Article 50 has been triggered in the UK, after many merry months of triggerings of… another sort.
There has been a lot of wishful thinking in British liberal circles that some way would be found to circumvent Brexit. But calls for “the elites” to “rise up against the ignorant masses” were never realistic*, for all the childish tantrums on social media and the MSM. The Conservative Party has no good reason to torpedo itself by going against the democratically expressed wishes of its core electorate, the Middle Englanders who overwhelmingly voted Leave, and so the button was pushed as soon as all the judicial delaying procedures were exhausted.
I have been consistent that the adverse economic effects of Brexit have been greatly exaggerated by a Brexit-averse Establishment. As Bryan MacDonald pointed out last year, the apocalyptic rhetoric has consistently failed to translate into reality, and there is no reason to expect that to change.
To be sure, some global banks and companies will redirect more of their staff to Frankfurt, but London remains the world center of the financial industry – more so even than New York – and the concentration of human capital that props it up isn’t going to evaporate over a single year, or ten.
In the meantime, growth rates remain solid (the figures sync with my own impressions when I was in London), the devaluation is making British exports more competitive, and there will be a fiscal upside once the UK no longer needs to subsidize East European welfare leeches (currently, the average Briton paid a net 500 Euros to the EU in 2010-14).
I also believe that the renewed worries about Scottish independence are exaggerated, the hystrionics of J.K. Rowling and Dawkins regardless. The Scots don’t want to hold a second independence referendum, and “No” consistently leads by at least 5 percentage points, just like in 2014, when they rejected it by a 10 percentage point margin.
Obviously the Scots are not very happy about Brexit, having voted against it 3-to-2, but it is still not something they want to break the Union over. The most likely avenue by which support of independence could grow is if the UK were to experience severe economic hardship as Brexit gets underway, but as I noted above, that is unlikely to happen.
- I gave a 90% chance of Article 50 getting invoked this year in my predictions for 2017, so I am not making this up as I go along.
The Remoaners are mightily triggered:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/29/candlelit-vigils-wearing-black-crying-remainers-spending-article/
This is the best entertainment we’ve had since … er Trump’s last twitter session.
The Scottish independence issue is going to fade away.
The strong horse principle applies.
It was no accident that the rise of the SNP coincided with the UK’s accession to the EEC, and once Britishness is asserted more stongly the idea of Scottish independence will lose its appeal.
we want Scottish Independence. A rise of secessionist movements will be devastating for Globalism.
Yes, its all too with angry white people worried about immigration, nothing to do with globalisation, economic problems etc.
One with that’s been rarely mentioned over the past 12 months is trade inbalances. Just before Brexit, Britain had a record trade deficit with Europe. Just before Trump’s election, the US also had a record trade deficit, and now France is experiencing a record trade deficit. Hopefully this works out in Le Pen’s favour.
In contrast, Holland has a healthy trade surplus, which is probably one of the reasons why Wilder’s didn’t do that well.
Scotland is sharply divided between the old for union and the rest for independence, so it will depend on who is more riled up on voting day.
5371:
I had a Scottish relative who maintained that the only reason the Scots remained in Great Britain was that they had their noses up the Queen’s posterior. (His actual words were a little saltier!)
Two sides to Brexit
1) Little Englanders who want to sit on their island minding their own business and not be in any transnational bloc (majority)
2) Atlanticist globalists who want UK to be part of a future NAFTA version of EU rather than the EU (minority except at the top).
We shall see.
The EU encourages secessionist forces in the constituent nations, Brexit will forever bury Scottish independence and the smarter SNP types know this.
Anatoly, are you a UK citizen?
AK: Maybe, maybe not. Let’s just say I feel a certain grudging kinship with Kolomoysky.
Scotland (along with NI) is the whitest part of the UK. Where would it have a better chance to remain so, within the UK or within the EU?
Have read the triggered tweets above. Bitterly felt anti-white racism.
Not if, as Scotland plans to do, they just turn around right after independence and join the EU. Same with the Catalans.
They could apply, but in neither case are the EUros rolling out the red carpet for them.
I am in Scotland .
The Scottish National Party (SNP) campaigned on “independence in Europe” (EU), but what was the central unspoken assuption was the rest of the UK staying in the EU and Scotland getting something like Irelands deal.
The SNP now assume that everyone that voted for independence in the Scottish independence referendum and has voted for them since was also also wanting to stay in the European Union.But about 30% of their voters are in favour of coming out of the EU and the UK , so the the SNP couldn’t count on them now. If they left the UK and remained or rejoined the EU, that would be completely different proposition from anything the SNP have envisioned and the the most important thing of all is thanks to the frackers the oil (Scotland’s is very high cost) money is next to nothing now.
