The Quebec precedent is often brought up - of support for independence ebbing away/collapsing following a second referendum defeat.
Does anyone have an explanation for why this happened? I can think of a few possibilities, but I have no knowledge.
Was there infighting in the independence movement?
Was the next generation of independence politicians relatively less impressive?
Was it simply a loss of confidence among supporters following two defeats?
We're there constitutional changes that satisfied some independence voters?
Economic changes?
The precedent is brought up so often that someone must have at least a good idea why it happened.
In any case the Canadian situation is truly a federal one, so not a useful comparison for the UK esp. under Mr Johnson.
We could become truly federal.
Indeed. In fact thje UK has gone in the other direction. As someone pointed out on PB a factor must be that sometimes the Canadian Premiers are Quebecois. The equivalent, of having a PM who is a MP for a Scottish seat, is now pretty much impossible under Mr Cameron's EVEL.
No it isn't, a Quebecois Canadian PM does not get to decide legislation determined by the Ontario government or the Alberta government. We just need an English Parliament or regional assemblies
What do you think Westminster is de facto? Of course it's already an English Parliament - which EVEL made it - as well as a UK one.
Wrong, on current polls Starmer could become PM with SNP confidence and supply at Westminster despite the Tories winning most votes in England.
England would not even have its own Parliament to compensate for being ignored at Westminster which still does not satisfy you whinging nats!
Why does that even matter, when you you have EVEL?
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
The Quebec precedent is often brought up - of support for independence ebbing away/collapsing following a second referendum defeat.
Does anyone have an explanation for why this happened? I can think of a few possibilities, but I have no knowledge.
Was there infighting in the independence movement?
Was the next generation of independence politicians relatively less impressive?
Was it simply a loss of confidence among supporters following two defeats?
We're there constitutional changes that satisfied some independence voters?
Economic changes?
The precedent is brought up so often that someone must have at least a good idea why it happened.
In any case the Canadian situation is truly a federal one, so not a useful comparison for the UK esp. under Mr Johnson.
We could become truly federal.
Indeed. In fact thje UK has gone in the other direction. As someone pointed out on PB a factor must be that sometimes the Canadian Premiers are Quebecois. The equivalent, of having a PM who is a MP for a Scottish seat, is now pretty much impossible under Mr Cameron's EVEL.
No it isn't, a Quebecois Canadian PM does not get to decide legislation determined by the Ontario government or the Alberta government. We just need an English Parliament or regional assemblies
What do you think Westminster is de facto? Of course it's already an English Parliament - which EVEL made it - as well as a UK one.
Wrong, on current polls Starmer could become PM with SNP confidence and supply at Westminster despite the Tories winning most votes in England.
England would not even have its own Parliament to compensate for being ignored at Westminster which still does not satisfy you whinging nats!
But under EVEL Westminster also functions as an English parliament. As it would in those c ircumstances for English matters. It's not being ignored at all.
It doesn't, not on tax, foreign affairs etc which are not within the remit of the devolved Parliaments
That is when Westminster functions as the UK Parliament. .
But it still has us pesky non-English involved
Oh, yes. Quite so. So I don't understand HYUFD's logic.
The Quebec precedent is often brought up - of support for independence ebbing away/collapsing following a second referendum defeat.
Does anyone have an explanation for why this happened? I can think of a few possibilities, but I have no knowledge.
Was there infighting in the independence movement?
Was the next generation of independence politicians relatively less impressive?
Was it simply a loss of confidence among supporters following two defeats?
We're there constitutional changes that satisfied some independence voters?
Economic changes?
The precedent is brought up so often that someone must have at least a good idea why it happened.
In any case the Canadian situation is truly a federal one, so not a useful comparison for the UK esp. under Mr Johnson.
We could become truly federal.
Indeed. In fact thje UK has gone in the other direction. As someone pointed out on PB a factor must be that sometimes the Canadian Premiers are Quebecois. The equivalent, of having a PM who is a MP for a Scottish seat, is now pretty much impossible under Mr Cameron's EVEL.
No it isn't, a Quebecois Canadian PM does not get to decide legislation determined by the Ontario government or the Alberta government. We just need an English Parliament or regional assemblies
What do you think Westminster is de facto? Of course it's already an English Parliament - which EVEL made it - as well as a UK one.
Wrong, on current polls Starmer could become PM with SNP confidence and supply at Westminster despite the Tories winning most votes in England.
England would not even have its own Parliament to compensate for being ignored at Westminster which still does not satisfy you whinging nats!
Why does that even matter, when you you have EVEL?
Exactly, which is why I can't understand this either.
Anecdata on why people refuse vaccinations (source: council colleagues): Primarily, they are confused by media messaging and it's really that which needs addressing with public information broadcasts. Commandeer the BBC for 10 minutes a day, throw money at Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat and YouTube, just get the message out, use diverse multi-ethnic multi-party messengers (here we really do need community leaders) and keep it honest.
1. Are there serious side-effects? (Virtually never.) 2. Might they get the bug anyway? (Yes, but much less likely, and stay sensibly distanced for now anyway.) 3. Is the 12(+?)-week gap scientifically based? (Not really, but it's still much better than nothing.) 4. Is vaccine X better than vaccine Y? (Yes, but they're all much better than nothing.) 5. Should we trust Boris Johnson? (Not relevant.)
On the upside, someone who runs a chain of care homes says that reports of resistance there seem overblown - in her homes, 99% are taking the jab with more or less enthusiasm.
Have there been any numbers published on this?
I think it is likely to be far lower than suggested.
The only refuseniks who would concern me much will be amongst hospital and care staff.
I asked friends from various communities to send me examples of the anti-vax stuff they are seeing passed around on social media.
Not going to spread it. But...
- A certain amount of 1, in the less demented sounding ones. Think reheated Wakefield. - Most of the rest is extreme stuff, like vaccination is a plot to sterilise community X. - A fair bit of re-cycled US-Government-Racism stuff - people simply repeating stuff from US social media.
The message is that most of the anti-vax message seems to be loony tunes QAnon grade stuff, not rational argument.
EDIT: Since I don't know people in the loopy right scene, I didn't get anything from there. The Goop/Crystal healing types seem to favour reheated Wakefield.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
The point that @Mysticrose was making is, of course, that it doesn't exactly look like a done deal. Using round numbers, if we assume an 85% turnout in the next independence referendum then 2% of participating voters equals about 75,000 people. If 52:48 is in any way an accurate reflection of sentiment and a net 75,000 pro-independence electors can be convinced to switch horses during the campaign then that narrow majority is erased.
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.
In 1995 Yes to independence from Canada got 49% in Quebec but 26 years later there has been no indyref3.
Devomax for Quebec resolved the matter as would devomax for Scotland
Because throwing them more powers has always worked for Unionists before.
And Devomax does nothing at all to address the dreaded West Lothian Question. Au contraire: the issue of the 59 Scottish squatters in the House of Commons only becomes more acute.
Again, there is no problem in the constitutional mess that is the United Kingdom that is not resolved by getting rid of the United Kingdom.
Devomax for Holyrood plus an English Parliament would be my preferred option, though I would accept regional Assemblies within England.
Most large nations in the world now are Federal and we should become more Federal too
I suspect that England is simply too big to work well as a devolved unit alongside the other nations.
I also suspect that part of the trouble is that word "regions"- it sounds beige, bureaucratic and British Rail knocking down Euston Arch. Ugh.
We need a better name for them.
If Starmer becomes PM in 2024 expect Lord Gordon Brown to be appointed Grand High Minister for the Union and indeed to give Scotland devomax and break England up into regions and regional assemblies, or provinces if you prefer.
England in effect at the moment only exists on the rugby and football pitch (even the cricket team is actually England and Wales), otherwise it is a non existent merely ceremonial nation so it would not make that much difference
Cricket won't be a problem. The West Indies operate as a collective. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel using national sporting teams as justification for the continuation of the Union.
The Union is over. Scotland has already packed it's bags. A United Ireland will follow on shortly, by which time the demand for an independent Wales will peak over 50% shortly thereafter. You can quote me figures that Wales voted Brexit, but the demand will be one of "if they are having some of that I want some too", and the argument will again be over sovereignty rather than economics.
Boris unleashing the monster that is "sovereignty" might work against his planned legacy.
Just 49% of Scots backing independence including undecideds, only 42% of Northern Irish voters backing a United Ireland and a mere 23% of Welsh voters backing independence, little different to the 15% of English voters who currently want independence on today's ST poll does not suggest that.
Indeed the UK is more likely to rejoin the EU than Wales is to ever be independent
At least Scotland and Northern Ireland are viewed as problems which is better than the contemptuous disregard the Welsh seem to get.
The contemptuous disregard we Welsh voters receive comes from only one source, and that is Drakeford in charge of his failing labour Assembly
Which the Welsh voted for. They voted for Drakesford too.
No we did not vote for Drakeford
Carwyn Jones was Labour leader elected at the last Assembly election and Drakeford took over from him when he resigned in 2018
So he is unelected by the people of Wales to his position
By the same token, you voted against Jones, so you should be happy he's gone. It's nice of you to stick up for those who cast a Labour vote purely to have Carwyn Jones as FM, but I'm sure they can speak for themselves.
The Quebec precedent is often brought up - of support for independence ebbing away/collapsing following a second referendum defeat.
Does anyone have an explanation for why this happened? I can think of a few possibilities, but I have no knowledge.
Was there infighting in the independence movement?
Was the next generation of independence politicians relatively less impressive?
Was it simply a loss of confidence among supporters following two defeats?
We're there constitutional changes that satisfied some independence voters?
Economic changes?
The precedent is brought up so often that someone must have at least a good idea why it happened.
In any case the Canadian situation is truly a federal one, so not a useful comparison for the UK esp. under Mr Johnson.
We could become truly federal.
Indeed. In fact thje UK has gone in the other direction. As someone pointed out on PB a factor must be that sometimes the Canadian Premiers are Quebecois. The equivalent, of having a PM who is a MP for a Scottish seat, is now pretty much impossible under Mr Cameron's EVEL.
No it isn't, a Quebecois Canadian PM does not get to decide legislation determined by the Ontario government or the Alberta government. We just need an English Parliament or regional assemblies
What do you think Westminster is de facto? Of course it's already an English Parliament - which EVEL made it - as well as a UK one.
Wrong, on current polls Starmer could become PM with SNP confidence and supply at Westminster despite the Tories winning most votes in England.
England would not even have its own Parliament to compensate for being ignored at Westminster which still does not satisfy you whinging nats!
Why does that even matter, when you you have EVEL?
Exactly, which is why I can't understand this either.
If the next general election produces a hung parliament with the Tories largest party but Labour and the SNP combined having more seats than the Tories or even the Tories and DUP as polls suggest is possible, Starmer would need SNP confidence and supply.
In that case Starmer would likely ask the SNP to vote with Labour on English domestic matters as well as non devolved matters in any confidence and supply deal to ensure he had a workable government.
EVEL thus offers no protections for England if there is a Labour led UK government
We're running at over a thousand deaths per day and the twats are talking about easing lockdown. FFS.
Do they have any concept of how fucked we currently are?
At a guess, I'd say some of the opponents have a libertarian monomania around tearing down all the restrictions, others are worried merely that the Government will swing into overcautious territory and we'll all be locked down tighter and for longer than is actually necessary. Personally, I suspect that easing will be very tentative indeed and that substantial chunks of the economy (notably hotels, pubs and restaurants) will be kept firmly closed until the entire adult population has been lanced. This is probably the sort of thing that the latter group of opponents is afraid of as well: first jabs for all the young and fit might very well not be completed before August or September.
Because Captain Cautious keeps merrily voting with the Govt, or decisively abstaining, the only opposition to Govt is coming from the backbenches.
We cannot stay locked down for longer than the spring when at the same time lots of people will have acquired protection from vaccines.
Even if we continue to do well and get to the end of phase one at some point in April, the script for extreme caution has already been written. It is likely to include the following themes:
1. The vaccines are not 100% effective for the old and vulnerable, and Covid remains a threat to the young more generally as well. If we open too much up we still run the risk of overwhelming the hospitals 2. If there is widespread transmission of Covid amongst the young then the risk of a disastrous new variant emerging increases. It also leaves a lot more people potentially vulnerable to Long Covid, the evidence of the seriousness of which continues to increase 3. The NHS is knackered, the staff are exhausted and the routine treatment backlogs are enormous. We need to keep the pressure firmly off them, to allow them to recover and start to catch up
Conclusion: we've already been going through this for over a year now. An extra few months isn't going to make that much of a difference, and at the end of it everyone will have been jabbed and we can all be let out to play a lot more safely.
I reckon primary schools, gyms and hairdressers upon completion of phase one; shops about a month later, if there's no sign of a major disease spike; but pubs, restaurants and holidays are off until everyone's been lanced at least once, at a guess by the end of July or possibly a bit later.
There will be no hospitality sector to reopen without proper support. Which there isn't now.
