News and Events
FEBRUARY 2010
The visit to The Potteries Museum by Jeff Kent (as convenor of the Acting Witan) and Philip Snow (as Acting Sheriff of Staffordshire) on Friday 26th February was extremely successful. With the full cooperation and involvement of press and media we were able to conduct our ceremonies and make the points we wished to make. Local BBC Radio Stoke interviewed Jeff twice live (24th and 26th February)and made a video of Jeff and Philip making their declarations. See here for the BBC Radio Stoke web page about the occasion, and here for a nearly full-page article (with large photo of Jeff and Philip not shown in the online article) in The Sentinel which is the main local newspaper in North Staffordshire and South Cheshire.
Some photos from the event:
Long queues to see the display of the Staffordshire Hoard
Jeff Kent broadcasting live on BBC Radio Stoke
Philip Snow (left) and Jeff Kent posing for press photos inside The Potteries Museum
Jeff Kent (left) and Philip Snow posing for press photos inside The Potteries Museum
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JANUARY 2010
The Acting Witan agreed the title for the day conference on Saturday 20th March in Stoke-on-Trent to be 'Visions of Mercia' with the sub-title 'The Midlands after Meltdown' (referring to the meltdown of society which is becoming increasingly evident now). A programme of times and speakers for the day was agreed. It was also agreed that the displaying of the Staffordshire Hoard at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent during February and March would enable the Acting Witan to make the point that the U.K. legal system is not legitimate, and that the U.K. Crown authority should not have assumed control of the Hoard which rightly belongs to the citizens of Mercia. Representatives of The Acting Witan will visit The Potteries Museum on Friday 26th February to conduct a ceremony for ownership of the Hoard to be passed to The Acting Witan on behalf of the citizens of Mercia. The Hoard will be placed into the safekeeping of The Potteries Museum until other arrangements can be made if necessary. Press and media releases will be issued in advance of the ceremony.
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SEPTEMBER 2009
The Acting Witan agreed that more time would be needed to organise the day conference in October and it was postponed until Saturday 20th March 2010.
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AUGUST 2009
The Acting Witan agreed that the target for 2000 registered citizens was reached and exceeded in May 2009 when the number reached 2012. Therefore a 'Future of the Midlands' conference should be held as a day event on Saturday 31 October in Stoke-on-Trent. Provisional arrangements have been made to use a large meeting room at the North Staffs African Caribbean Association centre in Hanley. A number of outside speakers will be invited to talk on themes which are synergistic, e.g. Transition Towns, The Optimum Population Trust, the Green Party and Mercian Heathen Hearth.
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JANUARY 2009
The Acting Witan of Mercia met in Walsall on 11th January 2009
Owing to the Acting Witan's decision that the map of Mercia should reflect the position before the UK government re-drew their regional map and changed the borders of county shires, the Acting Witan recognised that the numbers of registered citizens in the respective shires had not quite reached the target of a minimum of 50 citizens in each shire. The total number of registered citizens is now over 1800. The numbers will be made up to target over the next few months.
For that reason, and also because it was felt that there should be a pre-conference meeting of the various speakers and parties who would be involved in the conference, the date for the conference was put back to later in the year. The exact date will be announced in due course.
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SEPTEMBER 2008
The Acting Witan of Mercia met in Walsall on 221st September 2008.
Register of Citizens: Jeff reported that he’d registered 73 citizens in Bedford (63 of them from Bedfordshire), 63 in Bletchley (60 of them from Buckinghamshire) and 17 in Banbury (all of them from Oxfordshire) on 30 May; 99 in Huntingdon (92 of them from Huntingdonshire) and 104 in Oakham (64 of them from Rutland) on 28 June; and 83 in Gloucester (72 of them from Gloucestershire) and 92 in Hereford (82 of them from Herefordshire) on 15 August, thereby completing his agreed shires. Also, Colin had registered 48 citizens in Newark (37 of them from Nottinghamshire, 7 Lincolnshire, 2 Derbyshire and 2 Warwickshire) on 30 May. In addition, Jeff said he’d sold 5 copies of the Constitution and 5 of The Mercia Manifesto at the Engliscan Gesidas feast at Penkridge the night before the meeting. He said 17 of the 20 shires have now got the required quota of 50 or more registered citizens, leaving Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex to be covered by Colin as soon as possible.
