That it has come to this,  that I have to ask this question, in the land of Hampden, Pym, Paine and Lilburne.

The Free State project movement in the States has always appealed, living amongst people that are self reliant and want to be personally free and contribute to the Commonwealth though voluntary action.

Not being an American citizen I am barred from making such a move, by my British Nationality. My passport no longer says that I am a subject, but a citizen, but I am now more of a subject and less of a citizen than I was thirty years ago.

As a member of the Libertarian Party, I hope to make a difference by constitutional means, however this is going to be a long haul and not going to happen in my lifetime. Dependency, Entitlement, Greed and Ignorance are the hallmarks of a country that would rather maintain the welfare state than maintain its defences.

I have been re reading the life of ‘Freeborn John’ Lilburne, especially the chapter on disillusion. Lilburne had suffered imprisonment under the personal rule of Charles the First and fell foul of the personal rule of Cromwell.  Lilburne like most educated men of his time saw his experiences in terms of  religion.

Lilburne went into exile after the execution of the King, something he opposed, when his life became impossible to live in England. He eventually returned and turned to Quakerism as an expression of his political beliefs.  Self reliance, conscience and doing no harm to others, and not accepting an authority between him and his God. I am not a religious man but I have sympathy with this view.

The high flown ideals of liberty, floundering on the rocks of deceit and power, were bound in the final analysis to end in disillusion for Lilburne. However his name has remained immortal inspiring a later generation of radicals to found the United States of America under the likes of Jefferson. Lilburne’s persecutors went to their graves venal and forgotten

I recently asked a lawyer friend of nearly fifty years standing in the profession, did he still believe in Justice. Not for the last forty five years I have not, was the reply.

If we do no longer have the expectation of justice, why should we any longer have allegiance to such a state?

How do we build a new Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land? Remain and fight, or flee to build a new society elsewhere in the globe?

Since the seventeenth century there have been many utopian societies that have been founded, all have been either disrupted, broken up or slowly absorbed into the British State. Ranging from the Diggers on St Georges Hill to the Tinkers Bubble project in Somerset.

There have been successes usually through physical and geographic separation from the old society.

The most inspiring place I have visited in the last two years was Jamestown in Virginia. Englishmen crossed to the other side of the world, to escape economic deprivation, state and religious oppression and the remains of the feudal class system. When Adam delved and Eve span who then was the gentleman ?

Creating ‘a New World and a New Heaven and a New Reality’.  They overcame starvation, external and internal violence, to create the first toe hold of the Commonwealth of Virginia, taking with them the Common Law.

Much of our problems and the reason that Government is in our pockets and our lives is because we are in the process of re colonisation and we are having either Roman or Napoleonic Law foisted upon us. Any legal system that is based on the central precept of strong central authoritarian government is against the central tenets of being English, I am not being provocative to Scotland here as they have always enjoyed a separate legal system, which I have considered in some measure superior.

All Law, and certainly all good Law is based on a shared bond of common values, if it is based on shared values it is easily accepted and implemented because it is bottom up. Bad Law are Laws that are difficult to enforce and are honoured in the breach and are usually imposed top down creating an authoritarian society ruled by elites, who have different values to the mass of the people.

Currently there is a programme on C4 about four Amish teenagers spending time with three different groups of teenagers in the UK as part of their ‘rumspringa’

I first came across Mennonites in Canada who are descended from German Anabaptists; they have been an eternal fascination since. What became clear from the first two programmes is that in comparison to the Amish youngsters, our crop of teenagers came across as shallow, immature and largely workshy. Crime just did not seem to be a problem amongst the Amish because of a common moral code, whereas one south London bright spark thought he was culturally superior because he could, like, stay up to, like, two in the morning innit (!)  irrespective of the fact he was living on a sink estate, in two small rooms with single mother and siblings. (The low expectation of dependency)

The Amish kids were extremely tolerant, and considering their upbringing always sought to say that the behaviour they saw was something they would find difficult to share, they were certainly not seeking to impose their views on others.