Daughter has received £4000 since being closed again, for the third time. That's it. She cannot even sell alcohol on a takeaway basis, unlike before.
How is her business supposed to survive until May let alone July on that? It can't.
I am not arguing for early lifting of restrictions. I have 2 sons and a husband laid low with it.
I am arguing that there needs to be:-
1. A proper generous support package to the affected sectors to cover the next 6 months, to be renewed if the epidemic is not over by then. 2. Continuing focus on improving vaccination rates - the one thing the government is doing well on. 3. Clear communication about the need to comply with social distancing / hygiene etc even after vaccination until there is better evidence about vaccination's effect on transmission. 4. No travel abroad without vaccination. 5. No inbound travel without vaccination and effective quarantine in hotels, properly enforced at the border.
Sorry to hear that the illness has visited your family. We've dodged the bullets so far but this remains a constant source of anxiety in my life. As for your suggestions, and based on past experience...
1. Not happening. Probably. The Government has prioritised whacking hospitality to suppress the disease for most of the pandemic, there have been no serious initiatives to help it since EOTHO last Summer, and you just know that the scientists will do their pieces at the first hint of reopening. And restaurants have neither the extent of public sympathy nor a popular Rashfordesque figurehead to baseball bat the Treasury into submission on their behalf 2. Looks like we can at least rely on this if there are no disastrous setbacks 3. Clear communication from this lot? We'll get a display of humility and sensitivity from Donald Trump before that happens 4. and 5. I'm cautiously optimistic that the Government will at least budge on the borders, but again (a) they've not done so yet, and the flow of vast numbers of people into the country continues unchecked for now, and (b) they have previous for being inexplicably mad keen on getting folk to go on sunshine holidays, so it's not in the bag
I've enormous sympathy for the owners of many, many viable businesses that are at threat of going under because of the restrictions, but which the Government appears to have lumped in with failing retail chains as part of the inevitable Schumpeterian cycle of creative economic destruction. I strongly suspect that they've had enough of spraying around money, concluded that big chains like JD Wetherspoon and Greene King, and smaller concerns with deep pockets or generous bankers, can get through without any further help, and that consequently they're going to abandon the others to sink or swim on their own.
But maybe I'm being excessively pessimistic and cynical? We'll know more when the Budget comes around.
I think they are a truly "fuck business" government. It explains their stupid Brexit deal. I'd like to hear someone who thinks this deal is wonderful explain why it is a good thing for a government department to advise British companies to set up operations in the EU in order to get round the problems caused by the government's own policy.
As for hospitality, they probably care only about big brewers and developer friends who can buy up a lot of properties on the cheap.
They have not had enough of spraying money around. They are more than happy doing so when it comes to spraying money at friends of theirs and Tory donors. The rest of us can get stuffed as far as they're concerned.
You're not wrong there. The bricks and mortar will still be there. So who will have the ability to acquire the premises and reopen them post-Covid? Big PubCos, not independents.
Agreed. Or property developers. Many will never reopen at all as pubs/restaurants. That is disastrous in small communities and tourist areas.
Remember that in places like the Lakes hospitality is more than just pubs, restaurants and hotels. It's all the cafes and local brewers and food suppliers to them. It's the outdoor centres and tourist shops and activities which depend on tourism and hospitality. Including farmers who diversify into it. Etc. There is a whole economic and social ecosystem which is slowly being throttled by this government's utter indifference.
Far from any levelling up, the area is being levelled down.
And this is ironically a very specific English problem. Hospitality venues in Scotland and Wales get much more support than those in England.
So we have a little Englander government which is managing to piss off the Celtic nations and people inside England as well.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
I don't care because we're not arguing about what she did or did not say, we're arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" more than @HYUFD does.
The Quebec precedent is often brought up - of support for independence ebbing away/collapsing following a second referendum defeat.
Does anyone have an explanation for why this happened? I can think of a few possibilities, but I have no knowledge.
Was there infighting in the independence movement?
Was the next generation of independence politicians relatively less impressive?
Was it simply a loss of confidence among supporters following two defeats?
Were there constitutional changes that satisfied some independence voters?
Economic changes?
The precedent is brought up so often that someone must have at least a good idea why it happened.
Quebec is of course visibly distinct from the rest of Canada -- much more so than Wales, Scotland or even the Republic of Ireland are from England. It has a different language, culture, educational system and legal system from the rest of Canada.
With all these advantages, it should have left. But it has one big, big, big problem that Scotland or even Wales does not have.
The boundaries of Quebec are very unclear.
Quebec entered the Canadian Federation as settlements confined to the St Lawrence river-- and received former Hudson Bay Company territories (Prince Rupert's Land) to administer as part of the Federation. The territories (now called Nouveau Quebec) are of course empty of people -- mainly indigenous Inuit live there -- but they are resource-rich.
Whether Quebec could enter the Canadian Federation as a small province and leave it as a much larger province was always very unclear.
In the 1995 referendum, there was a majority among French speakers to leave, & the English speakers voted to stay. No surprise. But the allophones voted to stay, including the Inuit of Nouveau Quebec.
The reaction of Parizeau (the Parti Quebecois leader) to the referendum loss was to blame the allophones. These remarks were widely regarded as xenophobic and antisemitic.
Quebec may well still leave Canada (especially if the Scots are successful in leaving the UK).
But, they won't leave with the present boundaries of the province of Quebec intact. That is the problem Quebec has.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
I don't care because we're not arguing about what she did or did not say, we're arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" more than @HYUFD does.
Oh my mistake I thought you said "I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway"
The Quebec precedent is often brought up - of support for independence ebbing away/collapsing following a second referendum defeat.
Does anyone have an explanation for why this happened? I can think of a few possibilities, but I have no knowledge.
Was there infighting in the independence movement?
Was the next generation of independence politicians relatively less impressive?
Was it simply a loss of confidence among supporters following two defeats?
We're there constitutional changes that satisfied some independence voters?
Economic changes?
The precedent is brought up so often that someone must have at least a good idea why it happened.
In any case the Canadian situation is truly a federal one, so not a useful comparison for the UK esp. under Mr Johnson.
We could become truly federal.
Indeed. In fact thje UK has gone in the other direction. As someone pointed out on PB a factor must be that sometimes the Canadian Premiers are Quebecois. The equivalent, of having a PM who is a MP for a Scottish seat, is now pretty much impossible under Mr Cameron's EVEL.
No it isn't, a Quebecois Canadian PM does not get to decide legislation determined by the Ontario government or the Alberta government. We just need an English Parliament or regional assemblies
What do you think Westminster is de facto? Of course it's already an English Parliament - which EVEL made it - as well as a UK one.
Wrong, on current polls Starmer could become PM with SNP confidence and supply at Westminster despite the Tories winning most votes in England.
England would not even have its own Parliament to compensate for being ignored at Westminster which still does not satisfy you whinging nats!
Why does that even matter, when you you have EVEL?
Exactly, which is why I can't understand this either.
If the next general election produces a hung parliament with the Tories largest party but Labour and the SNP combined having more seats than the Tories or even the Tories and DUP Starmer would need SNP confidence and supply.
In that case Starmer would likely ask the SNP to vote with Labour on English domestic matters as well as non devolved matters in any confidence and supply deal.
EVEL thus offers no protections for England if there is a Labour led UK government
The SNP didn't vote on English domestic matters even before EVEL.
(Indeed, it's arguable that this is really aimed at Labour and LD MPs.).
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
The point that @Mysticrose was making is, of course, that it doesn't exactly look like a done deal. Using round numbers, if we assume an 85% turnout in the next independence referendum then 2% of participating voters equals about 75,000 people. If 52:48 is in any way an accurate reflection of sentiment and a net 75,000 pro-independence electors can be convinced to switch horses during the campaign then that narrow majority is erased.
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.
In 1995 Yes to independence from Canada got 49% in Quebec but 26 years later there has been no indyref3.
Devomax for Quebec resolved the matter as would devomax for Scotland
Because throwing them more powers has always worked for Unionists before.
And Devomax does nothing at all to address the dreaded West Lothian Question. Au contraire: the issue of the 59 Scottish squatters in the House of Commons only becomes more acute.
Again, there is no problem in the constitutional mess that is the United Kingdom that is not resolved by getting rid of the United Kingdom.
Devomax for Holyrood plus an English Parliament would be my preferred option, though I would accept regional Assemblies within England.
Most large nations in the world now are Federal and we should become more Federal too
I suspect that England is simply too big to work well as a devolved unit alongside the other nations.
I also suspect that part of the trouble is that word "regions"- it sounds beige, bureaucratic and British Rail knocking down Euston Arch. Ugh.
We need a better name for them.
If Starmer becomes PM in 2024 expect Lord Gordon Brown to be appointed Grand High Minister for the Union and indeed to give Scotland devomax and break England up into regions and regional assemblies, or provinces if you prefer.
England in effect at the moment only exists on the rugby and football pitch (even the cricket team is actually England and Wales), otherwise it is a non existent merely ceremonial nation so it would not make that much difference
Cricket won't be a problem. The West Indies operate as a collective. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel using national sporting teams as justification for the continuation of the Union.
The Union is over. Scotland has already packed it's bags. A United Ireland will follow on shortly, by which time the demand for an independent Wales will peak over 50% shortly thereafter. You can quote me figures that Wales voted Brexit, but the demand will be one of "if they are having some of that I want some too", and the argument will again be over sovereignty rather than economics.
Boris unleashing the monster that is "sovereignty" might work against his planned legacy.
Just 49% of Scots backing independence including undecideds, only 42% of Northern Irish voters backing a United Ireland and a mere 23% of Welsh voters backing independence, little different to the 15% of English voters who currently want independence on today's ST poll does not suggest that.
Indeed the UK is more likely to rejoin the EU than Wales is to ever be independent
At least Scotland and Northern Ireland are viewed as problems which is better than the contemptuous disregard the Welsh seem to get.
The contemptuous disregard we Welsh voters receive comes from only one source, and that is Drakeford in charge of his failing labour Assembly
Which the Welsh voted for. They voted for Drakesford too.
No we did not vote for Drakeford
Carwyn Jones was Labour leader elected at the last Assembly election and Drakeford took over from him when he resigned in 2018
So he is unelected by the people of Wales to his position
By the same token, you voted against Jones, so you should be happy he's gone. It's nice of you to stick up for those who cast a Labour vote purely to have Carwyn Jones as FM, but I'm sure they can speak for themselves.
I do not support Labour in Wales under any leader
I have personally suffered unnecessary and prolonged pain of a bi lateral hernia for 65 months before my operation and have witnessed the disaster in education over years
The Quebec precedent is often brought up - of support for independence ebbing away/collapsing following a second referendum defeat.
Does anyone have an explanation for why this happened? I can think of a few possibilities, but I have no knowledge.
Was there infighting in the independence movement?
Was the next generation of independence politicians relatively less impressive?
Was it simply a loss of confidence among supporters following two defeats?
Were there constitutional changes that satisfied some independence voters?
Economic changes?
The precedent is brought up so often that someone must have at least a good idea why it happened.
Quebec is of course visibly distinct from the rest of Canada -- much more so than Wales, Scotland or even the Republic of Ireland are from England. It has a different language, culture, educational system and legal system from the rest of Canada.
With all these advantages, it should have left. But it has one big, big, big problem that Scotland or even Wales does not have.
The boundaries of Quebec are very unclear.
Quebec entered the Canadian Federation as settlements confined to the St Lawrence river-- and received former Hudson Bay Company territories (Prince Rupert's Land) to administer as part of the Federation. The territories (now called Nouveau Quebec) are of course empty of people -- mainly indigenous Inuit live there -- but they are resource-rich.
Whether Quebec could enter the Canadian Federation as a small province and leave it as a much larger province was always very unclear.
In the 1995 referendum, there was a majority among French speakers to leave, & the English speakers voted to stay. No surprise. But the allophones voted to stay, including the Inuit of Nouveau Quebec.
The reaction of Parizeau (the Parti Quebecois leader) to the referendum loss was to blame the allophones. These remarks were widely regarded as xenophobic and antisemitic.
Quebec may well still leave Canada (especially if the Scots are successful in leaving the UK).
But, they won't leave with the present boundaries of the province of Quebec intact. That is the problem Quebec has.
Nowe that is an interesting and useful contribution (even if the Scots and Welsh also score on many of your points). Most illuminating, and much better than facile analogies of polling history.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
I don't care because we're not arguing about what she did or did not say, we're arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" more than @HYUFD does.
Oh my mistake I thought you said "I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway"
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
I don't care because we're not arguing about what she did or did not say, we're arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" more than @HYUFD does.
Oh my mistake I thought you said "I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway"
Was that not you then?
That was a side comment and I'm still willing to bet its all hysterical nonsense, as is everything described as "woke" or "anti woke".
The Quebec precedent is often brought up - of support for independence ebbing away/collapsing following a second referendum defeat.
Does anyone have an explanation for why this happened? I can think of a few possibilities, but I have no knowledge.
