Englishness is a concept often conflated with less than savoury individuals and acts in the public gaze in recent years. The rise of groups claiming to “defend” it against a variety of “threats” - claims that are but a wafer-thin cloak for thuggish intolerance and violence is but the latest threat to this identity to surface in contemporary British society. Englishness has lapsed into a silence in politics - politicians declare their Britishness, Welshness, Scottishness and so on loudly - but where are the Englishmen in politics? Gordon Brown’s time in office was probably the high-point of this; unable to call himself English, he spoke of a British identity to the electorate, trying to build something else.

But the time has come to face up to the cold reality of Englishness and the need to claim it back from the hooligans and the hoodlums. The coming political battles - especially north of the border, where the SNP promises a referendum on independence and English students are taking the Scottish government to the European Court of Human Rights over their patently illogical tuition fees policy for English students - will surely stoke up this debate over what it means to be English. Comprising, as it does, the greater share of the population, wealth and landmass of the UK, that England has slept for so long should shock us. Regardless of whether Scotland leaves the union or not, the debate will surely awaken a nationalist sentiment south of the border. I would contend that a Scottish “no” vote will make this awakening all the more urgent

The West Lothian Question must be answered - and if it is not to be through Scotland leaving the union, then a way must be found to give English people a sovereignty over their affairs that they do not enjoy, so long as Scottish and Welsh MPs can vote on affairs that only affect England. I do not believe that can be achieved by winding back devolution, as some might contend. I think an opposition to devolution founded on the argument that the Scots and Welsh have access to things that the English do not is a fundamentally mean-spirited and intellectually unsustainable line of attack to take. The only way to adequately resolve this problem is to devolve power to England. Some would contend that the English regions need that power; others would contend that England as a whole should get the power.

For me, the best route is an English Parliament - one that doesn’t cover London (whose urban area’s population is equal to Wales and Scotland combined) and that is based far enough away from London as to escape it’s influence and set itself as clearly independent from Westminster. I would suggest Birmingham, Manchester and York are the three best options, though others will doubtlessly disagree. Equipped with similar powers to Holyrood and elected through an AMS system, an English Parliament would give English people an institution which will give them the option of policies without the other union members’ representatives involvement.

Either route, however, will lead to the creation of political institutions that need an identity. There is little point creating a political system with which no-one identifies as the legitimate representative body of their group - a state without a nation. If we are to adequately solve West Lothian and complete devolution, we need to look again at Englishness. We need to reclaim it, to revive it and to begin to understand quite how we might develop it.

Liberals have to engage in this battle as fully as any other political group in this country. We have to remember the liberal past of this country - the free trade, the fight for democratic rights and the birth of so many key ideas that we wield today in politics. Mill, Keynes and Beveridge were all Englishmen. The problems, though, soon crowd in as we find the field depressingly empty of ideological constructs from which we can begin to erect our vision of Englishness. There is much work to be done by Liberals in this debate in order to get started - but once started, the potential rewards are strong.

This is about more than bending back the fingers of the EDL to pry lose our national identity and reclaiming it from them; this is about setting out a vision of a nationality that is imbued with our values, with an understanding that our history and the history of England share deep and common roots that should not be disregarded. We must embrace the cause of England within the Union as an issue of democracy and fairness, as much as we seek to build an English identity of democratic values and fairness that we can share with voters. We must be prepared for the storms of seperation, so that we may be in poll position when it comes to repair the union afterwards, however it emerges.