Yes Leo - Scotland would have to leave by default - but it would reignite the demand for Scottish independence. Whether we like it or not Scotland is more pro EU than England is - the Scots feel themselves to be more 'European' than many of the English do. In the event of the UK breaking away from Europe (and dragging Scotland with it) then I would fully expect Scotland to 'try again' for independence.
I have said before I don't like the EU but for all its faults we are better off in it than out. From what I have heard the flights from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Minsk (capital of the last remaining Stalinist nation, Belarus) are now fully booked for months, with many left leaning independence types going off there to claim asylum.
Looks like the Westminster plot to destabilise an independent Scotland has reached OPEC; the price of crude oil has fallen a few dollars a barrel this last week.
We are only better off in the EU if the position of the sensible non euro countries can be protected as the euro clan move towards political union. The euro mafia are extremely anxious to damage London's position as the financial capital of the world. I doubt that Cameron will be able to obtain the sufficient safeguards and clawback some of the decision mailing powers that we have already lost. Nobody has voted for the EU that is emerging. All the citizens of Europe want is a free trade common market with cooperation in some areas. Brussels is full of fiddling bureaucrats, there is so much fraud that the accounts have never been passed.
I sincerely hope that they all write back to him telling him to mind his own business, since he is not an MP and, hopefully never will be.
At least he is sticking up for the majority of the UK which is England. The English have subsidised the scots for too long through the Barnett formula. It is now time to correct this anomaly. Any pressure that can be applied to the three main party leaders the fairer the outcome will be for all.
So you believe youcan only have a view on how your national parliament is run if you're an MP? Interesting.
We have to find a way to let the English have votes on thier affairs by English MPs alone. The Scots, Welsh and Irish all have that - so should we. The trouble is that in their panic to bolster the pathetic No campaign in the final week promises were made - not least a timetable for Devo Max. Now we are seeing Cameron realise that the English have watched this and thought - me too - so he is trying to answer the West Lothian question - and go further - on that same timescale. It will be very difficult to achieve that - especially with an election next May. We need to go to a proper federal system whereby each of the four nations have a "Parliament" to deal with their own affairs and then bring those representatves together when issues that affect us all are involved.
Can we move on from here please ! People voted for 'yes' for a whole miriad of reasons, some of them good ones, and it did not follow traditional left vs right lines - if it had done George Galloway would not have been pleading for a 'no' vote. Now is the time for reconciliation not crowing over the defeated.
I would like to change my wording of this. Of course Farage is free to write to anyone he wishes - just as free to do this as I am. However, he is able to use a level of publicity for his actions which is far beyond mine - a publicity far greater than he merits as being a leader of a party with absolutely no seats in parliament (ie. 100% fewer seats than the Greens).
Leo - does Englang need its own parliament when it already has 85 % of the seats in Westminster ? England is perfectly well positioned to dominate UK politics through this alone - and has done for centuries. The other factor is this - the Conservatives may favour an English parliament because it increases their power, just as Labour favours regional assemblies for the same reason. Both will block each other on this. When you talk about a proper federal system this can only work if the units governed are roughly of the same size - which fits better to the Labour model.
Fair enough Cologne. Personally I've never been that bothered about the West Lothian question though fully understand and respect the views of those that are. As far as I'm concened if there is to be a change to the way our Parliament is run we must have a say in that. Even if everyone agrees it's our decision to make and not Mr Cameron's. On a separate issue, a key feature of this referendum was that 16 and 17 year olds had the vote. I expect there will be a lot of pressure on the Government to extend this to all future elections so i wonder how they'll resist it.
Most 16 & 17 year olds in England can barely write their own names so they will be more than capable of marking a X on the ballot paper!
I think England does need its own Parliament. At the very least it needs decisions that affect England alone to be taken by representatives of England alone. When Scotland, wales and Ireland did not have parliaments and assemblies we were all in the same position but now we are not. Why do I want 59 MPs from Scotland voting on English only matters? I do not want a single non English MP to have a say in English matters. Do you think the Scots would have a token 10 English MPs voting on their internal affairs - I think not. Parliament has changed massively in the last 25 years and only the English are left without sole control of their own affairs. Why keep it that way at a time when you are sorting out the other problems. Why on earrth does a federal structure need units of the same size? Have you looked at America? 4 elected bodies each dealing with their own affairs makes abundant sense. Each can have a degree of tax control to handle health, education, police etc. They can set prescrition charges, the extent to which they farm out work to private bodies rather than state run ones, the level of benefits they provide and indeed which benefits. It gives flexibility for when one of the "states" has higher or lower unemployment and so on. MAtters that need to be the samefor all of the constituent elements - defence is one of course as are foreign affairs, diplomatic relations and so on are then paid for out of federal taxation. You cannot deny the English a parliament because you want Scottish Labour MPs to control the English. England would have to come to terms with the parties it wants to have - and I suspect there will be less Tory and Labour than you might think. For a start I owuld advocate PR rather than first past the post in order to give valid representation to Greens and others and also to ensure greater "consensus" government.
Cologne, On one hand you are trying to deny the English a proper democratic representation whilst on the other hand support the German controlled EU that chooses the governments in desperate southern european countries that had the misfortune to believe the promises regarding the failed euro.
Leo - There is no one state in America which has 85% of its population ! Such a situation does not exist where, in a federal structure, the populations are so uneven as in the UK. the biggest state in Germany (by population not size) is Nordrheinwestphalen with about 20% of the German population. The reason is that a parliament representing 85 % of a country would become too powerfull a competition to the main government (ie. Westminster) - it would also be very expensive. I too agree with PR - however it is a much more expensive political system than what you presently have. Under PR parties have to channel their resources to cover all available seats ie. all votes are equally important. At the moment parties plough all of their resources into so called target seats and can,more or less, forget the others. Under a PR system the Green Party in England would have to contest all seats in the country, and would have to spread their financial resources over the whole country - rather than concentrating their election budget (about 170,000 pounds) on Brighton - which they did successfully at the last election. PR would increase costs for the parties, and, unfortunately also the role of sponsors - to give you a comparison, the election budget of the German Green Party at our last elections here was 4 million Euros.
