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Never! The DUP’s tragic journey from Ian Paisley to King Lear – politicalbetting.com
Never! The DUP’s tragic journey from Ian Paisley to King Lear – politicalbetting.com
The Union is buggered according to a variety of polls conducted for the Sunday Times. pic.twitter.com/vrEVAkuRXS
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What most struck me about the Sunday Times piece is that only 50% of Scots want a referendum in the next 5 years and that support for independence was only 52-48. These are not the sort of figures to inspire confidence that Scotland will go down the independence route.
Ireland will be united sooner or later. It was the inevitable consequence of planting a border in the Irish sea, though in truth it has been headed that way for some time. Alastair's quite wrong to pin this on the DUP. The ethnic outlook of N Ireland has been changing and support for the union receding.
I note the Brexityoons are now pointing to NI's hermaphrodite status as a little bit EU and a little bit UK as the perfect foundation for its continuing allegiance to the Union. So that's England, Wales and NI's Brexit vote respected, leaving...
I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
Ex-president, whose Senate trial will start in two weeks, reportedly planned to oust acting attorney general in bid to overturn election
Much the same applied to Northern Ireland. If we agreed to EU regulation of food and agricultural standards, which it is hard to find a coherent objection to, then the Irish Sea border would be much less of a problem.
King Cole, it does remain (ahem) faintly bizarre that the referendum was held by a government that didn't want the change to occur and didn't require the other side to actually have a prospectus.
Anyway, carry on telling Scots that they don't really want a referendum but they're not getting one anyway 'cos reasons. Seems to be working a treat for the cause (clarification: not your cause).
The substantive questions, however, show small shifts towards a pro-Union position, compared to the previous polls conducted by the same pollsters.
Here’s one for you from CNN:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/23/motorsport/maya-weug-ferrari-driver-academy-spt-intl/index.html
https://twitter.com/Reevellp/status/1353007339339739138?s=19
Best known to players of Risk, Yakutsk looks rather chilly for a demonstration.
https://twitter.com/p_zalewski/status/1352890104566730752?s=19
Mr. B2, it certainly was odd.
Interesting story on Weug.
My only concern with the drive to get women into F1 is that the trailblazer's going to be critical. If she can't cut it then that'll make the appointment look like tokenism and set things back. The first woman of recent times to compete in F1 doesn't need to be a Hamilton or Verstappen (although, obviously, that'd be great), but she does need to be solid enough that people aren't questioning whether it's tokenism.
Still, as more women compete in lower categories of motorsport the number of candidates will go up so hopefully it's just a matter of time.
The deal with NI reflects not evil incompetence but the reality that NI is much more integrated with a much more dynamic Southern Ireland than it was when Ireland had a pretty ordinary agricultural economy. That needed to be protected. NI is not economically strong as it is and could not afford to lose access to that dynamism. Will there come a point when Ireland offers more than the UK? Maybe. But probably not for a while yet.
That was masked during the May government because of the crucial importance of the DUP ro the majority. Now that's no longer an issue, the nominally unioinist Conservatives mostly don't care either. So if opinion does shift to suggest a majority for Irish union, resistance in Number 10 will be much milder than for a new Scottish Indyref.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSwtok5a/
I wrote this piece well before the polls published last night came out. They fit well with its premise. The government suddenly seems to recognise that the union is under siege, though it seems clueless what to do about it, because like you it emotionally cannot accept that Brexit is a catalyst. Its plan seems to be to convert the non-English bits into colonies by setting its face against referendums on changes in constitutional status no matter how clear the mandate. That is a short term strategy only. In the long term, what does a UK government dominated by an assertive English nationalism offer Scotland and Northern Ireland? Because in the long term and perhaps not even the short term, money is not going to be enough.
Please tell me again how right wingers are having their speech uniquely oppressed.
Russian language media is focusing on attacks on the police which is straight out of the Johnson/Trump playbook by extending the identity of the state, and by inference the country, to its apparatchika.
