An English Parliament is the best way to proceed. It is logically consistent; it offers a visibly fairer deal to the English people and is most likely to encourage healthy and active democratic participation.

At the very least, the English deserve the opportunity to decide. They should be offered a referendum, just as the Scots and Welsh were, on their constitutional future. Failure to provide that option would be a shocking display of disdain for nearly 50 million United Kingdom citizens.

A corrosive sense of injustice can be avoided only if the constitutional settlement is fair and seen to be fair. An English Parliament would achieve that: it would resolve the West Lothian question, cleanly and without the trade-offs that are difficult and never satisfactory. It would give a fair deal for England, with equal representation; a fair deal for the Union, with reduced nationalist tensions; and a sensible, balanced constitution would be the outcome.

Strains caused by existing nationalism in Scotland and Wales, clashing with a rising English sense of injustice—not necessarily English nationalism—could threaten to tear the Union apart. There is only one logical way in which to avert that crisis. To correct that unbalanced, unfair and unsustainable constitutional settlement, we must give the English at least the opportunity of a Parliament of their own.

An English Parliament on the same basis as the Scottish one, will be the minimum that the English people are are likely to be satisfied with. Anything less will lead to disaffection and discontent, to a belief the the English are being treated as second-class citizens in their own land. If Labour wanted to bring about the dissolution of the United Kingdom, that disaffection would be the way to do it.

The people of England deserve no less the same choice as the peoples of Wales and Scotland last September: a referendum on whether they want a parliament of their own. In their own words Labour should trust the people - in this case the people of England.