Do you think the English, if given a vote, would vote for independence from the rest of the UK?

[Kendodd]

Yabu - No they wouldn't
Yanbu - Yes they would

The break up of the UK seems high chance to me, maybe 60/40 to be voted for within the next ten years. They don't ever seem to ask the English what would you personally vote?

I could see it happening. Then that wouldn't good enough and England would keep breaking down into smaller and smaller nations until everyone is left standing in their own garden nation eyeing their neighbour suspiciously and wondering why they aren't rich yet.

Have you ever stopped to consider why some people want their country to leave England? Responses on most threads about Scotland are very telling.

@MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes

London “supports the rest of England” because it’s sucked everything out and destroyed it all. It’s been acting as an empire sucking out the regions. Someone mentioned libraries as part of London’s cultural hub?? It might surprise you to know that libraries historically were founded in the regions first. Manchester and Birmingham were their birth places, not London. Centralisation on London is very recent - post 2000 recent. London would struggle to feed and water its population alone - every city state has a hinterland.

London has historically been wealthy because of its proximity to the Continent, ie, ease of trade. Not because it sucks out the regions. Places like Wales and Scotland have historically been poorer because of a mixture of geographical distance, unproductive land, underpopulation, undercapitalisation and so forth.

Until recently, London had a huge manufacturing sector. It retains its financial sector, one of the biggest in the world, and a huge exporter of services to the rest of the world.

Given that Manchester and Birmingham were small towns 300 years ago I find your claim about libraries unlikely.

cardibach, I live in Wales and have done since I was a teenager, so longer in fact than I ever lived in England. I consider that entitles me to an opinion. I also have opinions about NS - maybe I wouldn't if she wasn't on my TV so bloody much, despite me being nowhere near Scotland! I'm allowed to care about things that happen to people in other countries and I do not believe NS is a force for good. I'm happy to exchange having an opinion about Scotland,bit I don't have to see the SNP every 5 minutes.

@Bairnsmum05

Have you ever stopped to consider why some people want their country to leave England? Responses on most threads about Scotland are very telling.

It's because people in England are tired of the constant complaining and hypocrisy, particularly from north of the border.

@Stripesnomore

Can someone explain why they think Scotland was forced into a union.

My understanding was that Scotland wanted to get into a union after it got itself into a financial predicament when its colonisation attempts in the Americas failed. But someone else might have a better explanation.

This is based on the myth of the Darien scheme being the reason Scotland joined the union. Lots of rich Scots did lose money but it did not contrary to popular belief make Scotland bankrupt. England had been pushing Scotland to join the union for some time, the Church of Scotland put up quite a bit of resistance to this and only agreed when they were assured that the main institutions in Scotland would be protected. This is why so many elements of Scottish society are still different to other parts of the U.K.

There was uproar across Scotland when Scottish politicians agreed to sign the Act of Union. What is rarely discussed outside academia is that they were heavily bribed to do so not because Scotland was bankrupt but at that time England had a massive national debt that we would be taking on. The fact it was so unpopular in Scotland and nearly came to an end many times in the first 50 years goes some way in explaining why there is no holiday or celebration to mark the union.

Yes, 1715 and 1745 are proof that the Union wasn't a sure thing for England and Scotland for some time...

@TomPinch hypocrisy?

[quote Bairnsmum05]@TomPinch hypocrisy?[/quote]
Yes

@CoronaIsWatching

North Sea oil isn't worth anything anymore, and never will be again

Which is a good thing for the environment. Fortunately, Scotland generates a decent amount of renewable energy and were on the brink of developing technological that could generate enough clean energy to supply Western Europe. Sadly they rest of the U.K. is not at this point and might go some way in explaining the concern coming from Westminster at the possibility of independence and full control over our energy supplies.

I think it’s sad some people want the union to break up but I don’t personally know of any English people who would ever propose this.

In fact, I feel many people in England are very supportive of the Welsh, Northern Irish or Scottish issues and people.
Take sport Sport as an example. If England were to be knocked out of a football World Cup, for example, but Scotland remained in the competition, most English people I know would immediately get fully behind the Scottish team and want them to do well instead. The other way round however and I predict that most Scottish supporters would be wishing for any team but England to get through.

Equally I can’t quite get my head around anyone’s problem with being governed from London. The government has to sit somewhere and London is a whole lot closer to anywhere in the uk than Brussels!

@LexMitior

Yes, 1715 and 1745 are proof that the Union wasn't a sure thing for England and Scotland for some time...

These were rebellions by Highlanders that were opposed by Lowland Scots. They're often presented as national rebellions but they weren't.

Contrary to the above, the 1707 Union hasn't ever really been in danger until now. Another thing not mentioned is that from 1603 the king of Scotland and of England was the same person. Scotland and England had been moving closer for a century before political union happened.

A shared monarch did not necessarily mean a Union was on the cards. Queen Ann and the prospect of who her successor would be caused significant issues. Look how that turned out?

@Amortentia

A shared monarch did not necessarily mean a Union was on the cards. Queen Ann and the prospect of who her successor would be caused significant issues. Look how that turned out?

In reality it did. Scotland fell in with England after 1570 due to the Reformation: Catholic France didn't look like such a good friend after then - to Scots.

Nor did the prospect of a Catholic monarch - to Scots.

Political union was pretty logical.

I'm from the north of England. A lot of us said we'd vote for Scottish independence, as long as we could go with them.