In extremis Vovka will fire the over promoted IT Manager who is the current PM and raise pensions for his irreducible core supporters; old people who are more or less permanently drunk.
Similarly in NI. We had the troubles for the best part of 20 years on the back of the desire of a significant minority to have a united Ireland. That minority is moving to a majority. What the hell has Brexit got to do with it?
I have been wondering why all these mainland UK companies who have, often reluctantly, started setting up satellite offices in EU or employing EU proxies to handle some of their sales, aren't thinking about setting up in NI?
People voted for Brexit to be better off. What was making them worse off was a variety of things - forrins, CFP, bendy bananas - but everyone voting to leave expected a benefit in doing so. Now that the benefit is that they get to work harder and longer for less cash with less to buy in the shops at higher prices, the outrage in fishing will become more general outrage as the penny drops.
Some morons will insist sovvrinty is worth making themselves poorer for decades (we had that on here last night), but most will say - as the fishermen already are - that this isn't the Brexit we voted for. Rejoining the EEA "on our terms" and a customs deal will quickly become the singular policy debate of the decade to come. And some insist that Brexit is done...
There is an ocean of legitimate criticism to hurl at the PM. The global pandemic is not one of them. And if the charge of incompetence in particular areas (not tightening air borders, for example) is to be levelled, which is perfectly fair, it is not reasonable to pretend the vaccine rollout hasn't been amongst the best in the world.
Brexit did not cause the Scottish independence movement, it did not cause the problems in Northern Ireland. What it did was shake both all up. Just like shaking a can of pop, what you then saw was them fizz over. Which was entirely predictable and predicted.
In the case of Northern Ireland specifically, the connection is particularly clear. The government has consciously chosen to make Northern Ireland’s suppliers reorganise their supply lines chaotically from mainland GB to the Republic of Ireland, so far as they can. This is going to supercharge the integration of the economy of island of Ireland.
Judging this government by its actions rather than its words, it seems to will the end of the union. A shame for unionists in both Scotland and Northern Ireland, but both sets will have plenty of time to reflect on their past gullibility.
It's why there was some suggestion in the past of attaining a consistent 60:40 gap before pressing for an actual vote, so as to avoid the prospect of a narrow defeat at the ballot box. The 1995 Quebec referendum was lost by a wafer thin majority and twenty-five years later there's no prospect of a third tilt on the horizon. Though that said, I think that Scotland's a different case and if there is a second defeat the campaign for a third vote begins the following morning. Stability cannot be achieved within the existing settlement, which is one more good reason for wanting to see the back of the Union.
Plenty of moral and political headroom.
BoZo didn't win votes in Scotland promising to deny them democracy
As an aside, it's also a black swan that the most immediate advantage of leaving has been the better vaccine procurement. Accountability has its upsides.
This country had reduced itself to being good at four things:
Financial Services. No deal agreed, the exodus has started
Specialist Manufacturing. Nissan betting that they can be last man standing churning out Qashqais for the UK only is not a sign that Brexit works for manufacturing. Rules of Origin are fiendishly complex, at best manufacturing needs a supply chain that is wholly cut off from its former self, at worst its too expensive / complex so just off-shore the lot.
Retail. Not just shopping but the support industries for shopping like logistics and warehousing. We had this wonderful position as a NW European hub which we have just shuttered.
Culture. The ludicrous lack of a deal for the performing arts is yet another example of Shagger having no clue where the valuable parts of the various trades were. "Sovereignty" doesn't pay the bills, being able to maintain our thriving film, TV, music and theatre industries does pay the bills.
As I said to SeanL last night when he said that he's happy to be poorer for 30 years (didn't he go to Thailand...?) for sovvrinty, people didn't vote to be worse off. And they increasingly will be. Expect the fastest reverse ferret from the new Tory PM. As with the Poll Tax our lack of an EEA / CU arrangement will be the top priority for Jeremy Hunt when he takes over.