Brexit was good for Trump and Trump winning was good for Brexit Britain. Britain could never go against America (the EU was an American project that the US pushed on Britain) . We are going to share America’s fate for good or ill now.
The Scottish political class are goodwhites, to a man and woman.
One of the SNP’s complaints is that London is stopping them taking more refugees.
They are also unanimously pro-EU – not a single significant voice against. It was a surprise that, nonetheless, 38% of Scots voted Leave.
One of the things Empire provided to the Scots was economic opportunities. Scots were disproportionately represented in the Indian Civil Service, in the Army, etc. , and several made great wealth in the colonies. What has Little England to provide them now? Little England can barely maintain it’s own standards.
Yes the SNP are as pro immigrant as New Labour. There would have to be a hard border if Scotland left the UK, otherwise it would be an open door for anyone going to England. I love how the SNP have sabotaged themselves with their A Man’s A Man For A’ That immigrant-mania.
For Scotland it always strikes me how absurdly left can be a party which calls itself “National”. The only national, genuinely Scottish I’d say, is their hatred for London and the English. Hence the longing for independence.
That Scottish social mobility was always a bit of a myth. The average Scot was better going to America.
Re Scottish Independence
Like most non-Scots, Mr Karlin’s understanding of the matter is defective. The SNP won its first seat in the UK Parliament as long ago as February 1945, during the Second World War, when Unionists persist in claiming that the British peoples were never more united. They weren’t.
Since then, the SNP’s growth has generally been consistent and steady, until the torrent of the last 12 years. They are not going to fade away, especially as the Unionists at Westminster have been so helpful in aiding their cause.
Secondly, the political union between Scotland and the rest of the UK is highly unusual inasmuch as it is the result of 2 sovereign parliaments peacefully ( uniquely so ) agreeing to unite their countries under 1 parliament. However, implicit in the Treaty and Acts of Union are articles which would justify secession in certain conditions. Now that there is a separate ( if subordinate ) Scottish Parliament again, secession is necessarily easier.
A vote for “Independence” paradoxically isn’t and most intelligent Scots would tell you so. That is because the Re-set is not Scotland 1300, but Scotland immediately before the 1707 Act of Union.
The Head of State of the Kingdom of Scotland would be HM QEII, the Head of State of the United Kingdom of England, Wales and NI. The citizens of both Kingdoms would share a common citizenship and be able to move freely, settle and work in both Kingdoms. This was the position between 1603 and 1707 before full political union. There is little support for Republicanism in Scotland, and the vast majority of Scots want a sensible working relationship with the rest of the UK.
Most Scots would agree that the UK Parliament has mismanaged Scottish Affairs for many years, even before WWII. Hence, the desire for the return of a Sovereign Scottish Parliament.
This is likely in 10 to 15 years maximum IMHO. It should be viewed, not as a divorce, but as the parties agreeing to sleep in separate bedrooms to maintain domestic harmony.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/14/eu-immigration-control-labour-supporters-voters-party
You are obviously not worried about the fate of Scots as East Europeans flood into our country and keep wages low . But the English take that kind of thing more seriously (the Brexit surprise was almost entirely due to Field and others warning being ignored).
The big parties understand now that the
English will think it is a problem that EU citizens could go to Scotland and then enter England. If Scotland leaves the UK , the English are not going to hand over control of who enters to England to the government of Scotland, so the English will put up a hard border against EU immigrants using Scotland as a back door to England.
We are going to share America’s fate for good or ill now.
Welcome aboard cuz! Get a tight grip on the handrails.
The Brexiteers who get to give their opinions in the media are untypical in their motives and completely disconnected from what motivated the people who gave them a win. The Brexiteers and the Remainians are as one on EU immigrants– they like em: “Hard working” is the mantra.
The Brexit is not going to be allowed to give British workers more bargaining power (or jobs), and the Brexiteers who can articulate are not against immigration, this won’t change.
You misrepresent what I wrote. Citizens of both Kingdoms will share a common citizenship and be able to move unhindered. Aliens, resident or otherwise, would be subject to the laws of whichever Kingdom they were in. If Alien X had a visa for England and not for Scotland, he could be stopped at the border if he tried to enter Scotland and sent back.
As anyone who has studied the history of the EU, the more active borders there are, the better for the natives. Open Borders mean Massive Migration. The way things are going, maybe Pres Trump may need to build a Canada Wall as well.
