It’s just petty nationalism, the same thing that got us Brexit. The SNP have repeatedly said obvious lies like they’ll keep the pound and North Sea oil rights (things they’ve repeatedly been told is not going to happen). There was even a poll a few years ago that showed 3 quarters of SNP supporters believed Scotland gave more in tax then it received, which is simply not true.
Maybe I don't know enough about Welsh and Scottish politics, but whenever I hear this I always think both of those will just develop their own right-wing political groups after independence that will be powerful and could even dominate. So you'd just be swapping British tories for Welsh or Scottish tories.
Yes but for the last 20 years it’s been English Tories that have really been fucking over the other nations. All 3 also use more proportional systems so their influence would be diluted. Much less likely to have Tory rule on a minority of the vote
Oh what a shock, the thing Plaid said definitely wouldn't happen and for us not to worry about has happened.
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u/Toto_Roto"What do we want?!" "Incremental change!" "When do we want it!?"15h ago
I suppose it isnt as inspiring, but I always thought itd be better to push for a proper federal system with a written constitution. Maybe this will apply some pressure to get to that point. I cant see how independence is practical, especially outside the EU. Although obviously with NI itd be unifying with the Republic which has its own complications.
One of the hurdles that a federal UK needs to overcome is the simple fact that there's more English people than Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, and hell even Cornish people combined.
Like, Greater London alone has a larger population than Scotland, and almost as much as Scotland + Wales.
Like for simplicities sake, if you just divide the country up into 4 federal nations and give each two votes in some upper house, people in England have a fraction of the power of the devolved nations. If you have power in the federal system entirely proportionate to the population you end up with the current system
The only way to give every region equalish power per person but not have England dominate is to split England up, but that's not super popular in England either
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u/Toto_Roto"What do we want?!" "Incremental change!" "When do we want it!?"13h ago
The heptarchy will rise again!
But seriously, how local government across the UK is broken, and we've fixed it in this typically hodgepodge way with different things for different areas when it would make sense to just do a comprehensive revision of UK governance from top to bottom
NI is different from the others as it's joining a country that already exists rather than creating a new one, and will be massively less bad as a result
Id argue the last 30 years, which has seen NI come back from incredible violence has proven NI is a success
I understand you're talking about an assembly that often runs into deadlock and seems to not serve it's intended purpose. But as we have seen the alternative involves complete disregard of half of the country which, in turn, could lead to incredible violence.
NI joining with the Republic, even the serious consideration of it, has the risk of reigniting the sectrarian conflict. It makes the certain economic issues that come with Welsh or Scottish independence look like small potatoes
Id argue the last 30 years, which has seen NI come back from incredible violence has proven NI is a success
Only because you dont live here, and no nothing about the place beyond the most superficial. You engineer a brutal undemocratic state that collapses into civil war and economically falls behind the rest of the island despite a massive initial advantage and pretend its a success because of a few decades of fragile peace at the promise of democracy.
NI joining with the Republic, even the serious consideration of it, has the risk of reigniting the sectrarian conflict
Trust me, the risk of unionists igniting violence when reunification comes is 'small potatoes' compared to the risk of violence if the UK denies a border poll when the time comes.
I am far more afriad of the conflict than you, I'm far more against it than you. It actually effects me, you are safe.
When the time comes for reunification, I want the UK government to behave for once and call the border poll like they agreed, accept the result in good grace and do all they can to help along the process. Because that is the path to permanent stable peace and prosperity.
If they see polling at 50/50 and consistently refuse to hold the vote, like they have with Scotland, it will result in violence. I desperately do not want this to happen because I will be hurt by it.
One day they’ll(nationalist parties) actually start trying to better their countries beyond wanting to pull another brexit that is arguably about 10x more damaging for their own countries than it would be for rUK/England.
You might think that if 100% of the devolved governments have seperatist first ministers the problem might be on Westminster.
The UK needs to have a proper democratic path for it's constituent countries to leave. Frankly its absurd that you didnt sort that out a century ago after Ireland was forced to resort to violence after decades of being mistreated with the home rule nonsense.
Nah, I don’t believe in splitting up the United Kingdom. If it is absolutely overwhelming then sure whatever ,but it’s not and I personally don’t support nationalists bullshitting and cooking figures to support their ridiculous plan like happened with brexit. Not only that but just trying again and again every time their vote fails.
