State of the Union

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Sun, 2007-01-14 18:50

State of the Union

Lately there's been a lot of talk about Scotland and England separating.

I don't understand why this is such a big deal either way. Frankly, it's a non-cause. Whether it happens or not, it will make hardly any difference to the lives of the average Scottish or English person.

As someone who was born in England and lived most of his life in England I have this suggestion. If it would make the Scots happy, I would be perfectly willing to see the entire UK renamed Scotland or Greater Scotland, and the Houses of Parliament moved from London to Edinburgh.

Furthermore, I'd be happy to scrap the Union flag and adopt the cross of St Andrew as the flag of the newly renamed country, and even make the kilt our national costume.

I'd also be delighted to ditch our present national anthem and replace it with either 'Scots Wha Hae Wi' Wallace Bled' or "I belong to Glasgow'. If necessary I'd even swear allegiance to Rabbie Burns.

Why? Because this whole subject is meaningless. Even if the two countries were to separate, we'd still be united as part of Europe.

In my experience nationalism and independence are the two causes generally adopted by people who haven't got a social life or anything better to do with their time.

Sun, 2007-01-14 19:27

maddan

Meaningless apart from north sea oil, different voting trends in the two countries, and history, which means a lot to some people, some of whom are in charge. So not meaningless at all really.

Sun, 2007-01-14 20:10

Moimo

Oh and Flower Of Scotland is the anthem sung before matches, don't know how well this would go down as a National Anthem. As Dan said it is quite important, for instance how would it effect Northern Ireland if England accepted a split just like that. nobody

Mon, 2007-01-15 11:32

bobblehat2023

"Meaningless apart from north sea oil, different voting trends in the two countries, and history, which means a lot to some people, some of whom are in charge. So not meaningless at all really." Yes, a split in the late-1970s would have a huge effect on the political course for the rest of the UK. The high-unemployment policies of the Thatcher government - necessary or otherwise - were heavily financed by North Sea oil revenues. The results now would be more complicated. Losing Scotland would make it extremely difficult for the Labour Party to win elections for the UK parliament under the present voting system - the Tories currently only have one MP in Scotland out of the 60 or so seats - so Labour would be very likely to change the voting system. So anyone who wants to see the Lib Dems in the government in England should move to Scotland now and vote for the SNP in a swing seat. From Scotland's point of view, in many view in 10 or 15 years too late to make a run for it. The supplies of North Sea oil are far closer to running out and the gigantic EU subsidies that were available to the Irish during the 1980s - and worked very well - now have to be split with much poorer countries like Poland, Romania, Bulgaria etc. Anytime between 1975 and 1995 it would been a really good move.

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