UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Lord Halifax]

I mean he’s not wrong.

sure, but he's saying it like it's a bad thing.

[Lord Halifax]

If she does pass away, I will create a separate pinned thread.

While I wouldn't expect so much..'strength of feeling' on a US forum, I will be quite tight with moderation. And I say that as someone who is in no way a royalist.

sucks to have a limey mod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8fLOJswWtk

[Lord Halifax]

Even more hilarious when you consider what her views on Europe actually were…

what were they?

[Lord Halifax]

So what countries will be next to become Republics?

Antigua
Jamaica
Belize

those are the Commonwealth Realms where that are officially considering it and haven't put it on hold. Jamaica seems never to actually do anything about it, so maybe Belize will beat them to it.  

Then maybe Australia if Labor wins again, Albanese has postponed it to after the next election.

Then probably the rest of the Caribbean ones and the Bahamas within the next decade or so (c. 2025-35).

EDIT: Bougainville will gain independence in 2027 and will be a republic, so if you count new states it'll beat most of the others.

[Lord Halifax]

https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1581288178363035648?s=20&t=y26u4_js...

surprised the UK is still ahead of France

[Lord Halifax]

Any idea what this is about?

https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1580980400394207232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctw...

[Lord Halifax]

Curiously enough, Brian does have a deliberately non-posh nickname (used largely by his wife), though it isn't Brian, it's Fred. He, in turn, calls he Gladys. Meanwhile, his uncle the late and unlamented Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor was always known in his family as 'David', even though that was not his name.

He was called Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, so it was actually one of his names.

[Lord Halifax]

Curiously enough, Brian does have a deliberately non-posh nickname (used largely by his wife), though it isn't Brian, it's Fred. He, in turn, calls he Gladys. Meanwhile, his uncle the late and unlamented Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor was always known in his family as 'David', even though that was not his name. But this sort of thing is common enough with properly posh people even outside the Royal Family: Anthony Wedgwood Benn is best known to us as Tony, was usually known by colleagues as Wedgwood before the 1970s... but (and this is the relevant part) was called Jimmy by members of his family for his entire life. I have no idea why they do this either.

To be fair, David was one of his names (though he had .

Seven, Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David.

[Lord Halifax]

I've personally never understood the point of bicameral systems to start with, either one house is much more powerful and the one that is actually in charge, as is the case in Britain, or you get endless gridlock when the two houses are out of sync with each-other.

In a federation or confederation one represents the people and the other the states/provinces/whatever, but I agree it's pointless in a unitary state.

[Lord Halifax]

Also

https://mobile.twitter.com/rosscolquhoun/status/1600461810473357312

Interesting, very out of kilter with most recent opinion polling if accurate.

From someone from Quebec, totally expected after that Court decision. Being told by a court "no, you can't do that, only the central government can" is one of the greatest fuels for independentism.

Perhaps, but as we saw in Quebec, voters will eventually get tired of the debate about independence, and move on to bread-and-butter issues.

Not sure that's a good comparison. Once mobilized European separatist movements don't tend to die unless they try to build on a too shallow identity like Lega Nord's North Italian separatism (see e.g. Catalonia or Flanders) and Scottish national identity runs deep.

Quebec also makes up a significantly bigger part of Canada than Scotland of the UK, so it's easier to make the case for Franco-Canadians (a bigger group than Quebecois) influencing Canada than Scotland having a strong voice in the UK, the argument that London and the SE will always dominate the British state (and disregard Scotland's interests) is very easy to make.

[Lord Halifax]

Scotland, though, has traditionally had more influence on the UK than mere numbers would suggest. Of course, that is less true under modern Tory governments who really are mainly English based (and mostly southern England at that, the current PM holding a Yorkshire seat notwithstanding)

sure, but compared to Canada it's still a much easier argument to make

[Lord Halifax]

milktoast liberal

it's milquetoast liberal after the character Caspar Milquetoast from the comic strip "The Timid Soul" by Harold Tucker Webster (first published in 1924) which made milquetoast slang for a meek or timid person. Webster described Milquetoast as "a man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick" unfortunately that doesn't really apply to milquetoast liberals.

[Lord Halifax]

Why would you bother polling this? lol

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1663913743363760138?s=20

because the level of support is significantly higher than it has been historically

[Lord Halifax]

Apart from that, all sorts of minority positions still get polled. And why not?

it's interesting how things change over time e.g. we wouldn't have data for how many Americans oppose interracial marriages and when it became a fringe view if they'd just stopped polling it once it became a minority position.

given the state of the Welsh economy and how many English people live in Wales the level of support for Welsh independence is actually quite high, it's definitely above the threshold of when things start to get interesting. Just because something is unrealistic doesn't mean the level of support for it isn't interesting.

[Lord Halifax]

Reactionary London Regime arrests prominent independence leader on trumped up corruption charges.

Police has been devolved.

the upper ranks are probably still firmly unionist

[Lord Halifax]

It's not uncommon in complex and sensitive cases for the police to arrest people that they have no intention (on the information that they have) to charge at a later date, the thinking being that it's easier to keep a tighter control of various things that way. That might not be the case in Sturgeon's case, but it could be, and it's the sort of thing that makes speculation difficult.

sounds police state-y, is the British public okay with that kind of abuse of authority?

[Lord Halifax]

I know it's the EU anthem, but even in a British context I have to imagine that attempting to make a culture war shibboleth out of "Ode to Joy," one of the most immediately recognizable and universally loved or at least liked pieces of music ever composed, with an extremely widely-known and compelling personal story behind it in the life of its similarly ubiquitous composer, comes across as at least a little bit tacky?

choosing a piece written and composed by two Germans as the EU anthem was a bit too on the nose, they should have gone with something more neutral

[Lord Halifax]

I know it's the EU anthem, but even in a British context I have to imagine that attempting to make a culture war shibboleth out of "Ode to Joy," one of the most immediately recognizable and universally loved or at least liked pieces of music ever composed, with an extremely widely-known and compelling personal story behind it in the life of its similarly ubiquitous composer, comes across as at least a little bit tacky?

Ode to Joy was the tune to "Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia", the national anthem of Ian Smith's Rhodesia, so it might appeal to some British right wingers

[Lord Halifax]

I've come up with a proposal for constitutional reform and would appreciate any thoughts.

- 'Britain' a union with a common defence and foreign policy
-- members: England, Wales, Scotland, Cumberland
-- collective head of state; English president serves as first among equals
-- aforementioned defence and foreign policy determined by an elected legislature (seats distributed by nation according to its population)

- England a unitary state
-- except Northumberland (extends to the Forth) which is autonomous

- unicameral English National Assembly
-- no fixed location; tours England
-- STV for boroughs; list PR for shires
-- additionally, temporary co-option by sortition citizens' assembly-style at its stops
--- that a government can then use the location to rig this in its favour is intentional

Separating Cumberland from England and the Lowlands from Scotland and then making "rump-England" a unitary state apart from a cross border Northumberland sounds like a good way to piss off a lot of people.

Doesn't Cornwall have more of a separate identity than Cumberland? and what about an autonomous "Greater London" if you're going to divide England anyway.

[Lord Halifax]

https://twitter.com/JonnElledge/status/1770880447586734334

The NIMBYism and quasi-pastoralism is the point.

that's a very negative interpretation of conservationist interests, it's a regrettable fact that large scale "green energy" projects often destroy nature and farmland so there is a legitimate green vs. green conflict, and that's going to be more of an issue in a small and heavily urbanized country like England than in the US.