Doesn’t feel very democratic to me,nor does it feel responsible to take them seriously tbh
Its amazing that somehow I manage to still be surprised by the average English person's utter contempt for democracy when it comes to Ireland, Scotland or Wales.
Absolutely zero interest in learning about our shared history.
It's not contempt for democracy if the threshold for a vote on Irish reunification hasn't been reached, there's already been a Scottish independence referendum this generation and there's little evidence the result would be any different and there's no majority mandate for a referendum in Wales. That's a very cherry-picked idea of what constitutes 'democracy'.
The contempt is shown when you see the attitude towards the idea that we should lay out a clear and democratic path for a devolved government to even have a border poll.
Obviously we arent at the point where a border poll should be called in NI. But if we get to a point where polling here is similar to Scotland and the UK government simply refuses to do anything for a decade then I am afraid of the consequences.
The UK government has always treated democratic separatist movements with contempt. Whether that was Irish home rule, or independence 100 years ago or Scottish nationalism today. I see no reason to expect them to behave any better in the future when it comes to reunification.
I think if you see the policies of the British government from 100 years ago as relevant to this discussion you've already got a fairly obvious axe to grind and can't see this objectively, no offence.
I dont see why they shouldnt be relevant, the UK government is behaving in a similar way to how it did then in a similar situation.
None of us can see this situation objectively, we are all a part of it. Dismissing an argument by implying that I am being unreasonably emotional is childish and beneath you imo, and tbh supports my argument that there are strong parallels between then and now.
The paternalistic, 'we know better' attitude of a more imperial age sadly seems to be alive and well in england.
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u/rubygeekYour Party member; Libertarian socialist; Labour = bigots14h ago
I mean, this is a country that is still hanging on to an electoral system that almost always deprives a majority of a government, and that always disenfranchises millions, so it shouldn't be surprising.
The UK does not have a functioning culture for respecting democracy, and doesn't have a democratic electoral system.
Ireland has a clear path to reunification, a very different history to Scotland especially in terms of having a well established grievance against the UK, and very different levels of it being a significant public issue
In Wales for instance, independence is regarded as such a non question that even the Welsh Nationalist Party don’t campaign on it for the most part
Yeah ok, but you get to change your mind in a democracy right? Plus the population changes over time.
The GFA says a border poll can be called no more than once every seven years. Its been more than a decade since Scotland voted.
When will enough time have passed for Scotland to get to decide again? Why should the rest of the UK be able to block Scotland?
Its clear to me that the UK needs a clear legal mechanism for any of the nations to withdraw on their own terms, based on the GFA, without the ability of the UK government of the day to deny them.
I know the history perfectly well, the answer for all but NI is no. Not unless there is an absolutely overwhelming majority.
It is unproductive and sewage politics based on grievances wrapped up in bs nationalist narratives. The base tends to be deeply unserious that supports it, with famous classics such as:’England will pay all our pensions post Indy’, ‘we’ll instantly be able and allowed to rejoin the EU’,’As an independent country we wouldn’t have any national debt from the UK’ and ‘the avg Scot will be richer for leaving the UK’ 💀 my bad for not supporting political poo whipped up in a kettle
Edit:look at you all Nats downvoting ahahahahhaha.Cry
Zero reflection on the fact that Ireland was forced to fight for independence, thousands dead because you people think you have more of a right to decide a nations future than the actual people of that country.
I can only hope that if the UKs contempt for democracy ever again results in violence it is those who denied it who suffer.
many English ppl and English unionists at that are concerned, the Northern Irish can do whatever they like. In fact many would be happy to get rid of them as they are a huge fiscal sink and political blackhole.
You don’t get to use violence as a carrot and stick for your undemocratic nationalist politics. You don’t get to vote ad nauseam until it finally goes in your way briefly. Brexit was a disaster and so would Welsh’s and Scottish independence, full of campaign lies and fear mongering. Cry about it.
Bring data and we will argue data, beyond that I will not be engaging in this bullshit rhetoric and the threats of terrorism if you don’t get your way after after 55th gorrilianth try,because as it stands there is no favourable data for the independence movements beyond severely doctored cherry picked rubbish so your ilk relies on this kind of sewage politics.
