I liked that :) I apologize for the following rant ha.
I've sort of altered my stance on this over the last few years. I regard my self as British, as I have family and heritage from all over the island as well as Ireland. And so it used to annoy me quite a lot when Scottish friends would say "I'm not British I'm Scottish", given the political, geographical, historic and migratory relationship we have in the here and now, I've softened to that personal identity choice now though, after all I'm technically English but I don't place much emphasis on it out of my own choice. But yeah, currently I cant see any real political or economic argument which clinches it either way to justify or oppose an immediate break in the union; other than just the whim of the populace (its self the only justification you need).
I like the fact I have connections across our islands, that wont change whether the union breaks or not, I do worry however about the strength of the Labour party vote in England though, so thats probably my main concern about independence.
I think the issue needs to be seen in a much broader context, and thats the problem with independence movements, by their nature theyr'e far too provincial, it doesn't take into account the fluid and complex relationship individual regions from, Country Derry to Kent, have. England is a massive country with a huge populace, its self far more diverse than any broader differences you can find between Scotland and England etc. I think it's best to see governance issues like this in terms of population sizes. So if you break the union down to the individual regions, say Yorkshire which has a bigger economy and larger population than Scotland, or even the Republic of Ireland, you could argue that Yorkshire or the south west have as much right to self determination as the Welsh or Scottish do. So why not have a situation where we have more devolution (real devolution unlike what was proposed back in 2004) break up the disproportionate swing the south east of England has (to be made worse under an English only Parliament). Have semi-autonomous regions handling their affairs in ways which work best for them, overseen by a PR elected Federal Government. Scotland gets the powers it deserves, as do the rest of the regions. The Tories wont get the disproportionate power that they wield over everyone, but still get the majority power they deserve in the regions that typicaly vote for them. The economy stays the same (probably improving for each region), Foreign Affairs stay the same etc. Under that system every one is happy, we still have the cultural economic and 'emotional' links to each other. And infact it would move the independance issue away from a be all or end all choice towards one that is much more centered on the economic etc facts.
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Jorvic, Thu 12 May 2011, 1:37,
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