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Why are we asking this now? Wendy Alexander, who leads the Labour Party north of the border, has startled a lot of her political colleagues - not least, Gordon Brown - by suddenly announcing that she wants a referendum on Scottish independence, and she wants it now. "I don't fear the verdict of the Scottish people," she said. "Bring it on." This was a remarkable departure from normal Labour Party policy, which is to preserve the unity of the United Kingdom. Put on the spot, Gordon Brown avoided saying whether he agreed or disagreed, by pretending she had not said what she said. But this is a disagreement about tactics, not about policy. Wendy Alexander does not want Scotland to leave the UK. On the contrary, she is gambling that if asked now, the Scots would say no. The call for an early referendum was meant to wrongfoot the Scottish Nationalist Party, who run Scotland's devolved administration. They also say they want a referendum, but not until 2010.
Why are we asking this now?
Wendy Alexander, who leads the Labour Party north of the border, has startled a lot of her political colleagues - not least, Gordon Brown - by suddenly announcing that she wants a referendum on Scottish independence, and she wants it now. "I don't fear the verdict of the Scottish people," she said. "Bring it on."
This was a remarkable departure from normal Labour Party policy, which is to preserve the unity of the United Kingdom. Put on the spot, Gordon Brown avoided saying whether he agreed or disagreed, by pretending she had not said what she said.
But this is a disagreement about tactics, not about policy. Wendy Alexander does not want Scotland to leave the UK. On the contrary, she is gambling that if asked now, the Scots would say no. The call for an early referendum was meant to wrongfoot the Scottish Nationalist Party, who run Scotland's devolved administration. They also say they want a referendum, but not until 2010.
Being English, I don't really have a dog in this race, except that it will confornt England with some serious governmental problems, not least of which will be a permanent conservative majority. It might also make the Scots realise that their problems aren't about us and they should perhaps stop blaming us for them.
However, genuine regional independence within the EU isn't quite the same as absolute separation. It would be like Texas splitting in two within the US, bruising for some egos but not the end of the world. keep to the Fen Causeway
In addition, I would expect Wales to have its own referendum shortly after a successful Scottish one, especially on the prospect of permanent Tory rule.
The sad part about all this is that Blair botched the devolution to "English regions" and now everyone (wrongly, IMHO) thinks the only solution is an "English Parliament". See this thread where Gary J argues (on my prodding) that England would naturally break into 17 different regions, the only troublesome area being Wessex. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
In fact, given that the South East is a coherent zone that it would be stupid to break up, that bascially leaves the rest of the country without a sufficient tax base (unless they penalised second home owners from the south east (hahahahaha). keep to the Fen Causeway
On the other hand, Spain's regional parliaments are one of the best things to come out of the 1978 Constitution, as far as the quality of life for the respective regions is concerned. But I agree with
especially if Westminster stays as it is When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
If you add a wider regional level of government on top of that, things may get confusing.
The most important issues are transport infrastructure and energy conservation, and I doubt regional parliaments would be good at either.
What might work is large N/SE/SW regional splits. But you still wouldn't get the full benefit without a push for formal devolution from Westminster, and the idea wouldn't be popular.
With Tories in power it has no chance at all of happening.
You have to remember we have a very different culture here, and it's rare for government to be any good at any level.
We also don't have the regional identities that Spain has. We have Londonandthesoutheast, Up North, and Wessex, which is a bit odd.
So the idea of regionalisation confuses people. It doesn't fit into anything they have experience of, and - unlike Scotland and Wales - it's not a natural trend.
One thing that puzzles me is that the West Lothian question never posed itself in Spain, despite the fact that the plan that the framers of the Constitution of 1978 had in mind was basically for the peripheral regions (Galicia, Basque Country, Catalonia, and maybe Navarra, Andalucia and the islands) to get regional assemblies and having the rest under the National Parliament. In actuality, it took less than 10 years for the entire country to get carved up into 17 regional governments (plus Ceuta and Melilla).
Why was it that all of "Greater Castille" didn't just constitute itself into a single autonomous unit (like the putative English parliament) and instead organised itself into 10 regions? Is it because the mechanism was explicitly bottom-up? Also, the existing Regional organisation from Franco's time greatly influenced (but differs in significant ways) from the current subdivisions. Also note that, just like the Spanish Autonomy Statutes are organic laws of the National Parliament (second only to the Constitution in rank) so the UK's regional assemblies have been created by act of the Westminster Parliament.
Also note that, just like the Spanish Autonomy Statutes are organic laws of the National Parliament (second only to the Constitution in rank) so the UK's regional assemblies have been created by act of the Westminster Parliament.
With the exception of about 4 people in cornwall, the english only speak english. There are regional variations of some words but they don't even make it to the status of a dialect. We just have a wide variety of accents, but they're blurring.
So regionalism confuses us, we can't even decide where the Midlands are or The North starts. keep to the Fen Causeway
With the exception of about 4 people in cornwall, the english only speak english.
Often, not even that.
Snark aside, there would be a lot more interest in a split along racial and religious lines. Little Englanders don't much like brown people, and - realistically - sometimes vice versa. We already have areas of London with strong racial and cultural characteristics but - luckily - there's no precedent for them to try to act independently.
Practically, they really couldn't anyway, not even if they put up barricades. But if we ever had a BNP-type government I wouldn't be even slightly surprised to see the bigger cities splitting up spontaneously into racial ghettos. That would be a very bad thing, but it's a lot easier for people here to imagine that than an England split into
Traditional English regional colour is often really just a fabrication of the heritage and tourism industries. Areas like the Cotswolds have a distinct flavour, but there's nothing political about it - it's about the physical countryside and different kinds of pubs and cottages, not about dialect and identity.
