I was speaking with a Polish friend who is a Member of the European Parliament. He confirmed that Brexit had led to very wide support for Scottish Independence in the Parliament, across many political and national divides. He also made the interesting point that the cause of Irish reunification was again mentioned in the bars of Brussels.
This of course makes perfect sense. With the personal and economic freedoms and common rights of EU citizenship, a sense of both the Republic and the North being inside a much wider union took the edge off some of the grievances of Irish nationalists, at least to the degree that this was a contributing argument for ceasing to pursue reunification by violence. It is a commonplace that Brexit undermines the intellectual and emotional basis of the Good Friday agreement – it certainly does. I hope Brexit will not result in renewed violence, but that it will result in a strongly renewed demand for Irish reunification I do not doubt – and I will support that demand.
The sympathy that demand for Irish union will invoke in Europe post-Brexit is but one example of the extreme diplomatic isolation of the UK under the Little Englanders. Boris Johnson and Liam Fox will have no mates abroad, other than Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Saudi and Gulf tyrants; while Trump’s words of praise for Brexit will be backed by no trade or policy concessions whatsoever.
HSBC shares fall a staggering 62% or $7.1billion dollars. HSBC is on a cost cutting exercise and has already slashed 8,000 staff from its books and it’s also looking to close 62 branches in Britain this year.
HSBC, is worried over Brexit and plans to move more than a 1000 jobs (maybe more) to Paris are on the cards.
As soon a Theresa May and the bungling Brexiteers trigger Article 50, the slow seeping drain of jobs in Britain to Europe and Ireland, will become a raging tidal wave, that will make Moses parting of the Red sea seem positivelyy tame.
“it’s also looking to close 62 branches in Britain this year.”
That’s hardly the fault of Brexit. When did you last go into your local branch, except to pay in a cheque? Even cheques can now be paid in in the Post Office, so with so many banking online, it’s really only a surprise that HSBC are closing so few branches.
Theresa May was so worried that the undemocratic and unelected House of Lords, was going to hold up her Brexit bill that she attended the Lords for the opening statement.
A highly unusual thing for a PM to do, infact you need to back to 1990, and John Major, or 1947 and Clement Attlee, to see a similar situation.
Speaking of the overbloated, undemocratic and unelected House of Lords. Former Lords speaker Baroness D’Souza has claimed that many, many, many Lords contribute absolutely nothing in the upper chamber.
That some of them attend just for the privileges, and one (unnamed) Lord even kept a taxi running outside the chamber, whilst he signed in to receive his hundreds of pounds privilege, paid for by the tax payer.
Of course this should come as no surprise to those who pay attention. The House of Lords is in all essence a group of over privileged ex-politicians business people and clergy, that are unelected by the people. The House of Lords should be abolished immediately.
The SNP refuse to accept any attempts by the establishment to create SNP lords, there are no SNP lords.
As the Tories continue to slash and burn the NHS South of the border, and eventually introduce Trumpism, in the meantime those same Tories are planning another attack on YOUR health service.
“Hospital services in nearly two-thirds of England could be cut or scaled back, BBC analysis of local plans shows.”
“The proposals are part of a programme to transform the health service and save money across 44 different areas.”
“The BBC found 28 proposals affect hospital care, from full closures to centralising services, such as A&E and stroke care, on fewer sites.”
Brexit will only speed up the reductions and closures, which will be filled by American styled privatisation.
Hmmm. The Guardian is saturated with pro-Blairmain propaganda too. However, the Times today carries an article anent the worsening state of the Irishman in the street as compared with his country’s EU-friendly growth statistics. Food for thought. As is your echoing of the Blair zombie’s dogwhistling re the Irish question (promptly countered by Hague predicting social upheaval on precisely the opposite basis).
Sorry, Craig, but if Hague’s right, we’re going to be on opposite sides of the barricades. This country, whether or not Scotland wants to be part of it ( that’s another referendum that has to be rerun until it gives the right answer, isn’t it?) needs to get off its collective arse and assert its independence. It needs to produce stuff, especially food and saleable hi-tech. It needs to establish a measure of immunity from the recurrent disasters of speculative capitalism.
I have some respect for the Scottish independence movement, but I wish you lot showed a bit more empathy with the UK independence movement. No, I don’t mean UKIP.
I note in passing that ‘Open Britain’ (lol – the lobby group formerly known as Remain) has acknowledeged that yes, there might just be a teeny little problem about immigration…what a bunch of racists, eh?
The big news today, the Scottish government is voting on whether to alter tax rates, Scotland can determine their own taxes now let’s hope they use the power wisely.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39029125
In further news today Greece is begging Germany to please ease up on their demands on how they must set their budget.
http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2017-02-21/greece-calls-on-germany-to-ease-budget-surplus-demands
Relevant to your second point, Fred –
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/21/finance-as-warfare-the-imf-lent-to-greece-knowing-it-could-never-pay-back-debt/
You can’t stop the insults, can you? Being not a million miles away from Thanet, I have no objection to Scottish or Irish independence. If the inhabitants are as rude as you good riddance.
Yours
6’2″ Englander