They haven't. The FT expose detailed how utterly clueless Shagger and Frost were at what the negotiation was. No clue as to the value of the variables they were trading, no objectives other than being able to crow about sovereignty. People show that video of a (drunken?) Boris regaling the NI businesspeople with a guarantee that there will be no paperwork as him lying.
I don't think he was lying, I just think he hadn't a clue how any of it worked. The same is true with so many of the morons in the cabinet whether it be Raaaaaab not understanding the importance and scale of Dover - Calais, or Patel not getting that SHE controls the border, or Lewis not understanding that his department manages the GB - NI border he insists doesn't exist. These people are stupid, literally clueless.
How could the lying sex-pest insist no paperwork then sign a deal with paperwork then insist there is no paperwork? Because he didn't understand how anything works and still doesn't care. Detail is for the little people. When the party turf him out and his legacy gets binned and reversed as quickly as the Poll Tax was, he will continue to be baffled. 'Didn't I deliver what people asked for?' NO!
On the union front, the most obvious steps would be an English Parliament, with the Lower House of Westminster being reduced to Treasury, Defence, Foreign Affairs, and some Home functions.
The political class seems incapable of acknowledging England as a cohesive political identity (ironic giving the foolish Little England line people take for the only part of the UK without its own devolved political body), however. I have little faith Sir Keir will do anything but advocate the slicing up of England.
If I had to make a forecast, this could be an opportunity either for the Conservatives or for Farage's latest political vehicle to be a pro-England party.
No clue, interested only in symbols not facts, massively popular with a minority deluded base, when he is gone sanity will return, but the damage will linger.
As for "we got the vaccine quicker cos we left the EU" that has the same merits as "we had to leave the EU to take back control of our borders - we couldn't shut them as EU members. When the Dr (I forget her name) who personally signed off the vaccines post trial shot that fox dead at the press conference, its almost funny to read that she was actually wrong.
If the UK splits with Scotland going independent, NI joining Eire and maybe even Wales wanting more autonomy it will be the fault of the Brexiteers.
On that count, the UK is streets ahead.
And on that note, I must be off to lead the Cree to supreme victory.
Then what?
The SNP would still be arguing for Indy even if remain had won. Makes 0 difference.
So, hopefully the Union will be destroyed before Labour gets its opportunity to carve us up into a tatty patchwork quilt of mostly artificial cantons - although I doubt it, sadly. Johnson will not budge on Scottish independence, so we may have to wait for a wobbly Labour minority Government to get back in again before Scotland gets another opportunity to walk.
Still, it's not worth worrying about. What can any of us do about any of this crap? Nothing.
I would also like to see a senate linked to these regions replace the HoL.
A English parliament has little to offer over a British one, such is the variety and different needs in England.
Stokes and Pope are both missing at the moment and, with Root, they're the best three in the batting order.
Brexit makes them winning it more likely. Turbocharged, even.
Of course they very well might, and I expect will, vote 52 48, but when looking for hope if it is that close then come a vote and it might still fall the other way.
On the question of Irish reunification, although @AlastairMeeks is right that this will be accelerated by Brexit and its Irish Sea border, it is not clear that this is in any way due to the DUP, even if Brexit is what the DUP campaigned for.
One factor that should not be overlooked is the recent economic growth of Ireland. It is no longer a relatively poor, religion-dominated, largely agrarian state. Its GDP per capita is higher than Britain's. Following the Good Friday Agreement, the border is, if not invisible, then transparent. The Troubles are consigned to the history books. The influence of the church is much diminished. A united Ireland is no longer scary.
The union flags that Johnson drapes himself in are just as fraudulent as the rest of his act. The surprising thing about this story is that the DUP went along with it, with enthusiasm, Whatever you might think of the DUP you would expect them to sniff out a fake Unionist at twenty paces.