After sixty years of State bureaucratic socialism (Butskillism), unless something happens in the UK on the scale of the floods in Pakistan that exposes the central Government of Pakistan as largely impotent,  the vast bulk of the population are going to sit back and expect the State to provide,  jobs, housing and  welfare, cradle to grave. This can only be achieved by wholesale theft from the private sector and the individual, coupled with oppressive Laws. Its called ‘redistribution of wealth’

I am caught on the horns of a dilemma wanting to stand and fight for the country with which I used to share common Liberal ideals before it slipped into the hands of 1970’s Fabians, or calling it a day and seeking a more Liberal Free State or at least contribute to the building of.

The most successful small low tax states appear to be Islands. Isle of Man, the States of Guernsey and Jersey. Again physical separation is the key. Cornwall until the 1890’s was an independent Duchy as were the Scillies. Without the physical separation Cornwall was simply absorbed into the United Kingdom as a country after 1300 years of relative independence.

So as they say first find your Island !

Cameron invited us to vote for change, change there was not. The State sector is only slowing its rate of growth, not actually decreasing in size. The only way that will ever happen is by the throttling of money to the State, when that happens we see that the State just debases the currency by printing more money. Therefore the only option is to opt out or secede . If you do this individually you will be crushed.

The last part of the United Kingdom to secede was the Irish Free State in 1922, this has been followed by devolved Government in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Kernow, Wessex, East Anglia, Northumbria, Kent, Mercia, Essex and Sussex are equally viable States as compared to the Irish Free State.

I see little prospect of Con-Dem being constitutionalists, or a resurgent Labour Party not repeating their authoritarianism. I need to live my one life in freedom and for my sons to have the same freedom. The question is where and how, the country that celebrates Moaty as a hero is not one that I share the values of.

Andrew P. Withers

Wyrdtimes
August 10, 2010 at 13:38

England one nation.

English taxes for England
English law for England
Home rule for
England

Sarbanes Oxley
August 9, 2010 at 12:00

I foresee Britain being the 21C Rome

Spiral Architect
August 9, 2010 at 10:06

Cradle-to-grave welfarism will indeed cause the whole-scale denudation of
British culture………….and also economic power. How on earth is the nation going
function when a huge proportion of its population is lawless and virtually
useless?

Moreover, what effect will this have on the law-abiding and the
productive?

In consideration of what really is ‘fair’ – i.e. reasonable taxes, the
protection of life and property and a fair days work for a fair days pay –
most of those able to will leave…………many have already done so.

I foresee Britain being the 21C Rome…………a hugely powerful nation descends
into a moral morass of lethargy and lawlessness, heralding centuries of
instability.

Pat August 9, 2010
at 08:51

Very clever points you’ve touched upon here. Thanks for mentioning these
things that people ignore the presence of.

Andrew Withers
(LPUK) August 9, 2010 at 08:38

It is always a shame to see libertarianism sullied with nationalism,

Libertarianism is the maximisation of the role of the individual, or to
reduce the role of limited Government to its very lowest level.

Quisling Conservatism on the other hand, is pandering to Fabianism and the
EU and enhancing the growth of the State national and supra national in our
lives.

All laws until 1890 , were executed in England, Wales and the Duchy of
Cornwall. I am English but recognise that Cornwall had its own legal status
akin to the States of Guernsey & Jersey, and that of the Isle of Man.

Dilettante August
9, 2010 at 01:57

It is always a shame to see libertarianism sullied with nationalism, and it
is probably telling that the very first post was a cornish-nat conspiracy
theorist. Nationalism is antithetical to individualist libertarianism, it is
inherently collectivist.

Hysteria August 9, 2010 at 02:48

good point – but at some stage don’t we have to move from theory into
practice? Is libertarianism (as a practical way of ordering a society)
possible without either secure borders, and probably an agreement that
everyone else is following the same approach.?

