“Take back control” was the slogan used in the UK’s 2016 EU referendum. However, couldn’t a similar slogan be used by pro-independence movements in Scotland and Northern Ireland about the United Kingdom itself? Should “control” automatically go back to Westminster? What about Holyrood and Stormont?
Brexit has effectively delivered a border down the Irish sea. In order to respect both the integrity of the EU Single Market and the Good Friday Agreement, Brexit negotiators agreed to the Northern Ireland Protocol. Instead of checking goods at the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, checks are now required for goods sent between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
These new checks have led to bottlenecks in the supply of food and medicines since the Protocol came into force. Adding to the controversy has been the bungled EU announcement (made without first consulting with the Irish government) that it would introduce export controls for the COVID-19 vaccine at the Irish border. Tempers are high and Ireland has called for the rhetoric to be “dialed down” and a more pragmatic approach to be taken. Meanwhile, polls now show more than half of the population of Northern Ireland would like a referendum on a united Ireland within the next five years.
Could there also be a second Scottish independence referendum? Scotland voted against independence back in 2014. However, that was two years before the Brexit referendum, in which the Scots, unlike the British, voted against Brexit by a majority. The fact that the United Kingdom left the EU against the will of Scotland has given the independence movement a boost. Since Brexit, support for independence has skyrocketed in surveys and has now risen to 52%.
It is very possible that the Scottish National Party (SNP) will win a clear majority in the Scottish Parliament elections this year. Should that happen, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced she will demand a second independence referendum. It is questionable whether this will happen, though, given British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has already ruled out a second referendum. Observers fear scenes like those in Catalonia could occur if the referendum were to be held against the will of London. In addition, the latest polls have seen a decline in support for independence.
Will Brexit break up the United Kingdom? Has leaving the EU restored UK sovereignty? How will Brexit affect Northern Ireland and Scotland? Will there be independence referendums in both countries? Let us know your thoughts and comments in the form below and we’ll take them to policymakers and experts for their reactions!
18 comments Post a commentcomment
I hope so. The sooner they do it, the sooner they will be back in the EU (except England, the nation that has made most harm in world’s history, of course).
Will Brexit break up the United Kingdom?
I believe this question comes from a sense of guilt at intent to do so.
Political regurgitation or stirring the political pot of unrest is common policy of the losing faction. The sentiment Globalists cannot abide is the notion of rejection of their power base. And, as the British people rejected this politically correct Globalist movement they hold dear, fear of this desire by the people for a return to the way of history, will spread and sever the connected and bazaar links placed in position by major bribery.
The grossly manipulative leader of the SNP is an insatiable, power hungry deviant, willing to sacrifice the economy of those blinded by her duplicity. However, the Scots are smarter than the average bear and have become aware of the impoverishment the PC Globalist movement is forcing them to embrace. Food banks and homelessness being part of them.
Europe is engulfed within a political insanity leading to its cultural death. No one can be the winner held in an ideology of destruction. Therefore, Brexit is the saviour of the UK not its downfall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIxIqNCsSB0&ab_channel=NationalConservatism
The wake up call.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8bfuJwN5-o&ab_channel=talkRADIO
@Catherine Benning
Don”t you think that the people of Ireland should be united? I am not sure if the English will grant independence to Scotland, unless there is a revolution. I do not think there there is a peaceful resolution with the English to any independence.
Australia and New Zealand are still under British or English control. It seems that Canada cannot also proclaim independence from the UK.
I think that the EU Should take Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Norway and Iceland in the EU. I wish Ireland one day was united.
The Divided Kingdom.
[PHOTO] https://external-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQFzSEpmbEUkkUBg&w=396&h=396&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia1.tenor.co%2Fimages%2Fb791d33e0cd7019efe13d06665c254ef%2Ftenor.gif%3Fitemid%3D5613530&ext=jpg&_nc_cb=1&_nc_hash=AQHXiLBZhHS–44-
@ Maskedman
Northern Island has a history of Religious warfare between it and Southern Island for centuries. And, although not a favourable example, the British saved both sides for much of that time from civil war. Do you believe the Catholic and Prostestant factions would be at peace should they become part of the EU. Which would mean the Englis Scottish and Welsh factions would not be financially supporting their economy the way they do today. Not only that, the American groups who fund the Southern warring IRA would take over control, expecting Europeans to jump to their tune. As the EU would not want to fund Ireland from the ground up, as they do not have the capacity to pay them off, either now or in the future. They not being a viable money making community, just as Scotland is not. Every political ideal is formulated with how much they can weed out of a peoples finances. This is not a good bet as the EU is not looking to be completely tied into US rule. And Ireland would be with such a take over. Northern Ireland would not benefit under that auspices for Europe financially.
So, look up the history of the people before you make general assumptions. They, like Leopards, do not change their spots overnight. It is far more complicated than appears on the surface.
If that is the will of the people. They shall hold a vote on it just like the brexit vote. If they vote leave the kingdom then they have every right to.
It is possible since it would be in their own best interest, to join the EU. However, it would leave England far behind the rest of Europe. While one could argue, that they have made a mistake by leaving and will have to face the consequences, I don’t like to see a broken English people.
Also, if Scotland and Northern Ireland should join the EU without England, it could have dire consequences for the still somewhat fragile peace.
So while I would love to see Scotland and Northern Ireland back in the EU, I would hope, that they would join as part of unified Great Brittain.
I think that the republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have a bigger chance to unite then Scotland to get its independence from England peacefully with just a referendum.
