first rule of Fight Club is that you do not talk about Fight Club
That’s also the first rule of the Bullingdon Club
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I think you have good reason to think that. Look at how the EU treated Catalunya’s attempted independence: “why can’t you guys get on?”. The EU is devoted to maintaining boring normalcy rather than war in its members. If Spain left the EU you can bet the EU attitude to catalan independence would be drastically different. As with England and Scotland.
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Listening to Cameron being interviewed, he said that Alex Salmond (SNP leader and Scottish independence campaign leader) was going about openly telling Scots that they need not worry about voting for independence and have any concerns about the monarchy, as her maj would still be their queen. This was having such an impact that Cameron felt a royal eyebrow needed raising at this.
Yep. Nothing that man says can be trusted any more than anything Boris says. Everything Gove says is for his own political advantage. Personally, I speculatively doubt the Queen is in favour of Brexit - certainly not a no-deal Brexit.
And @MikeR she had no way to deny prorogation. Johnson needed no collaboration to get his way on that.
My understanding is that nobody new joins the EU now without having to commit to join the Eurozone with a committed timetable.
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Technically, she could have dismissed the Parliament. Practically, that would likely be the end of the monarchy, once the ensuing constitutional crisis played out. (Although dismissing the government worked in Australia in 1975 - the opposition party won the election by a landslide - so who knows?)
If Scotland were to secede, wouldn’t that render the Acts of Union null, since it would in effect repeal the Act of Settlement? In which case, doesn’t Franz, Duke of Bavaria become King of Scotland by default?
(I know. The answer, under any reasonably probable outcome, is ‘no.’ Still, the Stuarts still have living descendants to whom the crown would pass under Salic law.)
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Can we please have videos on YouTube where the Queen shows people how to fix classic cars?
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
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Not gonna lie… would watch. “When one needs to change one’s oil, one begins by getting under one’s landrover…”
Also, look how happy she is here!
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ALSO: there would of course be corgis in those car repair videos 
ALSO: she should be going to monster truck rallies, either as a driver or just to ring the bell or whatever
Do they have monster truck rallies in the UK? Is there a bell to ring?
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Good question. Seems like a aspect of American culture that we should export!
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There’s also the whole ‘If you are Displeased by the circumstances of your expression of opinion becoming public that may be a bad sign’ issue.
There are certainly plenty of things where mutual preservation of secrecy is a reasonable expectation and not indicative of a problem; but this doesn’t seem like one of them; so the fact that you’d prefer this bit of governancing stay quiet suggests that those involved suspect that it would be seen as improper; and might even agree, though not enough to refrain from doing it anyway.
Okay, let’s talk about currencies.
Technically, all members of the EU have to agree to join the Euro, (except Denmark and the UK, because they have opt-outs agreed by treaty), but there’s no deadline to complete the process, or even make any progress towards it. That’s how Sweden has managed to keep the krone, and has made no attempt or stated no desire even to start the transition.
Now, an independent Scotland cannot join the Euro on day one. This is because there are four steps that a country has to take in order to get ready to join, and one of these steps is to join ERM2- the exchange rate mechanism, for two years.
So Scotland can’t move directly from the British pound to the Euro, because they couldn’t force the rump state rUK to join ERM2.Therefore, after Independence, Scotland would either have to keep on using the British pound or set up its own currency and own central bank. (and as I have said before, I heavily favour the second of those two options.)
Now, back to the main topic of ex pm Cameron and his prompting of royal interference.
This is exactly what the Queen has tried to avoid all her life- to be seen taking sides in a political dispute. Because she fully knows that it’s only by being seen as a neutral, well respected figurehead that the Monarchy will survive. She is doubtless absolutely furious at these recent developments, when two prime ministers have dragged her into politics within a matter of weeks. This is the sort of thing that might tip people against the monarchy- and around half of Scotland has just been given a good reason to consider the merits of a republic.
Also, I’m sure the queen is well-versed in royal history, and she knows that “minor political troubles in Scotland” have managed to cause a good deal of royal trouble in the past.
It’s an interesting thought, but the dissolution of the union is generally thought to involve the repeal of the acts of 1707 and 1801, rather than the 1603 acts that created the union of the crowns. Jacobitism is dead and buried in modern Scotland, which would be more likely to Install a Republic like Ireland than consider a different set of royals. (Although, in these crazy times, anything is possible)…
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To make things even more fun, the term “British subject” hung around in its old sense of a common imperial nationality for a bit longer in some Commonwealth countries. Australia, for example, didn’t dispense with it until 1984. So for a year or so, Australian citizens were not British subjects under British law (which had reclassified them as “Commonwealth citizens”), but were still British subjects under Australian law.
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It would be interesting to know how much of the EU’s attitude is directly derived from being an incumbent nation states club; which doesn’t tend to lead to successionist sympathies; and how much is a more idealistic(questions of whether noble or blinkered might be raised; but idealism of some flavor) strain derived from the idea that warm fuzzy progress in universal human rights and free movement and having official documentation in 23 languages ought to render successionist tendencies, which often have more than a bit of hyperlocal sectarian ethnic nationalism about them(albeit usually as the plucky underdog, so not as unsympathetic), obsolete and a bit atavistic.
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Apparently she once scared the shit out of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia by taking him on a tour of Balmoral’s narrow and winding roads at the speed appropriate to someone who knows she’s the fucking Queen and everyone else had better get out of her way.
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What’s really funny about that is the the Saudi Crown Prince, in real world terms, probably has more actual political power than Good Queen Bess II…
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Won’t hurt Cameron’s book sale numbers either.
the argument could be made that the various provinces ought to be equal members of the larger body, and that the intermediate national layer is the obsolete one
Per the business valuation agency ‘Brand Finance’ “the value of the monarchy to the British economy was estimated at £56.7 billion in 2015.”
Any Brits out there who would like to opine? Can one only expect raised eyebrows here also, re the Queen’s alleged interference in politics? Could this fuel the cause of anti-monarchists. (No monarchy would be bad for business, based on BF’s estimate.)
BTW: Here in the US, the situation is the polar opposite: Trump’s bad for the economy, and the US would be much better off without him.
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The royals drive a fair amount of tourism; a trip to London is not be complete with out a visit to Buck House to see the Changing of the Guard, and plenty of people visit Windsor to gawk as well. The Crown Jewels attract plenty of tourist attention.
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