Put another way – is libertariansim actually a serious political
viewpoint or merely an interesting (if attractive) thought experiment……? Not
trying to be provocative – but I am engineer so my default position is one
of practicalities !

a Salvia
Diviner August 9, 2010 at 08:54

The only thing that governments excell at is the organisation of
violence. It is the root of their existance. Unless most world powers
dissolve in a global wave of libertarianism then a final remnant of the
state must remain for our collective defense.

In a pure contest of violence (thus excluding international police
actions, nation building and other watered down millitary excursions),
organised violence will prevail.

Libertarianism is right. Minarchism is practical.

Richard B August
8, 2010 at 22:07

“all good Law is based on a shared bond of common values, if it is based on
shared values it is easily accepted and implemented”

That’s the key. I am old enough to remember a time when there was a
distinct British identity, with these shared common values. Compliance with
the law was far higher, and although there was crime, it was on a much smaller
and less violent scale. Remember the fuss over the Great Train Robbery in the
60s? Does anyone think a crime like that would raise an eyebrow these
days?

All this talk about independent nations within the UK such as Cornwall (and
what about Yorkshire, then?) misses the point. When we had shared values, we
didn’t need devolution or intranationalism. Today, we don’t know who we are
any more, we are told we have to tolerate things we don’t understand and
didn’t ask for, and we are governed by laws that increasingly don’t make sense
to us, but which are enforced with a rigidity that Stalin would have approved
of. It’s no wonder that we are trying to creep back into our little huts where
we can be sure of being with ‘people like us’, but it’s not the answer. We all
need to feel that we ‘belong’ in Britian, that our country will look after us,
that we have something to which we can feel loyal, that the English and the
Welsh and the Scots and the Northern Irish have values in common, and which
are worth staying together for. I’m afraid I don’t feel like that any
more.

Root and branch, that’s the answer.

Hysteria August 9, 2010 at 00:50

well put indeed – I have a visceral support for the Union, and for all
the smaller components that make up the British Isles (Lancs v Yorks,
Highlands, etc).
We were always greater than the sum of our parts, and I
think this remains so today. As you say, retreating to our various small
bunkers does not seem like a recipe for a succesful nation or a people at
peace with itself.

We who look back to better times have oft been accused of being “Little
Englanders” – stuck in a rose-tinted version of bygone days.

A bit like Mr Obama denigrating “those who cling to their guns and
religion”.

No – this snide socialist world view should be resisted. The principles
that made us Great are still good principles…………………

Antisthenes August 8, 2010 at 21:49

An excellent analysis of the malady but it only recognizes the symptom and
does not recognize the cause, which is our society is a victim of it’s own
success. Yes there are pockets of resistance to the disease like all pandemics
and they survive regardless because they are isolated or choose to be
isolated. However the masses will always succumb, the rapid decline socially
and economically is evidence of that and there is no panacea. A few will
survive to struggle and progress only to start the process all over again.

Hysteria August 8, 2010 at 21:57

yup – that’s pretty much how I see it. Total economic and social collapse
in the medium term, with the survivors saying ” well that didn’t work so
well – must do better next time”

Damn the
consequences August 8, 2010 at 21:08

Factually, your condition is worse than that of serfs. Now stop this
treason talk and idleness and get back to working for your masters-the
pampered politician class, their feckless workshy constituents and
trustafarians. You stood by as they gained a majority, you are now well and
truly screwed.

Freedom can only be achieved by subscribing to the underground economy and
reducing taxable income to zero. Starve the beast.

Peter Moore August 8, 2010 at 20:38

All the problems of the United Kingdom stem from the Teacher Training
Colleges and, to a lesser extent, the BBC. The culture that the State owes me
a living is all pervasive. Why should single teenage girls have babies, and
others ruin their health by over-indulgence and rely on the taxpayer to bring
up their babies and the NHS treat to treat their self-imposed ill health
?
Absolutely crazy ! We’re doomed, Captain Mainwaring, doomed, I tell
ye

Voluntarist August
8, 2010 at 20:23

@Jock “Personally I like the idea of the Isle of Wight, but with 130k
population it may be difficult”

There’s always seemed something a little incongruous in the ‘free state’
idea. I quite like the idea that people could form their own militias and
start to challenge the police directly. Direct resistance looking increasingly practical at this point.