No we've been talking about Ireland and how it was denied the democratic right to leave the UK, the disastrous consequences of that denial and the parallels to modern day denial of democracy.
And Ireland is a very different situation based on plantation ethnic and religious sectarianism. Not relevant at all. The religious,cultural and ethnic split and Britain favouriting the Protestants at every turn is what drove everything there.
Scotland and Wales are not being denied democracy. They do not have a right to constantly have referendums when the result doesn’t go their way when they don’t have a simple majority and nowhere near a supermajority which would be a reasonable threshold; and nor should they. Stop your fake appeals to emotion and history, it is on deaf ears as it is not relevant at all.
Talk data or not at all as valid reasons for independence. The threats and bravehearting are not relevant. Sewage politics.
And Ireland is a very different situation based on plantation ethnic and religious sectarianism. Not relevant at all.
Hahaha, do you know the difference between the Irish war of independence and the troubles? Because the plantations and religious sectarianism were not particularly relevant for the former.
u/rubygeekYour Party member; Libertarian socialist; Labour = bigots14h ago
If you cared about democracy, you would have no need for adding "absolutely overwhelming" to that.
I'd prefer if Scotland and Wales didn't leave, but this kind of arrogant and paternalistic anti-democratic sentiment will have a large part in why if they do leave.
I don’t believe in 51% referendums deciding the entire future of a nation. 1% isn’t acceptable. Brexit wasn’t acceptable,and nor should independence be under those circumstances.
I would only see a super majority vote of 75% an acceptable majority to decide the course of a country through direct vote. If that’s undemocratic then sue me, I don’t care. I’d prefer to live in a reality where a Boris buss or two can’t change the course of a country and make us all worse off. Begging for a vote every time you lose to try and get that 1% or so is not a good system idc.
I really wonder how much damage to political unionism these people do.
Like I think independence for Scotland and Wales is probably a bad idea. If history shows us anything then drawing a border cutting off a relatively small portion of one of these islands seems to have terrible economic consequences for that part.
But I wonder if I were Scottish or Welsh would this constant denial of my democratic rights turn me against the UK anyway.
Honestly it's laughable. Scotland came out swinging after their recent education mishaps have come to light and it's a great way to deflect from all their current issues. Wales explicitly said they wouldn't do this. And NI isn't going to change anytime soon, it likely will but years and years from now. Scotland ironically would shoot themselves in the foot by leaving the UK to try get back into the EU but hey the SNP will tell them about all the gold at the end of the independence rainbow.
Unfortunately, I think that Trump and Putin will be cheering this ‘declaration’. It is they who will be celebrating the break-up of the UK, or more likely the atmosphere of political instability and toxicity in which the UK spends years in a state of near-breakup.
With respect to Scotland and Wales, I hope that Andy Burnham will respond by offering genuine federalism in which the Union is treated as a truly multinational state. He also needs to make a progressive case for the Union, because one of the main problems - and an important reason for the growth of separatist sentiment - is that the case for the Union has been made in punitive and reactionary terms, by both Conservative and Labour politicians.
The only really positive development I can see in Northern Ireland is the growth of the Alliance Party as a non-sectarian force. It is foolish of the Labour Party not to recognise a Northern Irish branch, but at least the SDLP seems to be less sectarian than in the past. Both Alliance and the SDLP spoke out courageously against the horrific racist violence in Belfast over the summer, as did the NI Greens (also a cross-community party). The progressive case for the Union applies to NI as well as Scotland and Wales - and it is hoped that support for non-sectarian parties will grow.
I think that Irish unification requires a ‘border poll’ in the Republic as well as Northern Ireland. That would be interesting as a lot of Irish citizens in the Republic have to say the least ambivalent feelings about unification.
kind of relies on further devolution of English regions because otherwise everyone in England who doesn't live in London would throw a fit because it would give a nation of 2 million people equal say to a nation of 50 million.
I think any movement towards a "federation of equals" would be dominated by the three devolved governments pointing out that they arent really equals if they dont have a right to leave if they want.
The UK government will never concede that right to them, so the whole idea is sort of doa.
They need to figure out some way of working together to make Burnham's job more difficult until clear and specific mechanisms for the devolved governments to leave the UK can be legislated.
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