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Joe Middleton
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Welsh and Scots are going to break up BritainJoseph Peter Middleton
Edinburgh
Scotland
31/07/2006
Dear Editor (all papers),
England has treated Wales with contempt for far too long. Not only are the British Government still refusing Wales a Scottish level of devolutionary powers but suddenly Wales requires a further 'are you sure' referendum if such a decision is made in the future!
The new Welsh 'adjusted devolution' bill offers slightly more powers but with a very disturbing caveat, Labour have fixed the PR system for Wales to improve their own chances!
Suddenly no candidate will be allowed to stand in both the list and FPTP elements, thereby avoiding a fair fight between Labour and Plaid Cymru. Expect this for Scotland next school term unless we take urgent action.
The very idea that somehow Wales deserves less powers than Scotland is completely absurd. Like Scotland, Wales is a nation and she has the same rights under international law to independence that Scotland has.
Thankfully it now looks like Wales is going to deliver her own answer to the devolution question! A poll a few days ago by a Welsh Sunday paper shows an absolute majority for independence of 52%! This follows a whole series of polls showing similar results in Scotland.
As the British imperialist state looks like drawing to a close, it is now perhaps appropriate to consider what it actually was.
The British Empire could be easily likened to a Vampire. It has survived by literally sucking the lifes blood and resources of other countries who it 'colonised' or more accurately 'controlled' through it's past military might. Luckily most have seem through it's disguises and have forcably (and democratically) rejected it's advances.
In reality the Empire is stone dead however it survives as an invisible phantom in the imagination of our Prime Minister King Tony the first and his royal courtiers whose powers he upsurps to award his wee rich cronies with blood stained 'honours' and membership to an absurd fraternity of British imperial fantasists. Who really wants to me a member of a non-existant empire?
Perhaps the sobriquet 'Sir' should stand for Still Insane Really!
England as a country has sucked billions of oil from Scotland while claiming, in Orwellian fashion, that Scotland is actually bleeding it dry. This lie is repeated so often that even the English themselves now appear to believe it along with the more gullible of our fellow Scots.
In truth Wales and Scotland are rich nations with a valuable and distinctive contribution to make to the world as free and independent sovereign states. No matter how many drug filled crumbs are thrown in our direction and no matter how many lies are told, we have the absolute right to rule ourselves.
Britain will find that out next year. A stake will be driven through it's heart and England will emerge to equality with it's brother nations and the reality of the normality that all deserve but none need to surpass.
Blair and Cameron offer a future hanging onto America's new bloody imperial coat tails, that is no realistic future for anyone and we need to end their control over Scotland to stop it. There is one sure way to stop English Conservatism and pseudo Conservatism and that way is independence.
Both Scotland and Wales are wakening up to that easy option no matter how much our respective 'national' papers avoid it.
Yours faithfully,
JOE MIDDLETON
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Morph
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Is it not moreBritain as a whole you mean here not England. I dont feel its fair to blame the whole Empire on the English. In a Scottish context cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh did very well out of Colonial conquests as im sure did Wales.
I do agree however that Scotland needs to make sure that the oil we have is not used by the British Government in the same light which the Welsh coal was earlier in the 20th century.
I hope this causes England to "get rid of us" so we can have our oil back, it would be one of the best ways towards independance IMO
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Joe Middleton
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| Morph wrote: | Is it not moreBritain as a whole you mean here not England. I dont feel its fair to blame the whole Empire on the English. In a Scottish context cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh did very well out of Colonial conquests as im sure did Wales.
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I disagree. Some Scottish cities might have got some nice buildings out of the Empire but most ordinary Scots were dirt poor at the beginning and just as dirt poor at the end. In reality we were effectively colonised ourselves. The same goes for Wales in fact it is even more obvious in their case as Wales was actually physically conquered rather than in our case taken over by bribery and the threat of force.
We attempted to set up our own colonies, we failed because 'our' king did not represent our interests, he represented the interests of England.
We don't know how we would have run our own colonial expansion, if it had happened but there is no reason to imagine it would have been as xenophobic as England's. We made friends with the local tribes at Panama. We didn't wipe them out.
Ok so our troops provided cannon fodder at the sharp end, but they didn't decide what battles to fight. We should realise that we were mostly NOT 'glorious participants' but part of the hoards of the oppressed. Some of our population will have got rich quick but most did not.
Britain ie England and England's parliament ie Westminster attempted to rename our country North Britain but they didn't try and rename England, that shows where the power lay in Britain in it's early days and still does to this day, and still will until we leave it.
