Posted on 05/11/2010 5:06:35 AM PDT by C19fan
English taxpayers face being held to ransom by Scottish and Welsh nationalists in a 'rainbow' coalition to prop up Labour - despite having voted overwhelmingly for the Conservatives. Even though Labour and the Liberal Democrats have now entered talks over a possible deal, they will only get a Commons majority if they ally themselves with minority parties from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But these parties, such as the SNP and Plaid Cymru, have said they will demand their countries be protected from cuts as a price for keeping Labour in No 10. Although last week's election was inconclusive across the UK, in England the Tories gained a massive majority of 62 - and won nearly three million votes from Labour.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I support a strong Scotland within a strong UK.
I’d hate to see us break up.
After tonight, this thread is moot...lol
Announcement expected late tonight or early on Wednesday.
I think Labor has a plot to turn Englishmen into Scotsmen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVbb6pZLfzU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPd9pVUwPYA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIogyKZ0b6k&feature=related
Sorry mate. You might not personally be this way, but the majority of your compatriots are irredeemably socialist and voted for the devolution that has effectively destroyed the viability of the 1707 Act of Union. Perhaps we should have some sort of arrangement were we have citizenship in common (as with the Republic of Ireland) and cooperation on defence, but I’ll be damned if I want Scottish Labour and Lib-Dem MPs interfering in English affairs and ramming socialist legislation down our throats when our English MPs have no influence north of the Antonine Wall....
I don’t recall hearing that there was ever any serious demand on the part of the 13 colonies that they have representatives in Parliament—it wouldn’t have done them a lot of good (they’d be greatly outvoted, and the people they sent could easily be co-opted by the other members of Parliament and forget the wishes of the people back home)...and it would justify Parliament laying taxes on the colonists.
bookmark
Not that true. My boss at work is from Scotland around Glasgow, of my own age group, grew up in Thatcherite Britain and now in early to mid 30’s, and he is a pretty hardline Scottish nationalist. He told me the Nats have more support than Unionists over all of Scotland now.
And he is quite an interesting mix politically speaking - pretty centralist average folk on the street and very much dependent on media report. Doesn’t like British Labour but like Australian Labor, absolutely hates Thatcher, a big fan of Obama and Reagan ironically speaking. I gauge he is probably a middle of the road Scot.
Ping!
Another issue not one has mentioned yet is the impact of the break-up of the United Kingdom will have on the Commonwealth. All the big 3 “Old Commonwealth” countries are to some degree set that the monarchy is to the the current monarch of the United Kingdom, even though the legal clauses state the institution is already repatriated. To some extent the Anglo-Celtic or English Canadian identity in each of the 3 countries is shaped by the common national identity of the United Kingdom on the countries’ early history as British, not English or Scottish or Irish individually, colonies. For example, in English-speaking Canada I don’t see the Scottish-descent Canadians really trying to pick up fights with English-descent Canadians, and they are proud of being English Canadians.
If the United Kingdom breaks up and independent Scotland continues to recognize Elizabeth II it is not that bad. But having seen Scottish Nationalists close hand, it wouldn’t surprise me they would decide to make a scene to publicly humiliate England as much as they can by wanting Franz Duke of Bavaria, the current Jacobite claimant, as the new King of Scotland. I wonder who would be the head of state in this case when the United Kingdom no longer exists?
A second thing is constitutionally speaking, the 3 countries all have the foundation based on the British nation, not to mention national identity, which I believe is particularly acute in the case of Canada as a country founded by two peoples, British on English Canada and French on French Canada. Does this need to be changed to 3 or more founding peoples if the original UK breaks up?
It may be a good start point to a conversation I suppose, and anyone could share their take?
I don’t think the Monarchy would be in any danger in the short to medium term of any independence. The SNP doesn’t have Republicanism as part of its manifesto. Remember, it was the Scottish Crown that took over the English throne, not the other way around.
As for the Jacobites being invited to take over, well, Jacobism these days is nothing more than a romantic fantasy and not the serious political movement it was 300 years ago. None of the Jacobite heirs has claimed the throne since the early 19th century and have not expressed any interest in reviving that claim now. Apart from anything else, the fact that the Jacobite heirs are now actual de-facto and dejure sausage-sucking Germans makes the common Jacobite criticism of the present Royals being ‘German interlopers’ because they are descended from the Hanoverian electors seem absolutely ridiculous....
They called it "taxation without representation". It's a fantastic phenomenon, well worth discussing at length later ~ a google.com search on that phrase alone yields 343,000 separate entries on the net.
Now, regarding relative populations, part of the UK problem entering into the war was UK had maybe 7 million people. (SEE: http://chartsbin.com/view/28k ) and the colonies had between 2 million and 7 million.
Both parties ~ the Americans and the Ukian people, found it necessary to "bring in help" ~ the Americans had the use of French troops and the Ukians used German troops.
I suspect the population information in both main areas of the Kingdom were not all that good ~ and later on in the 1800s the Brits would address the issue of "the rotten boroughs" by holding their own census. In the new United States the first census was held before the century was out in 1790. Imperfect as it was (given that it was the first really serious census anyone had taken anywhere) they found 3,929,214 people in the United States.
The Brits had obviously made a mistake in fighting a war so far from home against such a large number of heavily armed people. In just a few decades the USA population far outstripped that of the UK.
The English showed up a tad later ~ the creation of the UK kind of overlaps some of these events.
I understand that, but most of Scotland is now very, very liberal. Just like the Irish in MA and Chicago. I don’t know what happened to our people but something has gone seriously wrong. Perhaps all the conservative Scots and Irish came to America.
When it comes to the Sa'ami it's more like 99% live here and not there.
Then who is left over there that has turned the whole of the place yellow? (I’m basing that on a precint map I saw that was similar to our blue and red) The yellow stood for liberals.
Scots ~ that’s who’s left. Scotland has a lot of Scots. The United States has several times that number!
Make England independent again.
Apparently yes. There was a study a couple of years ago that even though New Zealand looks very longing to Britain and the English culture, in fact Scottish blood is the most widespread among European (white) New Zealanders. Not only Otago, but even “archtypically English” regions like Canterbury have majority Scottish descent.
And interestingly, the Scottish descent New Zealanders don’t really want to pick fights against real English-descent New Zealanders. In Canada, the Scottish-descent call themselves English Canadians. And also notice they are fanatically monarchist and are not that fond of the French in Quebec in terms of Quebec nationalism - it is strange considering the historical Auld Alliance between Scotland and France, and Scotland today probably copies a lot of French socialism here and there.
I think anything can happen. From what I have seen at work, the Scots could be pretty pragmatic and skeptical when needed, but they are also very empty-headed and emotional when it comes to talks about nationhood and symbolism. I believe they are capable of being that reckless to go for the Jacobite monarch if Scotland does become independent.
Of course, we in the Commonwealth needs to prepare for the worst. “Who will be our head of state” may not be a mere academic exercise.
Except the Scots here are mostly conservative (our military has a huge amount of people of Scot blood) the Scots there want someone to take care of them. Not all mind you, but it’s like the number of conservatives in New York City. They are overwhelmed.
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