Pound sinks as Britain weighs EU exit

Toonces!

“That cat’s not human.” - The Terminator

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Hey, some of are stuck here!

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Claim asylum in Scotland?

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I won’t need to claim asylum - I’m half Scottish and I will happily forget about being half English.

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Isn’t Scotland part of the UK, so if the UK votes to go out of EU, won’t Scotland, also be out of the EU?

Or were you making a clever joke at the expense of us dumb Americans?

Either is fine, just explain it to me, because American.

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The general expectation is that if the UK leaves the EU then Scotland will try to leave the UK then attempt to rejoin.

Whether the EU lets them is a different matter.

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It’s just a mess, really.

If the UK votes to leave the EU, Scotland would be out, yes. But I guarantee that Scotland would hold another referendum on independence, would vote for it this time and would apply for EU membership. I imagine they’d try to align all that with the timescale for the UK leaving.

I suspect that NI might consider a vote on reunification with Ireland in that situation, too. Not sure how that would turn out.

But I’m English/Welsh so I’d be shafted anyway.

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Really? That blows my mind, actually, more than Scotland using it as a pretext to get out of the UK. What would the pro-British unionists do in that case?

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Start blowing shit up again?

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I imagine it would be awful.

But I’m just pondering. There are lots more knowledgeable folks than me on that here.

My general opinion on NI is that whatever the DUP is saying, the complete opposite is the right idea (on every subject).

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UK will not leave EFTA. Not a fucking hope. Nor would Ireland wish to negotiate with the UK on its own on free trade. Not interested at all.

The “border” between NI and the rest of the UK may see added controls, they are not closing the border between NI and Ireland. Not happening. It’s like if you have one big win in 25 years do you Fuck it up when you don’t have to? They won’t have to.

Fundamentalist crazies. Hate gay people, women, and foreigners. And everybody else.

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Go on holiday?

It will probably end up being nasty whatever happens

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What makes you so sure that it’ll work this time?

It’s funny, I couldn’t understand why Scottish people wanted independence but not monetary independence. That made no sense to me and it was as if they hadn’t been paying attention to the eurozone over the previous few years.

As for NI voting to join Ireland: hell will have frozen over first.

Grown up politicians (not the DUP, actually to be fair even the DUP sometimes, who have all the intellectual heft and political seriousness of a clown car full of U.S. Republicans) are all perfectly capable of picking and choosing how British or Irish they are depending on what suits them economically at any given time. So they may have a border with the levels of controls they have now with us, be in the EFTA, and be firmly in the UK and out of the EU if that’s how the vote goes, but with special arrangements so that UK companies looking for benefits of being in the EU might find it helpful to move there so they can keep the capital in the UK but be administratively effectively in the EU. Win win for them. The unionists and Sinn Fein will be grinning at the cameras.

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Not going to happen.
This is how people reacted to the changing of a schedule for flying a fleg on Belfast city hall. Actual political change would set the place off into new heights of craziness and (sadly) violence.[quote=“FFabian, post:75, topic:74074”]
What makes you so sure that it’ll work this time?
[/quote]

Two pillars of the “No” vote were the appeal to the status quo and business support for existing trading arrangements. Post Brexit, and both of those could be argued the other way, with independence seen as preserving the current situation with EU trade links and so on.

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Labour MPs are democratically accountable to the 9,347,304 who voted for them in the general election, not the 251,417 who voted for Corbyn in the leadership election.

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Yes, that might turn out to be an important detail in the puzzle that is post-colonial Britain.

The most fascinating and mind boggling aspect of UK foreign policy is the illusion among the governing class that Britain is still in charge of some eternal empire, rather than recognising that they will have to make do with the rump that’s left. Worse, still, the British might have to realise the downsides of being an Ex-empire–there are consequences and you have to figure out a way to make peace with the subdued population. Ireland is an interesting case in this context.

If nothing else comes out of this farce, the referendum will leave deep scratches in the veneer of the British delusion that the UK is the mother country of some grand empire and thus deserving of special treatment.

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That is an interesting and quite extraordinary understanding of how democracy works. The Labour Party members democratically elect the Labour Party leader. The UK electorate elects their local MPs. The two processes are independent of one another. Just because you happened to vote for a Labour candidate it doesn’t magically entitle you to have a say in its Leadership election.

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