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SLG
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Re: Welsh and Scots are going to break up Britain | Joe Middleton wrote: | | The very idea that somehow Wales deserves less powers than Scotland is completely absurd. Like Scotland, Wales is a nation and she has the same rights under international law to independence that Scotland has. |
Yes, the rights are there, the people just need to claim them. There are obsacles, but if the people want it to happen, it will.
| Quote: | | Thankfully it now looks like Wales is going to deliver her own answer to the devolution question! A poll a few days ago by a Welsh Sunday paper shows an absolute majority for independence of 52%! This follows a whole series of polls showing similar results in Scotland. |
Let's hope that they go out and vote for it then. I'd imagine that about half of that 52% will continue to vote for Unionist Labour though.
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Anthropos
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| Joe Middleton wrote: | | Morph wrote: | Is it not moreBritain as a whole you mean here not England. I dont feel its fair to blame the whole Empire on the English. In a Scottish context cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh did very well out of Colonial conquests as im sure did Wales.
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I disagree. Some Scottish cities might have got some nice buildings out of the Empire but most ordinary Scots were dirt poor at the beginning and just as dirt poor at the end. |
Factually inaccurate, real wages for the population (including the poorest) rose during the period in question. The Scottish economy depended upon the British Empire to a much greater degree than the English economy did.
The rest of your points are also ridiculously biased way past the point of absurdity:
| Joe Middleton wrote: | | We attempted to set up our own colonies, we failed because 'our' king did not represent our interests, he represented the interests of England. |
It woz the dastardly English wot done it guv - The Darien scheme was a risky gamble to try and get in on the lucrative Far East trade routes, and it didn’t pay off. I fail to see what the king could have done about it. It did however demonstrate Scottish business acumen.
| Joe Middleton wrote: | | We don't know how we would have run our own colonial expansion, if it had happened but there is no reason to imagine it would have been as xenophobic as England's. |
Based on what, your delusions of Caledonian superiority? What evidence is there to indicate that Scottish imperialism would have been greatly different from European imperialism generally?
| Joe Middleton wrote: | | We made friends with the local tribes at Panama. We didn't wipe them out. |
You won’t find too much evidence that Scots in the colonial service treated the natives any better than the English did.
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Aventinian
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Re: Welsh and Scots are going to break up Britain | Joe Middleton wrote: | | England has treated Wales with contempt for far too long. Not only are the British Government still refusing Wales a Scottish level of devolutionary powers but suddenly Wales requires a further 'are you sure' referendum if such a decision is made in the future! |
Well even if you believe in that sort skewed democracy then surely you must also accept that, if the present powers were granted by referendum, any significant change to the structure of the assembly must also be done by referendum. Seems consistant.
| Quote: | | The new Welsh 'adjusted devolution' bill offers slightly more powers but with a very disturbing caveat, Labour have fixed the PR system for Wales to improve their own chances! |
Well they've done that in Scotland too - and they'd probably have more seats with FPTP. So evidently they're not doing it simply for that reason.
| Quote: | | The very idea that somehow Wales deserves less powers than Scotland is completely absurd. Like Scotland, Wales is a nation and she has the same rights under international law to independence that Scotland has. |
A nation is a useless description. I don't think any people have any automatic right to any collective democratic powers. Their only legitimate use is to make more effective local government and to act as a check on the power of higher levels of government.
| Quote: | | Thankfully it now looks like Wales is going to deliver her own answer to the devolution question! A poll a few days ago by a Welsh Sunday paper shows an absolute majority for independence of 52%! This follows a whole series of polls showing similar results in Scotland. |
Hahahahahahaha.
Yes, Wales will be issuing a declaration of independence in days!
My arse it will.
| Quote: | | The British Empire could be easily likened to a Vampire. It has survived by literally sucking the lifes blood and resources of other countries who it 'colonised' or more accurately 'controlled' through it's past military might. Luckily most have seem through it's disguises and have forcably (and democratically) rejected it's advances. |
The vast majority of British possessions were not taken by force. It was also by far the empire which gave the most back to its colonial citizens out of all the empires in history. Indeed, a lot of former colonies would be in a far better state had Britain not pulled out.
Anyway, the only parts of the British Isles that have ever been 'the British Empire' are the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have only ever been part of a unitary British state and have all elected members to the UK Parliament.
| Quote: | | England as a country has sucked billions of oil from Scotland while claiming, in Orwellian fashion, that Scotland is actually bleeding it dry. This lie is repeated so often that even the English themselves now appear to believe it along with the more gullible of our fellow Scots. |
Yawn. Same old. I doubt you feel equally like a thief for taking the oil off of the city of Aberdeen.
| Quote: | | In truth Wales and Scotland are rich nations with a valuable and distinctive contribution to make to the world as free and independent sovereign states |
Yes, they do have valuable contributions to make, and if it wasn't for the British Empire, the ideas of the great Enlightenment figures of Scotland would never have been heard and would never have influenced the world.