As you perhaps know I was talking about the far more pertinent situation of someone getting a visa for Scotland and then going there and crossing into England without having a valid visa for England. How could he be stopped at the England-Scotland border if their wasn’t a hard one?
Scotland as a member of the EU would have to take unlimited EU migration and obey EU directives on asylum seekers. The people running government , law and business in Scotland would secretly welcome that situation, because they would be able to plead EU directives as an excuse for the displacement of the natives.
Seems to me like that as well. That’s why I have little respect for someone like Farage. A true English nationalist like Enoch Powell at least realized that US influence and the EU were both detrimental to British sovereignty. Farage and his ilk are delusional with their whole Anglosphere crap and at least in their public pronouncements seem to have no problem with mass immigration of non-Europeans. Pretty pathetic imo.
“We are going to share America’s fate for good or ill now.”
Trump is probably going to f**k up big time soon and might well be remembered eventually as the guy who helped the Saudis bring starvation to Yemen. Good luck tying your fortunes to the US.
I’m afraid it would be not just a case of separate bedrooms but of ceasing to have sex at all. Now, in contrast with 1707, there are several countries which have Elizabeth II as head of state but are recognised and conceive themselves as fully independent. That would be the template for Scotland.
I see you really do prefer even Jews to Slavs.
That shows your nationalism to be a typical product of an immigrant who doesn’t feel at home in America and then grabs to a hastily constructed nationalistic identity of the native land, an identity that doesn’t really match the one of the actual natives.
Knew a few Indians who were like that, but they had at least the orthodoxy of rituals to fall back on.
I expect Britain will blunder on much as it did before. Britain never was going to become a big manufacturing nation inside the EU, and it won’t become one outside. Britain is still an island and still has the rebellious working class that it always did, and it still has to sell lots of arms in the Middle East to keep what manufacturing it has. The first industrial conflicts were in Britain. Brexit was an irruption of the anti intellectual British workers (what was once the basis of union power) and their families who saw that the EU model was leading to mass importation of workers for everything that could not be outsourced. It will slow down the process in immigrant workers holding down jobs, but not halt it.
For example the construction boom in London would lead to good wages for experienced British workers, one might think. Not a bit of it, the government had to ban overseas recruitment of workers for British jobs that had not been advertised for in Britain at all. Makes little difference, the construction jobs in London are going almost entirely to Romanians ect recruited en mass from their own country. And they claim welfare at British rates for their children back home, the ones that are not clogging up out schools hospitals and housing market. Our leaders say we still need them.
There has been fighting in Yemen since before you were born
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1357826/How-rag-tag-team-SAS-veterans-changed-history-secret-war-Britain-STILL-wont-admit.html
Massacring Yemenis pays off big time for Britain, because the Saudis placed huge contracts with Britain. I don’t think the Donald cares much about starvation. He openly advocated killing the families of terrorists and he went on to become the pres by the people’s will . They knew what kind of man he was when they elected him. So what if famine saves the US taxpayer cost of a Hellfire missile from a drone? The Germans and Obama won’t like it, but Britain is not going to be fighting on the US’s not Germany’s side in a future war (there will be more–rely on it) and Obama threatened post-Brexit Britain with going to the back of the line for US help.
Trump needed our Brexit to win and we needed him too.
One or both Parties would be able to make the England – Scotland Border a “hard” one as you put it. As sovereign parliaments, it would be in their rights to do so.
Secondly, if Scotland had seceded from the UK, which was then in the EU, Scotland would not gain automatic membership. It is clear from the Lisbon Treaty and previous treaties that Scotland would have to apply for membership after secession. This would be vetoed by Spain, Italy and other EU states that would not want a precedent set.
Thirdly, some years from now, Scotland will be out of the EU in actuality.
The ” Independence in Europe ” policy devised by the SNP has never stood up to objective scrutiny. It was a marketing ploy to gull the gullible. You seem to be one of them.
There’s no way of knowing what someone like Farage thinks in private as what people are allowed to say by the BBC watchdog is so constrained.
Personally i’m fine with him; the people i distrust are the UK version of GOPe who want a NAFTA version of the EU.
The transnational elite (whether EU or NAFTA-EU) have most of the power so the Brexit rebellion was never likely to succeed on its own. The big prize was influencing America and possibly France creating a domino effect.
“I don’t think the Donald cares much about starvation.”
He probably doesn’t, but if it comes to a major disaster (like a few hundred thousand being starved to death) in Yemen due to Saudi-Arabia’s war and US/UK support for it, it will look very bad for anybody associated with him. There’s already a significant risk imo anyway that Trump’s behaviour and policies will actually harm nationalists in Europe and damage their prospects.
