4 ms·
0. The United Kingdom shares a border with the Republic of Ireland.
by Symbiote 6y ago
0. The United Kingdom shares a border with the Republic of Ireland.
- rwmj 6y agoAt the moment ... United Ireland will happen within a few years, followed by an independent Scotland rejoining the EU.
- netsharc 6y agoI wonder if the London Wall will be the 20's (as in decade) version of the Berlin Wall, when London decides to join the EU. Or since I've been playing Cyberpunk 2077, they'll have some sort of digital border, and there'll be digital smugglers going back and forth...
- rossjudson 6y agoThis seems quite reasonable to me. I would predict many young people moving to a United Ireland and an independent Scotland so they can regain the freedom the older generations just stole from them.
- enraged_camel 6y agoDumb question: would the UK no longer be the UK at that point?
- mhh__ 6y agoDe jure yes, de facto no (England and Wales is still technically the UK). FWIW, the Tories probably going to be in power for at least another half-decade or two.
- iso947 6y agoWales is a principality. Kingdoms are England Sctland and Wales
- mkl 6y agoIt seems that officially Wales is not a principality, but there also seems to be some disagreement: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/un-report-causes-stir-wales-1906214 https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/un-report-caus...
- Smaug123 6y agoWell, the full name of the country is "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". I imagine in that case it would become "the United Kingdom of Great Britain" and then "the United Kingdom of England and Wales", and would continue to be abbreviated as "UK".
- toyg 6y agoA bit like what the "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" was in 1993-2003, after which they decided to face reality and renamed themselves "Serbia and Montenegro" (and eventually just Serbia after Montenegro left).
- Bayart 6y agoIsn't Wales already part of the Kingdom of England ?
- acjohnson55 6y agoWales was annexed to the Kingdom of England in the middle ages, but the Kingdom of England ceased to exist in 1707, when the United Kingdom was formed. Today, Wales is thought of as a constituent country of the United Kingdom, on par with England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. From a standpoint of the monarchy, it's all one unified realm of The Crown.
- iso947 6y agoThe United Kingdom hasn’t been United for 4 years and hasn’t been a kingdom for nearly 70
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoCould you explain your basis for saying both of those statements?
- mhh__ 6y ago1) Brexit has absolutely split the country 2) The queen has now reigned for 68 years
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago1) "United" refers to the kingdoms being united, not the people. 2) It's still a kingdom, whether a king or queen rules.
- mhh__ 6y agoThe comment was obviously written in jest, so I was playing along.
- acjohnson55 6y agoIt is literally both of those things, even if it might not be within the next decade.
- djmobley 6y agoRegain what freedoms, exactly? The freedom to be undercut in the labour market and priced out of the housing market by uncontrolled immigration from other EU countries?
- reeestandard 6y agoWell it's nice you aren't just blaming the poor immigrants but the rich ones also. Very egalitarian. Neither of which are the main sources of our problems.
- imtringued 6y agoIs this supposed to be some kind of joke? Undercutting by other European nations? The GDP per capita of the EU (37k€) is barely below the GDP per capita of the UK ($44k). Even the typical "boogeyman" countries like Poland have a GDP per capita of $33k. The UK also has a massive "geographic advantage" when it comes to avoiding refugees. The vast majority of refugees do not arrive in the UK first which means the UK can often send them back to Italy or Greece. Seriously, this is just a textbook example of places with little immigration having more xenophobia simply because of lack of experience. People are scared of the unknown and that's all there is. If I was worried about economic undercutting I would be worried about China and other Asian countries because they not only have the advantage in numbers, China is nowadays the go to place for manufacturing even for high quality products. The key aspect is that the quality control is managed by first world economies. For some reason the Chinese are really terrible at creating medium/premium quality brands.
- djmobley 6y agoYou’re using PPP-adjusted figures which distort the picture. The latest wave of migration to the UK has been from Romania, not Poland. I’m not talking about refugees, I’m talking about economic migrants, both skilled and unskilled. In any event, please could you explain to me how adding approx. 3.5m EU nationals to the UK benefits young people? Consider the challenges faced by young people in the UK today, including widespread unemployment and underemployment, and a chronic housing shortage where the supply of housing is virtually fixed.
- riffraff 6y agoDoes NI actually have incentives to unite with the Republic? I mean, with the current agreement they already have special status (no borders) and I think NI people can get Irish Citizeship easily. It sounds "nice" to have a unified Ireland from a purely simplification perspective but I wonder if it's actually a popular idea in NI.
- secondcoming 6y agoIt won't happen any time soon but I think the Unionist population in NI is seeing that the Union isn't what it once was. A United Ireland is a very real possibility, but I doubt Ireland could afford it.
- vr46 6y agoIf Scotland leaves the UK, the NI Unionists will explode. Northern Ireland is closer to Scotland than England both in culture and proximity. Right now, NI citizens have a better deal in the UK than non-NI citizens, so they might not see the need to join the Republic, but watch this space, right?
- acjohnson55 6y agoIt gets interesting if Scotland joins the EU. That would leave NI rather isolated. I'm a complete outsider, but it's hard for me to imagine a United Ireland. I can imagine an independent NI, with special relationships with the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, and what's left of the UK. And independent NI isn't a tiny country, by European standards.
- riffraff 6y ago> independent NI isn't a tiny country, by European standards. At 1.8M people, it would be larger than Cyprus, Malta and Luxemburg, so yeah. It is an interesting possibility, but would it make any sense? People who want a united Ireland wouldn't like it, and people who want it part of the UK wouldn't either. Both may like it more than the opposite alternative though.
- peteretep 6y ago> United Ireland will happen within a few years Is it that time when we pretend that the barrier to a United Ireland is somehow British intransigence rather than Northern Irish sectarianism?
- brmgb 6y ago> Northern Irish sectarianism? Unfortunately for sectarists in Northern Ireland, catholics have more children there. A quick glance at the declared religion by age will tell you all you need to know. Catholics will soon outnumber protestants in Northern Irland. From there unification seems unavoidable.
- peteretep 6y ago> will soon I feel like I’ve been hearing this for most of the last 40 years and it’s still not come to pass.
- brmgb 6y agoAt the 1981 census, there were 900000 protestants for 400000 catholics. At the 2011 one 752000 protestants for 738000 catholics. One curve is steadily going up while the other trends down.
- galvin 6y agoOutside of the population changes the republicans also seem to be gaining popular support for their progressive agenda. Their positions on issues like marriage equality and women's rights make them more aligned with younger voters than the unionists. For those who are not familiar, in the Irish context republicans are republican in the sense that they want to reunify the Republic of Ireland, unlike the US GOP they are largely democratic socialist.
- mhh__ 6y agoTrue, I was thinking about trade specifically (England->France absolutely dwarves the value of trade across the Irish border)
- acjohnson55 6y agoThe Ireland issue isn't about trade. There are far more significant cross-border relationships on the Irish border. Many people on both sides of the border think of it as one nation, which currently happens to be divided between two countries.