Anyway, I'm sure every newspaper jobsworth has thrown your letter into the 'lunatic pile' by now. And yes, they all have one...
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Aventinian
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| Joe Middleton wrote: | | I disagree. Some Scottish cities might have got some nice buildings out of the Empire but most ordinary Scots were dirt poor at the beginning and just as dirt poor at the end. In reality we were effectively colonised ourselves. The same goes for Wales in fact it is even more obvious in their case as Wales was actually physically conquered rather than in our case taken over by bribery and the threat of force. |
Dirt poor at the end? At the fall of the British Empire, Scotland was a major economic power in itself. Even today, the people who you would count as 'the poor' live in styles that would put Roman emperors to shame.
If anything, the poor suffer from having too much rather than too little today. Which is something which must be addressed in a completely different fashion.
| Quote: | | We don't know how we would have run our own colonial expansion, if it had happened but there is no reason to imagine it would have been as xenophobic as England's. We made friends with the local tribes at Panama. We didn't wipe them out. |
We did run an empire - the British one. And I don't believe it was particularly xenophobic. It had a great deal of respect for many native cultures.
| Quote: | | Britain ie England and England's parliament ie Westminster attempted to rename our country North Britain but they didn't try and rename England, that shows where the power lay in Britain in it's early days and still does to this day, and still will until we leave it. |
Please. It's this sort of petty racism that is the problem with the world today. It is not 'England's parliament' it is the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
And yes, North Britain. That was simply a descriptive term - and one often associated with Northern England too, eg in the name of the Northern Department of the UK Government. I doubt anyone intended to have a situation whereby there was a 'North Britain' and 'England'. That'd be ridiculous.
Anyway, your oppression rhetoric is boring. You were born in a free country, and arguably the best country in the world. You can travel anywhere and do anything free of restriction. Yet surprisingly enough I doubt you appreciate it one bit.
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Morph
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The difference here Aventinian, is that the City of Aberdeen is within the borders of Scotland. And before you say its within the borders of the UK, the English can quite happily call scotland seperate when they are accussing us of scrounging therefore they can be seen as seperate.
| Quote: | | We don't know how we would have run our own colonial expansion, if it had happened but there is no reason to imagine it would have been as xenophobic as England's |
This isnt true, we have no idea that the Scottish would have been any better masters than the English and to be true it doesnt really matter it is still enslaving other nations and taking their produce to benefit the 'mother country'. Do you think that the indians would have been better off under a Scottish rule than a British?? I think not we could have been just as brutal. I think its very unfair to paint the picture of a loving Scottish empire and a Horrible British (English) Empire wehen all colonial exploits are wrong in the first place.
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Theresa
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Joe,
Your letter is absolutely great! Very bold move on your part.
I know how the U.S. is currently ssen, but please keep in mind that not all Americans are bloody imperialists. . .
Aventinian wrote:
Oh dear. How unseemly to visualize THAT.
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Cado
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For some reason there is often this desire to rewrite history - especially with Nationalist causes. This is wrong - because it bases the whole justification for 'Nationalism' on the wrongs of the past rather than hope for the future. Whats happened has happened - no 'Nationalist' movement IMO should base itself on the past - this just makes things negative. What people want is a better tomorrow, this feeling that we can do better.
Exploring the past is always interesting and a good education - it helps us understand why we are who we are today, people haven't changed THAT much - so there may be many relevent lessons to be learnt from the past. It should be an academic interest is what I'm saying, thereafter just focus on and look to the future. Give people something to aim at and look forward to - this keeps everyone in a positive frame of mind and things bear a better chance of success - also it riles less people because we aren't deriving our reasoning for doing what we're doing on the alledged injustices of others.
If Wales wants to go further - those within the Nationalist movement within Wales need to look within Wales to the people there - and sell it to them.
Discussion is always good - but Scottish Nationalists can't really be expected to deliver results for anyone else other than Scots. Its not us Welsh Nationalists need to focus on convincing - its their own people, since they're the ones with the vote.
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Avatar
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"For some reason there is often this desire to rewrite history - especially with Nationalist causes. This is wrong - because it bases the whole justification for 'Nationalism' on the wrongs of the past rather than hope for the future. Whats happened has happened - no 'Nationalist' movement IMO should base itself on the past - this just makes things negative. What people want is a better tomorrow, this feeling that we can do better. "
I completely agree with you - we should look to the future not dwell on the past - sure learn lessons from history, but if we always look backwards we arent going to get very far.
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