Wessex Regionalists


The Wessex Regionalists are a minor English regionalist political party in the United Kingdom. It seeks a degree of legislative and administrative home rule for Wessex, an area in the south and south-west of England loosely based on the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the same name.

The party has contested a small number of Wessex-area parliamentary constituencies in most elections since it was established, but without success.

History

Speaking at a tourism industry conference in 1969, the then Viscount Weymouth suggested Wessex as a regional identity for tourism purposes. He later objected to the press over Wessex not being given the same opportunities as Scotland or Wales in the Kilbrandon Report. Lord Weymouth subsequently stood as the first Wessex Regionalist parliamentary candidate in Westbury in the February 1974 United Kingdom general election, coming last with 521 votes.
The party was formally constituted in 1981. It initially used Thomas Hardy's definition of Wessex as Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset and Devon; but later added Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Lord Weymouth was the first president of the party, later defecting to the Liberal Democrats. Subsequent presidents have included activist John Banks and former architect Colin Bex.
During the 2015 general election, Bex cast doubt on the official version of events of the 2001 September 11 attacks. During the UK's 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union, then-president Bex campaigned to leave. He described immigration as a "peaceful invasion", describing "people from all over the world" as "infiltrating" national institutions.

Ideology

The party has been described as ethnoterritorial, although the party denies this. Its platform is based on the creation of a devolved assembly for the region it defines as Wessex. The party defines the counties of Berkshire, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire, Somerset, and Wiltshire as being part of Wessex. Whilst this roughly corresponds to the South West Region, it also includes the Western counties of the South East Region, and excludes Cornwall, which it describes as being "the last of the Celtic areas to be incorporated into Wessex", and retaining its own identity, as well as own regionalist party, Mebyon Kernow. The assembly has variously been described as having a rotating location in the style of the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemot and as being based in Winchester, which had been the capital of the ancient kingdom of Wessex. The assembly would take power from Parliament in Westminster rather than from local authorities.
In light of European recognition of the Cornish people as a national minority, the party called for greater protection of local produce and what it described as the "Wessex dialect". The party believes that the Wessex region has a distinct cultural identity, which it seeks to promote. It defines this culture as including morris dancing, cider, and the works of various local writers. The party was described in The Guardian as having a "nostalgia for pre-industrial revolution England".
In 2010, the party advocated a 100% tax rate on the top 10% of earners, with the revenue passed to parish councils.

Electoral performance

Westminster elections

European Parliament elections