Breaking Up Britain: Four Nations after a Union

Breaking Up Britain: Four Nations after a Union

New book by Kevin Williamson and others.

Information from website:

'This brilliant book helps us understand what Scots, Welsh, Irish and English neighbours, freed from an unhappy Union, might look like.'

Billy Bragg

May 2009 will be the tenth anniversary of the first elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. This was the beginning of a decade of change - which now includes the restoration of powers to Stormont - that is showing every sign of being an irreversible process.
Breaking Up Britain is a unique collection of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish contributors, featuring key political activists from the nationalist parties, commentators and campaigners, academics and journalists. Each writer explores the change that the break-up demands in their own nation, but also discusses its impact upon the whole.

This dialogue of differences is essential reading for anyone interested in the shape of politics and culture after a Union.

Contributors:

Gerry Adams, Arthur Aughey, Gregor Gall, John Harris, Michael Kenny, Peadar Kirby, Guy Lodge, Inez McCormack, John Osmond, Mike Parker, Lesley Riddoch, Richard Thomson, Vron Ware, Charlotte Williams, Kevin Williamson, Leanne Wood and Salma Yaqoob.

You can read Kev Williamson's chapter here and Mark Perryman's here and there is an online discussion of the book here. A couple of other chapters are available from the website as well.

It looks very interesting and relevant and from the sample chapters provided it is obviously a work of real quality. I will do a proper review once I get a hold of a copy.

Brainwashed by Britain? Labour's plans for 2012 Olympics

Here is what one Labour think-tank has to say about 2012 (thanks to Ray Bell for this - JOE)

Quote:

"Sport is one of the most powerful tools available to policy makers seeking to entrench the best of British identity. In its elite and mass forms, it reaches into the lives of many millions of people. In the run-up to the 2012 Games, with their focus on children, children are going to be increasingly involved with sporting activity that is explicitly British rather than English, Scottish or Welsh."

Opinion Leader Forum Report, It's the Taking Part that Counts, Opinion Leader Forum 2007, p23

Why the British Union doesn't work

Since a British u is attacking my arithmetic here is my reply:

Total Number of British MP's at Westminster: 646

Scots MP's: 59

England on it's own has 529 MP's.

This means that English MP's heavily outweigh all the other countries in the British state and it means that the union is highly unequal as a result.

A majority of Scottish MP's voted against Trident but the British Government is pushing ahead anyway. If we were independent we would have our own direct voice in the EU and UN. We would have a seat in the Council of Ministers, we would have our own European commissioner and we would have more Euro MP's.

Most importantly our flag would fly at the United Nations and we would have our own seat there. We would control our own defence, foreign policy, benefits policy, broadcasting and pensions which are currently controlled by Westminster.

So if we voted against Trident it wouldn't happen and we wouldn't be wasting billions on an unusable deterrent which is intended to prop up the old fiction of Britain being a world power.

Scotland doesn't want to be a world power but we do need to have the same powers as every other country around the world and that can only happen with independence.

If the Scots in the cabinet worked in Scotland's interests that might be an advantage but it is obvious that they don't. Look at the HBOS takeover for a current obvious example.

Scotland would benefit if HBOS remained an independent bank based in Scotland. Brown wants it to be merged with Lloyds TSB which is likely to result in the HQ moving south and the loss of thousands of Scottish jobs.

To do this he is using Billions of borrowed pounds, much of which will be raised from future taxation on Scotland. So we're paying for the wrong decision to happen to our bank with the added rider that Mr Brown believes this indicates that Scotland is too poor to have independence and has the cheek to compare oil rich Scotland with tiny Iceland which was in part destabalised by the actions of the British Government! So much for the 'union dividend'.

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I've printed the whole post below with my replies to each point:


Joe,

Good morning. It’s actually about 10:1 (587:59 MPs). But the exact ratio is largely irrelevant.
I don’t accept your notion that Scotland is “outvoted”. There’s no anti-Scottish bloc voting against our interests. Scots are no more “outvoted” than any other identifiable subgroup: elderly people, non-Caucasians or gay people, for example. Geography is only one distinguishing factor. But I’ll use inverted commas around the word “outvoted” and tackle you on your own terms.

Scotland is a country and represents the people who live in Scotland. Scottish MP's are recognised as a group within the British Parliament and they actually meet occasionally as a group (the Scottish Grand Committee).

