When England cannot provide there is no case for a Union
..
Whether Northern Ireland or Scotland realise this first is open to debate: it may be one or other by no more than a length in my opinion. Wales may be a few more lengths behind, but it will come in, albeit third. Whatever the ordering the reason for leaving the Union will be the same. The economic justification, which has always overcome the political and social reasons for separation, will have gone. And on that basis division if the Union becomes inevitable.
Can’t fault the argument myself. If England stops paying for everything then why should the Celts stick around as leeches? What would be the point?
The South East is the only tax exporting region in the Uk outside London , other than arguable the oily bits of Scotland on a good day
Why do we put up with the North or the Midlands ? Why does the remain side of the country ,a much more fundamental divide continue to pay for the absurd mistakes of the elderly and dim who voted for Brexit?
Partition is great idea but the so called Celtic regions are the least of our problems
Fuck them I say ( in a Liberal and inclusive way)
Silly old Newmania…. The people who actually create wealth in the metropolis, as distinct from the dinner party luvvies and the kids who don’t know better , all voted to leave. Which raises the question, obviously your manners and inability to write or spell disqualify you from the urban literati. Are you one of the few vagrants who voted remain?
I live in the metrop, and voted Leave. Whether I create wealth is another matter…
Tough, Newmania.
The votes of the dim and elderly, no matter which way they voted, count ‘one’. Even the votes of arrogant pretentious cunts who think they are the only people who have read Shakespeare only count ‘one’ no matter which way they voted.
That’s how democracy works.
“Why do we put up with the North or the Midlands?”
Plenty of shale gas oop ‘ere, lad.
Newmania,
Midlands- they’ve got everyone by the goolies, isn’t Burton there?
“When England cannot provide there is no case for a Union”
So it’s right that Scotland etc. only stay in the UK if England keeps subsidising them – but the UK should stay in the EU, despite being a net contributor, because???
See on display the arrogance and colossal entitlement of the Facepainting cunt. The scummy state is what keeps the south-east afloat you fucking EU stooge and lots of those “pensioners” worked a lifetime when snot like was having the snot wiped off your nose by your parents.
BTW Facepainter–do your parents know what scum is the product of their loins? They might be Gladrag offal but they might be decent patriots who know you for the shite scum you are. Wait tho…who am I kidding? An entitled smug cunt like Acrylic-Face probably fucked Mam and Dad off to some shithole home long ago and took the house. Or doesn’t even know what happened to them cos he gives a shite only about himself.
Reading his evil tripe makes me wish for civil war and a chance to settle with garbage like him.
“When England cannot provide….”
Well, he’s got the financial dynamics right at least…
Dangle a few quid in front of the porridge wogs and they’ll agree to anything, that’s what got them into the Union in the first place and it’s kept them there ever since. They got to be part of a huge empire, their own efforts at building a mini-empire having failed spectacularly.
Dunno, Tim…
Arguments by analogy:
England is a net contributor to the European Union, so why are our establishment figures fighting tooth and nail to keep us in?
The fake nationalists in Scotland, and to a lesser extent Wales, hope to clamp themselves, ramora-like, to the EU. But it’s unlikely they can reasonably expect their respective regions to be net guzzlers of EU funds in Current Year.
So the case for the EU isn’t economic at all, (though it is commercial for the subset of the establishment that has financial interests in large European business concerns and enjoys cheap migrant labour).
Can we reduce the much older British union down to mere economic issues, then?
I’d suggest it’s more basic than that. The Union is fundamentally a social one. Its continued existence depends on identity rather than the Barnett formula.
The SNP has been pushing – with some success – a sort of ersatz nationalism seeking to replace British identity (historically strong in Scotland) with a tartan-tinged variety of gay, managerialist progressive globalism.
This seems a weak strategy to me, because the future – as we’ve seen in multiple Western countries since 2016 – is more populist and genuinely nationalist, as the demographic disasters Western elites have fermented since the middle of the 20th century start to bite average citizens. (And as B. Turner Overdrive warned, we ain’t seen nothing yet.)
Which doesn’t mean to say that Jockistan won’t happen, but if it does happen, it’ll likely look more like Hungary and less like the current regime in Ireland.
The SNP, like the other ancien regime parties which share their politically correct worldview, is essentially astroturf laid down because normal people have disengaged from politics and allowed a narrow class of rent-seeking childless weirdos and their media allies to capture the political process.
