I drafted the following points for an organization in Somerset,but perhaps they deserve a wider audience.
1: The co-existence over many generations of English, Welsh, Scots and Irish, with their widely differing cultures, in one state, is a remarkable achievement and potential model. It has been challenged by Irish republicanism and now by Scottish nationalism. The pending Scottish referendum is a major concern. The work for peace of our Queen and of successive Irish presidents and their prime ministers is noteworthy and should be built on. Britain is now a far more diverse and plural society than ever before – in some ways a microcosm of the world. This is an opportunity for us.
2: In two World Wars Britain showed the depth of its commitment to continental Europe. Our losses in lives and treasure bear witness to this and provide an answer to separatists and isolationalists. I believe Britain should be the friend of small countries, as well as the ally of large ones. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, with its 56 or so member states, may provide the key to peaceful transitions in Ukraine, Crimea etc.
3: Meanwhile, in the wider world, freedom of conscience and freedom to practice or to change religion are very much at risk. Intolerance is growing in many countries where various faiths and identities used to coexist. Christians, some Muslims, Bahaiis, Ahmadis, Ismailis, Falun Gong and others, suffer varying degrees of persecution and discrimination, as do the Roma and other ethnic minorities. Religions have both positive and negative effects. Their scriptures can be interpreted both literally and spiritually. In the search for convergence and reconciliation we have many potential allies.
Lord Hylton,
I hope you have known the joy of Easter you wished me in this season. It seems to me that question of European unity and the question of British unity do have some things in common. I have in fact related these questions to one another and to other questions of secession in what was after all a very brief post in my blog. I read both questions and look at all the issues raised by Russian majority areas in eastern Europe with the lens of history forming and coloring my perceptions. Almost no part of the southern United States east of the Texas-Louisiana border was left outside of the devastation of the 1860s and its war of secession and that is remembered.
http://franksummers3ba.com/2014/02/22/union-and-secession-and-identity/
But i also think that history is about processes and antecedents. The Union Jack, Guy Fawkes Day, the King James Bible and many other symbols of the UK date from a time which still affords much historical controversy in some places as to basic facts of who did what and when. Like the equally influential reign of Henry VIII there was vast trauma before and following that period. The truth is that Scots nationalism has never ceased completely since then. Devolution has to be considered in that light of the great history which goes back thousands of years between the predecessors of these two realms. I do not think that the European situation is all that similar. We see in ever flexible Europe of Holy Roman Empires, the Diet of Worms, Papal Christendom, the Treaty of Westphalia, the Roman Empire, The Hellenic-Celtic Southern European Hegemony and the Druidic and Germanic Confederacies of the ancient past a kind of theme. That same theme is a bit evident in the League of Nations, the United nations, the Fascist Axis, The Common Market and the European union. The theme we see is that diverse powers form some kind of large supra-national and supra-state society which is important and successful and enduring but changes continuously, has uncertain borders and eventually fails to emerging new structure. I am not predicting that Europe will break up. I simply evoke the idea that history whispers its predictions of the future in each period and in Europe more than elsewhere.
http://franksummers3ba.com/2014/04/23/new-horizons-and-some-signs/
Her Majesty is a bit of a Scot and seems to do very well with being polite to other realms of which she is Queen. I think she is unlikely to be the sole salvation of the UK. The consequences may be serious but not definitive or eternal if Scotia leaves parliament. But if the UK leaves the EU then the EU as it will have ended. One might argue that your royal house is more British and less European than it has been in a thousand years, that Prince Charles and the Queen are very attached to the Commonwealth, that we are in the midst of real global changes and power shifts. If those arguments are conceded then one might say that the post British UK is effectively bound to be the end of one more important era. Lord Hylton I believe you are a man of considerable knowledge of history, Europe and other relevant matters but could you easily sketch out Lotharingia, Burgundy, Gaul, all incarnations of Poland or places known to their inhabitants as part of Yugoslavia?
Scotland, England and Wales are bound together short of the greatest cataclysms. The politics are secondary for at least a generation I would guess. But forgive me if I doubt that deep Devonian, Cornish or Orkney connections to Cyprus and the Czechs. In addition all the ties that keep Monaco, Norway and Switzerland at the table might well endure for a while. But the European Union as it will quickly cease to be the same or even similar unless some secret treaty holds it place to be discovered later.
“the post British UK is effectively bound to be the end of one more important era”
“The post British EU” is the intended phrase here. I did not mean a post British UK.
some places as to basic facts of who did what and when. Like the equally influential reign of Henry VIII
I dont think Lord Hylton has got it sortéd on this occasion,
there is such a broad range of unresolved constitutional ideas.
I agree that the differences in historical interpretation are unfortunate. Christian Unity would be better. The ferocious competition between the new Order of St John, (policemen’s freemasonry) and the Order of St John of Amalfi is one example.(13thc Med policemen!!)
The differences between the Secular order of St Francis, and the Cof E order (SStF )are equally regrettable.
I’ll leave it there for the moment.
The relationship between the Queen of England, and the people of Ireland, and Scotland, and Wales varies a good deal.
Language is sometimes a guide, but then so is geography added to language. The peripheries of all three have different languages to contend with and not English!
Empire is all about language and language provides the power to trade effectively.
Whilst English is one of the languages of the EU, and the most used, it is by no stretch of the imagination, a language of Empire in Europe. Most other first language speakers are contemptuous of it.
That is the democratic power of the EU. Nobody objects to the
non-democratic power of the EU, ie NATO/SHAPE mainly because it is a highly secretive enterprise, in certain senses.