Was there infighting in the independence movement?
Was the next generation of independence politicians relatively less impressive?
Was it simply a loss of confidence among supporters following two defeats?
We're there constitutional changes that satisfied some independence voters?
Economic changes?
The precedent is brought up so often that someone must have at least a good idea why it happened.
In any case the Canadian situation is truly a federal one, so not a useful comparison for the UK esp. under Mr Johnson.
We could become truly federal.
Indeed. In fact thje UK has gone in the other direction. As someone pointed out on PB a factor must be that sometimes the Canadian Premiers are Quebecois. The equivalent, of having a PM who is a MP for a Scottish seat, is now pretty much impossible under Mr Cameron's EVEL.
No it isn't, a Quebecois Canadian PM does not get to decide legislation determined by the Ontario government or the Alberta government. We just need an English Parliament or regional assemblies
What do you think Westminster is de facto? Of course it's already an English Parliament - which EVEL made it - as well as a UK one.
EVEL did no such thing. It's a half-arsed solution which solves nothing and pleases no-one. To put it another way, if there were an actual English Parliament but no Scottish one then would you be content to be fobbed off with a Scottish grand committee in the Commons, the symbolic deliberations of which could be overturned later anyway?
EVEL is there as a cosmetic measure and to excuse self-aggrandising and power-mad Tory politicians from having to break up the big train set - and Labour would be no different. None of them wants to choose between being British Prime Minister and English First Minister. The likely end point of that unwillingness is no Britain. I think you and I would both be happy with that but none of them wants to take responsibility for it, which is why Scotland isn't going until it's in the position to bend a weak Prime Minister to its will.
Boris Johnson is not in that position. You need Starmer to do well enough at the next election to do the Tories out of a majority, but not so well that they win outright, or can get by with the help of what's left of the Lib Dems. If you can apply Scottish hands to the Labour Party's neck then, and only then, will you get another chance to finish the Union off.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
I don't care because we're not arguing about what she did or did not say, we're arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" more than @HYUFD does.
Oh my mistake I thought you said "I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway"
Was that not you then?
That was a side comment and I'm still willing to bet its all hysterical nonsense, as is everything described as "woke" or "anti woke".
You keep moving those goal posts mate ..........
Look at the video - what does she say do you think - was her denial on Marr accurate?
The Quebec precedent is often brought up - of support for independence ebbing away/collapsing following a second referendum defeat.
Does anyone have an explanation for why this happened? I can think of a few possibilities, but I have no knowledge.
Was there infighting in the independence movement?
Was the next generation of independence politicians relatively less impressive?
Was it simply a loss of confidence among supporters following two defeats?
We're there constitutional changes that satisfied some independence voters?
Economic changes?
The precedent is brought up so often that someone must have at least a good idea why it happened.
In any case the Canadian situation is truly a federal one, so not a useful comparison for the UK esp. under Mr Johnson.
We could become truly federal.
Indeed. In fact thje UK has gone in the other direction. As someone pointed out on PB a factor must be that sometimes the Canadian Premiers are Quebecois. The equivalent, of having a PM who is a MP for a Scottish seat, is now pretty much impossible under Mr Cameron's EVEL.
No it isn't, a Quebecois Canadian PM does not get to decide legislation determined by the Ontario government or the Alberta government. We just need an English Parliament or regional assemblies
What do you think Westminster is de facto? Of course it's already an English Parliament - which EVEL made it - as well as a UK one.
Wrong, on current polls Starmer could become PM with SNP confidence and supply at Westminster despite the Tories winning most votes in England.
England would not even have its own Parliament to compensate for being ignored at Westminster which still does not satisfy you whinging nats!
Why does that even matter, when you you have EVEL?
Exactly, which is why I can't understand this either.
If the next general election produces a hung parliament with the Tories largest party but Labour and the SNP combined having more seats than the Tories or even the Tories and DUP as polls suggest is possible, Starmer would need SNP confidence and supply.
In that case Starmer would likely ask the SNP to vote with Labour on English domestic matters as well as non devolved matters in any confidence and supply deal to ensure he had a workable government.
EVEL thus offers no protections for England if there is a Labour led UK government
Why would Speaker suddenly start judging England-only bills as not England-only?
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
I don't care because we're not arguing about what she did or did not say, we're arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" more than @HYUFD does.
Oh my mistake I thought you said "I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway"
Was that not you then?
That was a side comment and I'm still willing to bet its all hysterical nonsense, as is everything described as "woke" or "anti woke".
You keep moving those goal posts mate ..........
Look at the video - what does she say do you think - was her denial on Marr accurate?
You're the one moving the goalposts. I'm not interested in the substance of the story.
Makes perfect sense - hold this lockdown as long as necessary to vaccinate enough people so that we never have to go through it again. Repeated stop-starts are more corrosive to the country than just knocking it on the head once and for all, if we can.
I agree. But if that is the strategy it needs to be explained clearly and measures to achieve it put in place. (I can't believe I need to spell that out). Such as @another_richard suggests. And we need an announcement that the economic measures will last as long as the lockdown too. It's the right call. I fear Boris will cave under pressure though. We'll come out too early. Into a Tier system. And mouthy backbenchers will get their areas in lower tiers. Again.
The Quebec precedent is often brought up - of support for independence ebbing away/collapsing following a second referendum defeat.
Does anyone have an explanation for why this happened? I can think of a few possibilities, but I have no knowledge.
Was there infighting in the independence movement?
Was the next generation of independence politicians relatively less impressive?
Was it simply a loss of confidence among supporters following two defeats?
We're there constitutional changes that satisfied some independence voters?
Economic changes?
The precedent is brought up so often that someone must have at least a good idea why it happened.
In any case the Canadian situation is truly a federal one, so not a useful comparison for the UK esp. under Mr Johnson.
We could become truly federal.
Indeed. In fact thje UK has gone in the other direction. As someone pointed out on PB a factor must be that sometimes the Canadian Premiers are Quebecois. The equivalent, of having a PM who is a MP for a Scottish seat, is now pretty much impossible under Mr Cameron's EVEL.
No it isn't, a Quebecois Canadian PM does not get to decide legislation determined by the Ontario government or the Alberta government. We just need an English Parliament or regional assemblies
What do you think Westminster is de facto? Of course it's already an English Parliament - which EVEL made it - as well as a UK one.
Wrong, on current polls Starmer could become PM with SNP confidence and supply at Westminster despite the Tories winning most votes in England.
England would not even have its own Parliament to compensate for being ignored at Westminster which still does not satisfy you whinging nats!
Why does that even matter, when you you have EVEL?
Exactly, which is why I can't understand this either.
If the next general election produces a hung parliament with the Tories largest party but Labour and the SNP combined having more seats than the Tories or even the Tories and DUP Starmer would need SNP confidence and supply.
In that case Starmer would likely ask the SNP to vote with Labour on English domestic matters as well as non devolved matters in any confidence and supply deal.
EVEL thus offers no protections for England if there is a Labour led UK government
The SNP didn't vote on English domestic matters even before EVEL.
(Indeed, it's arguable that this is really aimed at Labour and LD MPs.).
Only when Labour had a majority government so it was not needed or the Tories were in power with both an English and UK majority so it was irrelevant anyway.
If however in 2024 Starmer needs SNP support for a workable majority over English as well as UK legislation you can bet the SNP would back that, at least in return for devomax and indyref2.
So for that period England would be ignored at Westminster and England would not have its own Parliament either.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
The point that @Mysticrose was making is, of course, that it doesn't exactly look like a done deal. Using round numbers, if we assume an 85% turnout in the next independence referendum then 2% of participating voters equals about 75,000 people. If 52:48 is in any way an accurate reflection of sentiment and a net 75,000 pro-independence electors can be convinced to switch horses during the campaign then that narrow majority is erased.
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.
In 1995 Yes to independence from Canada got 49% in Quebec but 26 years later there has been no indyref3.
Devomax for Quebec resolved the matter as would devomax for Scotland
Because throwing them more powers has always worked for Unionists before.
And Devomax does nothing at all to address the dreaded West Lothian Question. Au contraire: the issue of the 59 Scottish squatters in the House of Commons only becomes more acute.
Again, there is no problem in the constitutional mess that is the United Kingdom that is not resolved by getting rid of the United Kingdom.
Devomax for Holyrood plus an English Parliament would be my preferred option, though I would accept regional Assemblies within England.
Most large nations in the world now are Federal and we should become more Federal too
I suspect that England is simply too big to work well as a devolved unit alongside the other nations.
I also suspect that part of the trouble is that word "regions"- it sounds beige, bureaucratic and British Rail knocking down Euston Arch. Ugh.
We need a better name for them.
If Starmer becomes PM in 2024 expect Lord Gordon Brown to be appointed Grand High Minister for the Union and indeed to give Scotland devomax and break England up into regions and regional assemblies, or provinces if you prefer.
England in effect at the moment only exists on the rugby and football pitch (even the cricket team is actually England and Wales), otherwise it is a non existent merely ceremonial nation so it would not make that much difference
Cricket won't be a problem. The West Indies operate as a collective. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel using national sporting teams as justification for the continuation of the Union.
The Union is over. Scotland has already packed it's bags. A United Ireland will follow on shortly, by which time the demand for an independent Wales will peak over 50% shortly thereafter. You can quote me figures that Wales voted Brexit, but the demand will be one of "if they are having some of that I want some too", and the argument will again be over sovereignty rather than economics.
Boris unleashing the monster that is "sovereignty" might work against his planned legacy.
Just 49% of Scots backing independence including undecideds, only 42% of Northern Irish voters backing a United Ireland and a mere 23% of Welsh voters backing independence, little different to the 15% of English voters who currently want independence on today's ST poll does not suggest that.
Indeed the UK is more likely to rejoin the EU than Wales is to ever be independent
At least Scotland and Northern Ireland are viewed as problems which is better than the contemptuous disregard the Welsh seem to get.
The contemptuous disregard we Welsh voters receive comes from only one source, and that is Drakeford in charge of his failing labour Assembly
Which the Welsh voted for. They voted for Drakesford too.
No we did not vote for Drakeford
Carwyn Jones was Labour leader elected at the last Assembly election and Drakeford took over from him when he resigned in 2018
So he is unelected by the people of Wales to his position
It is the parties that were elected. Are you suggesting a national election as soon as a leader resigns?
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
I don't care because we're not arguing about what she did or did not say, we're arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" more than @HYUFD does.
Oh my mistake I thought you said "I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway"
Was that not you then?
That was a side comment and I'm still willing to bet its all hysterical nonsense, as is everything described as "woke" or "anti woke".
You keep moving those goal posts mate ..........
Look at the video - what does she say do you think - was her denial on Marr accurate?
You're the one moving the goalposts. I'm not interested in the substance of the story.
Of course not - difficult to defend that level of stupidity.
So, you said it was rubbish - look at the video and .... you know, actually answer
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
I don't care because we're not arguing about what she did or did not say, we're arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" more than @HYUFD does.
Oh my mistake I thought you said "I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway"
Was that not you then?
That was a side comment and I'm still willing to bet its all hysterical nonsense, as is everything described as "woke" or "anti woke".
You keep moving those goal posts mate ..........
Look at the video - what does she say do you think - was her denial on Marr accurate?
You're the one moving the goalposts. I'm not interested in the substance of the story.
Of course not - difficult to defend that level of stupidity.
So, you said it was rubbish - look at the video and .... you know, actually answer
I didn't say it was rubbish. I said it was hysterical nonsense. Learn to read.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
Just so, and the referendum that produced that result was held on the say so of a party that won a GE with 37% of the vote. Democracy, eh!
The vote at second reading to hold the EU referendum was passed by 544 to 53. The 53 were the SNP. Who are now trying to tell us it doesn't have a democratic mandate. Democracy, eh!
Shocking that the undemocratic EU allowed it to go ahead.
There was a proper, legal mechanism....
Yes the nasty EU chose not to fiddle the laws so that they could ban it , because they are democratic, if only unionists had such principles.
You have become completely incoherent!
EU law sets out the process by which the UK could leave the EU. Article 50. We had a Referendum across th UK to say yes, we would trigger Article 50.
UK law sets out the process by which Scotland could leave the UK. UK law. We had a referendum of the Scottish people - prior to the EU referendum - that said no, there wouldn't be legislation to have Scotland leave the UK.
No nastiness, no fiddling. Just democratic application of the law.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
The point that @Mysticrose was making is, of course, that it doesn't exactly look like a done deal. Using round numbers, if we assume an 85% turnout in the next independence referendum then 2% of participating voters equals about 75,000 people. If 52:48 is in any way an accurate reflection of sentiment and a net 75,000 pro-independence electors can be convinced to switch horses during the campaign then that narrow majority is erased.
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.
In 1995 Yes to independence from Canada got 49% in Quebec but 26 years later there has been no indyref3.
Devomax for Quebec resolved the matter as would devomax for Scotland
Because throwing them more powers has always worked for Unionists before.