Conference on the Future of the Midlands: It was felt that it was now too late to hold the conference on 1 November and get the publicity out on time. It was agreed that we will rearrange it for Saturday 28 March, either at Hanley Library (for free) or, preferably, NORSACA (for £100) in Stoke-on-Trent. Philip will sound out the rooms and make a booking. It was agreed we will invite speakers from Transition Towns, the Green Party, the Engliscan Gesidas and the Mercian Heathen Hearth. It was also agreed that Philip will MC the conference, David will speak about the Anglo-Saxon regions and the development of regionalism since and Colin and Jeff will cover the case for Mercia and our Constitution and principles. The provisionally agreed timescale is: 10.30 registration and coffee, 11-1.30 first session, 1.30-2.30 lunch and 2.30-4.30 second session, with each talk having a ½ hour slot.
Transition Towns: Philip said he’s involved in a Wolstanton and Porthill Transition Towns steering group and they’ve met with a similar group in Leek, so that things in North Staffordshire are starting to move. He said a Transition Towns regional conference will probably be held in a year or two and that it’s important we have a presence at it because it appears that there is a great deal of synergy between our respective endeavours, especially regarding the establishment of a currency system for the Mercia region.
Website: Philip said that we are still on the front page of Google and we’d had 6,082 hits in the year to date. 5,000 of these had come from unknown sources, 341 from Google, 72 from Wikipedia: Secessionist Movements, 22 from Devolution and 15 from Not Fully Sovereign Nations.
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MARCH 2008
The Acting Witan of Mercia met in Walsall on 9th March 2008.
Regarding the indictment of the UK Key Political Agents, it was agreed that this will be put on hold until we have completed our required quota of registered citizens from the twenty shires. Jeff said he is still planning to cover his four agreed shires by the end of April and Colin is still hoping to cover his five shires. It was agreed that we will revisit the position after the end of April and possibly register further citizens in two remaining shires on Mercian Independence Day.
Conference on the Future of the Midlands: It was agreed that we need to have only one big project at a time. It was agreed that the sequence should be:
1. Registering the required quota of citizens;
2. Holding the Future of the Midlands conference;
3. Getting the Mercian Regional Court established;
4. The Court meeting, with our support, and producing the writs indicting the UK key political agents;
5. Our indicting of the UK key political agents.
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NOVEMBER 2007
The Acting Witan of Mercia met in Stourbridge on 25th November 2007.
Regarding the Acting Witan's intention to indict the UK key political agents, Jeff had sent letters on 18 May to the UK prime minister, deputy prime minister, monarch, leader of the House of Commons, leader of the House of Lords and home secretary, giving them four weeks from that date to refrain entirely from their illegal activities and to observe fully the Constitution of Mercia, otherwise they will be summoned to stand trial on a charge of crimes against the land, people and Constitution of Mercia.
Jeff reported that on 2 June we registered 97 citizens in Leicester (85 of them from Leicestershire) and 82 in Grantham (64 of them from Lincolnshire) and that he signed 180 in Tamworth on 1 September and 73 in Worcester (64 of them from Worcestershire) on 16 November. The total number of registered citizens should now be well over 1,000. It was agreed that Colin and Jeff will register the required quota of citizens (at least 50) in each of the remaining shires (Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Middlesex and Rutland) by the end of April 2008.
