Celtic union

[Rjk]

Suspend disbelief for a moment and imagine the following scenario.
Following an ultra hard Brexit, with Irish border issues, remain leaning Scotland and northern Ireland leave the UK and enter into another loose union with Ireland, to make use of their EU membership. Let's call it the Celtic Federation.

The Celtic Federation extends an invitation to Wales to join, and there's a referendum in Wales on whether to

A) remain in Britain- which is now basically England and Wales, out of the EU.

B) join the Celtic Federation, in the EU, Schengen, uses the euro

[Rjk]

To me it would definitely be option B.

Wales has been in Union with England for almost 500 years, and for the entire time has been a poor relation. England would become increasingly beholden to the city of London, and I think development outside of the M25 would become even rarer than it is today.

Wales would be 20% of the population of the Celtic Federation, so able to have much more influence on policy, with Scotland being 35%, Ireland similar and northern Ireland 10% there's a nice balance between the nation's, without any one holding all the power.

Whereas we would only be 5% to England's 95% and become very marginalized.

[life on mars]

It will all be fine , trust in the actions of the 51.9% who voted out ,they know its going to be hunky dory , if it does go badly we could always go and live on Mars .

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Doesn't England effectively subsidise Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? If so, England would be the major beneficiary of such a split.

[Rjk]

Doesn't England effectively subsidise Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? If so, England would be the major beneficiary of such a split.

Wales Scotland and Ireland do get more money than England per capita, largely because on the whole they are poorer nations than England, so have more demand on public services, and with an older demographic because more young people leave to get work.

It's true that in these day to day expenses the Celtic nations get more, but in terms of investment in infrastructure, that would actually improve the economies England and specifically the south east gets it all.
I don't have any great desire for Welsh independence, but to me the fact that Wales is still the poorest part of the uk, isn't a reason to stay with England.

If they had spent a proportionate amount in Wales developing the economy as they do in London then chances are we wouldn't need as much money to spend on welfare.

[lardy]

Many times in this thread, 'England' needs to be replaced by 'London'.

[life on mars]

Im sure you could work out what I meant

I got it 😉

[life on mars]

Where do you start with garbage like this, do you ever get tired of clinging on to mother Englands trouser leg? Ireland is not beholden to the UK for exports, your currency has crashed, hence your purchasing power has crashed, markets elsewhere are far more lucrative for Irish business to pursue than yours.

Wasn't Ireland bailed in the recent recesion , and wasnt a fair bit of that bail out money from the values other member states had put in including England ,Wales and Scotland and didnt the bank of England and the financial institutions centred in London also help ,somone was beholdent, and it showed how weak the structure was ?

[Pilkers]

Wasn't Ireland bailed in the recent recesion , and wasnt a fair bit of that bail out money from the values other member states had put in including England ,Wales and Scotland and didnt the bank of England and the financial institutions centred in London also help ,somone was beholdent, and it showed how weak the structure was ?

England set a precedent for IMF bailouts around these islands in the 70's, and it could and should have been a whole lot worse, luckily North sea oil and gas came on tap in the nick of time rescuing them from a long and protracted economic depression with further recourse to external bailout.

As for Ireland not sure who bailed who out tbh. Brian Lenihan committed to honour all debts in the banking sector, including the full redemption of all it's unsecured bondholders, the bill for this rang in at around 60 billion. Absolutely crazy times, as subsequently the Irish tax payer picked up the tab to bail out financial institutions across the globe who should have taken a hit. Incidentally many of the financiers that benefited were city of London based, the whole clusterfuk of 10 years ago was far from a charitable donation to help a neighbour. More an act of self interest to protect the balance sheet of many of your own banks and financiers.