And Devomax does nothing at all to address the dreaded West Lothian Question. Au contraire: the issue of the 59 Scottish squatters in the House of Commons only becomes more acute.
Again, there is no problem in the constitutional mess that is the United Kingdom that is not resolved by getting rid of the United Kingdom.
Devomax for Holyrood plus an English Parliament would be my preferred option, though I would accept regional Assemblies within England.
Most large nations in the world now are Federal and we should become more Federal too
I suspect that England is simply too big to work well as a devolved unit alongside the other nations.
I also suspect that part of the trouble is that word "regions"- it sounds beige, bureaucratic and British Rail knocking down Euston Arch. Ugh.
We need a better name for them.
If Starmer becomes PM in 2024 expect Lord Gordon Brown to be appointed Grand High Minister for the Union and indeed to give Scotland devomax and break England up into regions and regional assemblies, or provinces if you prefer.
England in effect at the moment only exists on the rugby and football pitch (even the cricket team is actually England and Wales), otherwise it is a non existent merely ceremonial nation so it would not make that much difference
Cricket won't be a problem. The West Indies operate as a collective. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel using national sporting teams as justification for the continuation of the Union.
The Union is over. Scotland has already packed it's bags. A United Ireland will follow on shortly, by which time the demand for an independent Wales will peak over 50% shortly thereafter. You can quote me figures that Wales voted Brexit, but the demand will be one of "if they are having some of that I want some too", and the argument will again be over sovereignty rather than economics.
Boris unleashing the monster that is "sovereignty" might work against his planned legacy.
Just 49% of Scots backing independence including undecideds, only 42% of Northern Irish voters backing a United Ireland and a mere 23% of Welsh voters backing independence, little different to the 15% of English voters who currently want independence on today's ST poll does not suggest that.
Indeed the UK is more likely to rejoin the EU than Wales is to ever be independent
At least Scotland and Northern Ireland are viewed as problems which is better than the contemptuous disregard the Welsh seem to get.
The contemptuous disregard we Welsh voters receive comes from only one source, and that is Drakeford in charge of his failing labour Assembly
Which the Welsh voted for. They voted for Drakesford too.
No we did not vote for Drakeford
Carwyn Jones was Labour leader elected at the last Assembly election and Drakeford took over from him when he resigned in 2018
So he is unelected by the people of Wales to his position
By the same token, you voted against Jones, so you should be happy he's gone. It's nice of you to stick up for those who cast a Labour vote purely to have Carwyn Jones as FM, but I'm sure they can speak for themselves.
I do not support Labour in Wales under any leader
I have personally suffered unnecessary and prolonged pain of a bi lateral hernia for 65 months before my operation and have witnessed the disaster in education over years
They are tired and need to go
Your fellow Welshies disagree. It is called democracy. You could always move to England or Scotland.
Maybe some of the government messaging should be targeted more on young people? “Don’t party, volunteer instead during COVID”. “You want it gone, volunteer and work it gone” for example?
Completely alternative view, maybe all along the media have picked on those out of high rise sat in a park, also those here and there having a party, but ignoring the fact absolutely everybody else is ignoring 3.0 and just getting on with their lives, shopping till they drop, working cash in hand, driving all about to chat to people through windows etc.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
I don't care because we're not arguing about what she did or did not say, we're arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" more than @HYUFD does.
Oh my mistake I thought you said "I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway"
Was that not you then?
That was a side comment and I'm still willing to bet its all hysterical nonsense, as is everything described as "woke" or "anti woke".
You keep moving those goal posts mate ..........
Look at the video - what does she say do you think - was her denial on Marr accurate?
You're the one moving the goalposts. I'm not interested in the substance of the story.
Of course not - difficult to defend that level of stupidity.
So, you said it was rubbish - look at the video and .... you know, actually answer
I didn't say it was rubbish. I said it was hysterical nonsense. Learn to read.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
The point that @Mysticrose was making is, of course, that it doesn't exactly look like a done deal. Using round numbers, if we assume an 85% turnout in the next independence referendum then 2% of participating voters equals about 75,000 people. If 52:48 is in any way an accurate reflection of sentiment and a net 75,000 pro-independence electors can be convinced to switch horses during the campaign then that narrow majority is erased.
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.
In 1995 Yes to independence from Canada got 49% in Quebec but 26 years later there has been no indyref3.
Devomax for Quebec resolved the matter as would devomax for Scotland
Because throwing them more powers has always worked for Unionists before.
And Devomax does nothing at all to address the dreaded West Lothian Question. Au contraire: the issue of the 59 Scottish squatters in the House of Commons only becomes more acute.
Again, there is no problem in the constitutional mess that is the United Kingdom that is not resolved by getting rid of the United Kingdom.
Devomax for Holyrood plus an English Parliament would be my preferred option, though I would accept regional Assemblies within England.
Most large nations in the world now are Federal and we should become more Federal too
I suspect that England is simply too big to work well as a devolved unit alongside the other nations.
I also suspect that part of the trouble is that word "regions"- it sounds beige, bureaucratic and British Rail knocking down Euston Arch. Ugh.
We need a better name for them.
If Starmer becomes PM in 2024 expect Lord Gordon Brown to be appointed Grand High Minister for the Union and indeed to give Scotland devomax and break England up into regions and regional assemblies, or provinces if you prefer.
England in effect at the moment only exists on the rugby and football pitch (even the cricket team is actually England and Wales), otherwise it is a non existent merely ceremonial nation so it would not make that much difference
Cricket won't be a problem. The West Indies operate as a collective. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel using national sporting teams as justification for the continuation of the Union.
The Union is over. Scotland has already packed it's bags. A United Ireland will follow on shortly, by which time the demand for an independent Wales will peak over 50% shortly thereafter. You can quote me figures that Wales voted Brexit, but the demand will be one of "if they are having some of that I want some too", and the argument will again be over sovereignty rather than economics.
Boris unleashing the monster that is "sovereignty" might work against his planned legacy.
Just 49% of Scots backing independence including undecideds, only 42% of Northern Irish voters backing a United Ireland and a mere 23% of Welsh voters backing independence, little different to the 15% of English voters who currently want independence on today's ST poll does not suggest that.
Indeed the UK is more likely to rejoin the EU than Wales is to ever be independent
At least Scotland and Northern Ireland are viewed as problems which is better than the contemptuous disregard the Welsh seem to get.
The contemptuous disregard we Welsh voters receive comes from only one source, and that is Drakeford in charge of his failing labour Assembly
Which the Welsh voted for. They voted for Drakesford too.
No we did not vote for Drakeford
Carwyn Jones was Labour leader elected at the last Assembly election and Drakeford took over from him when he resigned in 2018
So he is unelected by the people of Wales to his position
It is the parties that were elected. Are you suggesting a national election as soon as a leader resigns?
The Quebec precedent is often brought up - of support for independence ebbing away/collapsing following a second referendum defeat.
Does anyone have an explanation for why this happened? I can think of a few possibilities, but I have no knowledge.
Was there infighting in the independence movement?
Was the next generation of independence politicians relatively less impressive?
Was it simply a loss of confidence among supporters following two defeats?
Were there constitutional changes that satisfied some independence voters?
Economic changes?
The precedent is brought up so often that someone must have at least a good idea why it happened.
Quebec is of course visibly distinct from the rest of Canada -- much more so than Wales, Scotland or even the Republic of Ireland are from England. It has a different language, culture, educational system and legal system from the rest of Canada.
With all these advantages, it should have left. But it has one big, big, big problem that Scotland or even Wales does not have.
The boundaries of Quebec are very unclear.
Quebec entered the Canadian Federation as settlements confined to the St Lawrence river-- and received former Hudson Bay Company territories (Prince Rupert's Land) to administer as part of the Federation. The territories (now called Nouveau Quebec) are of course empty of people -- mainly indigenous Inuit live there -- but they are resource-rich.
Whether Quebec could enter the Canadian Federation as a small province and leave it as a much larger province was always very unclear.
In the 1995 referendum, there was a majority among French speakers to leave, & the English speakers voted to stay. No surprise. But the allophones voted to stay, including the Inuit of Nouveau Quebec.
The reaction of Parizeau (the Parti Quebecois leader) to the referendum loss was to blame the allophones. These remarks were widely regarded as xenophobic and antisemitic.
Quebec may well still leave Canada (especially if the Scots are successful in leaving the UK).
But, they won't leave with the present boundaries of the province of Quebec intact. That is the problem Quebec has.
Nowe that is an interesting and useful contribution (even if the Scots and Welsh also score on many of your points). Most illuminating, and much better than facile analogies of polling history.
Imagine if the rest of the UK adopted bi-lingual signage to keep the Welsh happy.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
Just so, and the referendum that produced that result was held on the say so of a party that won a GE with 37% of the vote. Democracy, eh!
The vote at second reading to hold the EU referendum was passed by 544 to 53. The 53 were the SNP. Who are now trying to tell us it doesn't have a democratic mandate. Democracy, eh!
Shocking that the undemocratic EU allowed it to go ahead.
There was a proper, legal mechanism....
Yes the nasty EU chose not to fiddle the laws so that they could ban it , because they are democratic, if only unionists had such principles.
You have become completely incoherent!
EU law sets out the process by which the UK could leave the EU. Article 50. We had a Referendum across th UK to say yes, we would trigger Article 50.
UK law sets out the process by which Scotland could leave the UK. UK law. We had a referendum of the Scottish people - prior to the EU referendum - that said no, there wouldn't be legislation to have Scotland leave the UK.
No nastiness, no fiddling. Just democratic application of the law.
Brexit significantly changes the nature of the union constitutional settlement and justifies a new referendum should the Scots vote for one in their parliamentary election. For Westminster to then deny that is not a democratic application of the law.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
The point that @Mysticrose was making is, of course, that it doesn't exactly look like a done deal. Using round numbers, if we assume an 85% turnout in the next independence referendum then 2% of participating voters equals about 75,000 people. If 52:48 is in any way an accurate reflection of sentiment and a net 75,000 pro-independence electors can be convinced to switch horses during the campaign then that narrow majority is erased.
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.
In 1995 Yes to independence from Canada got 49% in Quebec but 26 years later there has been no indyref3.
Devomax for Quebec resolved the matter as would devomax for Scotland
Because throwing them more powers has always worked for Unionists before.
And Devomax does nothing at all to address the dreaded West Lothian Question. Au contraire: the issue of the 59 Scottish squatters in the House of Commons only becomes more acute.
Again, there is no problem in the constitutional mess that is the United Kingdom that is not resolved by getting rid of the United Kingdom.
Devomax for Holyrood plus an English Parliament would be my preferred option, though I would accept regional Assemblies within England.
Most large nations in the world now are Federal and we should become more Federal too
I suspect that England is simply too big to work well as a devolved unit alongside the other nations.
I also suspect that part of the trouble is that word "regions"- it sounds beige, bureaucratic and British Rail knocking down Euston Arch. Ugh.
We need a better name for them.
If Starmer becomes PM in 2024 expect Lord Gordon Brown to be appointed Grand High Minister for the Union and indeed to give Scotland devomax and break England up into regions and regional assemblies, or provinces if you prefer.
England in effect at the moment only exists on the rugby and football pitch (even the cricket team is actually England and Wales), otherwise it is a non existent merely ceremonial nation so it would not make that much difference
Cricket won't be a problem. The West Indies operate as a collective. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel using national sporting teams as justification for the continuation of the Union.
The Union is over. Scotland has already packed it's bags. A United Ireland will follow on shortly, by which time the demand for an independent Wales will peak over 50% shortly thereafter. You can quote me figures that Wales voted Brexit, but the demand will be one of "if they are having some of that I want some too", and the argument will again be over sovereignty rather than economics.
Boris unleashing the monster that is "sovereignty" might work against his planned legacy.
Just 49% of Scots backing independence including undecideds, only 42% of Northern Irish voters backing a United Ireland and a mere 23% of Welsh voters backing independence, little different to the 15% of English voters who currently want independence on today's ST poll does not suggest that.
Indeed the UK is more likely to rejoin the EU than Wales is to ever be independent
At least Scotland and Northern Ireland are viewed as problems which is better than the contemptuous disregard the Welsh seem to get.
The contemptuous disregard we Welsh voters receive comes from only one source, and that is Drakeford in charge of his failing labour Assembly
Which the Welsh voted for. They voted for Drakesford too.
No we did not vote for Drakeford
Carwyn Jones was Labour leader elected at the last Assembly election and Drakeford took over from him when he resigned in 2018
So he is unelected by the people of Wales to his position
By the same token, you voted against Jones, so you should be happy he's gone. It's nice of you to stick up for those who cast a Labour vote purely to have Carwyn Jones as FM, but I'm sure they can speak for themselves.
I do not support Labour in Wales under any leader
I have personally suffered unnecessary and prolonged pain of a bi lateral hernia for 65 months before my operation and have witnessed the disaster in education over years
They are tired and need to go
So your complaint is that it's Labour in charge, not really who leads them. Fair enough. But that really makes your complaint about Drakeford being "unelected" a silly distraction. I mean, it's not like this doesn't happen with other parties and in other parliaments.
