Vocal Voices

So says Gordon Brown, and it is hard to argue against what he says as things stand.

There is mistrust between the the devolved nations and Westminster, between the regions and Westminster, and between the peoples of those places and Westminster. Covid. or so it would appear, has served to bring all the seething resentment to the fore.

There has been an undercurrent of such feelings for decades and it is hard to put a date on it's start or which event or events were the catalyst(s), but the sentiments have always been bubbling under, so it is not completely new.

What is true is that we are now at each other's throats like never before, certainly not in my time on Earth.

Brown would like us to become a federal state (many variations exist), and it has its positives, but it also risks pitting region against region, certainly in England, and that is not likely to bring us together.

I don't know what the answer is, or if there is one, but we do need to move a lot of the day-to-day stuff out of Westminster as a start.

A Federal UK has been mooted before but Labour never did anything about it when they were in power, just started us off on this devolution mess that we are in now.

I think as far as Scotland is concerned they will become independent. If the party that continues to win power in Scotland has independence as its number one aim that's a strong indicator but also the fact that many people in England don't actually care about the union any more is an even bigger one.
It would sadden me if the union were to break up - we have a lot of common history - but I don't think that goes for most people in England any more.

People see Nicola Sturgeon as Scotland; and if that image is one of someone who is always complaining and moaning and groaning then an awful lot of people south of the border will be only too happy for Scotland to become independent, just to see the back of Sturgeon and an end to the boorish behaviour of SNP MP's in the House of Commons.

Yes, things have become very antagonistic and I don't think there is any way back from it as far as the union is concerned.

One of Sturgeon's latest tactics is to have a 'local referendum' to ask if a legally binding referendum should be held:

Q. Should Scotland ask for another Independence referendum? Yes / No.

The answer would carry some weight, and if it was "Yes" it would be hard to go against. Like it or not, it's clever.

Eventually these things will break up the UK.

Covid hit at a particularly inopportune time. Or very opportune if it was not an accident.

It struck at a time when the UK is torn in half over Brexit, when there still remains seething resentment over indyref and where devolved nationalism is on the rise all over the UK.

If you think Brexit was bad, families in Scotland are torn right down the middle over Indyref and none of the wounds have healed with time. Pour the petrol of covid on top of those wounds and add the press, determined to dislike Johnson, making him a hated figure in Scotland and you have a powder keg, sitting in the middle of a lake of fuel, with a slow burning fuse.

Just like the "scientists" determined to scare everyone into their view of Covid submission, causing knee jerk reactions around the world to block the UK off, the press, determined to score points off a fairly impulsive PM, is tearing the UK to pieces. Not helped by the fact that the very English editors of UK newspapers are totally clueless as to how their vitriol about Westminster goes down in Scotland.

Johnson is more hated in Scotland than Thatcher, by a long way and he hasn't done a single thing to them. He just happens to be holding the reins when the eventual drive of horse and carriages off the edge of the cliff happened. No I don't care if he asked for it, I'm just commenting on how stupid the whole viewpoint is.

Add into it a sharp, ruthless and totally driven First Minister in Scotland, aided and abetted by a Scottish press who won't do anything to make her look bad in front of Johnson and you have a real constitutional crisis in the making.

I don't know when I have ever seen a more bloody minded set of country wreckers at the helm of the country. The 1970's Labour government seems to be running second place in my mind and I would have bet everything I had, could borrow, beg, or steal, that this would never happen!

That's sad Suff, especially the bit about families. When the margins are a few percent either way on big issues, I suppose there are always going to be some very upset and resentful losers, no matter which way the result goes.
I did wonder why Johnson was so unpopular in Scotland, especially as compared to some in the past he's not really done much to upset them.
I suppose this is just going to drag on and on, getting nastier as it goes.

Actually it's probably going to come to a head pretty quickly. There is a Holyrood election coming up.

If the SNP win it with 60% or more they are going to go for a vote in the parliament to have a referendum. Then they are going to take that vote and demand a referendum from Westminster. Another 6 months and it will be round 2.

Whether it is a Yes or not is too close for me to call. However I will tell you this. Mrs S was grumbling on about Indyref2 and I reminded her that Sturgeon is determined to jump right back into the EU and, right now, post Brexit, I suspect the EU might be only too happy to oblige given how Brexit went. Then Mrs S would be an EU citizen again, all problems solved. She was seriously tempted and she is staunch NO!!!

I think we are going to have a huge re-shaping of society in general over the next few years; Covid has only brought it to a head. Breaking up the UK will only be part of it.

We have perhaps been very lucky that we've had relative stability in our lives compared with what our parents and grandparents faced - we should be thankful for that. But it's now up to the next generations to shape their own future, for good or ill.

I was so joyful when the UK broke away from the European Union but I feel incredibly sad at the thought that the UK could break up. Whatever happened to united we stand divided we fall.

We stopped having wars and everyone forgot.

I would love to blame Brexit, the disaster that keeps on giving, but I can't. The break up of the UK has been on the cards for many a year due to the London centric actions of all governments past. London became a black hole sucking the life blood out of the rest of the country.

Once the UK (England) became a service driven economy (banking, finance, insurance, tourism) most of the infrastructure spend went there. Manufacturing, and the cities and regions that once provided it, became superfluous to requirements.

It's comparatively cheap and easy to open an office block with hundreds of terminals and people shuffling paper compared to a manufacturing plant making things. And, of course, head office has to be in London, the centre of the economic universe.

The chickens have now come home.....working from home has shown that. You can shuffle paper in the spare bedroom, but you can't build the latest technology there - you need a factory.