No no no... This is all about the English choosing to shed itself of you lot for a change. Start your own Nat thread if you want!

Hold on it was the English who created the UK in the first place. We did nothing to the English on the scale of Drogheda and "no blacks, dogs or Irish". It's the Celts want away from the English.

1) Ireland has been away from the English for almost a Century.

2) Polling consistently shows that while 30% of Scots favour independence, 67% of English want Scotland to go, so I think youare wrong on both points CJ

What about Cornwall? It's also Celtic in origin.
As far any money is concerned, sure northern Ireland costs a lot of money, I don't know about Wales but from what I've heard Scotland send more money south than goes back north...

sceptic_ka, that "statistic" is totally wrong. Basically what was done there was that North Sea oil was used to make it seem like that. Scotland receives money from Westminster out of proportion with the money it raises in tax revenue.

1. Yes but it's becoming more like an English province and the rate things are going will be renamed Lesser England.
2. A lie from the infamous tabloids.

The UK is ruled from London so the English are not looking for independance they're demanding secession if your statistic is indeed true.

Some explanation might be useful for interested foreign spectators, like me. Are the nationalist sentiments stirring again?

Celtic nationalists want Wales, Scotland, the Cornwall region and "Northern" Ireland to break away from the UK and gain independence from London's rule. Blackheath Wanderer is saying as you can see that it's the English want independance from the Celts and I'm disagreeing with him on the grounds that the UK is ruled from London, not Swansea, Glasgow etc. and in spite of Scottish secessionists holding a majority in the Scottish Assembly nothing has been done to split up the Union.

I could be vastly wrong because I don't understand the topic at hand... but CJ, Blackheath was being ironic...

@CJ 92: the Scottish nationalist may be the biggest party in Scotland but they
do not have a majority, they're governing as minority government, and they got a lot of protest votes from people who do not necessarily want Scotland to be independent.

How can polls consistently show something to be 67%, that number is way too precise to be consistent.
And how was the question phrased? "Do you want to brake the union?" or "Do you think Scotland should be allowed to leave the union if it wants to?"

BTW: Britain as a whole should start by getting rid of the monarchy and destablishing the Church of England as the state church. Lizzy II may well be OK but Charley is a total nutter. E.g he thinks homeopathy (magic water) really heals stuff.

Blackheath was being sarcastic you mean and frankly I don't agree.
@Sceptic_ka Agree with you fully except it's spelt Charlie I think. Never mind though I intend to stay on topic. Regarding the costs of the Union I think money is infinitely less relevant than national pride so economics should not be a factor in Nationalism V Unionism.

I think that the issue in Europe is that as the concept of a 'European Identity' grows the national identities weaken and people pull closer to their regional/local identity as the relevance of being 'British' or whatever weakens.
Thus the greater interest in being Scottish/Welsh/Basque/Walloon/ etc.
The real question is whether this is a short term phase that will lead to a greater unity on the continental level or whether it will ultimately undermine the entire political structure and lead to a collapse. Rather interesting watching it from the outside, don't know if it would be that much fun going through it though.

Those English are whack anyway, let them keep their island and we'll play European on the continent. Interesting to hear an Canadian (?) opinion about Europe however.

CJ, there was another thread that I posted on that I was looking for an answer from a UK citizen that wasn't English. it went unanswered, but since its relevant here as well, i will post it again.

"does the average Scot or Welshman feel there is equivalency between them and an Englishman? Between Scotland and England?"

It's interesting haveing everyone argue over whether I was being ironic or sarcastic! Not sure I was being either.

Independence isn't necessarily about deciding whether you like being ruled from London. There would be a huge financial advantage to England if we had to stop subsidising Scotland and Wales...

As for Northern Ireland, it will be reunified with the South within 30 years.

What is interesting is that the few people who are commenting that the end of the union would be a bad thing are from Scotland or Wales and not from Englandm, which is rather different from the situation perhaps 10 years ago.

northern Ireland will join the RoI soon, because the Protestants have one or two children and the Catholics have 3-7. Eventually there will be a Catholic majority and the vote will be decisively for reunification. As for Scotland and Wales, I can see them slowly breaking off, by taking small incremental steps of independence.

It was clearly irony because you would expect the secession to be the other way around. It would have been more sarcasm if it was a ridiculous proposition to separate.

What difference would it really make? In a world where commerce and the big issues are global, argueing about who controls which bit of a warming earth is a little bit like argueing over a sun bed on the titanic!

@Treefarn Probably, the Union has lasted for 3 centuries.

Global warming doesn't mean the end of the world... simply a relatively radical global shift. Humans will still be around... so will commerce... and technology...

Global warming will be great for Scotland... it will finally be warm enough to take your thermals off in Summer!