For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By leiafee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1519099
Propwash wrote:However, having established separate parliaments/assemblies I can't see how the genie can ever be put back into the bottle, so in order to be fair to all parties in the union I personally see no alternative to establishing a federal model along the lines of that in Australia which works pretty well for them.


I'll have to read up on the Australian model.

having already seen measures on the NHS in England pushed through only because of the votes of nationalist MPs whose own constituents would be unaffected


And that. Can your steer me to the right bill, or debate?

I sense a growing awareness in England (probably the least politically motivated of the home nations as a rule) of how unfair the current constitutional arrangements are.


Good. I can't help feeling we've slightly slid into the old cliche of outraged majorities feeling put upon by minorities, but that aside, frankly, it would be altogether easier if we could separate English interests from Unionist interests more clearly.

The problem for Wales (and I suspect you won't like this fact but that doesn't make it less true) is that many current laws and arrangements are "England and Wales" in nature and impact, whereas Scotland has always retained its own legal system and therefore mostly separate laws, even where they mirror those elsewhere in the UK. That doesn't prevent a truly federal system being adopted for the UK but does make it slightly more complicated and is probably the reason for the dog's breakfast arrangements that were put in place for Wales rather than a full parliament as Scotland was given.


You're right. Mainly for its laziness, but also for its unfairness.

England, of course, was only offered the chance of voluntary disembowelment as a nation into artificial semi-fuedal fiefdoms which would go nowhere near answering democratic disparity with the other home nations, in fact would have made it many times worse. Thankfully even the politically apathetic English could see that and rejected it.


You've lost me, sorry.

The biggest objections to re-visiting the constitutional arrangements will of course come from a self-interested political class at Westminster, from all parts of the UK, because such a federal system will inevitably mean a wholesale reduction in the number of members of what will become the federal parliament (ie the rump Westminster), their workload and responsibilities and powers being greatly lessened


I suspect you're right. Labour in particular needs Wales more than Wales needs them.

In the meantime, and until there is such pressure for change that Westminster can't resist it any longer (sound familiar?) I struggle to see how you, or any other nationalist from Scotland, Wales or NI, can fairly object to the exclusion of their MPs from debates and votes on all matters in England for which their own devolved administrations have responsibility at home.


Errm, I'm not doing? My objection was rather the opposite - that English MPs were "talking out" a ddbate meant to be about the impact of Brexit on the devolved nations.

The nationalist parties actually hold different views on this anyway - SNP policy if that yes they should vote due to Barnett. Plaid Cymru policy is no they shouldn't except when, as you point out, we get sucked in as an appendage of EnglandAndWales.

I know that Wales only voted by the narrowest of margins to establish a devolved administration in Cardiff, which would suggest that many of your fellow countrymen don't share your view that England (by which I presume you meant Westminster - which isn't of course the same thing) treats Wales as some sort of modern colony. I wonder how much appetite there would be in Wales today for even greater devolution into a full federal system?


Shallower margin than Brexit back in 97 yeah. But the 2007 vote for increased power was a healthier 63% with a Yes everywhere except Monmouth.

I expect to see that support continue and increase.

Especially if Westminster presents the thin end of the stick in thei Brexit arrangements which going by the debate which drew me into this conversation they appear fully content to do.
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By matthew_w100
#1519113
I still think it is a nonsense to keep talking about "England" in the context of a restructured federation. "England" is of only historical relevance and is riven with economic divide like the EU. We should split it into more homogenous units, separating out London in particular. A Union of, say, eight or ten more equal regions would be a much better arrangement.
leiafee liked this
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1519118
A Union of, say, eight or ten more equal regions would be a much better arrangement.


Excellent idea, can't imagine why we didn't think of it before. We could call them East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex and Wessex. :D
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By ChrisRowland
#1519120
I was also thinking of the Anglo Saxon Heptarchy. I can come up with six: Wessex, Sussex/Kent, East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria and London inside the M25.

Endless prospects for rivalry between and among that lot, not least deciding where the boundaries are.
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By eltonioni
#1519364
You've chosen the wrong Facebook friends Joe, that stuff doesn't appear in mine.

☺️
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By matthew_w100
#1519397
JoeC wrote:I love the crypto fascists posting on Facebook who claim their lineage back to 'before the Normans' as if that indicated some form of racial superiority that gave them a god-given right to speak for the country :P


My ancestors *were* the Normans. We gave your mates' lot a right duffing.
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1519400
Perhaps that's the answer, we need another invasion by someone who knows what they're doing...... Romans, Normans are a bit past it I fear.

Maybe the Vikings again, Scandinavia seems to be doing OK :D
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By kanga
#1519436
matthew_w100 wrote:..

My ancestors *were* the Normans. We gave your mates' lot a right duffing.


The serendipity of my various British Isles ancestries (I have others) means that my rareish surname is Norman. A couple of generations ago, before genealogical research was fashionable or easy, a snobbish relative tried to prove that we had connexions to the titled family of the same name, the title going back to the Conquest. He was able to discover only that our forebears acquired the surname only in the era when commoners started to need them, after the Black Death and the beginning of the end of serfdom. This probably means that they had most likely been Anglo-Saxon, or possibly Celtic, serfs of a Norman overlord. Serve him right for asking - who now cares ? :)
By cockney steve
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1519440
For the Oldies among us............What did Jeremy Thorpe and William the Conqueror have in common?



They were both Fxxxing Normans.

Cloak, sword, rapid exit.
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By eltonioni
#1519591
We'll see but that gloomy synopsis is really just another work of fantasy worked around a smattering of half truths which rely on the assumption that the negotiators on both sides are no brighter than a billy goat in a sheep fold.
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