Independence Day!
Film released to highlight campaign for independence for Mercia Author and Port Vale fan Jeff Kent outlines why - as a film about the campaign for independence for this region is released - he is still fighting for the the return of Mercia...
I INHERITED a strong sense of justice from my parents and, even as a boy, living in Shelton, realised that all wasn’t well in the world around me.
In 1972, I borrowed a book from Hanley Library written by Denis Butler, entitled 1066: The Story of a Year. It was a masterpiece and changed my life. Until I read the book, I didn’t realise that the English were a fundamentally free people prior to the Norman Conquest and thereafter were downgraded to serfs tied to lords and became owned by the illegal monarch as ‘subjects of the crown,’ as they remain today.
Having uncovered the truth, I enthusiastically spread the word, but my vision for an English People’s Freedom Movement didn’t come about because the time wasn’t right.
From 1977, I actively campaigned for the environment as part of the growing Green movement, but I was always frustrated that although the disease of ecological imbalance was identified, the cause of it wasn’t. I found Green organisations to be sadly lacking in the key historical knowledge, just as they remain today, and
I knew that if you don’t understand the cause of a disease, you can’t apply the cure. In 1993, I finally found a fellow believer, Geoff Littlejohns, and we co-founded the radical Mercia Movement, which combined historical thinking with that of ecological balance and sought to free our formerlyindependent region from the continuing Normanbritish Yoke.
Along the way, I discovered (from the work of the historian Christopher Hill) that the English people had continually tried to overthrow the Norman Yoke and regain their freedom for approaching a millennium and therefore that the essence of our campaign was traditional and very deep-rooted.
In 2001, the Mercia Movement publicised across the region the formation of the Mercian Constitutional Convention, which met for over two years and produced The Constitution of Mercia, which is regarded as the bedrock of the law of Mercia by its now 2,500 registered citizens.
On 29 May 2003, in the centre of Birmingham, we reaffirmed the legal independence of Mercia. The Convention then metamorphosed into the Acting Witan (government) of the region to spearhead to drive to actual independence.
Since then, we’ve introduced Mercia’s own currency (the penny), created the Independent Mercia website (https:// www.independent mercia.org) claimed the Staffordshire Hoard for the people of the region and formed the English Confederation with Independent Northumbria.
Now a short movie about the initiative, Mercia Unchained, has been released by Workshy Films, which was partly shot in Leek and the Manifold Valley. It can be seen on Youtube (through the https://youtu.be/ KZB8UE_FOQA link).
The key principles of Independent Mercia are ecological balance, cooperative community and organic democracy, the antithesis of the illegal Norman-british UK, which, in our view, practices environmental degradation, destructive individualism and authoritarian centralism.
I still live in North Staffordshire, in Cotes Heath, in the heartland of Mercia, surrounded by land which was taken from the people and put into private hands, and I still retain a strong sense of justice.