I now live in the Red Wall. I have registered as a voter here and with a GP. I am a Red Wall voter.
I hope I am going to be treated with proper respect by the likes of @HYUFD et al.
🙂
Congrats on the move
Thanks. Am still in temporary accommodation and living out of a suitcase. And it is now the start of my second year here. So I thought I'd make it official.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
Just so, and the referendum that produced that result was held on the say so of a party that won a GE with 37% of the vote. Democracy, eh!
The vote at second reading to hold the EU referendum was passed by 544 to 53. The 53 were the SNP. Who are now trying to tell us it doesn't have a democratic mandate. Democracy, eh!
Shocking that the undemocratic EU allowed it to go ahead.
There was a proper, legal mechanism....
Yes the nasty EU chose not to fiddle the laws so that they could ban it , because they are democratic, if only unionists had such principles.
You have become completely incoherent!
EU law sets out the process by which the UK could leave the EU. Article 50. We had a Referendum across th UK to say yes, we would trigger Article 50.
UK law sets out the process by which Scotland could leave the UK. UK law. We had a referendum of the Scottish people - prior to the EU referendum - that said no, there wouldn't be legislation to have Scotland leave the UK.
No nastiness, no fiddling. Just democratic application of the law.
Utter bollox. In 2018 Westminster again settled the Claim of Right that the Scottish people were sovereign. We are being treated as serfs in a colony and it will not last long. You can only keep a population prisoner for so long. Also there was never ever any mention that we could not hold another referendum or that it was all down to one fat clown in Westminster to decide. We will vote yet again in May for a referendum , let us see if the fat clown in Westminster can maintain his colonial position and keep us subjugated.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
The point that @Mysticrose was making is, of course, that it doesn't exactly look like a done deal. Using round numbers, if we assume an 85% turnout in the next independence referendum then 2% of participating voters equals about 75,000 people. If 52:48 is in any way an accurate reflection of sentiment and a net 75,000 pro-independence electors can be convinced to switch horses during the campaign then that narrow majority is erased.
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.
In 1995 Yes to independence from Canada got 49% in Quebec but 26 years later there has been no indyref3.
Devomax for Quebec resolved the matter as would devomax for Scotland
Because throwing them more powers has always worked for Unionists before.
And Devomax does nothing at all to address the dreaded West Lothian Question. Au contraire: the issue of the 59 Scottish squatters in the House of Commons only becomes more acute.
Again, there is no problem in the constitutional mess that is the United Kingdom that is not resolved by getting rid of the United Kingdom.
Devomax for Holyrood plus an English Parliament would be my preferred option, though I would accept regional Assemblies within England.
Most large nations in the world now are Federal and we should become more Federal too
I suspect that England is simply too big to work well as a devolved unit alongside the other nations.
I also suspect that part of the trouble is that word "regions"- it sounds beige, bureaucratic and British Rail knocking down Euston Arch. Ugh.
We need a better name for them.
If Starmer becomes PM in 2024 expect Lord Gordon Brown to be appointed Grand High Minister for the Union and indeed to give Scotland devomax and break England up into regions and regional assemblies, or provinces if you prefer.
England in effect at the moment only exists on the rugby and football pitch (even the cricket team is actually England and Wales), otherwise it is a non existent merely ceremonial nation so it would not make that much difference
Cricket won't be a problem. The West Indies operate as a collective. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel using national sporting teams as justification for the continuation of the Union.
The Union is over. Scotland has already packed it's bags. A United Ireland will follow on shortly, by which time the demand for an independent Wales will peak over 50% shortly thereafter. You can quote me figures that Wales voted Brexit, but the demand will be one of "if they are having some of that I want some too", and the argument will again be over sovereignty rather than economics.
Boris unleashing the monster that is "sovereignty" might work against his planned legacy.
Just 49% of Scots backing independence including undecideds, only 42% of Northern Irish voters backing a United Ireland and a mere 23% of Welsh voters backing independence, little different to the 15% of English voters who currently want independence on today's ST poll does not suggest that.
Indeed the UK is more likely to rejoin the EU than Wales is to ever be independent
At least Scotland and Northern Ireland are viewed as problems which is better than the contemptuous disregard the Welsh seem to get.
The contemptuous disregard we Welsh voters receive comes from only one source, and that is Drakeford in charge of his failing labour Assembly
Which the Welsh voted for. They voted for Drakesford too.
No we did not vote for Drakeford
Carwyn Jones was Labour leader elected at the last Assembly election and Drakeford took over from him when he resigned in 2018
So he is unelected by the people of Wales to his position
By the same token, you voted against Jones, so you should be happy he's gone. It's nice of you to stick up for those who cast a Labour vote purely to have Carwyn Jones as FM, but I'm sure they can speak for themselves.
I do not support Labour in Wales under any leader
I have personally suffered unnecessary and prolonged pain of a bi lateral hernia for 65 months before my operation and have witnessed the disaster in education over years
They are tired and need to go
Your fellow Welshies disagree. It is called democracy. You could always move to England or Scotland.
I have lived in England, Scotland and for the last 55 years Wales
And in North Wales Labour mps are near extinction and the May elections are not looking good for Labour
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
I don't care because we're not arguing about what she did or did not say, we're arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" more than @HYUFD does.
Oh my mistake I thought you said "I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway"
Was that not you then?
That was a side comment and I'm still willing to bet its all hysterical nonsense, as is everything described as "woke" or "anti woke".
You keep moving those goal posts mate ..........
Look at the video - what does she say do you think - was her denial on Marr accurate?
You're the one moving the goalposts. I'm not interested in the substance of the story.
Of course not - difficult to defend that level of stupidity.
So, you said it was rubbish - look at the video and .... you know, actually answer
I didn't say it was rubbish. I said it was hysterical nonsense. Learn to read.
I'm not arguing about what she did or did not say. I'm arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" or not.
She holds a red wall seat. She got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories did in the GE. She's objectively popular.
Some contrived story about a "peace force" which no doubt does not tell the full story, nor the context, is hysterical nonsense and quite frankly irrelevant.
The fact the usual suspects have nothing but froth about hysterical nonsense like this is really telling.
Don't worry, Nandy is not going to take away your toy soldiers.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
The point that @Mysticrose was making is, of course, that it doesn't exactly look like a done deal. Using round numbers, if we assume an 85% turnout in the next independence referendum then 2% of participating voters equals about 75,000 people. If 52:48 is in any way an accurate reflection of sentiment and a net 75,000 pro-independence electors can be convinced to switch horses during the campaign then that narrow majority is erased.
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.
In 1995 Yes to independence from Canada got 49% in Quebec but 26 years later there has been no indyref3.
Devomax for Quebec resolved the matter as would devomax for Scotland
Because throwing them more powers has always worked for Unionists before.
And Devomax does nothing at all to address the dreaded West Lothian Question. Au contraire: the issue of the 59 Scottish squatters in the House of Commons only becomes more acute.
Again, there is no problem in the constitutional mess that is the United Kingdom that is not resolved by getting rid of the United Kingdom.
Devomax for Holyrood plus an English Parliament would be my preferred option, though I would accept regional Assemblies within England.
Most large nations in the world now are Federal and we should become more Federal too
I suspect that England is simply too big to work well as a devolved unit alongside the other nations.
I also suspect that part of the trouble is that word "regions"- it sounds beige, bureaucratic and British Rail knocking down Euston Arch. Ugh.
We need a better name for them.
If Starmer becomes PM in 2024 expect Lord Gordon Brown to be appointed Grand High Minister for the Union and indeed to give Scotland devomax and break England up into regions and regional assemblies, or provinces if you prefer.
England in effect at the moment only exists on the rugby and football pitch (even the cricket team is actually England and Wales), otherwise it is a non existent merely ceremonial nation so it would not make that much difference
Cricket won't be a problem. The West Indies operate as a collective. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel using national sporting teams as justification for the continuation of the Union.
The Union is over. Scotland has already packed it's bags. A United Ireland will follow on shortly, by which time the demand for an independent Wales will peak over 50% shortly thereafter. You can quote me figures that Wales voted Brexit, but the demand will be one of "if they are having some of that I want some too", and the argument will again be over sovereignty rather than economics.
Boris unleashing the monster that is "sovereignty" might work against his planned legacy.
Just 49% of Scots backing independence including undecideds, only 42% of Northern Irish voters backing a United Ireland and a mere 23% of Welsh voters backing independence, little different to the 15% of English voters who currently want independence on today's ST poll does not suggest that.
Indeed the UK is more likely to rejoin the EU than Wales is to ever be independent
At least Scotland and Northern Ireland are viewed as problems which is better than the contemptuous disregard the Welsh seem to get.
The contemptuous disregard we Welsh voters receive comes from only one source, and that is Drakeford in charge of his failing labour Assembly
Which the Welsh voted for. They voted for Drakesford too.
No we did not vote for Drakeford
Carwyn Jones was Labour leader elected at the last Assembly election and Drakeford took over from him when he resigned in 2018
So he is unelected by the people of Wales to his position
By the same token, you voted against Jones, so you should be happy he's gone. It's nice of you to stick up for those who cast a Labour vote purely to have Carwyn Jones as FM, but I'm sure they can speak for themselves.
I do not support Labour in Wales under any leader
I have personally suffered unnecessary and prolonged pain of a bi lateral hernia for 65 months before my operation and have witnessed the disaster in education over years
They are tired and need to go
Your fellow Welshies disagree. It is called democracy. You could always move to England or Scotland.
No democracy in Scotland, we are being held hostage by a right wing Junta.
They are, without a shadow of a doubt, the fuck small business government. And extraordinary thing for a party which claims to revere Thatcher.
This is not the Conservative Party. They were purged by Cummings and the loyalty pledge to Brexit and Glorious Leader for the 2019 election.
What we have now is a party of English Nationalists. They kept the name, but that is about it.
To be fair to Cummings, his departure has probably made things worse, not better.
OK, he was in many ways a nasty piece of work. He was less capable than he thought he was, and borderline bonkers.
He did, however, have a coherent plan to improve the lot of the people of Britain, especially outside the London-Oxford-Cambridge golden triangle. That vision was that as many of us as possible would get qualifications in maths and physics and then set up tech firms, supported by government bungs and low regulation enabled by leaving the EU. In that way we would all become millionaires.
Admittedly, it was a fairly unworkable plan, but it was a plan. Apart from "keeping a circle of grateful minions around Boris", what's the plan now?
I now live in the Red Wall. I have registered as a voter here and with a GP. I am a Red Wall voter.
I hope I am going to be treated with proper respect by the likes of @HYUFD et al.
🙂
Hope the family are recovering from their bout of Covid.
It's moving from one to the other .....
They have the oxymeter on hand and Brother has arranged food deliveries. The poor dog is a bit pissed off though.
Don't tell me the dog's got it too!
The poor pooches are going to be very confused when this is all over. Our dog already goes a bit wild when we have a courier delivery, not seeing as many folk as he did a year ago. People working from home and being there 24/7 with the dog - then they'll be gone again for chunks of the day. Going to take a while to get used to. Hopefully employers might be a bit more relaxed about having "bring your dog to work" days.
So sorry the family have succumbed. Best wishes for speedy recoveries. Send each other pictures of snow angels. If they are well enough...
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
The point that @Mysticrose was making is, of course, that it doesn't exactly look like a done deal. Using round numbers, if we assume an 85% turnout in the next independence referendum then 2% of participating voters equals about 75,000 people. If 52:48 is in any way an accurate reflection of sentiment and a net 75,000 pro-independence electors can be convinced to switch horses during the campaign then that narrow majority is erased.
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.
In 1995 Yes to independence from Canada got 49% in Quebec but 26 years later there has been no indyref3.
Devomax for Quebec resolved the matter as would devomax for Scotland
Because throwing them more powers has always worked for Unionists before.
And Devomax does nothing at all to address the dreaded West Lothian Question. Au contraire: the issue of the 59 Scottish squatters in the House of Commons only becomes more acute.
Again, there is no problem in the constitutional mess that is the United Kingdom that is not resolved by getting rid of the United Kingdom.
Devomax for Holyrood plus an English Parliament would be my preferred option, though I would accept regional Assemblies within England.
Most large nations in the world now are Federal and we should become more Federal too
I suspect that England is simply too big to work well as a devolved unit alongside the other nations.
I also suspect that part of the trouble is that word "regions"- it sounds beige, bureaucratic and British Rail knocking down Euston Arch. Ugh.
We need a better name for them.
If Starmer becomes PM in 2024 expect Lord Gordon Brown to be appointed Grand High Minister for the Union and indeed to give Scotland devomax and break England up into regions and regional assemblies, or provinces if you prefer.