Jeff reported that he had been contacted and interviewed by Ben Goldby of the Sunday Mercury, who had visited our website. The outcome was a double-page article, with full-colour illustrations, in their 14 October edition, which was a mixture of fact and fantasy. As a result of Jeff’s insistence, the fantastic elements of the article were retracted by the newspaper in its following edition, which gave us almost another whole page of publicity, with a further full-colour photo.
It was agreed that we will go ahead with the Conference on the Future of the Midlands for Saturday 22 March 2008. Entry will be free and a possible title or subtitle is The World The Right Way Up! Sue will investigate whether it will be possible for Glorishears of Brumagem to perform Morris dancing at lunchtime. Jeff will invite speakers to attend from the Aengliscan Gesidas, the Mercian Heathen Hearth and the Green Movement and will ask Woody if Devolve! can provide a speaker. The conference will be further planned at the next meeting.
Philip reported 7,269 visits to our website from 1 January to 31 October, mostly through Wikipedia, from the topics “English regionalism’’ and ‘‘Devolution’’.
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MAY 2007
The Acting Witan of Mercia met in Stourbridge on 13th May 2007. The indictment of key UK political agents was expedited. Citizens of Mercia are to be asked to apply to be speakers on the Mercia Regional Court. A concerted programme of registration of at least 50 citizens of Mercia in each of the 20 shires was drawn up.
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JANUARY 2007
The Acting Witan of Mercia met in Stourbridge on 14th January 2007. The proposed conference on the future of Mercia has been titled: The Future of the Midlands: A Blueprint for the Future inspired by the Past. The date for this will be Saturday 15th March 2008, venue to be decided. Another 70 people had registered as citizens of Mercia.
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NOVEMBER 2006
The Acting Witan of Mercia met at Stourbridge on 19th November 2006. It was agreed that a public Conference on the Future of Mercia should be held as soon as possible. More people had registered as citizens of Mercia. A Mercian Regional Court will be established as soon as possible. Key UK political agents will be indicted.
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SEPTEMBER 2006
The Acting Witan of Mercia met at Stourbridge on 30 September 2006. Having successfully registered over 50 citizens of Mercia in both Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, the initiative to register at least 50 citizens in each of the 20 shires of Mercia was continuing, and over 50 citizens have now also been registered in Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Warwickshire. It was agreed that the minutes of previous meetings of the Acting Witan of Mercia should be published on this website at www.independentmercia.org/minutes.htm
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MAY 2006
The Acting Witan of Mercia met at Stourbridge on 7th May 2006 and discussed arrangements for the forthcoming second anniversary of the Mercian Declaration of Independence. In view of the initiative to register at least 1,000 citizens of Mercia in the coming year it was decided to visit both Banbury and Northampton on that day in order to register at least 50 citizens in each of Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire. It was also decided to create a Mercia discussion forum at http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/mercia.
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MARCH 2006
The Acting Witan of Mercia met at Stourbridge on 12th March 2006.
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JANUARY 2006
The Acting Witan of Mercia met at Stourbridge on 29th January 2006. There were five new citizens in attendance who had registered at the Mercian Heathen Hearth in October.
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NOVEMBER 2005
The Acting Witan of Mercia met at Stourbridge on 6th November 2005. The two organisers of the Mercian Heathen Hearth were welcomed to the meeting. It was agreed that more effort should be put into registering citizens of Mercia in the next year in order to reach the target of 1000 citizens by the anniversary of Mercian Independence Day on 29th May 2007. Mercia citizens will be invited to become law-speakers on the Mercian Regional Court. This is a critical component of the apparatus of independent Mercia and is also a vital ingredient in the Mercian Independence Day and so needs to be progressed forthwith.
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OCTOBER 2005
At an event, the Mercian Heathen Hearth, held in Wolverhampton on 15th October 2005, two members of the Acting Witan of Mercia attended as guests and gave a talk about the Acting Witan and the Constitution of Mercia. 20 - 25 people attended the event, of which 8 registered as citizens of Mercia. The moot brought together heathens from across the Midlands and is intended to be a quarterly event.
