British Politics Thread

Or, potentially, (and this is here) are OK with the harshest Brexit possible because it might well be what actually ends up reunifiying Ireland - i.e. their (by which I mean Irish Nationalists, not Sinn Féin specifically) main political goal for the past few centuries.

On one hand, the people of NI mostly voted against Brexit in the 2016 referendum.

On the other hand, Sinn Féin has publicly declared that an Irish reunification vote must be held in the event of a No-Deal Brexit.

Would egging on (or enabling) No Deal Brexit in order to prompt Independence/Reunification Referendums be considered accelerationist? Trying to think of the term here. Accelerationist Nationalism? Disaster Nationalism?

Funnily enough, the DUP wouldn't be too against No Deal either as it defaults to a hard border between NI and ROI.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Aug 22nd 2019 at 10:06:06 AM

The way they worded it, it seemed more like a threat or a warning to Johnson. "If you bring NI into a No-Deal Brexit, NI will vote on whether or not to leave your sinking ship."

So Boris has thirty days to come up with an alternative to the Backstop.

Betcha he whiffs.

We are talking about the guy who seems genuinely surprised that the Irish response to his proposal that they dump the EU and join us in a trade union was a resounding "fuck off". <_< (Has he ever paid attention to history? Ireland has plenty of well-documented reasons not to trust Westminster's word with any aspect of their economic policy, either directly or remotely.)

He's already whiffed. He just hasn't realised it yet.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Aug 22nd 2019 at 10:28:23 AM

Boris Johnson is, ultimately, the product of a social class that still sees the Republic of Ireland as a temporarily embarassed colony that will eventually see the light of day and come back to the fold, as opposed to a people with their own right to determine their future. He's still stuck in the delusion that one day, Britain will become a proper empire again, and the first step is obviously integrating Ireland, because for all of his life he's been completely sheltered from any and all consequences for his blundering and blustering.

Above all else, he's an insufferable upper-class twit who's used to the world bending to his every whim.

Edited by math792d on Aug 22nd 2019 at 2:36:21 PM

Option C for the Sinn Fein is that, per old standards, they're all too happy ramping up the violence for the sake of possibly getting closer to reunification.

I'm not sure they'll see the need tbh. If No Deal happens, Scottish Independence and Irish Reunification are very viable outcomes through peaceful means. I think that Unionist violence is more likely as a result of that.

And that's a question. Would reunification actually kickstart the troubles once more, but with the Unionists as the separatist faction?

Edited by GoldenKaos on Aug 22nd 2019 at 2:06:39 PM

I never said anything about them starting it, but once one side starts in earnest, the other is going to get involved. It's not a complicated thing to foresee. Even holding a referendum under something that someonr is going to argue is duress will start it.

Forget reclaiming former colonies — a No-Deal Brexit will make it a struggle for the UK to hold on to its current countries. Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales...shit there was even talk of The City in London trying to fuck off and go their own way. Somehow.

Edited by M84 on Aug 22nd 2019 at 9:10:55 PM

Fixed that for you

Wait... the City of London? Ok that would be a sight to behold for sure.

(Only from far away of course.)

Metaphorically or literally?

I'm hoping Brexit does not lead to the first Traction City

The City would be the third smallest independent country in the world if it gained independence, with an area of 1.12 square miles. Next largest would be Nauru at 8.1 (small Micronesian island) and the next smallest would be Monaco at 0.78 square miles.

What about the Vatican?

Vatican is 0.17 square miles at number 1.

@3 of 4: metaphorically.

The talk wasn’t of The City breaking away, it was of Greater London breaking away, much of Greater London would be happy to leave The City behind.

One of these days, the City is going to get an overly polite letter from Greater London requesting that it consider going back to being called "Londinium".

Just to stop the confusion between it and London.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Aug 22nd 2019 at 9:58:17 AM

Kantar poll 15th-19th August:

• Con - 42
• Lab - 28
• LD - 15
• Bre - 05
• SNP - 05
• Gre - 03
• CUK - 01
• Oth - 01

Edited by TommyR01D on Aug 22nd 2019 at 4:33:19 AM

Okay?

Though I suppose this tells us that if we have a general election, the Lib Dems will successfully manage to prevent any chance of preventing Brexit through dint of being a useless spoiler as usual.

Any idea on what seat count that would produce?

Aka, how dare anyone stand in the way of Corbyn. Labour would have to get all those votes to get ahead of the Tories, which most definitely would not happen, ever. And there's a reason why the government's far ahead at 42 percent. Hint, it's not the Lib Dems.

People said that Labour would be swept aside in the 2017 election, that it would be a miracle if they could hold on to their marginals and stop May winning a landslide. Labour then went on to get their biggest vote share increase in 20 years, resulting in a hung parliament. The election campaign itself can change the situation A LOT and Corbyn's Labour are particularly good at it, and have been on a war footing expecting a GE for a few months now at least. There's a reason why they're quite confident in interviews when asked about being ready to fight a GE.