Blair warns against Scottish independence

[FVZA_Colonel]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070116/wl_uk_afp/britainpolitics_070116191050



Blair warns against Scottish independence
By Lachlan Carmichael

LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair has warned against any bid to break Britain apart, saying it would be "a crazy" step 300 years after Scotland and England united.

Blair's warning Tuesday came as the Scottish National Party (SNP) used the anniversary of their union to launch a fresh drive for independence, while some opinion polls suggested a majority of Scots and English want to separate.

Speaking at his monthly press conference, Blair said Britons should celebrate "with pride" Tuesday's tercentenary of the merger of the Scottish and English parliaments.

"In commerce, in trade, in security and above all in shared values, the union of England and Scotland continues to be good for England, good for Scotland and right for the future of Britain," Blair said.

[LittleClarkie]

1. FREEDOM!

Where's William Wallace when you need him?

[OKthatsIT]

24. LOL...what's Blair gonna do? Send the SAS over Hadrians Wall?

...All Scotland has to do is sound the alarm...and all the Scots(100-200 million?) from all over the world will swoop down on Blair's Orweillian Mafia!

Tell the Queen not to worry...she can still stay at her favorite estate...just as long as she stays out of our business!

[Cha]

29. Good Luck! I love all things

Scottish and if Scotland wants independence from England then they should have it. What's toady blur gonna do about it?

I wonder how The Proclaimers, Charlie and Craig, want? :)

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Damned Scottish terrorists. Can't keep'em down. n/t

[maddogesq]

14. You best be careful.

The goons watched that movie too, and they would like to stretch a few of us down Gitmo way. :)

[no_hypocrisy]

18. LOL. Taking on the Scots would require a greater fool than * to

take yeh on.

[SmokingJacket]

3. Then Wales, then the Isle of Man...

Cornwall... whee!!

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Then Bavaria, then the Basque country, ...

A Europe of the Regions could yet happen, although I don't suppose it's really likely.

[roamer65]

16. Under the umbrella of the eurozone...

...it very well could and very little harm would come of it.

[DavidDvorkin]

28. Indeed

The original reason for the existence of the larger European countries no longer exists. Those unions, whether peaceful and voluntary or not, came about as the result of rivalry and jockeying for power.

[dipsydoodle]

11. Don't forget

The Isle of Wight. :rofl:

[Chulanowa]

5. Death throes of the empire?

I say go for it :)

[Toucano]

6. Scotland and England united? Talk about your shotgun weddings!

How very English to consider your conquest of a people a "union"!

Is that like when the United States and the Native Americans united?

[Cha]

30. Yeah, just ask the

Cherokee. :(

[Celefin]

35. Culloden

Some kind of Union indeed...

after 1707 came 1746 and the Jacobite Rising.
And with it the Battle of Culloden, one of the bloodiest and
darkest moments in Scottish history where the last army of
clansmen was slaughtered.
And after that the rest of the countryside.
(I know this is a very crude recount, please forgive me the lack of datail)

Well... Blair has done his own bit of liberating and allying already.
A fine tradition.

[Blue_Tires]

36. welcome to the site!!

[Celefin]

38. Thank you very much ; ) -nt-

...

[Demit]

7. Uh-oh. Time to outlaw plaids and the Scots language again.

No Laphroiag for YOU, Tony.

[monmouth]

8. Where the hell is Ireland on this one?? My grandmother and mother

groused for years.... I used to sort of admire Blair, maybe because when he spoke, compared to Chimpy, he seemed sane along with being articulate. Going to e-mail the cousins in Dublin and get their thoughts. Will cut and paste them here if too many curses, threats are not involved...LOL.

[EndElectoral]

9. Maybe they should seperate...after Blair's Iraq policy....

[Alexander]

10. Aren't Blair and Gordon Brown both from Edinburgh?

Although I'm sure Teflon Tony has passed himself off as English, I believe Brown's constituency is in Scotland. What does this mean for Brown, if Scotland is declared independent before he moves into 10 Downing?