As for Britain playing auxiliary in America’s Mideast expeditions (what’s next? Iran?), that’s sheer lunacy in my opinion, but then Britain’s evil and demented elites probably need those neo-imperialist projects to feel important and to line their own pockets.
The UK and Canada have QEII as Head of State, but DO NOT have common citizenship. The difference would be that Scotland and the UK would be contiguous Kingdoms the citizens of which would share a common citizenship. This is accepted by both the SNP and Unionist Parties as what would happen if Scotland became independent. There would be a Re-set to conditions immediately prior to 1707.
If you can’t grasp this, I suggest you get back in your U-boat and pester us no more. And take Jon Bon Giovi while you’re at it.
So you are a UK citizen. Then did you vote for or against Brexit?
P.S. Why are you editing others’s comments instead of answering in a normal way?
AK: On those occasions when I want to signal that I am not going to engage in an extended discussion on the topic. 🙂
Have Unionists agreed to be responsible for backstopping an independent Scotland’s financial system ? If not we would go back to the historical position of Scotland as the poorest country in Europe, and with the death penalty for mastrubation.
Millions died in the Bengal famine of 1943, and Churchill’s reputation hardly suffered at all: he won.
You see, I asked you two very simple basic questions, concerning your personal relations with the topic (Brexit), and you could have answered very simply yes/no – end of discussion or further discussion on the topic (Brexit, not you). Yet, you’ve created another fog of uncertainty, which make me suspect again that there is something wrong with you, your background, your double loyalty, and what not. Nothing unusual with dual citizenship, but your strange reaction make others believe there IS really something wrong. No questions to you anymore. Tired of this site.
I am sorry but why, exactly, do I owe you – someone I don’t know in real life, someone posting anonymously – my own personal information? This blog is not an autobiography.
You are welcome back anytime.
You mean a CUKC?
The Brits gained nothing by using the fiction of “citizenship” to hide their being subjects of HM the Queen.
(Пишу по-русски, ибо итак оффтоп.)
Возможно, был не в очень настроении и излишне резко отреагировал, но надоело же такая манера дискуссии.
Мне же искренне было интересно, голосовал ли ты за Брексит, приложил ли, так сказать, руку, а не просто тут отстранённо рассуждаешь как чужак без права голоса* (типа меня). А оно вот как повернулось, на простейший вопрос о гражданстве, на который ответят 99,99% людей безо всякого стыда и задней мысли, начал юлить. Что личного я спросил, что надо играть в эти угадайки? К чему это, тебе нельзя задать простой вопрос и получить простой ответ, вечно строишь из себя какого-то мистера Икс. Хотя сам же особо ничего не скрываешь, говоришь от своего настоящего имени, постишь свои личные фото, сам рассказываешь детали своей биографии вплоть до ДНК, любимого кетчупа, и в каком районе Москвы живёшь (адреса и т/ф не хватало, хехе), никогда не скрываешь свои политические пристрастия, а на вопрос о гражданстве тебя сразу заклинило. Агент “Натан” никогда не был так близко к провалу. 🙂 Единственный вывод могу сделать, что это комплексы какие-то на это счёт. Ну бывает так у патриотов, сначала очень любят Россию, а потом у них внезапно пять гражданств и ВНЖ, включая гражданства стран агрессивного блока НАТО, что прям перед людьми неудобно как-то. Ну в принципе мне это давно было понятно, просто ещё лишний раз подтвердилось. Скорее, действительно, больше ничего не буду личного спрашивать, ты всё равно ничего не ответишь, да всё итак ясно. Моя ошибка, правда, была, что я думал, что ты очередной компенсирующий “русский националист Рабинович” типа Шамира или Сэйкера, удобно любящий Россию из прекрасного далёка, но вроде нет, и то хорошо. 1/4 кебаба таки простим тебе. 🙂
No, normal meaning, that is a “British national”, or even more simply having a British passport. Anatoly lived in the UK from 6 to 18 (from his words), so you would expect he’s become a British national with full rights, though I had my doubts in this respect, that he might be a true Russian patriot and he merely had had a permanent residence permit for those 12 years, thus my question. Also he lived 10 years in the US, so he could also have become a US national, but for me it seems less probable, he might have had just a green card only. Or maybe not and he has triple citizenship. But we’ll never know, Anatoly is too sensitive and secretive on that matter. You know, Russian “patriots” are not allowed to say such things lest they are busted.