Brexit: Now What? Part III

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Craig B said:
Yes, what I mean is simply this. The UK is a Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. GB is a Union of England (then included Wales) and Scotland. If Scotland departed, GB would be annihilated in anything resembling its present form; and in that case the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland would also be disrupted because one of its components (GB) had undergone dissolution or at the very least, gross mutation.

If, thereafter, the governments of England, Wales and N Ireland desired to form a new union, they could call it "The United Kingdom", or anything else that might take their fancy, but the original UK would be no more.
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By that logic, we would have to differentiate between the 1801-1921 UK and the 1921-onwards UK, but we don't do that, do we? I find it bizarre that Scottish nationalists seem to have this, "when we go, the UK ends," fetish. After all, we don't say there are different Scotlands, just by virtue of, say, Berwick-upon-Tweed being part of it or not.
 
Strawberry said:
The DUP can be told that "borders are often unwelcome but may be nationally important."
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Are there other examples either present day or historically of the kind of thing suggested here? That one part of a country is sectioned off and an internal border put in place in order to preserve links to a foreign nation?
 
Information Analyst said:
By that logic, we would have to differentiate between the 1801-1921 UK and the 1921-onwards UK, but we don't do that, do we? I find it bizarre that Scottish nationalists seem to have this, "when we go, the UK ends," fetish. After all, we don't say there are different Scotlands, just by virtue of, say, Berwick-upon-Tweed being part of it or not.
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We do differentiate between those two uk though don't we? They had different names.

It's almost as if English nationalists have a fetish for believing that England is all that matters
 
Strawberry said:
Its not unworkable to create internal checks between NI and the rest of the UK, its very workable indeed and far more workable than trying to police the land border between NI and the Republic.

Its really the most obvious and sensible solution to the border conundrum but given that the government is in hock to the DUP I doubt common sense will rule the day.
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Common sense has rarely if ever prevailed in NI, the risk is that they unravel 20 years of political progress because of the Brexit debacle.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
Are there other examples either present day or historically of the kind of thing suggested here? That one part of a country is sectioned off and an internal border put in place in order to preserve links to a foreign nation?
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Yes, oddly enough I can think of an historical example where one part of a country was sectioned off and an internal border put in place to preserve links to a foreign nation.

Its called the partitioning of Ireland. :rolleyes:
 
Information Analyst said:
By that logic, we would have to differentiate between the 1801-1921 UK and the 1921-onwards UK, but we don't do that, do we? I find it bizarre that Scottish nationalists seem to have this, "when we go, the UK ends," fetish. After all, we don't say there are different Scotlands, just by virtue of, say, Berwick-upon-Tweed being part of it or not.
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I accept the logic, and I do indeed differentiate these two polities. One of them consisted of Great Britain plus all of Ireland and it was dully called "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". Its core area was Great Britain, which had existed itself as a viable imperial state (Ireland then being a dependency thereof) in the years 1707 to 1800. Thereafter Ireland was incorporated into this polity. When most of Ireland seceded, leaving behind only six northern counties, the imperial state duly changed its name to United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. So far so good.

Its main core area had not been affected by this change. A change of name was required, and was performed. When Ireland was added the name was changed. When part of Ireland seceded, the name was changed. But the core element of the state is a Union of England (at the time of union including Wales) and Scotland. Now it is my contention that the dissolution of the core element of the state (to which Ireland was later added and then substantially subtracted) is of more significance than the annexation and secession of a dependency.

Consider France. When Algeria was annexed the name of the state was not changed, and when Algeria seceded no name change was therefore required. But the French republic's core territory was not affected. Britain's would be if Scotland seceded. The UK would cease to exist because its core component GB would cease to exist, unlike in the case of the changes in the status of Ireland.

Scotland is not defined as a Union including Berwick upon Tweed. Great Britain (as the name of a polity, not an island, is defined as a Union of England and Scotland. In the event of a secession of Scotland these two countries will remain, but the name of their union will become obsolete along with the union it defines. There is no longer anywhere called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for example, because the union of its two component countries has been dissolved. Similarly with Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia. But their former member countries are still there on the map, and on the ground.
 
Would Southern Ireland actually *want* the North?
 
Strawberry said:
Yes, and there's no such country as Southern Ireland.
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Well the latter is true, but on what do you base the assertion that Eire wants unification as things stand? perhaps one day when the demographic shift towards Catholics has done its work, but right now? I doubt it.
 
Garrison said:
Well the latter is true, but on what do you base the assertion that Eire wants unification as things stand? perhaps one day when the demographic shift towards Catholics has done its work, but right now? I doubt it.
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I base it on every opinion poll I've ever seen on the subject, and more recently on the fact that Enda Kenny was even openly talking about the prospect. When a FG Taoiseach starts talking about unification its clearly not a minority opinion given that the FG party are traditionally the most hostile party towards Irish nationalism on that side of the border.
 
Strawberry said:
The partitioning of Ireland corresponds exactly to the description in your question.
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The partitioning did not create any internal border. It resulted in two sovereign states with an external border between them.

Fee free to disagree with it as a course of action but it's quite a different thing.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
The partitioning did not create any internal border. It resulted in two sovereign states with an external border between them.

Fee free to disagree with it as a course of action but it's quite a different thing.
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It did create an internal border from an Irish perspective.
 
Strawberry said:
It certainly tells us nothing about how the British government would react to the EU's suggestion of a different deal for NI than for the rest of the UK if they weren't beholden to the DUP. Personally I think a Labour government - even a Blairite led one - would have no problem with it.
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Of course you think that, you really, really want Irish reunification and so your hypothetical scenarios would tend to align with that.

OTOH I was a Labour Party member man and boy for 25 years. Individuals on the left were often very sympathetic towards Nationalists and the IRA but AFAIK party policy was always for peace in NI as part of the UK.
 
The Don said:
Of course you think that, you really, really want Irish reunification and so your hypothetical scenarios would tend to align with that.

OTOH I was a Labour Party member man and boy for 25 years. Individuals on the left were often very sympathetic towards Nationalists and the IRA but AFAIK party policy was always for peace in NI as part of the UK.
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Up until the signing of the GFA it was mainstream Labour party policy to be in favour of a united Ireland by consent, so I don't think you paid attention to the small print back when you were a member.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
We do differentiate between those two uk though don't we? They had different names.
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Not in short form. They're both "the UK," as indeed E&W + NI would likely be.

It's almost as if English nationalists have a fetish for believing that England is all that matters
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If that was the case, they'd be wanting to call E&W + NI "England," but I see little evidence of that.
 
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