England in effect at the moment only exists on the rugby and football pitch (even the cricket team is actually England and Wales), otherwise it is a non existent merely ceremonial nation so it would not make that much difference
Cricket won't be a problem. The West Indies operate as a collective. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel using national sporting teams as justification for the continuation of the Union.
The Union is over. Scotland has already packed it's bags. A United Ireland will follow on shortly, by which time the demand for an independent Wales will peak over 50% shortly thereafter. You can quote me figures that Wales voted Brexit, but the demand will be one of "if they are having some of that I want some too", and the argument will again be over sovereignty rather than economics.
Boris unleashing the monster that is "sovereignty" might work against his planned legacy.
Just 49% of Scots backing independence including undecideds, only 42% of Northern Irish voters backing a United Ireland and a mere 23% of Welsh voters backing independence, little different to the 15% of English voters who currently want independence on today's ST poll does not suggest that.
Indeed the UK is more likely to rejoin the EU than Wales is to ever be independent
At least Scotland and Northern Ireland are viewed as problems which is better than the contemptuous disregard the Welsh seem to get.
The contemptuous disregard we Welsh voters receive comes from only one source, and that is Drakeford in charge of his failing labour Assembly
Which the Welsh voted for. They voted for Drakesford too.
No we did not vote for Drakeford
Carwyn Jones was Labour leader elected at the last Assembly election and Drakeford took over from him when he resigned in 2018
So he is unelected by the people of Wales to his position
By the same token, you voted against Jones, so you should be happy he's gone. It's nice of you to stick up for those who cast a Labour vote purely to have Carwyn Jones as FM, but I'm sure they can speak for themselves.
I do not support Labour in Wales under any leader
I have personally suffered unnecessary and prolonged pain of a bi lateral hernia for 65 months before my operation and have witnessed the disaster in education over years
They are tired and need to go
So your complaint is that it's Labour in charge, not really who leads them. Fair enough. But that really makes your complaint about Drakeford being "unelected" a silly distraction. I mean, it's not like this doesn't happen with other parties and in other parliaments.
Maybe some of the government messaging should be targeted more on young people? “Don’t party, volunteer instead during COVID”. “You want it gone, volunteer and work it gone” for example?
Completely alternative view, maybe all along the media have picked on those out of high rise sat in a park, also those here and there having a party, but ignoring the fact absolutely everybody else is ignoring 3.0 and just getting on with their lives, shopping till they drop, working cash in hand, driving all about to chat to people through windows etc.
The one measure to knock the party scene on the head would be a properly enforced curfew similar to France and the Netherlands. Why would anyone need to be out and about after 8pm on a cold January night? (Key worker heroes and heroines excepted, of course.)
They are, without a shadow of a doubt, the fuck small business government. And extraordinary thing for a party which claims to revere Thatcher.
This is not the Conservative Party. They were purged by Cummings and the loyalty pledge to Brexit and Glorious Leader for the 2019 election.
What we have now is a party of English Nationalists. They kept the name, but that is about it.
To be fair to Cummings, his departure has probably made things worse, not better.
OK, he was in many ways a nasty piece of work. He was less capable than he thought he was, and borderline bonkers.
He did, however, have a coherent plan to improve the lot of the people of Britain, especially outside the London-Oxford-Cambridge golden triangle. That vision was that as many of us as possible would get qualifications in maths and physics and then set up tech firms, supported by government bungs and low regulation enabled by leaving the EU. In that way we would all become millionaires.
Admittedly, it was a fairly unworkable plan, but it was a plan. Apart from "keeping a circle of grateful minions around Boris", what's the plan now?
Respond to the daily headlines. Create a culture war. Turn people off Labour. Thats it.
They are, without a shadow of a doubt, the fuck small business government. And extraordinary thing for a party which claims to revere Thatcher.
This is not the Conservative Party. They were purged by Cummings and the loyalty pledge to Brexit and Glorious Leader for the 2019 election.
What we have now is a party of English Nationalists. They kept the name, but that is about it.
To be fair to Cummings, his departure has probably made things worse, not better.
OK, he was in many ways a nasty piece of work. He was less capable than he thought he was, and borderline bonkers.
He did, however, have a coherent plan to improve the lot of the people of Britain, especially outside the London-Oxford-Cambridge golden triangle. That vision was that as many of us as possible would get qualifications in maths and physics and then set up tech firms, supported by government bungs and low regulation enabled by leaving the EU. In that way we would all become millionaires.
Admittedly, it was a fairly unworkable plan, but it was a plan. Apart from "keeping a circle of grateful minions around Boris", what's the plan now?
Borderline bonkers in the same sense that Lake Vivi is borderline Russian?
Think how many more of these there would be if oldies already had two doses and were going to restaurants.
There does seem to be a old v young living in different COVID worlds thing going on. But is some of the antagonism based on misconceptions (like media reports where a few out of line tar and feather everyone else in age group) or is it natural and perfectly fair?
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She's doing a good job of hiding that fact with this load of bollocks.
I met Nandy during the Labour leadership campaign. She is both unashamed of her own views and beliefs as well as recognising that not everyone she represents agrees with her, and she recognises their concerns.
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
I don't care because we're not arguing about what she did or did not say, we're arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" more than @HYUFD does.
Oh my mistake I thought you said "I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway"
Was that not you then?
That was a side comment and I'm still willing to bet its all hysterical nonsense, as is everything described as "woke" or "anti woke".
You keep moving those goal posts mate ..........
Look at the video - what does she say do you think - was her denial on Marr accurate?
You're the one moving the goalposts. I'm not interested in the substance of the story.
Of course not - difficult to defend that level of stupidity.
So, you said it was rubbish - look at the video and .... you know, actually answer
I didn't say it was rubbish. I said it was hysterical nonsense. Learn to read.
I'm not arguing about what she did or did not say. I'm arguing about whether she understands "red wallers" or not.
She holds a red wall seat. She got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories did in the GE. She's objectively popular.
Some contrived story about a "peace force" which no doubt does not tell the full story, nor the context, is hysterical nonsense and quite frankly irrelevant.
The fact the usual suspects have nothing but froth about hysterical nonsense like this is really telling.
Don't worry, Nandy is not going to take away your toy soldiers.
I was just pointing out the lack of difference between "rubbish" and "nonsense" in this context.
You told someone to "learn to read" for not distinguishing between them.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
Just so, and the referendum that produced that result was held on the say so of a party that won a GE with 37% of the vote. Democracy, eh!
The vote at second reading to hold the EU referendum was passed by 544 to 53. The 53 were the SNP. Who are now trying to tell us it doesn't have a democratic mandate. Democracy, eh!
Shocking that the undemocratic EU allowed it to go ahead.
There was a proper, legal mechanism....
Yes the nasty EU chose not to fiddle the laws so that they could ban it , because they are democratic, if only unionists had such principles.
You have become completely incoherent!
EU law sets out the process by which the UK could leave the EU. Article 50. We had a Referendum across th UK to say yes, we would trigger Article 50.
UK law sets out the process by which Scotland could leave the UK. UK law. We had a referendum of the Scottish people - prior to the EU referendum - that said no, there wouldn't be legislation to have Scotland leave the UK.
No nastiness, no fiddling. Just democratic application of the law.
Brexit significantly changes the nature of the union constitutional settlement and justifies a new referendum should the Scots vote for one in their parliamentary election. For Westminster to then deny that is not a democratic application of the law.
It doesn't.
62% of Scots voted Remain but only 49% of Scots including don't knows want independence on today's poll.
Yes a mere 4% up on the 45% who voted for independence in 2016 before Brexit is not enough to justify indyref2
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
The point that @Mysticrose was making is, of course, that it doesn't exactly look like a done deal. Using round numbers, if we assume an 85% turnout in the next independence referendum then 2% of participating voters equals about 75,000 people. If 52:48 is in any way an accurate reflection of sentiment and a net 75,000 pro-independence electors can be convinced to switch horses during the campaign then that narrow majority is erased.
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.
In 1995 Yes to independence from Canada got 49% in Quebec but 26 years later there has been no indyref3.
Devomax for Quebec resolved the matter as would devomax for Scotland
Because throwing them more powers has always worked for Unionists before.
And Devomax does nothing at all to address the dreaded West Lothian Question. Au contraire: the issue of the 59 Scottish squatters in the House of Commons only becomes more acute.
Again, there is no problem in the constitutional mess that is the United Kingdom that is not resolved by getting rid of the United Kingdom.
Devomax for Holyrood plus an English Parliament would be my preferred option, though I would accept regional Assemblies within England.
Most large nations in the world now are Federal and we should become more Federal too
I suspect that England is simply too big to work well as a devolved unit alongside the other nations.
I also suspect that part of the trouble is that word "regions"- it sounds beige, bureaucratic and British Rail knocking down Euston Arch. Ugh.
We need a better name for them.
If Starmer becomes PM in 2024 expect Lord Gordon Brown to be appointed Grand High Minister for the Union and indeed to give Scotland devomax and break England up into regions and regional assemblies, or provinces if you prefer.
England in effect at the moment only exists on the rugby and football pitch (even the cricket team is actually England and Wales), otherwise it is a non existent merely ceremonial nation so it would not make that much difference
Cricket won't be a problem. The West Indies operate as a collective. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel using national sporting teams as justification for the continuation of the Union.
The Union is over. Scotland has already packed it's bags. A United Ireland will follow on shortly, by which time the demand for an independent Wales will peak over 50% shortly thereafter. You can quote me figures that Wales voted Brexit, but the demand will be one of "if they are having some of that I want some too", and the argument will again be over sovereignty rather than economics.
Boris unleashing the monster that is "sovereignty" might work against his planned legacy.
Just 49% of Scots backing independence including undecideds, only 42% of Northern Irish voters backing a United Ireland and a mere 23% of Welsh voters backing independence, little different to the 15% of English voters who currently want independence on today's ST poll does not suggest that.
Indeed the UK is more likely to rejoin the EU than Wales is to ever be independent
At least Scotland and Northern Ireland are viewed as problems which is better than the contemptuous disregard the Welsh seem to get.
The contemptuous disregard we Welsh voters receive comes from only one source, and that is Drakeford in charge of his failing labour Assembly
Which the Welsh voted for. They voted for Drakesford too.
No we did not vote for Drakeford
Carwyn Jones was Labour leader elected at the last Assembly election and Drakeford took over from him when he resigned in 2018
So he is unelected by the people of Wales to his position
By the same token, you voted against Jones, so you should be happy he's gone. It's nice of you to stick up for those who cast a Labour vote purely to have Carwyn Jones as FM, but I'm sure they can speak for themselves.
I do not support Labour in Wales under any leader
I have personally suffered unnecessary and prolonged pain of a bi lateral hernia for 65 months before my operation and have witnessed the disaster in education over years
They are tired and need to go
Your fellow Welshies disagree. It is called democracy. You could always move to England or Scotland.
No democracy in Scotland, we are being held hostage by a right wing Junta.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She had a 9%+ swing against her at the GE - majority down from 16k to under 7k - in Wigan!
And yet she still got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories got in the GE as a whole. If she isn't popular by your metric, neither is the government.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She had a 9%+ swing against her at the GE - majority down from 16k to under 7k - in Wigan!
And yet she still got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories got in the GE as a whole. If she isn't popular by your metric, neither is the government.
UK swing from Labour to the Tories in 2019 5%.
Wigan swing from Labour to the Tories in 2019 8.5%.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She had a 9%+ swing against her at the GE - majority down from 16k to under 7k - in Wigan!
And yet she still got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories got in the GE as a whole. If she isn't popular by your metric, neither is the government.
UK swing from Labour to the Tories in 2019 5%.
Wigan swing from Labour to the Tories in 2019 8.5%.
And yet she's still more popular in Wigan than the Tories are in the UK.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
Just so, and the referendum that produced that result was held on the say so of a party that won a GE with 37% of the vote. Democracy, eh!
The vote at second reading to hold the EU referendum was passed by 544 to 53. The 53 were the SNP. Who are now trying to tell us it doesn't have a democratic mandate. Democracy, eh!
Shocking that the undemocratic EU allowed it to go ahead.
There was a proper, legal mechanism....
Yes the nasty EU chose not to fiddle the laws so that they could ban it , because they are democratic, if only unionists had such principles.
You have become completely incoherent!
EU law sets out the process by which the UK could leave the EU. Article 50. We had a Referendum across th UK to say yes, we would trigger Article 50.
UK law sets out the process by which Scotland could leave the UK. UK law. We had a referendum of the Scottish people - prior to the EU referendum - that said no, there wouldn't be legislation to have Scotland leave the UK.
No nastiness, no fiddling. Just democratic application of the law.
Brexit significantly changes the nature of the union constitutional settlement and justifies a new referendum should the Scots vote for one in their parliamentary election. For Westminster to then deny that is not a democratic application of the law.
It doesn't.
62% of Scots voted Remain but only 49% of Scots including don't knows want independence on today's poll.
Yes a mere 4% up on the 45% who voted for independence in 2016 before Brexit is not enough to justify indyref2
Does the 45% who voted for it also include don't knows?
