Basic question is touched on here but not expanded. “Independence for whom?”

http://www.hyam.net/blogs/pr.html

Self determination is all well and good, but just who decides what area gets a vote. Cornwall is not a country, but a county. Presumably on this kind of idea you will hold separate votes in each Scottish county and only those counties which wish to leave the union (and of course also the European Union as it’s the UK which is a memeber of the EU) will do so. But then maybe some of those counties might want independence from each other as well! What a glorious mess and all in the name of self determination. The city state beckons once again…

It is interesting that Cornwall is mentioned as an English county however Cornwall in fact has similar rights to self determination as England, Scotland and Wales have and as you may know Mebyon Kernow campaigns for Cornish independence. Prince Charles uses the income from the Duchy of Cornwall to maintain a lavish lifestyle for him but in fact Cornwall could use their own money to fund their own Government (they already have the right to their own parliament) the Stannary parliament.

What Cornwall does not have a right to, nor does England is a vote on whether Scotland should leave Britain or the UK. That is up to Scotland to decide under international law.

Scotland and Wales rights to self determination have been grudgingly almost recognised by the establishment of devolved assemblies but these assemblies have thrown up constitutional anomalies which will only be solved by independence for Scotland, Wales and England.

It is a shame but I think some people in the English democracy movement still retain an imperial mindset which is why they are unwilling to discuss Cornwall’s rights and seem to believe that they have some choice over Scotland’s future destiny.

The point of self determination is that the people in the country concerned themselves decide. Therefore England or Scotland or Wales could decide to break up the union but none have the right to force another country to remain within it.

Current polling in Scotland and Wales suggests both countries wll vote for independence soon. If England wants to hasten this process they should support our rights to self determination.

However self determination is a principle and it cannot be removed from Cornwall if they decided to vote to leave England.

I still do not see why Spain should have a say in Catalonia’s independence or England in Scotland’s. I guess that’s down to a difference of opinion that is unresolveable.

I said that those who are attempting to force the EU constitution, want an EU wide referendum, they are taking the view that the EU is one entity and the peoples are one people, The fact is that this ignores the present agreements in the Treaties agreed by the Nation states, that each would have a veto on treaty change, does not seem to bother them. They are looking for a way to create the nation state of the European Union, their argument is that as we are all EU citizens we should all be counted as one people.

The reverse argument is applied to Scotish independence, even though we have been one United Kingdom for three hundred years.

I disagree with both arguments because the EU is not a nation state in its own right with its own demos and because Britain is.

At present the British parliament is sovereign in that it, without reference to any outside authority, has the final say in all matters, it could choose to repeal the 1972 act of accession to the EU and at a stroke we would no longer be members of the EU, however all the laws pertaining to that membership would still be in force because they were passed into British law by the British parliament.

But if we move down the road a few years and assume that the EU Constitution has been ratified, this situation is changed because the EU Constitution is the base for forming a state, it contains an exit clause, which sets out the present agreed method for leaving the EU, and that does require an input from the other member states. (none of the previous treaties needed such a clause because they were agreement between National states which obviously have sovereignty)

As the EU constitution also includes clauses that allow change to the EU Constitution itself without recourse to either the states parliaments or the states people, there is nothing to prevent a future Tony Blair or John Major for that matter, agreeing to the tightening of the exit rules.

The EU is building a nation state by removing sovereignty from the member nation states, we have already seen how this works, in practice in those areas where there is EU competence/authority/ power, the nation state government must agree changes at an EU level.

Back in 1971 the home office produced a report that envisioned the eventual prospect of Britain loosing is final sovereignty and would then no longer be able to leave the EU, but the report suggested this would not happen for many years, certainly not until the end of the century, that is the twentieth century! so we are already in extra time.

A support for independence for England is a personal position.

Ken, From your position it seems to me that you think if the UK wanted to leave the EU is ought to have to have the permission of France, Germany etc.?

If not then the logical conclusion should be that Scotland should be allowed to choose for herself whether she is ruled from London whether it is democratic (from their point of view) or not.

So that leaves the question, if Devon suddenly struck rich in the black gold could they demand independence to try to keep it all for themselves, without the rest of the UK or even England having a say?

Gav, I am not against a CEP but I don’t think the problems mentioned by Ken are the justification on their own because it would be relatively simple to redress the unfairness Labour has introduced without splitting up the country.
An EP is a more fundamental question of who are we, do we have a distinct identity and culture that requires unique representation, years ago I would have said yes, but after 40 years of mass immigration I’m not so sure..