Now obviously there are a variety of MP's from different parties, well two kinds actually, the Trident supporting right wing Brits ie Labour, Lib Dems and Tories and the SNP. The SNP are the only party which is based in Scotland and represents Scottish interests but nonetheless MP's elected in Scotland can fairly be described as Scottish MP's even when their first loyalty is not necessarily to Scotland.

Consider this: there being about 70,000 voters in the Glenrothes constituency, each individual is massively “outvoted” when it comes to electing the local MP.

Not really. everyone gets a vote and the winner wins. PR is fairer than FPTP as a system and we have that in the Scottish parliament and would likely have that in an independent Scottish Government but the voters of Fife have a democratic choice at the moment.

Even within the Kingdom of Fife, Glenrothes is only one of four Westminster constituencies, so could perhaps be said to be “outvoted” by a factor of 3:1.

Not really I think you will find that MP's in Fife are likely to work together, particularly when they are all Labour as they are currently.

And Fife itself is “outvoted” by a factor of 642:4 (about 160:1) in the UK parliament.

Fife is not a country. It is part of Scotland but the country of Scotland as a whole is indeed outvoted by a factor of 11-1 in the UK parliament.

Being “outvoted”, as you put it, is in the nature of representative democracy.

English MP's are not outvoted, the other countries are.

So why are you seemingly unconcerned about Fife being in such a position, but telling anyone who will listen that Scotland is “outvoted by a factor of 11-1” within Britain?

Because it's the truth.

I would suggest that your nationalism, rather than any argument about democratic representation, is at the root of your thinking. You see Scots (not Fifers) as separate, are outraged that we aren’t, and so that nationalistic tail wags your political dog.

After all, Scots – unlike Fifers – form a “nation without a state”, not unlike the Sioux, Bretons, Tamils, Sardinians and many others. Can you see yet where your argument breaks down? Should they all be independent? Should the USA, France, Sri Lanka, Italy and other nations cease to exist in their current forms as a result? But I digress.

You're not getting anywhere with your misleading arguments. Brittany has a right to independence and France and Spain as ex-imperial states could be further broken down. The Basque and Catalan countries are obvious examples and are moving towards independence. Sardinia also has an independence movement. The USA is large but it is obviously seen as a distinct country and at this point there is no serious movement to break it up.

The Sioux are a conquered people unfortunately, but their original ownership of America (with the rest of the native Americans) is a historical fact which should not be ignored.

In your terms, Britain is similarly “outvoted” in the European Parliament – by a factor of 9:1 (in fact 707:78). But do you see me fretting about that? Of course not, because I’m a Unionist!

That is a problem, which has led to the creation of UKIP. The UK is already independent actually, but UKIP are British unionists (nationalists) like yourself. Scotland would be outvoted in the EU but no one country is large enough to dominate the whole EU which makes a difference.

Not a British nationalist. I’ll leave that to those on the fringes: to the likes of UKIP.

It's the same thing. Britain as currently constituted is a nation so the supporters of British nationhood are nationalists and (some are imperialists as well such as the BNP). If you fly the Union Jack then you are a British nationalist by definition.

But a conviction Unionist. So I’m Pro-Scotland, pro-Britain and pro-Europe.

But you are less pro Scotland than I am because you are happy to see our interests subverted to Britain's, I'm not.

That means I’m at ease with the idea of distributed sovereignty. I’ll consider what powers might best be exercised at Scottish, British or European levels not just on the basis of uncritical subsidiarity, or what’s thought to be best only for “us” (however defined).

Yes we Scots can do that as well and that is the problem, Britain stops us from making these decisions for ourselves. Post independence we might choose to work together with England on certain things but that would be our democratic choice.

Rather, the Unionist ideal is to pool resources, to come together whenever, on balance, it serves our common good. And if at times that cuts across narrow ideas of “our” versus “their” interests, then so be it – even for your hobbyhorse issues of defence and foreign affairs.

Yes, well unfortunately what actually happens is that Scotland's voice is entirely ignored altogether and Britain's voice is the only one that is heard. On Trident we don't want it, Britain does, so we get it.

Anyway, we already cede some such powers to the EU, NATO and UN (and even to the US) and while you and I could probably bicker all day about the appropriateness of the current distribution, the internationalist principle is an important one which nationalist doctrines inevitably undermine.

