There’s trouble in the court of King Cameron.

An errant knight, Douglas Carswell (aka Lancelot du Laclustre) has entered the court, brandishing the colours of a pretender to the throne.

The Pretender — Baron Farage of Pie-and-a-Pintshire — is out bestriding the land calling for an English revolution. What is to be done?

Let us be clear about the revolution on offer. It is not driven by modern-day Chartists or Levellers. Nigel Farage and his followers are the champions of a return to feudalism.

Their “Englishness” is an introspective one (“It’s all those bloody foreigners”), their “us-ness” panders to the feudal corporate powers neoliberalism has unleashed, and their public appeal is intensely short-term (sod the planet, stuff Ebola, we’re British, pull up the drawbridge).

The problem for King Cameron is that a large part of his own court thinks the same way. Many would love a pact with the Pretender.

Their firm belief is that an appeal to the Little Englander inside us is the road to electoral success. Perversely, the outcome of the Scottish referendum merely stoked this misconception.

Before running away with the notion that increased devolved powers to Scotland makes the case for an English Parliament, politicians would do well to reflect on the fragile nature of “Englishness.”

On October 16 1987, I was at a conference in the north-east. Delegates were crammed into the hotel dining room for breakfast. A hush had descended on the place.

Only hours earlier, BBC weatherman Michael Fish had told viewers they could ignore rumours of a hurricane crossing the Channel from France — it wasn’t going to happen.

The morning television bulletin showed how far off the mark he had been. The Great Storm had already devastated large parts of southern England.

When the bulletin finished there was a moment’s pause.

Then the room erupted in applause and cheers. “Couldn’t have ’appened to a better place.” “About time those southern softies had a bit of grief to deal with.” “At least it’ll stop ’em whingeing on about the north for a couple o’ days.”

So much for the solidarity of Englishness.

Don’t blame the delegates. By that time, Margaret Thatcher had effectively separated the north (and Midlands) from the south. Her blitzkreig assault on British manufacturing had already created a divided Britain.

Thatcher’s love affair with Ronald Reagan was rooted in a shared belief that capitalism itself had metamorphosed.

Productive capital was being usurped by finance capital. Making “things” was the past. Making money was the future. Thatcher’s new Valhalla was the City and the south. All the rest could go swing.

The legacy of this division now runs much deeper than Scotland’s referendum could ever reveal.

Draw a map of areas of Britain wanting to break from today’s marketised free-for-all and you would find the Tories-Ukip left haggling over a shrunken kingdom, a land far closer to Poundland than England.

Today’s Conservative Party only exacerbates the problem of a wealth-divided Britain. And any Tory-Ukip attempt to create a posh-boys’ parliament down south would be a disaster. The Tory rump may be orgasmic in their cries of English votes for English laws but the writ will not run far.

Large swathes of the north and Midlands would want little to do with a Bullingdon-on-Thames Establishment they instinctively loathe.

Conversely, large parts of the south have never really been in love with their friends in the north. England would split into fragments.

This is where the fundamental problem lies. Westminster’s bubble politics has detached itself from the rest of the country.

It’s politicians and civil servants have become a mere catering service for corporate cartels and city speculators. An English parliament doesn’t stand a chance — unless it moved.

This is where Nottingham comes in — it remains the one city in England, outside of London, where Parliament can be legally convened.
On August 22 1642, facing his own problems with a troublesome parliament, King Charles raised the royal standard in Nottingham. Admittedly, it was hardly for democratic reasons, but the Nottingham entitlement still stands.

Today for such an English parliament to work it would need to be constructed around the spirit of Robin Hood rather than the venal interests of King Cameron or Baron Farage.

An English parliament would have to begin by separating the interests of the capital from finance capital. In fact, with or without a move, this is the real challenge Britain’s Parliament faces. Regions and cities, not countries and clans.

What seems to have been missed from Scotland’s referendum result was the universal belief that Westminster politics sucks.

The frustration of many of the more radical voices in Scotland was that they had little scope to argue that an Edinburgh Parliament, with feudal, centralised powers, was no more attractive than a Westminster one.

Those living north of the border, with no particular desire to live in Salmond-land, share a common interest with those living south of it who are equally repelled by the prospects of living in Cameron-land.

Yet this is where the more rabid Tories seem determined to drag the debate. There have to be other choices, and the most exciting of these is the more radical decentralisation of power already practiced in other parts of Europe.

Robin Hood never demanded that Parliament be moved to Nottingham. He just wanted the cash to stay there and be distributed more fairly. So it should be today.

From Stirling to Southampton, Greater Manchester to Gloucestershire, and from Cornwall to Cardiff, we need to open a debate about how best to devolve powers from Westminster.

The UK must feel its way towards a different sense of “what works,” and will doubtless make mistakes. But the new litmus tests will be in the form of public accountability, sustainability and security.

Take just one example. Repeated warnings that Britain needs £200 billion of energy infrastructure investment do not make the case for just repairing what we have now. Some parts of Britain’s energy system are clapped out.

Tomorrow’s grids will have to become more regionalised and localised to become more resilient. Major US towns and cities are already discussing the prospect of going off-grid as a more cost-effective and secure form of infrastructure renewal.

Over 190 German towns and cities are taking their local energy grids back into social ownership. Localised energy markets are emerging, with an emphasis on using less, saving and storing more and building more interactive systems — where people are as likely to be energy producers as they are consumers. This interdependence will be the new security.

But it would be illegal to do this in Britain. Energy market regulations have been constructed to serve the interests of Big Energy.

Polluting energy is given preference over non-polluting. Centralised generation comes before decentralised.

It is illegal to sell only to local energy markets. And consuming less comes a poor second to Big Energy’s demands to sell more.
The British public are currently presented with spiralling bills for unsustainable solutions.

The future needs a new knight at court — and it isn’t going to be Nigel.

Britain needs a knight who will champion the virtues of radical decentralisation where what holds the country together will be seen as the strength of its cities and regions, not the differences of its nations.

We need a knight who will tilt at Westminster — and not just its windbags.

And within this space, the country will discover a different sense of tomorrow’s sustainable markets — where money and work circulate more equally and accountably.

Neither Ukip nor the Bullingdon boys would welcome such a change but the public will. Britain needs a new champion — brave, far-sighted and true — a knight with a voice and a vision. So, arise Sir Ed, the country awaits.