But the natives are getting restless across the West, which is why we’re currently in this Brexit situation, and why even Jesus Hussein Obama’s legacy has already been swept into the recycle bin of history.
Tl;dr – the West is in the early phase of a series of institutional, demographic, political and economic crises. We don’t know what the solution is, but we do know that what the SNP (and the Conservative Party, and Labour, and La République En Marche! etc. are offering has already failed.)
Governments are formed amongst men for mutual protection.
‘When England cannot provide’
Governments are not formed to ‘provide.’
Politics being what they are, governments that ‘provide’ will eventually fail.
Steve,
“I’d suggest it’s more basic than that. The Union is fundamentally a social one. Its continued existence depends on identity rather than the Barnett formula.”
I don’t think you can separate social union from economic union.
The social union is bound to the economic union. You’re friendly with the bloke next door because it’s a good idea. He’s not a bad bloke. You lend him your hedge trimmer, he helps sort out your PC. You have him and his wife over for dinner sometimes, they do the same. But if you move to the other side of town, you probably won’t ask them over. Maybe for the housewarming and one other time. But that’ll be it.
We’ve subsidised countries for a very long time because there used to be benefits for us. To put it bluntly, you pay the Scots a load of money to keep them in the Union, so they fight for you rather than someone else. They feel the general, warm hand of the union on them, so they feel like BFFs.
If you don’t need fighting men in skirts because no-one cares about expending blood and treasure for arable land, then what? Take it even further, do we need England any longer, which only existed for mutual security against war and came from the old kingdoms of Mercia, Kent, Wessex and so forth? Can we administer the stuff of government at that scale? Switzerland seems to manage it pretty well, so why not?
This is why the SNP is getting the whole independence argument wrong. Instead of focussing the IndyRef2 debate on getting the Scots to vote against their own financial best interests (good luck with that one), you’d be far better getting the English alone to vote on whether Scotland should remain in the United Kingdom – You’d win in a heartbeat.
Why wouldn’t the English want to get rid of the demented porridge wogs? They get more tax expenditure per head than any other part of the UK mainland, they are forever banging on about how they are subjugated by Westminster who steals “their” oil (this whole union thing seems a bit one sided) and their fucked up politics pushes Westminster to be far more left-wing than it otherwise would be.
Of course, I’d have to abandon my little bolt-hole here in Perth, Scotland and return from voluntary exile, but it would be worth it to see Scottish dreams of independence come true, something that they could rain praise on their English saviours for the next few hundred years.
/sarc
Steve,
“Tl;dr – the West is in the early phase of a series of institutional, demographic, political and economic crises. We don’t know what the solution is, but we do know that what the SNP (and the Conservative Party, and Labour, and La République En Marche! etc. are offering has already failed.)”
I informed my local Conservative Party chairman I had no confidence in the MP as he has stated he will vote against No Deal. He has a slender majority in a leave area. I’ll be joining Farage’s party at the earliest opportunity.
I’m fucking tired of having to drag that fucking zombie party to where we are inevitably going. They’ve had 15+ years of seeing the rise of UKIP, the rising resentment over mass immigration and done nothing but pretend they’ll do something. I mistakenly thought it was just Cameron and a few cunts who were the problem, but it isn’t. Beyond the low level members, from parish councillors up to MPs, it’s rotten with federalist, PC statism.
To put it bluntly, you pay the Scots a load of money to keep them in the Union, so they fight for you rather than someone else.
That’s pretty much what was in it for England. To stop the Jocks from continually siding with the French against us (thus requiring us to go and beat the shit out of them when they invaded, etc).
Since the EU is somewhat equivalent to France, it may yet benefit us to keep the Scots away from it.
BoM4 – I’m Farage-curious too.
Sorry to see UKIP floundering, and I don’t necessarily think they’ve done anything wrong, but a populist insurgent party needs popular leaders, and I don’t think Batten is up to that job.
I mistakenly thought it was just Cameron and a few cunts who were the problem, but it isn’t. Beyond the low level members, from parish councillors up to MPs, it’s rotten with federalist, PC statism.
Brexit has been the Great Unmasking. It’ll never again be possible for them to pretend “we want to be in Europe but not run by Europe!” in a nasal Yorkshire whine.
