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Cruachan

Jigsaw Britain

Worth a look.  Access through the Our Kingdom website.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog...an/2009/05/07/breaking-up-britain
Dave Coull

I clicked on that link. It was taking forever, with no sign of it ever connecting. What is it?
agentmancuso

Same here.
Holebender

It's basically a link to this. http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/books/ar...Breaking_up_Britain_Perrryman.pdf
Dave Coull

Holebender wrote:
It's basically a link to this. http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/books/ar...Breaking_up_Britain_Perrryman.pdf
Okay. I have now read "A Jigsaw State" by Mark Perryman, and I have to say that it is very good reading. "Though the British Kingdom unites a surprising number of countries and cultures, ranging from Wales to the micro-nations of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, its backbone remains the link with Scotland. Once that link is broken, Britain no longer exists. After Britain, England. We may very well have to await that rupture to imagine England as a nation. But it would be better, much better, if England was preparing to be an active part of the break-up, rather than a rather reluctant product of it." Written from an English perspective, but welcoming the break-up of the United Kingdom, not, as right-wing English Nationalists do, to be rid of "sponging Jocks", but as an opportunity for a new radicalism in all parts of the former-UK. While acknowledging the poisonous influence of the far right, the article also points out the potential for a more healthy form of English cultural nationalism, one which is itself multi-cultural. Also, I think Mark Perryman is right about the television series "The Devil's Whore". When I first started watching that, I didn't have high hopes. I thought I might give up on it after the first episode. The sensationalist title seemed to link sex and satanism. But what it turned out to be (as well as having both sex and somebody thinking they'd seen the devil  -  both things that did actually happen, remember) was the most historically-accurate dramatisation of the Civil War period IN ENGLAND that I have ever seen. Instead of the usual jolly Cavaliers versus dour Roundheads rubbish, we got the wild explosion of revolutionary ideas, the advocacy (and practice) of free love, and the levelling actions that really did happen.

Mark Perryman's attempt to link radical English history and present-day multi-culturalism may only be partly successful, but, nevertheless, it is far more exciting than the ugly forms of English Nationalism with which we are more familiar. English radicals who welcome the break-up of Britain for positive reasons are our natural allies down south.
Cruachan

Sorry if the link was not easy to access. Embarassed

I liked his references to certain strands of music in the last 30 years.
I think his point about the importance of progressive interests in England and the UK state preparing itself for the coming independence of Scotland is highly relevant.

Apart from the social shock of a Yes vote (perhaps felt in Scotland as well as England and Wales), the unionist political machines and civil service in Whitehall would have to do some pretty fast work to catch up and adjust to the new reality.

Unless of course there is already a blue print sitting in a drawer somewhere in Murphy's desk!   Civil servants do think pieces and scenario planning all the time.  Perhaps somewhere in the bowels of Whitehall there is a set of redline issues for the negotiation team of an emerging EWNI state.

But what is missing - other than still fairly marginal campaigns for an English Parliament - is a serious mainstream movement within or outwith political parties to imagine an England after Britain, or to debate the practical policies and governance implications of such momentous change.

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