The campaign was incorporated as a not-for-profit company in September 1998 and is not affiliated to any political party. The CEP have on their National Council members and ex-members of the Labour, Liberal Democrat, United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), English Democrat and Conservative parties.
The quarterly members' newsletter, "Think of England", was started in summer 1999 and, in June 2000, about 50 members lobbied their MPs at the Houses of Parliament. In the autumn of 2003, the CEP mounted a "Parliament or Partition" conference in London which was attended by about 300 people and was addressed by Simon Hughes MP and UKIP's Nigel Farage. The "Parliament or Petition" conference was in response to the government's intention to hold referendums on devolution to Regional Assemblies. The CEP opposed this on a number of grounds but principally because they believed it would have destroyed the traditional political unity of England as a country; ended the shire system of local government and withdrawn power from the English local authorities.
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Wikipedia