Can any UK DUers fill me in?

[nelbert]

12. It's Blairs fault

Yes Blair is from Edinburgh and Gordon is from Fife (which is just north of Edinburgh), but Blair has managed to pretend he's English.

What Blair and Brown can't seem to realise is that it is their policies that have driven a lot of us here in Scotland to consider voting SNP. We had 17 years of evil Thatcherism forced upon us by England and now we've basically had 10 years of Blair and his right wing policies and warmongering - and we've had enough.

I'm not exactly sure what it will mean for Gordon but whatever it is it will be very uncomfortable for him which is a good thing.

[Alexander]

13. I'm surprised there aren't more Lib Dems up in Scotland, then.

Since you seem to be from there, why does the backlash against Thatcher and Blair translate into support for Scottish independence? I'm sure Scotland's had to put up with some bad PMs before, and AFAIK it didn't create a much stronger desire to break away.

I guess I'm curious as to why Scotland didn't vote Lib Dem, like most others disgusted with both the Tories and Blair.

[nelbert]

17. The Lib Dems have

effectively been keeping Labour in power in The Scottish Parliament. I voted Lib Dem last time but could not understand why they maintained the coalition with Labour (the war party) up here while being anti-war at Westminster. I also think there is probably more chance of removing Labour by voting SNP.

But if the SNP do form the next Scottish government it won't mean automatic independence - they will hold a referendum - so I expect a lot of people will vote SNP as a way of sending Labour a message rather than a desire for full independence.

[Henny Penny]

21. Its time you grapsed the thistle up there!!

I don't know why you didn't do it back in the 70s when you had all that oil! What a wasted opportunity.

[nelbert]

22. Yes

we probably should have.

I was quite young at the time but i seem to remember that Gerald Ford got involved telling the UK PM (Heath i think) that it would be a bad idea to let the oil come under the control of the SNP.

[roamer65]

15. Dang str8 its Bliars fault

Thatcher and Bliar have trashed both mainstream parties, therefore the only recourse for the Scots is to vote for the SNP. It would send a heck of a message to Westminster. I suspect an independent Scotland would become a Eurozone country, using the euro instead of the pound.

[ozone_man]

19. Good luck should the independence movement get legs.

Being of Scottish descent, I've always longed for an independent Scotland, but I respect your decision either way.

[nelbert]

20. It could happen

under the right circumstances , for instance -

- Labour are only in power in Westminster because of the Labour MPs elected in Scotland and Wales. If it was a purely English election the Tories would have won.

- There is increasing resentment in England that Scottish MPs can vote on issues such as health and education at Westminster but in Scotland health and education are controlled by the Scottish Parliament (in which English MPs have no vote)

- The right wing media are becoming increasingly vocal about the number of Scots that are running the country (Blair,Brown,John Reid,Alistair Darling et al) , they are calling it the Scottish Raj.

- The same right wing media are also complaining about the amount of money per head of population that Scotland receives compared to England.

So you never know it may just happen.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. No, Labour MPs are in a majority in England too

though they achieved that with less votes than the Tories got in England - the joys of the First Past the Post system.

Conservative 194 seats; 36.67% of seats; 35.74% of vote
Labour 286 seats; 54.06% of seats; 35.46% of vote

http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/ge05/seats.htm

The imbalance in English seats isn't that much better than that in the overall UK seats (for which Labour got 54.95% of the seats, 35.19% of the vote).

[Slyder]

32. My Jacobite ancestors

were forced to flee Scotland for Ireland and then Pennsylvania after Bonnie Prince Charlie's unpleasantness. It is time American Jacobite Scots to stand up and demand that England give Scotland back to the Scots! The real King of Scotland is Francis II of the House of Wittelsbach, if one looks at the true heirs of the Stuart kings. See this site for more information:

http://www.jacobite.ca/index.htm

The present royal family of England overstepped itself back in the 800s when the Kings of Wessex falsely laid claim to all England. Mercia, Wessex, Northumberland, and all the other English states should go back to the way things ought to be, and apply for membership in the EU separately. But what to do with Wales? Wales is always a problem! Come to think of it, things started to go wrong when the Roman emperor Claudius conquered southern Britain!

