I read quite a lot of news and it has really discomforted me that suddenly we are also talking about the complete breakup of the UK. Devolved governments was one thing, but all the mechanisms involved in splitting the countries apart will be yet another distraction, as well as completely dismantling our standing on the world stage.
I understand your point of view on the current situation and share it, but the most immediate threat to me is this disintegration. Unless perhaps everybody thinks it will be voted down - except will the leaders accept a No vote, or indeed offer a vote at all? They do seem to like things their own way, and democracy won't provide it for them any longer.
I have noticed very little in the press, just a small section on the BBC website (the rest of which I of course ignore).
What does everybody else think? Chaos preceded by, or following, the next election?
Ever since 'we' set up devolved governments in Wales and Scotland, the break up became inevitable. They were bound to want more and more power. After that we will get the Midlands, the South-West and the South-East wanting to govern themselves. Chaos will ensue.
Who really knows but I certainly see chaos coming but feel the 'people' of the UK will have more sense than their useless incompetent politicians to allow our nation to disintegrate?
It makes no sense as these tinpot entities cannot survive on their own. And yet, there is something deeper at play, a natural and perhaps unstoppable fracturing of the centre. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold …
Nice bit of gloom to start the day. As for the solution, direct action and protest won’t achieve anything as it will be suppressed ruthlessly - the state will happily empty the prisons of real criminals before surrendering its power base. To be optimistic, we may have a year or two for things to play out. Labour gets the blame for the economic and other shitstorms coming. Tories and Reform slug it out and improve or don’t. One will come out on top in a Darwinian struggle for mastery. Will be far from perfect but may be just about ok.
Very thoughtful analysis above. It was interesting to note the body language of the Irish Prime Minister, Michael Martin, when Donald Trump tried out his latest riff on a United Ireland theme. The Dublin political establishment, for all their flaws, are deadly serious people when it comes to the reunification of the island and believe in incremental change rather than the radical posturing that Sinn Fein and the American president prefer to employ. It would appear that the Tories under Badenoch and Reform are the British equivalent of this populist tendency which has the possibility of disturbing the tectonic plates in Ireland with unpredictable and possibly disastrous consequences...
It's very clear that UI is still the goal. The GFA is a staging post to this end. The simplistic logic - "One island, one people" - is not just flawed, it is risible from the outset. The population of Ulster may ultimately be assimilable (though I doubt), but the new wave of immigrants immediately negates the idea of 'one people'. So the aim is simply 'One Administration with special pleading, under the all-seeing beneficence of the EU and the avuncular support of the Boston brigade". As I say, laughable. Playing into the hands of the globalists, who want weak, divided, badly-managed, controllable, factionalised, sectarian populations the better to herd about. Me-e-e-e-eh
I agree voting won’t solve this. It’ll be a catastrophic event or events more likely such as bond market meltdown leading to emergency IMF loans like the 70s plus the potential for war with Russia following the end of NATO. That’s a certainty if Starmer gets his wish to become the General Secretary of NATO and brings his personal “magic”‘to the role. The US becomes isolationist and we’re attacked in our infrastructure by Russia and find we’re alone with no army, no one prepared to fight, serious trouble on race grounds at home, no money and no friends. I worry
Brutally dystopian yet scarily plausible. There are now too many insoluble problems. Immigration is causing civil unrest, net zero fanaticism is destroying our industry, global threats are undermining our security and the ballooning welfare state is bankrupting the country.
Yet we have a government that wants to ignore these issues and prefers to focus on trivia, bus fares and breakfast clubs.
The British culture is disappearing before our eyes, yet all of this is cheered on by left wing zealots. Why? What kind of a future do they want?
The destruction of a once-great nation seems inevitable and the zealots will get their wish. Sadly I can see no way out. I pray I’m wrong.
Making the political destination clear and adding it to the bigger issues (AI, economic protection, regeneration, internal security, energy rationing, electoral reform) keeps people urgent but patient.
There will be an increase in voting.
There will be a narrowing of the Labour majority, (perhaps it will be lost completely).
There will be incidents that enrage the public.
The governments legitimacy will be called into question.
Who does it benefit?
Who does it hurt?
At what point do senior Police and armed forces decide to take matters on themselves??
What’s certain is the irony, that whatever these not-really-nationalist privy council subverts running Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland say and do, it was written in Whitehall and probably linked to Cameron, Kruger, Blair et al in the devilutionists agenda!
Pete, I've been reading you off and on since 2016-19 when you were a well-informed corrective to the ill-informed Brexit "debate". I only discovered Northern Variant in the last few months and I'm really puzzled by where you stand.
I've read you attacking ethno-nationalism and, I think, having a soft spot for civic nationalism while being a stickler for administrative competence and dismissive of the entire political class that (mis)managed the Brexit process. You also talk about the "regime" and the end of democracy and the need for some form of revolution but I don't know exactly you're revolutionary about and what end state you want to get to.
I should add that I'm a militant liberal democrat (small l, small d) and advocate for a return to the EEA and hardcore support for Ukraine so I'd hazard a guess that I'm not your typical reader. If you have the patience to explain, I'm curious.
I agree with your analysis and have for a few years now believed and said things will get worse before we start the long slow haul to put our nation back together and on the road to recovery.
We are in very peculiar times. It's very difficult to know where we are heading as UK isn't an outlier, most of western Europe have very similar problems, so I suspect we will be driven by outside events. Fundamentally the issue is net zero which has decimated European industry and flatlined growth. The "migration to boost GDP" myth has been exposed which it may not have been, were it not for the virtue signalling politicians naive approach to energy.
I read quite a lot of news and it has really discomforted me that suddenly we are also talking about the complete breakup of the UK. Devolved governments was one thing, but all the mechanisms involved in splitting the countries apart will be yet another distraction, as well as completely dismantling our standing on the world stage.