But the natives are getting restless across the West, which is why we’re currently in this Brexit situation, and why even Jesus Hussein Obama’s legacy has already been swept into the recycle bin of history.
I wish I could see what you see, Steve. All of these “rightward” swings have been pretty narrow, and things could easily swing back once the novelty has worn off.
Perhaps I’m just projecting my own dourness on the wider world. Your outlook would be better. Certainly a lot funnier.
Sorry to see UKIP floundering, and I don’t necessarily think they’ve done anything wrong, but a populist insurgent party needs popular leaders, and I don’t think Batten is up to that job.
It’s an interesting gamble he’s taken with that party (going the aka Tommy Robinson route). Normally (i.e. the past) it would be political suicide, but looking at the rise of the various wtf parties emerging in Europe he may be on to something.
Farage II seems helpful only for the Brexit single issue.
I have never heard of any English objection to the Union from the period when Scotland, being more thoroughly industrialised, was doubtless giving an economic leg up to rural southern England, while also – because of its superior education system -providing proportionately more of the professional classes to the UK. It even provided proportionately more soldiers and Empire administrators.
And yet not a peep out of England that I ever heard of. What can the explanation be?
Not that any of it much matters: the likeliest reason for a Scots or Welsh departure will be a reluctance to be part of the Islamic Republic of England.
Now well and truly dismantled by our Nationalist overlords. With the willing assistance of the teaching unions.
Whatever Batten’s shortcomings UKIP membership stopped declining when he became leader and has been increasing ever since.
“I’d suggest it’s more basic than that. The Union is fundamentally a social one.’
It never was, nor is it. It always was about money and/or land ownership and rents with its origins in the desire for political control by the Norman and Angevin kings which because of intermarriage ultimately united the Thrones of the Three Kingdoms when Elizabeth died without an heir apparent.
There never was an economic or social imperative for England to be in Union with the others.
PJF – All of these “rightward” swings have been pretty narrow, and things could easily swing back once the novelty has worn off.
They will, then re-swing back again. We’re in the very early stages of a civilisation-level crisis, and we didn’t get here overnight (you can trace the current decline of the West to its apotheosis at the end of the Victorian era).
It’s going to be messy and volatile for the foreseeable, and there’s no way to avoid the crisis itself. However, globalist progressive managerialism is already a failed dispensation. It’s no more, and possibly much less, robust than Soviet communism.
Tptb might ultimately quell Brexit, Trump, Orban, Salvini, the yellow vests, etc. but they can’t/won’t quell the growing dissatisfaction and institutional failure that’s giving rise to populist insurgencies. They’re simply playing whack-a-mole with the forces of history.
John B – It always was about money and/or land ownership and rents with its origins in the desire for political control by the Norman and Angevin kings
It definitely was, but now?
Putin, Xi, or Merkel would pay the Scots handsomely for Scapa Flow.
You are missing the forest for the trees. The “International Criminal Court” has made ‘war crimes’ out of what was never considered war crimes in the past. Soldiers can’t shoot unless they are being shot at! All of the statistics that we look at to measure human well-being are going in the right direction, with one exception – civil wars. They’ve gotten worse, since 2002.
You want to know why there are so many immigrants? Dictators can no longer go into asylum.
You, the UK, by joining with the Germans to enact this monstrosity, have made the world a far worse place than it should have been.
Glad to see more people seeing the Tories for what they are, namely an Institution Marched Through.
(see also:The universities, BBC, armed forces, police, once decent charities, and so on).
“All of these “rightward” swings have been pretty narrow, and things could easily swing back once the novelty has worn off.”
Novelty? We’ve had UKIP kicking around for over 20 years, and they grew to the point that they threatened a Conservative government, and then half the country voted to leave the EU in the face of the 3 main political parties.
I don’t think it’s a novelty. The problem is that politicians do nothing but pay lip service to public concerns that they consider a bit ghastly. This is why I’ve had enough of the Conservatives. The Brexit defeat should have been a huge wake-up call to the Conservatives. Not just in terms of Brexit, but understanding who votes or might vote for them.
I actually hate the Conservatives more than I hate Labour under Corbyn or Blair. At least Corbyn seems to have a plan. The Conservatives plan just seems to be to sit there and left the leftie parties and institutions tear strips off them, and then apologise for being Conservatives.