@Debating Europe, you can create a topic will Ireland will ever unite. The British will not let go of Australia, New Zealand or Canada. There must be a war or a revolution otherwise the UK has no interest to grant them independence.
There was never Britain. England is in control of everything. It is all about England. The English do not want to lose their golden goose Scotland since they want to have their petrol fields in the North Sea.
Will Brexit break up the United Kingdom?
Brexit will not break Britain but should this direction, via The White House, come to the UK, through RT news, exposing recent large American company practice, that certainly will.
https://www.rt.com/usa/
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/463450-nike-betsy-ross-us/
We are told, via RT this morning, that an American soft drinks company has a training department directing employees they must be ‘less white.’ One must assume the request is to enable these people to remain employed within that companies environment.
Now, what are these white skinned employees supposed to emulate or take on board in order to be perceived ‘less white’? How are these people to establish what whiteness they are supposed to drop? As arrogance and the uppity act is of mankind in general, not a white prerogative, this companies behaviour is wilful race discrimination on their part. Therefore, what skin colour must these employees assume in order to remain employable by this, originally, white skinned concept in production of soft drinks? And are other skin colours tainted by these ‘white skinned’ bad habits? Is the assumption being white skins have bad habits other skin colours do not? This woke attitude, as it is referred to, is very asleep in my opinion. Time it was put to bed for eternity. As, it is a totally senile product of the less enlightened healthy thinkers. Now, it appears, to do away with this grossly fattening product would be a good move for the planets well being. How enlightening for mankind that would be.
Will Brexit break up the United Kingdom?
As you have used the Scottish group for the thread headlines, and it being the flag of Scotland, used a lot by the SNP political party, I felt this a good place to add what is now being discovered by those Scottish people who voted, en mass, for that dreadful leader they have.
She and her husband, it appears today, have been revealed as steeped in political corruption and manipulation against Scottish law. Separate to English Law. They fixed the previous leader of the party by setting him up as a fall guy to be imprisoned for crimes he can prove he did not commit. And took over his position as leader by doing so. Which now, by these people as leaders, is, deliberately being concealed from the courts, thereby denying the previous leader a right of redress to prove his innocence.
Is the EU wanting another cabal on its hands by taking in corrupt and devious coup makers, the equivalent of the South American kind we see on a regular basis. These lot are deeper in it than Catalonian/ Spanish factions. Expensive for your tax payers I think.
Everyone should focus their energy on making the EU better and not on making the UK worse. You know, just like affairs after a divorce, do you want your life to be better or your ex’s life to be miserable? Just my 50 cents.
courtchange.wordpress.com/diaspora-child/
The media never cover for as long as they can avoid, actions by ordinary ppl outside the political elite intervening in the political elite’s business. Totally motivated to keep a class in control of the narrative, But some structures of intervention have the level of law. Petitions are designed to be pathetically powerless requests, but when you cite law in them, you overcome that and make them resources of law.
One such is my EU petition 1448/2014, permanently there as a law resource for anyone to cite and use, because it cites ECHR human rights, which is part of EU law. It cites that article 8, family life, obliges the EU to disown shun and sanction Scotland as an international pariah racist state and have no dealings with us, unless our citizenship by parental descent is unrefusable.
By establishing this for Scotland it established it for the whole EU.
I lodged it during our 2014 ref, for a reason that still exists, and that it’s racist for the intelligentsia fad for independence to give no attention to. The SNP and Yes movement are shockingly racist, against our own close diaspora and family ties to country. They copied from Quebec to only give automatic citizenship by birth or habitual residence at the moment of statehood, and those only to preexisting British citizens too, and preach a theory “civic nationalism” that the nation is only its resident population. It is a blatant appeal to a nasty anti-outsider element in the SNP’s voter base. As a 1999 election Labour broadcast warned: “If you move to Newcastle and have a child, will they automatically be a Scottish citizen? No! They will have to apply.”
There was never any international law obligation on Britain to allow an indy vote on a bigoted citizenship policy that would split up families and be a new Clearances. Angus Macneil openly told the Sunday Post that you can’t be Scottish if you have never lived here – are you surprised they lost the ref?! A lot of nats have taken on the idea that it’s virtuous to reject what they call “blood and soil” associated with right wing types of nationalism, and that this makes it virtuous to reject family nationhood and parental descent. Even though the emigration that creates diaspora-born kids is claimed as a Yes issue! But family nationhood is nothing to do witn blood or genetics, it’s the life practicality of families joining up and living together.
If Scotland and N. Ireland people have chosen to stay in the EU, either the UK or the EU would allow free flow of people and commodities to enter each other’s barrier. If the UK does not want Scotland and Ireland to break off from the UK, the only way is to convince people of these two regions that being a member of the UK would be more prosperous than staying in the EU. Or, the British people would allow Scotland and N. Ireland to set a boundary so that UK people and commodities would subject to control. In this way, Scotland and N. Ireland would become de facto sovereign and independent territories from the UK.
That’s a total platitude….none wants a return to the violence of previous years (much of it sponsored by funding from the Irish diaspora in the USA !)….the question is what exactly imperils it……the basis of the Belfast Agreement is the consent of both sides..that is clearly in breach today.Nb, the EU were not involved in this & are not signatories to the treaty, but their actions are unhelpful.
Given that the linked story is from February, lots has happened between then and G7. An update might be necessary, especially in view of “take them [thoughts and comments] to policymakers and experts”.
if it wasn’t for the pandemic, probably not. After the pandemic however it is too early to make predictions.
You wish