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MAY 2005
The Acting Witan of Mercia met at Stourbridge on 8th May 2005. Further discussion took place on the 'Vision' of day-to-day life in the future Mercia. This is intended to give the citizens of Mercia a practical vision with which they can identify themselves. This would at all times reflect the Constitution of Mercia.
Mercian Independence Day took place in Nottingham on Friday 27th May. Several dozen people registered as citizens, and it was clear that there is no shortage of people willing to register.
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FEBRUARY 2005
The Acting Witan of Mercia met at Stourbridge on 13th February 2005. A representative from Devolve! argued that the 'thrashing' of of the official North-East region and the creative thinking around the continuing Commission on the South (for example, on confederated functional sub-regions) have changed the landscape. He said that there is a divergence between long-term visionary cultural thinking and immediate pragmatic ideas and believes that the two are not ready to converge for 20 years. The response from the Acting Witan was unanimous disagreement with his stance.
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NOVEMBER 2004
The Acting Witan of Mercia met in Stourbridge on 14th November 2005, immediately following the failed attempt by the U.K. Government to impose a regional assembly in North-East England. It was agreed that whilst this result may show a lack of interest in regionalisation, it was felt that this had more to do with it being a U.K., top-down initiative rather than the truly democratic approach taken by the movement for English regions; and it was proposed that we should be instrumental in developing interest in a network of English regions.
The current 'Acting Witan' website www.acting-witan-of-mercia.org was felt to be a misnomer and another domain name more reflective of the broader Mercia movement was felt to be more in keeping. It was agreed that www.independentmercia.org would be suitable as a domain name and this was subsequently expedited.
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JULY 2004
The Acting Witan of Mercia met in Stourbridge on 11th July and agreed on a target to register 1000 Mercia citizens by 29th May 2005. An online registration form will be added to our website around the end of August. The next initiatives will include the creation of a Mercian legal system and a vision of day-to-day life in independent Mercia.
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MAY 2004
Plans were drawn up for the forthcoming First Anniversary event to be held in Birmingham on 29th May. The following flyer was designed for circulation to the media for advance notification:
MERCIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY, 29 MAY 2004
FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECLARATION OF MERCIA’S INDEPENDENCE
CELEBRATION AND LAUNCH OF THE NEW MERCIAN CURRENCY AT MIDDAY IN VICTORIA SQUARE, BIRMINGHAM
FREE MONEY BEING GIVEN OUT BY THE ACTING WITAN OF MERCIA!
TAX-FREE PURCHASE, BARTER AND EXCHANGE OF GOODS AND SERVICES
On the first anniversary of their declaration of the legal independence of Mercia (the greater Midlands), members of the Acting Witan of the region are returning to Victoria Square, Birmingham, to further the campaign for Mercia’s actual independence.
Following the complete refusal of the illegal and authoritarian United Kingdom government to engage in any talks on the future of the Midlands with democratic regionalists, the Mercian Constitutional Convention was formed by people from across the region and published The Constitution Of Mercia in 2003. The Constitution offers a new holistic society based on organic democracy, co-operative community and ecological balance and for a year has been the ultimate legal authority in the region, but remains subject to amendment by the people of Mercia.
The Constitutional Convention is now the Acting Witan (or assembly) of Mercia and is spearheading the full democratisation of the region. In pursuit of this aim, the Acting Witan has spent over six months in an ultimately futile attempt to persuade the UK key agents of political control to enter into meaningful negotiations on the transitional arrangements for full Mercian independence. Following the expiry of a final deadline for the UK to begin productive talks, the Acting Witan is now in the process of establishing new and lawful administrative, judicial and economic systems in Mercia on behalf of and in conjunction with the people of the region. The aim of these structures is to create a fully independent Mercia.
