h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just so as not to sidetrack that other thread . . .



I find it interesting that it was the British Parliament, in consultation with legislators from certain colonies, which put together and passed the British North America Act (1867) which was the sole Constitution of Canada until it was adjusted and converted into a bit of Canadian legislation in 1982. That original document clearly laid out the division of powers between the levels of government and allowed for legislative differences where cultural and historical differences made such practical (I'm thinking here most particularly of Quebec, of course, but there are other bits as well).

It strikes me that an already existing bit of British Constitutional Legislation would be a good basis on which to build a new United Kingdom -- A Confederation of Britain, or even, the Dominion of Britain.

Yes it may have worked at that moment in time in that context, but I don't see it working here for a long time for all sorts of political reasons.

We've a scary deficit to deal with..which will probably mean horrible cuts for many years to come..so a new expensive layer of government is not going to happen.

I can't see a lot of English people being so happy at essentially being part of a dominion when the population of UK is around 60million and England makes up around 50million. Like it or not the overwhelming majority of English still see themselves as easily the most powerful part of the UK, and of course since we smashed our manufacturing sector..it's the financial London based sector which is the main wealth creator area.

I think most people would expect the Westminster parliament to become the new English parliament..that's why I think its far more likely that the UK will actually break up if it ever happens. So I can't really see it happening in the way you suggest.

And of course there is the historical context here. Could you really see the country with so much pride in its past history willing to be consigned to a small parliament in Winchester?

And one other reason which I actually think a good thing is that there is definitely an undercurrent of extremism in the English identity which is held in check by the strong rule of 'Britain'..I'm not sure how effective that would be in a new set-up. But that's just a personnal impression I get, from things like the era of football hooloiganism..which is still there just below the surface, and attitudes in some country/rural areas.

I think it should be a very very slow and gradual thing enabling a new kind of English identity to emerge over time. But we could at least make a start by singing Jerusalem a bit more often?

Your mention of English extremism strikes me as the most powerful pragmatic reason for avoiding a true confederation. In our case there are minority secessionist voices in various parts of the country, but each group that such voices claim to speak for is a minority here. I suppose this is why we have quite peacefully had a separatist group govern our most populous province and a separatist party as the third most powerful party in Parliament.


On a different subject: I just picked a couple of ripe strawberries from outside. The deep freeze stopped a couple of weeks ago and it's been in the high twenties almost every day since.