They should all be running for the exits and brexiting, if it's such a good idea.
England should leave the UK and gain her independence from Scotland.
They should all be running for the exits and brexiting, if it's such a good idea.
England should leave the UK and gain her independence from Scotland.
Absolutely. Separate from Wales, while you're at it!
So do people in other English counties like Yorkshire and Cumbria (which has its own Celtic language) and in other parts of the UK like Shetland. I dont know why there persists a myth that Cornwall is somehow a nation with its own identity when far bigger counties like Yorkshire - which has a bigger GDP than 11 European countries - also have their own identity and culture. All English counties have their own cultures and traditions and there's nothing to distinguish Cornwall from the rest.
The place with the biggest claim in the UK to break away from its host nation is Shetland from Scotland.
England should secede from the UK. The United Kingdom of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will then be left on its own device to sort out where to put its capital (maybe Rhyl, so it's sort of geographically centreish), organise its armed forces, sort out what currency it would have (it won't be the pound) and how to raise money without English charity. Meanwhile, England would just toddle off and prosper, free from the EU and Britain.
Where does it end. Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, Essex, Sussex, Northumbria were all kingdoms before English confederation. Each have peculiar language dialects, cultures, many unique mix of faiths. These are the residue of tribes and feudal patronage. They are not nation states.
Nation States evolve and achieve a critical level of intensity, integrity and complexity of common interests which supercedes its constituent parts. They define themselves through constitutions; words and ideals; responsibilities not inheritance. They tend to be inclusive; maintain stable borders; constructive and fair trade practices; open expression. Tribes reject all of that, defining membership by cultural and ethnic origins, and are strictly exclusive.
There is a very nasty side to separatist movements like those of Catalonia or Scotland (with which it closely resembles). It is often led by an jaded provincial political class (as it was in Quebec) whose primary interest is their own empowerment and enrichment.
They hold referendum after referendum, legislative vote after vote, until they manage to cobble together a majority and then declare there will be no more referenda or votes. The decision is irrevocable and their new state is indivisible. They use ignorance, resentment and a sence of violation.. or superiority.. as a tool. They reject patriotism to a cause and promote an identity with ever more discriminate definitions of membership.
Be clear, Catalonia is economically untenable outside the European Union. And the EU is unravelling from its perimeters inward. This is a coup d'etat by a hermetically sealed political cult living in a fantasy world that doesn't reflect is own heterogeneous culture or its dependance on the Spanish superstructure.
It's a gang of rich self appointed legates who don't want to support the poorer regions of its country, but want all the benefits that accrue from the open European market, without responsibility to its own nurturing motherland.
It will fail, and likely it will lead to violence.
.
The Plains of Abraham ring a bell ?One of the fundamental differences between these other places and their occupiers and Quebec (or any other Canadian Province) is that Canada is a confederation and each and every province joined it voluntarily. In the case of the most recent member ... Newfoundland ... after a popular plebiscite. Almost every other example above ...Catalonia, Scotland, Wales, etc. were absorbed by force of arms. Quebec joined Upper Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia by the stroke of a pen and not at the end of a bayonet. I suppose that it gives any province the right to leave unmolested, as well.
At least Hamas is fighting for it's citizens rather than against them.Damn if that doesn't sound exactly like Quebec.. or Hamas.
The Plains of Abraham ring a bell ?
Catalonia was a land and a people before Spain was.
( remember what Spain did in the new world?: PLEASE DO NOT TALK ABOUT MORALS)
They took their "possessions" through decree and force of arms and justified it all with a gawd that doesn't exist.
But people who voted to be independent of that don't understand democracy.
hmmm.
The EU is as far from democracy as you can get.
Between 300,000 and 1,000,000 demonstrators (depending on whose figures you believe) came out the streets of Barcelona on Sunday to reject Catalonian independence from Spain. That exceeded any demonstration in celebration of the declaration of indendence.
The independence was orchestrated by way unConstituional laws and referendums that left out what was likely a majority of Catalans. The separatists first changed their own Constitution in secret which had required a 2/3rd majority for changing the regional status and amending any of its articles. And then rammed it through their own legislature with a bare majority on the basis of a contrived and illegal referendum. They used public funds to promote and administer the referendum.
That is all illegal. And Spain has brought charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement against the President Carles Puigdemont and others in the Catalan government for imposing its minority opinion on a majority of Catalonians. Puigdemont did what you'd expect from a political opportunist whose gambit had failed. He ran away, and sought amnesty in Belgium. It sounds typical of the scummy types that run these movements. You'd find their types in the Quebec separatist organs as well.
As for those who support the movement you can guess what they are. They exist everywhere. They are drawn to a form of local communal arnarchism. They deeply resent any state authority. They are misanthropes, intensely naive and support utopian and fantasy ridden vision of a 'free' society that is simply untenable in the real world. For the most part they are young, idealistic and easily manipulated by cynical political operatives and demagogues.
And this is what its come to. Spain had no other choice but to burst this bubble of deception and treason.
So, pretty much like the Brexiteers.
Almost every other example above ...Catalonia, Scotland, Wales, etc. were absorbed by force of arms.
No, they weren't.