I understand your point of view on the current situation and share it, but the most immediate threat to me is this disintegration. Unless perhaps everybody thinks it will be voted down - except will the leaders accept a No vote, or indeed offer a vote at all? They do seem to like things their own way, and democracy won't provide it for them any longer.
I have noticed very little in the press, just a small section on the BBC website (the rest of which I of course ignore).
What does everybody else think? Chaos preceded by, or following, the next election?
Ever since 'we' set up devolved governments in Wales and Scotland, the break up became inevitable. They were bound to want more and more power. After that we will get the Midlands, the South-West and the South-East wanting to govern themselves. Chaos will ensue.
Who really knows but I certainly see chaos coming but feel the 'people' of the UK will have more sense than their useless incompetent politicians to allow our nation to disintegrate?
Not seen very much evidence of that so far Niall
Wait until the shit really hits the fan!
Not so sure. Bread and circuses will keep most happy. Conformity and the need to pay bills will do for the rest of us.
It makes no sense as these tinpot entities cannot survive on their own. And yet, there is something deeper at play, a natural and perhaps unstoppable fracturing of the centre. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold …
Nice bit of gloom to start the day. As for the solution, direct action and protest won’t achieve anything as it will be suppressed ruthlessly - the state will happily empty the prisons of real criminals before surrendering its power base. To be optimistic, we may have a year or two for things to play out. Labour gets the blame for the economic and other shitstorms coming. Tories and Reform slug it out and improve or don’t. One will come out on top in a Darwinian struggle for mastery. Will be far from perfect but may be just about ok.
Very thoughtful analysis above. It was interesting to note the body language of the Irish Prime Minister, Michael Martin, when Donald Trump tried out his latest riff on a United Ireland theme. The Dublin political establishment, for all their flaws, are deadly serious people when it comes to the reunification of the island and believe in incremental change rather than the radical posturing that Sinn Fein and the American president prefer to employ. It would appear that the Tories under Badenoch and Reform are the British equivalent of this populist tendency which has the possibility of disturbing the tectonic plates in Ireland with unpredictable and possibly disastrous consequences...
It's very clear that UI is still the goal. The GFA is a staging post to this end. The simplistic logic - "One island, one people" - is not just flawed, it is risible from the outset. The population of Ulster may ultimately be assimilable (though I doubt), but the new wave of immigrants immediately negates the idea of 'one people'. So the aim is simply 'One Administration with special pleading, under the all-seeing beneficence of the EU and the avuncular support of the Boston brigade". As I say, laughable. Playing into the hands of the globalists, who want weak, divided, badly-managed, controllable, factionalised, sectarian populations the better to herd about. Me-e-e-e-eh
I agree voting won’t solve this. It’ll be a catastrophic event or events more likely such as bond market meltdown leading to emergency IMF loans like the 70s plus the potential for war with Russia following the end of NATO. That’s a certainty if Starmer gets his wish to become the General Secretary of NATO and brings his personal “magic”‘to the role. The US becomes isolationist and we’re attacked in our infrastructure by Russia and find we’re alone with no army, no one prepared to fight, serious trouble on race grounds at home, no money and no friends. I worry
Brutally dystopian yet scarily plausible. There are now too many insoluble problems. Immigration is causing civil unrest, net zero fanaticism is destroying our industry, global threats are undermining our security and the ballooning welfare state is bankrupting the country.
Yet we have a government that wants to ignore these issues and prefers to focus on trivia, bus fares and breakfast clubs.
The British culture is disappearing before our eyes, yet all of this is cheered on by left wing zealots. Why? What kind of a future do they want?
The destruction of a once-great nation seems inevitable and the zealots will get their wish. Sadly I can see no way out. I pray I’m wrong.
What elements of British culture are disappearing?
Once you get mixed up in minutiae you fail.
Making the political destination clear and adding it to the bigger issues (AI, economic protection, regeneration, internal security, energy rationing, electoral reform) keeps people urgent but patient.
There will be an increase in voting.
There will be a narrowing of the Labour majority, (perhaps it will be lost completely).
There will be incidents that enrage the public.
The governments legitimacy will be called into question.
Who does it benefit?
Who does it hurt?
At what point do senior Police and armed forces decide to take matters on themselves??
What’s certain is the irony, that whatever these not-really-nationalist privy council subverts running Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland say and do, it was written in Whitehall and probably linked to Cameron, Kruger, Blair et al in the devilutionists agenda!
Pete, I've been reading you off and on since 2016-19 when you were a well-informed corrective to the ill-informed Brexit "debate". I only discovered Northern Variant in the last few months and I'm really puzzled by where you stand.
I've read you attacking ethno-nationalism and, I think, having a soft spot for civic nationalism while being a stickler for administrative competence and dismissive of the entire political class that (mis)managed the Brexit process. You also talk about the "regime" and the end of democracy and the need for some form of revolution but I don't know exactly you're revolutionary about and what end state you want to get to.
I should add that I'm a militant liberal democrat (small l, small d) and advocate for a return to the EEA and hardcore support for Ukraine so I'd hazard a guess that I'm not your typical reader. If you have the patience to explain, I'm curious.
Pete why 2044??
I agree with your analysis and have for a few years now believed and said things will get worse before we start the long slow haul to put our nation back together and on the road to recovery.
Typo. I meant 2034.
We are in very peculiar times. It's very difficult to know where we are heading as UK isn't an outlier, most of western Europe have very similar problems, so I suspect we will be driven by outside events. Fundamentally the issue is net zero which has decimated European industry and flatlined growth. The "migration to boost GDP" myth has been exposed which it may not have been, were it not for the virtue signalling politicians naive approach to energy.
Indeed we are heading here and in Europe for a great orchestral crescendo!