English Viking
August 8, 2010 at 20:09

If one goes back in time far enough, we could re-dissect the nation into
all its previous kingdoms; Deira, Bernicia, Lindsey, etc.

What for? The problem is not in the size of the nation, nor that it’s
borders have changed over the centuries. The problem lies with the Marxist
rabble that have systematically ruined THE national identity since the end of
WWII in general and the end of the Cold War in particular.

A and T A admits that his views on British, perhaps even English
institutions have changed, dramatically, but not because the institution is
wrong, only that the leaders are appalling.

The dream of ‘independence’ for almost all these previous ‘nations’ is more
of an illusion. The people that live in these areas see how garbage their
lives are being made by Government X and suppose that, if they could only have
Government Y of their own people (are we allowed to even say that now?) then
all would be fine. They would simply be replacing one shower of shite for
another.

IMHO the problem lies in the moral decadence that has infested our nations,
deliberately encouraged by numerous Governments over the years, which has led
to a loss of national identity, which in turn has led to a desire to
rediscover a new (old) identity in the hope of curing some of the mess,
without realising that we ourselves are the largest part of that mess.

Hysteria August 8, 2010 at 21:49

agreed – as Savage says ” A country is defined by it’s borders, language
and culture” – recent governments (probably since 1945) have systematically
eroded all three.

I see only two ways out of this………..

A political leader emerges from somewhere who can articulate these
concepts and get the (majority of) the people behind them, or , morer
likely, increasing social disruption and a steady drain in national
confidence and well being – along with the rest of the debt ridden modern
world.

WitteringsfromWitney August 8, 2010 at 19:54

A thoughtful piece indeed, Andrew and one that is extremely well written.
As you say it is to be a long and hard struggle to return this land of ours to
the time when it was revered as the home of all that was considered fair,
honest and just.

Jock August 8, 2010 at 19:49

Yes, New Hampshire is too far away, but the idea is sound. Personally I
like the idea of the Isle of Wight, but with 130k population it may be
difficult (though to be honest, the Free State Project is clearly not aiming
at some unpopulated backwater).

When the deal was struck to return Hong Kong to China and there was that
uproar about only allowing 50,000 UK passports I did wonder whether we could
have designated some coastal Scottish island, somewhere in the gulf stream
perhaps, as “New Hong Kong” and given anyone who wanted settlement rights and
created it as an economic free trade territory.

Andrew Withers
(LPUK) August 8, 2010 at 19:41

Charles Windsor

nee Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who I understand is a deeply unpopular landlord in
the Scillies and Cornwall.

Ancient and Tattered
Airman August 8, 2010 at 19:57

‘Deeply unpopular’ is something of an understatement. Did you hear the
story of the scout hut which stood on Duchy land at the end of a remote
village and for which only a modest annual rent was charged? A few years ago
the Duchy considerably increased the rent to a level quite beyond the
resources of the villagers. As a result the Scout and Cubs leader wrote
directly to dear Charles, pointing out the difficulty they faced in paying
such a massive increase in rent. The reply from a minion merely stated that
the increased rent was fair and should be achievable. The result? As you can
guess, the troop had to disband. Oddly enough, not many papers picked this
up and it went unannounced on TV or radio.

Ancient and Tattered
Airman August 8, 2010 at 19:28

A good and thought provoking piece, Andrew. As a Cornishman I agree with
you as my country (NOT county) was stealthily absorbed by a bigger one and has
been kept poor by design. The Duchy of Cornwall was created to keep the crown
prince in considerable wealth. He has powers far greater than most people
realise. What we do not have is Equality Before the Law. We are indeed
subjects. There was a time when I was a true blue monarchist. Not any more.
Queen Elizabeth was been an exemplary monarch but I dread the day that Charles
Windsor will replace her.