Jean
You’re on to something there
@ dearieme
Industrialisation started in the Midlands and the North of England so although Glasgow was, at its relative peak, Second City in the Empire, it was subsidising Edinburgh and, secondly, rural Scotland – not England where the industrialised North and Midlands made all the money spent in the South. If you are thinking that England’s rural south is or has ever been since the Industrial revolution dependent upon Scots industry look at the population densities of the two countries.England has more than ten times the population with only one-and-two-thirds the area.
Gamecock
Putin, Xi, or Merkel would pay the Scots handsomely for Scapa Flow.
I can see that Putin and Xi would find it very useful, but Merkel? I’d be surprised that Germany has any serviceable ships given the state of their army and air force, or you implying the’d just want access to the fleet that was scuppered there?
Which reminds me, I was in Orkney last year and a local brewery has a beer called Scapa Flow, the strap line is “Goes down better than the German navy”, although they don’t push that on their website.
“I actually hate the Conservatives more than I hate Labour under Corbyn or Blair.”
Yes, yes, yes, and more yesses. Welcome! One can, if not exactly forgive Labour its wickedness/stupidity, then at least understand that they believe in it. Their wickedness or stupidity is sincerely held.
But the Tories? They’re either creepy go-along-to-get-along types, or they’ve been turned, Stockholm Syndrome style or, like Labour, they now believe the statist claptrap, in which case their self-image is dishonest.
Either way, they’re unfit for purpose as a party of limited government, supportive of property rights and, dare one say it, of English people.
Worse than that, by somehow, don’t ask me how (arbitraging themselves as the snot pizza to Labour’s turd baguette?) parading themselves, utterly, utterly dishonestly, as the party of limited government, supportive of property rights and the people of E., they are bed-blockers against the emergence of a party genuinely in favour of the English middle (and aspiring) middle classes.
As with the Republicans in the US, or Merkel’s or Sarkozy’s lot in Germany and France (can’t be bothered to try and remember the precise acronyms … RNR? etc. whatever), they are openly contemptuous of what ought to be, and in some cases still is, their base.
So the only people in politics I despise more are the monkeys, muppets, mongs, dimwits and outright cowards who continue to vote for them on the basis that, ooh, scary, if we don’t, Corbyn gets in. And those craven, feeble-witted cunts* deserve all they get. Maybe we all do for having let things get this far.
Corbyn vs the Tories? It’s just a question of the rate of acceleration over the precipice. Corbyn is the statist Clarkson. May is the Captain Slow.
Sack and burn the temple.
* With apologies to the more delicately nurtured commentariat. But they do.
“the strap line is “Goes down better than the German navy”
Snigger. I bet they enjoy the double entendre.
Can’t argue with a single word, M’Lud.
I can.
The problem is real, but it doesn’t arise with the Republicans/conservatives. The problem is with the legacy press. They created the environment in which contemporary politics exists.
The legacy press is fading, but no one knows if it will die before the Left takes over. Never bet against the Left.
m’Lud
That’s a bit of a tour de force from you, given your predilection for sardonic one-liners.
My blue-rosetted, nannying, high-tax, high-spend MP has had my letter saying that it’s Jez gets my vote next time.
Edward Lud,
“Worse than that, by somehow, don’t ask me how (arbitraging themselves as the snot pizza to Labour’s turd baguette?) parading themselves, utterly, utterly dishonestly, as the party of limited government, supportive of property rights and the people of E., they are bed-blockers against the emergence of a party genuinely in favour of the English middle (and aspiring) middle classes.”
Probably the best thing I’ve read all month.
A new party must be created that will stand against the Conservatives. Not this time to force them to vote, but to drive up to being one of the top two parties.
I believe there is an electoral party based on:
1) No PC.
2) Nationalist in terms of immigration, reducing numbers to only the highly skilled.
3) Economic liberalism. Importing goods without tariffs, cutting farming subsidies
4) Reform of public services including shrinking the nanny state and more competition in the NHS.
5) Changing tax incentives to encourage more investment into poorer areas
Thanks, Messrs. in Spain and B., it’s nice to be appreciated. I look forward to seeing the whites of your eyes in the handcart. [gets mopey for the loss of a great civilisation, etc.]
Likewise Mr on M4.