Yes the US controls the missiles which makes them rather pointless.

And that’s why, as David Cameron rightly said, unionists will win this battle of ideas. Your rhetoric may be pithier, but our vision is far more forward-looking, generous and inclusive.

But of course, in our relations with the rest of the world, Scotland’s and Britain’s interests are our primary focus, and there’s no contradiction between that statement and the foregoing. The distribution of sovereignty, rather like the decision-making dynamic within a healthy marriage, must work to all its parties’ net advantage, if not to each individual partner’s in every respect.

And on that score your argument falls apart completely. An independent Scotland would be “outvoted” in the European Parliament probably by 771:14 (roughly 55:1).

So again I’ll ask: why doesn’t that vex you? Where’s your consistency? Why is being “outvoted” 10:1 in Britain such a concern, but being “outvoted” 55:1 in Europe such a welcome prospect?

It's pretty obvious. Within Britain if there is a conflict of interest between what suits England and what suits Scotland and Wales then it's pretty obvious whose argument will win within the London parliament. The numbers are clear to see.

In terms of the EU yes there is also a problem there because we would be outvoted by a large factor. However no one country dominates the EU and therefore it is possible to work together on a common agenda. Also, if we are independent and we don't like the direction of the EU we would have the power to leave it, we don't have that at the moment.

SAME NONSENSE BY BLIAR FOR WALES

Blair: Independence is backward

INDEPENDENCE for Wales and Scotland would be an old-fashioned backward step, Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday - while claiming his own legacy was to make Britain a more modern place.

[A backward step? More like a necessary step which every former colony of the British Empire has made and none have regretted! Independence is not 'backward' for Wales or Scotland. As Jack Straw has pointed out the union is useful for England but it is not useful for Scotland or Wales, both of whom would benefit from independent representation in the EU and the UN. JOE]

Mr Blair has been under pressure on the constitutional issue after a series of polls showed growing support among the English for the break-up of the UK, and a surge in support for the SNP in Scotland.

But Mr Blair told a Westminster lunch that autonomy for the nations of the UK was "a completely regressive step, totally wrong and totally contrary to where the modern world is moving, which is countries moving together."

Using his own background to stress the "interdependence" point used repeatedly by Chancellor Gordon Brown, Mr Blair said, "My mum was Irish, my Dad was English, both lived most of their lives in Scotland. I was born in Scotland but brought up in County Durham, and I now live most of my life down in London. [Who cares? Blair's allegiance is to England, fair enough, but can he not realise that others put Scotland or Wales first?]

"It's a good newspaper story - You have an opinion poll question to people saying 'Scotland have got their own parliament, should England have its own parliament?'
"I would be kind of surprised if people didn't answer that question 'yes'.
"But to then take it a step further and say they want to bust up the United Kingdom; I don't think they want to bust-up the UK." [Pity that's exactly what the polls say Tony.]

An ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph which suggested support for Scottish independence had reached 52% among Scots and 59% in England. And a poll in yesterday's Scotsman suggest the SNP was on course to be the largest party in the Scottish parliament after next May.

Mr Blair said he recalled similar poll results being published in the summer of 1998, which were not reflected in the results of the 1999 Welsh and Scottish elections.
"When people come to the point of do they want to bust up the UK, I don't think they want to do that," he said. "I'm not saying these aren't difficult arguments that you have to handle carefully, because you do, but I think independence would be a thoroughly old-fashioned and regressive step."

The Prime Minister has said he will step down before next September, but would not be drawn on his departure date when questioned by reporters yesterday. Asked about his biggest mistakes since entering 10 Downing Street in 1997, he hinted they might not include issues such as the Iraq war.

"If people ask me what's your biggest mistakes, I always say 'that's for me to know and you to find out'. Although they may, funnily enough not be some of the things you might think of," he said. He added, "I think the thing that has changed about the country overall is that I think the country is basically more willing to advance people on merit today, and ... I think we've become a far more modern country."

Returning to his theme of the regions [Scotland and Wales are COUNTRIES not regions], he said, it was wrong to always compare areas such as Wales or the north-east of England with London, saying there had been strong economic growth throughout the UK

"Part of the trouble with comparing region by region is, if you take London for example, you have some of the wealthiest parts of Britain and some of the poorest. It's more sensible to analyse disparities within regions rather than pitting regions against each other."