@poppycat10

That's because the UK keep gaslighting them. 'Stay, we're stronger together' 'We'll Never leave the EU

Utter nonsense. David Cameron announced his stupid referendum in 2013.

The Scottish referendum was a full 18 months later in 2014.

The people in Scotland knew the EU referendum was coming.

@poppycayt10

...and we were told in no uncertain terms again and again by the 'Better Together' bunch of politicians (of all colours) that the only way, the ONLY way we could stay in the EU was to remain part of the UK...

Well that worked well didn't it?

only very recently heard about the village of Capel Celyn which was flooded in order to create a reservoir, to supply the NW of England. What a thing to do to Wales. So moving to look at old photos of it on Google images and to think now all that remains is beneath a lake.

Have you heard of Mardale Green in Cumbria too? Now better known as Haweswater Reservoir - flooded to supply Manchester and Liverpool with water.

I'm a Scot, in Scotland who would vote to remain in the union but some of the sneering attitudes on here make it easy to see why as a country independence sentiment has never been higher.

Unfortunately I think it's inevitable and as a single parent with a mortgage and a not particularly well paid job in banking it's a worry.

Whichever annoys the Scots and Welsh the most- I'd do
Oh this must

Whichever annoys the Scots and Welsh the most- I'd do that

Oh this must be all the meaningfull conversation that could sort society's ills out that people keep talking about.

It's a myth that Scotland is left-wing. The SNP are classic centrists economically. There are surveys showing that people in Scotland regard themselves as further left than in England, but when you drill down to things like tax they're the same.

Maybe - but England has been careering rightward at an alarming speed for the last few decades. Hard to imagine that a soft, old school socialist type like Corbyn is too far to the left for the Labour party.

@justbrewit

I’m in London and would prefer Scotland to be independent, to be absolutely honest. I don’t know why it isn’t already. Even though I quite agree with NS in most ways and think Scotland has every right to another independence referendum after the shitshow of Brexit, I’m tired of looking at her and listening to it all. We would save loads of money if Scotland went independent and this could be invested in the North of England and then Andy Burnham might stop whining as well. Wales could go independent as well, but I doubt they would because where would they work?

your last sentence....um....in the same places they/we (the welsh) work now. People don't commute six hours every day from Aberystwyth to England for work you know...the majority of people living in Wales work in Wales and, I presume, would continue to do so...what a bizarre comment!

the fact that people haven't heard about capel celyn, welsh not etc goes some way towards explaining some of the bad feeling I suppose. If you learn about things like that it could explain some of the resentment some Welsh/Scottish/Irish people feel about England. Think we could all do with covering a bit more UK & Irish history, really, in Wales, we never learnt about the highland clearances/potato famine etc.

FWIW I don't know anyone who 'hates' the English - living in Cardiff half my workforce are English, and other than a bit of banter about the rugby none of us really differentiate between each other and certainly don't hate each other! Same when I lived in England - I was surprised at the lack of what I thought was common knowledge from some English people (e.g. not believing that people actually spoke Welsh as their first language, didn't know anything about the Senedd, thought we didn't have motorways...!) but then I only know the very basics about Scottish/Irish governance and history (or, for example, the Cornish independence movement) so didn't really judge.

No. I am in favour of the union and I think the world has enough factionalism from enough sources without making more. Many of us have a foot in several camps anyway - I have a Scottish grandmother, a Welsh mother and an English father and my best friend of many years is Northern Irish.

What about all the many inhabitants of the UK who do not originate from any of those nations? How do you propose to allocate them? Independence is used by politicians for self-promotion and I really hope people can see through that.

@Lostinacloud

I think it’s sad some people want the union to break up but I don’t personally know of any English people who would ever propose this.

In fact, I feel many people in England are very supportive of the Welsh, Northern Irish or Scottish issues and people.
Take sport Sport as an example. If England were to be knocked out of a football World Cup, for example, but Scotland remained in the competition, most English people I know would immediately get fully behind the Scottish team and want them to do well instead. The other way round however and I predict that most Scottish supporters would be wishing for any team but England to get through.

Equally I can’t quite get my head around anyone’s problem with being governed from London. The government has to sit somewhere and London is a whole lot closer to anywhere in the uk than Brussels!

People always trot this sport supporting line out...it certainly wasn't the case when I was living in London when Wales got through to the semi finals in the Fifa cup in 2016 - every fucker in the pub was very vocally supporting portugal!

Nor any of the times we came above England in the six nations

Not forgetting all the times the BBC (or private companies, e.g. there was a recent furore about British Airways wishing England good luck in a match against Wales, M&S, Primark etc always sell England tops and have England advertising in Cardiff!) who are supposed to be the BRITISH BROADCASTING co always support England in any E vs other nations matches... obviously I would expect BBC London or whatever to do so but not BBC 1/2 etc!

In the 1950s the Welsh GDP was twice as big as Ireland’s. Now, as an independent nation in the 21st century, the economy of the Irish Republic is 4 times the size of Wales. Staying in the UK hasn't been good for Wales so far!

Wales has 6% of the UK rail network but gets 1% of rail investment. HS2 rail in England will cost £106 billion with £5.6b of this considered ‘Welsh’ spending, even though not a single piece of track will be in Wales and having the new railway in place will have an overall negative impact on Wales’ economy of over £150M every year.

Anyone living in Wales would be silly to want to stay within an unfair Union.

Gobsmacked at some of the ignorance shown on this thread. Haven't even read it all and I'm done.