Consequently, a new currency, in the form of the Mercian penny, has been minted by the Acting Witan and is being handed out free to the citizens of the region in Victoria Square, Birmingham, on Saturday 29 May, Mercian Independence Day. Mercian pennies, worth the equivalent of one UK pound, will be given to people who register for Mercian citizenship and, with their new money, they will be able to buy items from the large variety of goods available from the Acting Witan stalls on the day. Despite this, transactions through barter, exchange and gifts will be preferred in Mercia, with currency only being used as a last resort because money breeds exploitation and poverty. Therefore, the newly-enrolled Mercian citizens will be encouraged to barter or exchange goods with the stallholders instead of paying for them with money. Alternatively, they can offer to undertake services for the local community and receive goods from the stalls in return.
Consequently, the launch of the new currency will give the people of the greater Midlands the opportunity to enjoy themselves participating in the birth of the revolutionary Mercian trading system and local businesses will be wise to follow suit because the new methods will operate entirely tax-free!
For further information, please contact Jeff Kent, the convener, at the Acting Witan office at:
The Acting Witan of Mercia, Cherry Tree House, 8 Nelson Crescent, Cotes Heath, Stafford, Staffordshire ST21 6ST
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The day was a resounding success, with 127 people signing up over a space of only three hours to become citizens of Mercia. The new currency was launched and generated considerable support with a high level of understanding by the citizens about the principles for the just and sustainable economy which we espouse. After the event it was agreed that we should hold similar events across the Mercia region.
Here are some pictures from the event. Click on the image to see full-size.
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MARCH 2004
Having received no positive response from eight key UK agents of political control concerning our request for discussions about the transitional arrangements it was agreed that after a further four weeks the Acting Witan will progress Mercia de facto without them and set up administrative, judicial and economic systems, to be launched at the First Anniversary event on 29th May 2004.
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JANUARY 2004
The fourth meeting of the Acting Witan was held in Stourbridge on 18 January 2004 and reported that interesting dialogue is now taking place with the UK crown and the prime minister's office regarding the independence of Mercia.
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NOVEMBER 2003
The third meeting of the Acting Witan was held in Stourbridge on 22 November 2003 and decided to issue a letter regarding the non-payment of taxes and licences to the UK. This letter is printed in full below:
Dear Sirs
I refer to the demand for payment of Council Tax/ TV Licence/ etc.
You appear to be unaware that Mercia declared its independence on 29th May this year. The Acts of Parliament under whose purported authority you are demanding payment are no longer recognised as automatically valid in Mercia. You should therefore urgently seek discussions with the Acting Witan of Mercia to request re-authorisation under Mercian law. Until this is done, your demand has no lawful basis.
As the Acting Witan will be considering a large number of such requests and as it will take time to process these thoroughly, I accept that it would inconvenience you if I were to withhold payment and that the public services you provide could suffer if many Mercians were to do likewise.
I therefore enclose the sum requested but cannot guarantee that future requests will be similarly treated. You are advised to contact the Acting Witan of Mercia without further delay, by writing to the following address:
The Acting Witan of Mercia, Cherry Tree House, 8 Nelson Crescent, Cotes Heath, Stafford, Staffordshire ST21 6ST
Yours faithfully
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SEPTEMBER 2003
The second meeting of the Acting Witan was held in Stourbridge on 14 September 2003 and decided to write to the UN and UNPO, asking for recognition of Mercia's independence. Also, a petition in support of Mercian independence will be drawn up.
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JUNE 2003
The inaugural meeting of the Acting Witan of Mercia was held in Stourbridge on 8 June 2003. The transitional arrangements within The Constitution of Mercia obliged the Acting Witan to notify the UK authorities that Mercia has declared independence, that their institutions are now legally inferior to those of Mercia in the region and that they should discuss the progressing of the transitional arrangements with the Acting Witan a.s.a.p.
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MAY 2003
The Mercian Constitutional Convention reaffirmed and declared the legal independence of Mercia, at 1.00pm on 29 May 2003, in Victoria Square, Birmingham. The declaration is printed on this website: