[Kreuzberger]

What is the Union for anyway, these days?

I suppose the armed forces are positively predisposed to it on the sporadic occasions when they are deployed, and it plays a pivotal role in winding up 'ra Sellick fans during Old Firm games.

Other than that? Socially and politically, it is already fractured. It might well define where many people are from but has little significance in where they are headed, especially if they are under, say, forty and have aspirations that don't depend upon borders or even nations. Even within deprived communities from the Bogside to Barry to Bolton, it has only a tiny bearing, if any. It is not as if these people want or need FoM to interchange and interact.

True, N.I. has provided some lobby-whores for the tories in recent times but that relationship appears to be as fucked now as it is irrelevant. Scotland has evolved in to a social democratic, progressive nation whose relationship with England barely extends beyond needing to ask permission for stuff. Neither of these or many other factors seems to me to make the case for symbiosis.

And, economic and technological change is going to weaken whatever case remains.

The irony of it all is that it has taken the Conservative and Unionist Party to expose the fact that the disappearance of Union might be mourned my many but will be missed by few.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Indeed. I used to believe that the best outcome of joining the EU would be a British Federation of equal nation states. Too small for full independence, but able to thrive in a properly governed 'new union' where national differences could be celebrated and honoured.

I was clearly insane.

[youngian]

Voting for SNP doesn’t automatically translate into independence support and Sturgeon has a lot of work to do on the economics. But I’m sure Johnson will make the prospect of independence more tantalizing by the month.

[bluebellnutter]

I guess there's an irony that the thing the Tories tried to scare people of in 2015 is exactly what they're bringing about now

[mr angry manchester]

Clutching at straws a bit, could the possible break up of the union start some Tory infighting?

Scotland wants to feck off, and I don't blame them, if I was Scots I'd want it and would have voted SNP. As Tory support there is negligible it wouldn't matter to the Westminster Tories, and getting rid of it gets rid of however many non Tory voting seats there are there.

This would make it even easier for the Tories to consolidate their grip on power.

I don't know enough about NI to really comment apart from the fact that it voted remain and doesn't want the mither of a proper border with the Republic.

It could be a bit mad to think that the unionists would want to join a united Ireland though, but the country does seem to be shrinking and soon it could be just Essex, than just one pub in Essex, a really crap pub, run by Nigel Farage.

[MisterMuncher]

The DUP weren’t bit part players in Brexit now there’ve been screwed by their own zealotry and stupidity. Plenty of Brexiters will follow the DUP and ask what the fuck was that all for?

I'll never understand the DUP's hardline stance on Brexit. If their number one priority is the preservation of the Union, then why on earth so vigorously support a policy that places it at so much risk? Utterly baffling.

Quoth Papa Doc, back in the day "I'd rather be British than just".

The DUP and hard-line Unionist/Loyalist types gravitate towards the most British Nationalist position, which in this case is Brexit. They're not big on devolution and such, either. It's that 50's nostalgia writ large.

[Bones McCoy]

What is the Union for anyway, these days?

It may have very little practical function these days.

It's a handy shibboleth for those on the right, allowing them to:
* Call out "treason".
* Create entirely synthetic crises that can only be resolved by "handing us more power".
* Herd gammon to the polling stations.

[mr angry manchester]

Pretty much the same as things like Brenda, trooping the colour, Beefeaters at the Tower of London, that kind of stuff.

Just symbolic, from a practical point of view, useless really

[Arrowhead]

Pretty much the same as things like Brenda, trooping the colour, Beefeaters at the Tower of London, that kind of stuff.

Just symbolic, from a practical point of view, useless really

I should think there is a pretty reasonable chance that Brenda will pop her clogs at some point during the new parliament, which of course the fucking Tories and their newly-validated chums in the press will squeeze every last drop from. I can already picture a teary-eyed Johnson addressing the nation live from No 10, with the rest of the cabinet stood mournfully behind him. It'll be absolutely excruciating to behold.

And you can bet whichever poor soul ends up as Labour leader will instantly be lambasted for not being sufficiently reverential, or some such nonsense.

[Boiler]

Phil the Greek maybe, but not Brenda.

[Bones McCoy]

Phil the Greek maybe, but not Brenda.

She'll have to make 98 or 103 in order to outlast this PM.

Conspiracy alert (Unless she's made arrangements to truncate his premiership).

[youngian]

I can already picture a teary-eyed Johnson addressing the nation live from No 10, with the rest of the cabinet stood mournfully behind him. It'll be absolutely excruciating to behold.

He hasn't the emotional intelligence to pull that off. Blair did over Diana's death even if it was cringing to us seasoned political observers.

[oboogie]

She'll have to make 98 or 103 in order to outlast this PM.

Her mother made it to 102, it's quite within the realms of possibility that Brenda might surpass that.

[Bones McCoy]

She'll have to make 98 or 103 in order to outlast this PM.

Her mother made it to 102, it's quite within the realms of possibility that Brenda might surpass that.

True (See also Dirty Digger Murdoch) but even with the finest long life genetics, the odds of making a century are remote.

[youngian]

NI results provide a bit of cheer compared to England and Wales. Nigel Dodd lost his seat to SF while Paisley's hapless friend with benefits Emma Pengelly lost a Belfast seat to SDLP's Claire Hanna with a huge swing of over 30 percent. There is only one unionist seat out of four in Belfast now. Sylvia Hermon won't be too upset at the Alliance taking her old seat. But SF didn't have a good night either as they lost Foyle to the SDLP and took a bump from the Alliance and SDLP in their heartlands.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/201 ... rn_ireland