But, yunno wot? I’ve no shortage of friends and family outside of the metrop, and I’ve no sense at all that they are anywhere sufficiently woke. I reserve my most profound contempt for those whose response is that they’ll be dead by the time, say, Sharia formally converges with English law (notwithstanding the buggeration for their children and grandchildren).
I hope I’m wrong, but my impression is it’s a few hundred blokes on blogs like this who are woke.
Not sure I would use the term “woke”. That is more a lefty expression as in “Get woke, go broke”
🙂
“Red Pilled” (from The Matrix) is more appropriate, as in no longer being deceived by the lies and illusions of the system of control we are trapped within. Similarly, those still subject to the control of The Matrix remain “Blue Pilled”.
Doesn’t require a belief in moon landing conspiracies or the New World Order…
Edward Lud – (applause)
I hope I’m wrong, but my impression is it’s a few hundred blokes on blogs like this who are woke.
You are happily wrong on that.
Not too long ago, I was watching an old show with Kenneth Clark (the good one, without an “e”) talking about how Jesus Christ is the central figure of Western Civilisation. Specifically, he drew our attention to a wonderful representation of Christ the Redeemer.
I’m not a theologician or nothing, but I reckon one of the most important things Jesus said, and it’s repeated many times in the Bible, is this:
Be not afraid.
And you don’t need to be a true believer in the man from Galilee to see how powerful that message is (though it probably helps). Our ancestors were a rough-hewn lot, very often not nearly as pious as they might have wished others to think. But they heeded that message.
Be not afraid.
It got us through the days when England was choked with the dead, so many there weren’t enough left living to bury them all. It got us through the days when Spanish and French despotry threatened to consume our island. It got us through the mechanised horror of two world wars.
Our present day difficulties, by contrast, are mild.
Our ancestors consistently chose not to be afraid, especially when they had every reason to despair. Despair is abject, preemptive surrender (and for good reason, traditionally regarded by Christians as a mortal sin). The reason we’re all here is because our grandfathers stuck two fingers up to despair, and told it to piss off.
Has that spirit been extinguished? Not at all. It was less than three years ago that the British people joyfully delivered an almighty kick in the nuts to the entire combined know-it-all establishment by voting to leave the EU. We did this in spite of one of the most egregiously spiteful scare campaigns in the history of democracy.
We were not afraid.
The Brexit-defying political establishment is behaving like Wily E. Coyote after running off an escarpment. Their legs are pumping, but there’s no longer any ground underneath to hold them up.
They are afraid.
And that is why we will win. Because we have truth, goodness, and good old-fashioned British stubbornness on our side, and all they have are menopausal cat ladies, dim-witted fancy boys, and jumped-up little twerps who probably still get picked on for their lunch money.
God loves us, and He’s made our enemies ridiculous. How can we fail?
“all they have are menopausal cat ladies, dim-witted fancy boys, and jumped-up little twerps who probably still get picked on for their lunch money.”
And the press. You lose.
God loves us…
[Blackadder voice] Oh God.
Perhaps the English were not afraid when the Viking Norse raided and the French Norse invaded and occupied. Didn’t do ‘em any good.
Glad you can find comfort in an ancient cult leader, Steve, but I’ll carry on with reality.
“And the press. You lose.”
And how did that work out with Trump and Brexit?
False characterization.
Get real, BoM4. Trump and Brexit are the refreshing exception, not the rule.
Chaps – do you think adopting a loser’s mentality (“wur doomed!”) makes you more or less likely to win? Though maybe if Churchill had sounded like a Radiohead album, Hitler would’ve killed himself sooner ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
PJF – I’m disappointed that what you took from that was YallNeedJesus.txt (though it’s not a bad shout… If you see Michael Gove in the afterlife, I did try to warn ye)
“or you implying the’d just want access to the fleet that was scuppered there?”
Its not there any more, and hasn’t been for 80 odd years. A very clever man called Earnest Cox bought the whole lot from the Royal Navy and in the 20s and 30s raised pretty much the lot for scrap. Only 3 battleships and a few light cruisers remain on the sea bed, in too deep water to be economically raised.
If you fancy a decent read about a time when men were men and got on with stuff without any H&S BS, dig out a copy of The Man who Bought a Navy by Gerald Bowman, which tells the story well.
Thank’s Jim, I’ll add it to my reading list.