Fragmentation of the nations state of the EU is a slight problem but the Scots will have to contend with it, if they make a decision to become federal with the rest of the UK.
Whilst comparisons with the USA (ie Usa/cf eU) both being Unions of states, are unpopular, it is useful in resolving questions of constitution of Supra-state, but also micro-state,
organisation.
EU decided very much against “Federal” concepts in the 1970s and wisely so.
Scotland may be obliged to deal with them if they do go independent. Wales invariably loses its intellectual soul the more “independence” it gets.
While Henry V11 was the first and only Welsh king of England, (Hywel Dda/ Hywel Gam)founder of a short lived dynasty,
the Queen of England has no genealogical links therewith thanks to the “election” of William and Mary 350 years ago.
The Church in Ireland is a child of the Church of England, the same for the Church in Wales, for those of that persuasion.
Mother/child relationship.
I am also reminded that the Queen is not Queen of Scotland but Queen of the Scots, which is said to make her only a “Magistrate” of Scotland. This theory may run much deeper in charters of one sort or another and may be quietly “put right” by that kind of constitutionalist, if necessary.
Thanks for your comments
With respect, Lord Hylton, do any of you people in our parliament realise or take on board, for one minute, that the people of this island are not happy with what you have turned their country into? This microcosm of the world you sing about with such strange pride, hence the need for UKIP and the Scots, et al, wanting to flee in their droves. Have you no connection at all with the utter despair surging through this nation?
You simply refuse to budge on the obvious and it leaves people with nothing else but the need for a form of revolution. How have you all become so crazy?
Thank you for your response. I presume you are more concerned by immigration than by devolution and the possible break-up of the United Kingdom. Or possibly the world-wide economic problems are causing people to leave.
Depends which ones leave doesn’t it?
If we get rid of Peers at 2,500 a day, we’re better off.
Cameron and Clegg say they are getting tough on migration by stating you have to earn 150 a week for three months before you can claim benefits. That means the pot which is now fixed will be shared out between more people.
That getting tough means that migrant will have paid no income tax and just £1.56 in NI. So for less than 2p a day, they get access tens of thousands of welfare and state support.
2K for NHS
5K a year for pensions
6K for each child’s education
4-5K for housing benefit
Free policing.
Free you – they aren’t paying
Free democracy
Free defense
Free policing
All paid for by others.
So if they leave, the UK is better off economically.
That means the UK can impose a proper test for migration. Does the migrant pay more tax than the cost of having them here. Yes? Let them in so long as that’s the case. No? You can’t come and you have to leave.
Simple test. It should apply to all migrants irrespective of EU, China… Black white or green…., young or old,….
One partial solution to some of the economic problems of the UK.
If you want to fix other countries economic problems, you could always migrate.
@Lord Hylton:
Well, dear me, I must have hit on a moot point. Truth in a line written often pokes at a sleepy mind.
Why did you pick on immigration? That is very telling.
Devolution does not worry me in the slightest, as it may be the saving grace of my family who perhaps wish to flee north in order to, theoretically, be free of living under the wing of the upper class stooges who brought about US imported capitalist bankruptcy. At the same time as deciding the poor, disabled and immigrants, imported as cheap labour, should be the ones to suffer under the weight of it. You see, we, my family that is, would want to remain part of the European Union and have recourse to human rights, should we find ourselves on the wrong end of starvation.
I believe, unlike our clever boys on the front benches of the commons, that we, the ordinary people, are better off in the long run, as part and parcel of the blood relatives we have across the channel, rather than hitch up to coat tails of those they wrongly perceive love them across the Atlantic. Sooner or later human nature will break free of the heavy hand of hereditary Capitalism we presently swelter under on this continent and thus make way for our natural leaning toward the dreaded ‘socialism.’ Something not commonly found outside of Europe, hence the attractiveness of the colonies to our toff loving leaders. Europe understands fully the up side to a notion of liberte’ egalite’ fraternite’ and clearly so do the Scots. To me, Scotland would be foolish to linger longer than it has to.
The present ill thought out and silly rush to dear old Nigel is a huge mistake, even if they honestly believe he will repeal gay marriage, set us free to live according to our supremely optimal culture, get rid of the imported and dreaded microcosm of the world and ban political correctness, the minute he takes office. This being the reason so many have united under his deceiving pound sign. If their faith in this man and his ‘funders’ results in the fundamental change they seek, more power to him. However, as he is one of the crew they want rid of, I fear the people on the ground are going t be just as, if not more so, disappointed under him than they were in their belief of the Blair creature, along with our decidedly shifty Cleggy boy.
So, whilst uncontrollable and disastrous immigration is indeed one of the the biggest mistakes for the citizens government has taken over the last 30 years, it is not the top of what I see as the overriding issue of our demise. That lies in the treacherous nature of those who lead us. And how those who follow in the footsteps of those they admire, brought this hated demise down on our heads and smugly glow in satisfaction at their betrayal as they sell their lies daily through the mediam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_b43b7wiiU
“people in our parliament realise or take on board, for one minute, that the people of this island are not happy with what you have turned their country into?”
Is parliament a bus, a train, or a boat in this example please?
We ought to know. It is very important! It could even be an aeroplane.
It may well not be a mixed metaphor, the like of which can be disneylike for their enjoyment, but it is certainly a very confused one!
It may even want to be a mixed metaphor, but not suceed in becoming one!
@GH:
You are a mixed metaphor in every word you write. So, I would say you are the proverbial kettle calling the pot black.