Germany will become the first country in the EU to use the same experimental drug which was credited with helping former US president Donald Trump recover from Covid.
Health Minister Jens Spahn did not confirm the name of the drug manufacturer but said it was the same drug used on Mr Trump.
The experimental antibodies treatment will help protect high-risk patients in the early stage against a serious deterioration, Spahn said.
He told the Bild newspaper that the country had bought 200,000 doses and would start using it next week.
They are, without a shadow of a doubt, the fuck small business government. And extraordinary thing for a party which claims to revere Thatcher.
This is not the Conservative Party. They were purged by Cummings and the loyalty pledge to Brexit and Glorious Leader for the 2019 election.
What we have now is a party of English Nationalists. They kept the name, but that is about it.
To be fair to Cummings, his departure has probably made things worse, not better.
OK, he was in many ways a nasty piece of work. He was less capable than he thought he was, and borderline bonkers.
He did, however, have a coherent plan to improve the lot of the people of Britain, especially outside the London-Oxford-Cambridge golden triangle. That vision was that as many of us as possible would get qualifications in maths and physics and then set up tech firms, supported by government bungs and low regulation enabled by leaving the EU. In that way we would all become millionaires.
Admittedly, it was a fairly unworkable plan, but it was a plan. Apart from "keeping a circle of grateful minions around Boris", what's the plan now?
Respond to the daily headlines. Create a culture war. Turn people off Labour. Thats it.
Plus vaccinate faster than any major nation on Earth. Little things like that.
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.
Good morning everybody. I seem to recall that, in other circumstances, 52-48 was held to be enough for some pretty significant changes.
The point that @Mysticrose was making is, of course, that it doesn't exactly look like a done deal. Using round numbers, if we assume an 85% turnout in the next independence referendum then 2% of participating voters equals about 75,000 people. If 52:48 is in any way an accurate reflection of sentiment and a net 75,000 pro-independence electors can be convinced to switch horses during the campaign then that narrow majority is erased.
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.
In 1995 Yes to independence from Canada got 49% in Quebec but 26 years later there has been no indyref3.
Devomax for Quebec resolved the matter as would devomax for Scotland
Because throwing them more powers has always worked for Unionists before.
And Devomax does nothing at all to address the dreaded West Lothian Question. Au contraire: the issue of the 59 Scottish squatters in the House of Commons only becomes more acute.
Again, there is no problem in the constitutional mess that is the United Kingdom that is not resolved by getting rid of the United Kingdom.
Devomax for Holyrood plus an English Parliament would be my preferred option, though I would accept regional Assemblies within England.
Most large nations in the world now are Federal and we should become more Federal too
I suspect that England is simply too big to work well as a devolved unit alongside the other nations.
I also suspect that part of the trouble is that word "regions"- it sounds beige, bureaucratic and British Rail knocking down Euston Arch. Ugh.
We need a better name for them.
If Starmer becomes PM in 2024 expect Lord Gordon Brown to be appointed Grand High Minister for the Union and indeed to give Scotland devomax and break England up into regions and regional assemblies, or provinces if you prefer.
England in effect at the moment only exists on the rugby and football pitch (even the cricket team is actually England and Wales), otherwise it is a non existent merely ceremonial nation so it would not make that much difference
Cricket won't be a problem. The West Indies operate as a collective. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel using national sporting teams as justification for the continuation of the Union.
The Union is over. Scotland has already packed it's bags. A United Ireland will follow on shortly, by which time the demand for an independent Wales will peak over 50% shortly thereafter. You can quote me figures that Wales voted Brexit, but the demand will be one of "if they are having some of that I want some too", and the argument will again be over sovereignty rather than economics.
Boris unleashing the monster that is "sovereignty" might work against his planned legacy.
Just 49% of Scots backing independence including undecideds, only 42% of Northern Irish voters backing a United Ireland and a mere 23% of Welsh voters backing independence, little different to the 15% of English voters who currently want independence on today's ST poll does not suggest that.
Indeed the UK is more likely to rejoin the EU than Wales is to ever be independent
At least Scotland and Northern Ireland are viewed as problems which is better than the contemptuous disregard the Welsh seem to get.
The contemptuous disregard we Welsh voters receive comes from only one source, and that is Drakeford in charge of his failing labour Assembly
Which the Welsh voted for. They voted for Drakesford too.
No we did not vote for Drakeford
Carwyn Jones was Labour leader elected at the last Assembly election and Drakeford took over from him when he resigned in 2018
So he is unelected by the people of Wales to his position
By the same token, you voted against Jones, so you should be happy he's gone. It's nice of you to stick up for those who cast a Labour vote purely to have Carwyn Jones as FM, but I'm sure they can speak for themselves.
I do not support Labour in Wales under any leader
I have personally suffered unnecessary and prolonged pain of a bi lateral hernia for 65 months before my operation and have witnessed the disaster in education over years
They are tired and need to go
Your fellow Welshies disagree. It is called democracy. You could always move to England or Scotland.
No democracy in Scotland, we are being held hostage by a right wing Junta.
Last year marked the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath.
"... while a hundred of us remain alive, we will not submit in the slightest measure, to the domination of the English. We do not fight for honour, riches, or glory, but solely for freedom which no true man gives up but with his life."
They are, without a shadow of a doubt, the fuck small business government. And extraordinary thing for a party which claims to revere Thatcher.
This is not the Conservative Party. They were purged by Cummings and the loyalty pledge to Brexit and Glorious Leader for the 2019 election.
What we have now is a party of English Nationalists. They kept the name, but that is about it.
To be fair to Cummings, his departure has probably made things worse, not better.
OK, he was in many ways a nasty piece of work. He was less capable than he thought he was, and borderline bonkers.
He did, however, have a coherent plan to improve the lot of the people of Britain, especially outside the London-Oxford-Cambridge golden triangle. That vision was that as many of us as possible would get qualifications in maths and physics and then set up tech firms, supported by government bungs and low regulation enabled by leaving the EU. In that way we would all become millionaires.
Admittedly, it was a fairly unworkable plan, but it was a plan. Apart from "keeping a circle of grateful minions around Boris", what's the plan now?
Respond to the daily headlines. Create a culture war. Turn people off Labour. Thats it.
Plus vaccinate faster than any major nation on Earth. Little things like that.
Not sure what that's got to do with Labour or the culture war. Care to elaborate?
Brexit significantly changes the nature of the union constitutional settlement
Not in law it doesn't.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that false? Didn't the UK government add to the reserved powers list in order to prevent the Scottish Parliament from having power over things that would have become devolved post-Brexit?
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She had a 9%+ swing against her at the GE - majority down from 16k to under 7k - in Wigan!
And yet she still got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories got in the GE as a whole. If she isn't popular by your metric, neither is the government.
Not at all - she was defending one of Labour's safest seats and halved her majority. Wow! you go girl!
The DUP (and the fishing industry) are certainly front of the queue for repenting at leisure.
The silly thing about fishing in the Brexit deal is that all it needed to be a "success" was for the industry was to abide by European sanitary and phytosanitary standards. Obviously those would have been set by the EU, but it would have meant the industry being largely undisturbed. So the export industry was destroyed by the fetishisation of "sovereignty".
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.
For fishing, widen it out and say "for everything and everybody" we have destroyed ourselves through the "fetishisation" of sovvrinty. We are not going to remain aligned by EU standards. As ever higher standards both cost money and have been campaigned against by Tories for decades, that means we intend to lower standards. As witnessed by discussion about changes to working time laws.
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...
all brexiteers, haven’t a clue what sovereignty is.
[insert video of Mogg telling fishing industry British fish in British waters are happy and free because they no longer live under a tyrant]
It’s a currency. You put it to work for you and your citizens. In all your trade deals. In your all your security deals, like NATO. In your dealings with the UN and global agreements. We know how every pro European party leader from Thatcher to Cameron used the currency of sovereignty for the good of their citizens, and how this current government have ripped up the EU trade deal previous conservative governments built and nurtured for good of current and future citizens. Ripped up the prosperous futures and opportunity for the kids of today.
Sovereignty, If you don’t put it to work for you, you achieve nothing in return.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She had a 9%+ swing against her at the GE - majority down from 16k to under 7k - in Wigan!
And yet she still got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories got in the GE as a whole. If she isn't popular by your metric, neither is the government.
Not at all - she was defending one of Labour's safest seats and halved her majority. Wow! you go girl!
And yet, she's still more popular in Wigan than the Conservatives are in the country as a whole.
The argument is that brexit has turbo charged the Scottish Indy movement.
The SNP would still be arguing for Indy even if remain had won. Makes 0 difference.
Yep, but indy would be 10pts behind in the polls and the SNP would be arguing for it because it’s in their constitution rather than from any expectation.
The Brexityoons got greedy, they wanted their sovereignty and now they want to preserve the territory over which they are sovereign by denying any agency to Scotland - greedy and hypocrites.
They are, without a shadow of a doubt, the fuck small business government. And extraordinary thing for a party which claims to revere Thatcher.
This is not the Conservative Party. They were purged by Cummings and the loyalty pledge to Brexit and Glorious Leader for the 2019 election.
What we have now is a party of English Nationalists. They kept the name, but that is about it.
If that really were the case (and in reality I don't think we're quite there yet) then would you be surprised? The logical destination of open-ended devolution is the destruction of the British state. We've already had Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish national parties for decades. At some point an English equivalent was bound to appear as well.
That was either going to emerge de novo or come from adaptation by an existing party. Looks like it's going to be the latter. The Tories have a long history of adaptability and strong survival instincts, so it's no surprise that it's them. Labour's dominant North London tendency, on the other hand, is not only reflexively anti-nationalist (which, as distinct from anti-patriotism, is a good thing) but it also harbours the intellectual hatred of England infamously identified by Orwell. Labour is basically the Guardian comment section made flesh. It's a fatal flaw, and the longer the British state continues to rot the more obvious that will become to everyone.
Labour needs Scotland and Wales to have any realistic chance of getting power over England. The English Tories can bury English Labour if the Union falls. And with each election in which the Scottish people reject the Union by voting in secessionist Governments, the temptation for the English right to declare the Union a busted flush, to abandon it themselves and to act in its own manifest self-interest can only grow stronger.
We are all on Tam Dalyell's motorway with no exits. The destination is inevitable. It's merely a matter of how quickly we run out of tarmac.
Brexit significantly changes the nature of the union constitutional settlement
Not in law it doesn't.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that false? Didn't the UK government add to the reserved powers list in order to prevent the Scottish Parliament from having power over things that would have become devolved post-Brexit?
I don't think the list of reserved matters has been amended recently.
Germany will become the first country in the EU to use the same experimental drug which was credited with helping former US president Donald Trump recover from Covid.
Health Minister Jens Spahn did not confirm the name of the drug manufacturer but said it was the same drug used on Mr Trump.
The experimental antibodies treatment will help protect high-risk patients in the early stage against a serious deterioration, Spahn said.
He told the Bild newspaper that the country had bought 200,000 doses and would start using it next week.
Getting a whiff of politicians under pressure from media and beginning to panic, and perhaps make mistakes?
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She had a 9%+ swing against her at the GE - majority down from 16k to under 7k - in Wigan!
And yet she still got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories got in the GE as a whole. If she isn't popular by your metric, neither is the government.
Not at all - she was defending one of Labour's safest seats and halved her majority. Wow! you go girl!
And yet, she's still more popular in Wigan than the Conservatives are in the country as a whole.
I love that you guys are proving my point for me.
Yet proportionally she did a lot worse at the election.
Guardian still repeating that 33% claim. Again irresponsible reporting.
Amazingly there looks to be a 60% reduction in *cases* 22 days after the first jab of Pfizer in Israel vs the rest of the population. That will feed through to an absolutely massive reduction in hospitalisation, we should get the data fairly soon from the Israelis and from our own efforts. Hopefully by this time next week.
I'd be devastated if the Union dissolves, and I still think there are creative and relevant ways in which it can be renewed for the 21st Century (whatever happens we are all hugely interconnected on these islands, have been for thousands of years, and none of us are going anywhere) but if EU membership was the only thing holding us together then it was already dead.
I think the response to Brexit has been the more problematic part, which is why I supported Theresa May's Deal.
Have the celebrations died down from looking at the well worn photo of Johnson receiving a phone call from Biden yet?
Sad losers all excited at being 3rd to get a phone call.
Has Sturgeon had her call yet? Of course, I mean the call from old pal Trump, not Biden.
I would have thought the politician that made Trump a global business business ambassador for Scotland would be first in line rather than the politician who stripped him of that title.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She had a 9%+ swing against her at the GE - majority down from 16k to under 7k - in Wigan!
And yet she still got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories got in the GE as a whole. If she isn't popular by your metric, neither is the government.
Not at all - she was defending one of Labour's safest seats and halved her majority. Wow! you go girl!
And yet, she's still more popular in Wigan than the Conservatives are in the country as a whole.