Tony is probably right. Remember: Scotland actually absorbed England and not the other way around when James IV of Scotland became James I of Great Britain in 1603. It would be for England to separate itself from Scotland and not the other way around!

[Slyder]

33. Oops!

Make that James the VI of Scotland. Before I get flamed!

[Cha]

31. Wow! First I heard that blair was

a Scot from Edinburgh..did he get rid of his accent or does he still have it? Cause I don't listen to the liar bastid.

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. He spent most of his childhood in England, but was born in Edinburgh

He was born in May 1953 in Edinburgh, and grew up the middle child of three, with an elder brother and a younger sister. His father Leo was the illegitimate son of music hall artistes and had been fostered by a left-wing Glaswegian family. Leo Blair had been a Communist in his youth and had risen to the rank of major in the army during the war. At the time of his second son's birth, he was a tax inspector, although he was studying for a doctorate in law and was soon to become a law lecturer, and his politics were Tory. The mother of the future prime minister, Hazel, was a housewife, the daughter of a Protestant farming family from Northern Ireland, with what one family friend called 'a deep social conscience'. The family moved from Edinburgh to Glasgow and then to Adelaide in Australia as Leo Blair pursued his career, eventually settling in Durham when he got a job as a lecturer at the university there. They were well off — both Tony and his brother William were sent to a private prep school and then as boarders to Fettes, the elite public school in Edinburgh.

http://www.granta.com/books/chapters/31

You'd probably expect him to have a slight Geordie accent, growing up in Durham.

[Cha]

42. Thanks! Yeah, usually where you

grow up is what the accent is.

[IndianaGreen]

23. What's Blair gonna do, bomb Scotland?

This was a shotgun wedding anyway!

[Dean Martin]

25. Hey, don't put ideas into Blair's head!

One of his stooges might me reading this, you never know!

[hedgehog]

27. Don't you see - this is Blair's brilliant scheme for withdrawing troops

from Iraq! "Got to bring them home George, to keep things quiet on the border!"

[gorbal]

34. Tony Blair stands by his decision on the war in Iraq

I don't think I would take his word on what is "Crazy". They probably see how great Ireland is doing after independence from the "weighed tied to their shoe" which was Great Britain.

[xchrom]

39. lol -- oh blair you fuckin drama queen.

like how much is really gonna be different should scotland gain teh right to self determination?

as you already pointed in business and economics the Countries are already very close -- and independence won't change that.

what MIGHT change -- is that the scots will be able to bring to bear their own productive minds to solve problems that are -- well -- scottish.

scotish development, scottish umemployment, sctottish environmental concerns, etc.

you might even see{you probably would} another tiger, this time scottish -- and how bad would that be?

[gorbal]

40. Pretty good

The Scots don't need the English to babysit them, they can run their own house.

[theHandpuppet]

41. Check out some of the Scots' reaction to the barking Poodle

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=85252007

Here's just one example...

Well Blair certainly knows all about "crazy".

He's the rabid "Bush Poodle" that joined the US in it's imperialist oil war in Iraq.... a war that has resulted in over 500,000 dead Iraqi civilians and caused human suffering of insane proportions.

YES...BLAIR KNOWS ABOUT "CRAZY"

Blair / Labour also want to buy a new, expanded Trident nuclear missile system consisting of HUNDREDS of nuclear warheads !!!
And at the same time, and with a straight face, he is telling IRAN they face military action if they so much as build nuclear power stations !!! The arrogance and hypocricy is breathtaking.

BLAIR>>>>LABOUR>>>>>CRAZZZZZZZY !!!

If you dont mind being drawn into illegal, disasterous wars.... Blair's your man.


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