I love that you guys are proving my point for me.
Yet proportionally she did a lot worse at the election.
To be fair to her there is nothing especially novel or "woke" about coming up with euphemistic terms for the armed forces. Have you not noticed how we used to have a Ministry of War but now have a Ministry of Defence?
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She had a 9%+ swing against her at the GE - majority down from 16k to under 7k - in Wigan!
And yet she still got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories got in the GE as a whole. If she isn't popular by your metric, neither is the government.
Not at all - she was defending one of Labour's safest seats and halved her majority. Wow! you go girl!
And yet, she's still more popular in Wigan than the Conservatives are in the country as a whole.
I love that you guys are proving my point for me.
Yet proportionally she did a lot worse at the election.
No she didn't. She did a lot better at the election. 3.1% better in fact.
She is objectively more popular in Wigan than the the Conservatives are in the country as a whole. That's an undeniable fact.
You guys might not like what she says, and she may be less popular than she was, but she's objectively still popular.
So the suggestion that the likes of Essex Boy knows more about what "red wallers" want than her is laughable.
She is hapless, Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper would be better
Nandy holds a "red wall" seat. She knows more about them than you do, Essex boy.
She had a 9%+ swing against her at the GE - majority down from 16k to under 7k - in Wigan!
And yet she still got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories got in the GE as a whole. If she isn't popular by your metric, neither is the government.
Not at all - she was defending one of Labour's safest seats and halved her majority. Wow! you go girl!
And yet, she's still more popular in Wigan than the Conservatives are in the country as a whole.
I love that you guys are proving my point for me.
Yet proportionally she did a lot worse at the election.
No she didn't. She did a lot better at the election. 3.1% better in fact.
She is objectively more popular in Wigan than the the Conservatives are in the country as a whole. That's an undeniable fact.
You guys might not like what she says, and she may be less popular than she was, but she's objectively still popular.
So the suggestion that the likes of Essex Boy knows more about what "red wallers" want than her is laughable.
But the swing against her was much worse than overall. Of course she would do better in an absolute sense if she's defending one of the safest Labour seats in the country.
Comments
She's clearly doing something right as he still retains her seat. Wigan is not exactly woke central.
I'm willing to bet that this article is hysterical nonsense anyway.
Not going to spread it. But...
- A certain amount of 1, in the less demented sounding ones. Think reheated Wakefield.
- Most of the rest is extreme stuff, like vaccination is a plot to sterilise community X.
- A fair bit of re-cycled US-Government-Racism stuff - people simply repeating stuff from US social media.
The message is that most of the anti-vax message seems to be loony tunes QAnon grade stuff, not rational argument.
EDIT: Since I don't know people in the loopy right scene, I didn't get anything from there. The Goop/Crystal healing types seem to favour reheated Wakefield.
And she is capable of more than one tune.
What do you make of the video?
It's nice of you to stick up for those who cast a Labour vote purely to have Carwyn Jones as FM, but I'm sure they can speak for themselves.
In that case Starmer would likely ask the SNP to vote with Labour on English domestic matters as well as non devolved matters in any confidence and supply deal to ensure he had a workable government.
EVEL thus offers no protections for England if there is a Labour led UK government
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55787044
BBC News - Covid: Birmingham student party guests 'travelled 200 miles'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-55786863
Remember that in places like the Lakes hospitality is more than just pubs, restaurants and hotels. It's all the cafes and local brewers and food suppliers to them. It's the outdoor centres and tourist shops and activities which depend on tourism and hospitality. Including farmers who diversify into it. Etc. There is a whole economic and social ecosystem which is slowly being throttled by this government's utter indifference.
Far from any levelling up, the area is being levelled down.
And this is ironically a very specific English problem. Hospitality venues in Scotland and Wales get much more support than those in England.
So we have a little Englander government which is managing to piss off the Celtic nations and people inside England as well.
With all these advantages, it should have left. But it has one big, big, big problem that Scotland or even Wales does not have.
The boundaries of Quebec are very unclear.
Quebec entered the Canadian Federation as settlements confined to the St Lawrence river-- and received former Hudson Bay Company territories (Prince Rupert's Land) to administer as part of the Federation. The territories (now called Nouveau Quebec) are of course empty of people -- mainly indigenous Inuit live there -- but they are resource-rich.
Whether Quebec could enter the Canadian Federation as a small province and leave it as a much larger province was always very unclear.
In the 1995 referendum, there was a majority among French speakers to leave, & the English speakers voted to stay. No surprise. But the allophones voted to stay, including the Inuit of Nouveau Quebec.
The reaction of Parizeau (the Parti Quebecois leader) to the referendum loss was to blame the allophones. These remarks were widely regarded as xenophobic and antisemitic.
Quebec may well still leave Canada (especially if the Scots are successful in leaving the UK).
But, they won't leave with the present boundaries of the province of Quebec intact. That is the problem Quebec has.
Was that not you then?
(Indeed, it's arguable that this is really aimed at Labour and LD MPs.).
I have personally suffered unnecessary and prolonged pain of a bi lateral hernia for 65 months before my operation and have witnessed the disaster in education over years
They are tired and need to go
What we have now is a party of English Nationalists. They kept the name, but that is about it.
I hope I am going to be treated with proper respect by the likes of @HYUFD et al.
🙂
EVEL is there as a cosmetic measure and to excuse self-aggrandising and power-mad Tory politicians from having to break up the big train set - and Labour would be no different. None of them wants to choose between being British Prime Minister and English First Minister. The likely end point of that unwillingness is no Britain. I think you and I would both be happy with that but none of them wants to take responsibility for it, which is why Scotland isn't going until it's in the position to bend a weak Prime Minister to its will.
Boris Johnson is not in that position. You need Starmer to do well enough at the next election to do the Tories out of a majority, but not so well that they win outright, or can get by with the help of what's left of the Lib Dems. If you can apply Scottish hands to the Labour Party's neck then, and only then, will you get another chance to finish the Union off.
Look at the video - what does she say do you think - was her denial on Marr accurate?
And we need an announcement that the economic measures will last as long as the lockdown too.
It's the right call.
I fear Boris will cave under pressure though.
We'll come out too early. Into a Tier system. And mouthy backbenchers will get their areas in lower tiers.
Again.
If however in 2024 Starmer needs SNP support for a workable majority over English as well as UK legislation you can bet the SNP would back that, at least in return for devomax and indyref2.
So for that period England would be ignored at Westminster and England would not have its own Parliament either.
But we've already had Joan 'no mansion tax' Bakewell wanting them open so that the two dose oldies can go.
Its easy to imagine the clamour "boost the economy, save jobs, unfair to lockdown the vaccinated any longer".
So, you said it was rubbish - look at the video and .... you know, actually answer
EU law sets out the process by which the UK could leave the EU. Article 50. We had a Referendum across th UK to say yes, we would trigger Article 50.
UK law sets out the process by which Scotland could leave the UK. UK law. We had a referendum of the Scottish people - prior to the EU referendum - that said no, there wouldn't be legislation to have Scotland leave the UK.
No nastiness, no fiddling. Just democratic application of the law.
youtube.com/watch?v=PRSLsan5VdA
Completely alternative view, maybe all along the media have picked on those out of high rise sat in a park, also those here and there having a party, but ignoring the fact absolutely everybody else is ignoring 3.0 and just getting on with their lives, shopping till they drop, working cash in hand, driving all about to chat to people through windows etc.
They have the oxymeter on hand and Brother has arranged food deliveries. The poor dog is a bit pissed off though.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-thesaurus/nonsense#nonsense__1
But that really makes your complaint about Drakeford being "unelected" a silly distraction. I mean, it's not like this doesn't happen with other parties and in other parliaments.
We are being treated as serfs in a colony and it will not last long. You can only keep a population prisoner for so long.
Also there was never ever any mention that we could not hold another referendum or that it was all down to one fat clown in Westminster to decide. We will vote yet again in May for a referendum , let us see if the fat clown in Westminster can maintain his colonial position and keep us subjugated.
And in North Wales Labour mps are near extinction and the May elections are not looking good for Labour
She holds a red wall seat. She got a higher share of the vote in Wigan than the Tories did in the GE. She's objectively popular.
Some contrived story about a "peace force" which no doubt does not tell the full story, nor the context, is hysterical nonsense and quite frankly irrelevant.
The fact the usual suspects have nothing but froth about hysterical nonsense like this is really telling.
Don't worry, Nandy is not going to take away your toy soldiers.
OK, he was in many ways a nasty piece of work. He was less capable than he thought he was, and borderline bonkers.
He did, however, have a coherent plan to improve the lot of the people of Britain, especially outside the London-Oxford-Cambridge golden triangle. That vision was that as many of us as possible would get qualifications in maths and physics and then set up tech firms, supported by government bungs and low regulation enabled by leaving the EU. In that way we would all become millionaires.
Admittedly, it was a fairly unworkable plan, but it was a plan. Apart from "keeping a circle of grateful minions around Boris", what's the plan now?
The poor pooches are going to be very confused when this is all over. Our dog already goes a bit wild when we have a courier delivery, not seeing as many folk as he did a year ago. People working from home and being there 24/7 with the dog - then they'll be gone again for chunks of the day. Going to take a while to get used to. Hopefully employers might be a bit more relaxed about having "bring your dog to work" days.
So sorry the family have succumbed. Best wishes for speedy recoveries. Send each other pictures of snow angels. If they are well enough...
Create a culture war.
Turn people off Labour.
Thats it.
Porton Down scientists are 'confident' that all mutant strains of coronavirus can be beaten with vaccines
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9180327/British-firm-creates-vaccine-aimed-protecting-against-mutant-strains-Covid.html
You told someone to "learn to read" for not distinguishing between them.
62% of Scots voted Remain but only 49% of Scots including don't knows want independence on today's poll.
Yes a mere 4% up on the 45% who voted for independence in 2016 before Brexit is not enough to justify indyref2
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/24/uk-vaccine-adviser-says-delay-of-covid-second-dose-will-save-lives
Guardian still repeating that 33% claim. Again irresponsible reporting.
Wigan swing from Labour to the Tories in 2019 8.5%.
Interesting.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo2uQvua3JA
Health Minister Jens Spahn did not confirm the name of the drug manufacturer but said it was the same drug used on Mr Trump.
The experimental antibodies treatment will help protect high-risk patients in the early stage against a serious deterioration, Spahn said.
He told the Bild newspaper that the country had bought 200,000 doses and would start using it next week.
It's almost like you're not a constitutional law expert?
"... while a hundred of us remain alive, we will not submit in the slightest measure, to the domination of the English. We do not fight for honour, riches, or glory, but solely for freedom which no true man gives up but with his life."
[insert video of Mogg telling fishing industry British fish in British waters are happy and free because they no longer live under a tyrant]
It’s a currency. You put it to work for you and your citizens. In all your trade deals. In your all your security deals, like NATO. In your dealings with the UN and global agreements. We know how every pro European party leader from Thatcher to Cameron used the currency of sovereignty for the good of their citizens, and how this current government have ripped up the EU trade deal previous conservative governments built and nurtured for good of current and future citizens. Ripped up the prosperous futures and opportunity for the kids of today.
Sovereignty, If you don’t put it to work for you, you achieve nothing in return.
I love that you guys are proving my point for me.
The Brexityoons got greedy, they wanted their sovereignty and now they want to preserve the territory over which they are sovereign by denying any agency to Scotland - greedy and hypocrites.
That was either going to emerge de novo or come from adaptation by an existing party. Looks like it's going to be the latter. The Tories have a long history of adaptability and strong survival instincts, so it's no surprise that it's them. Labour's dominant North London tendency, on the other hand, is not only reflexively anti-nationalist (which, as distinct from anti-patriotism, is a good thing) but it also harbours the intellectual hatred of England infamously identified by Orwell. Labour is basically the Guardian comment section made flesh. It's a fatal flaw, and the longer the British state continues to rot the more obvious that will become to everyone.
Labour needs Scotland and Wales to have any realistic chance of getting power over England. The English Tories can bury English Labour if the Union falls. And with each election in which the Scottish people reject the Union by voting in secessionist Governments, the temptation for the English right to declare the Union a busted flush, to abandon it themselves and to act in its own manifest self-interest can only grow stronger.
We are all on Tam Dalyell's motorway with no exits. The destination is inevitable. It's merely a matter of how quickly we run out of tarmac.
If it can't - it's not in full control of taxation let alone anything else.
I think the response to Brexit has been the more problematic part, which is why I supported Theresa May's Deal.
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1353117601984086017?s=19
Whole thread of response.
The Supreme Court took, er, a different path...
I ally myself with the Queen's Bench decision.
She is objectively more popular in Wigan than the the Conservatives are in the country as a whole. That's an undeniable fact.
You guys might not like what she says, and she may be less popular than she was, but she's objectively still popular.
So the suggestion that the likes of Essex Boy knows more about what "red wallers" want than her is laughable.
Kind of puts your other opinions into perspective really.