- Fri Dec 13, 2019 7:15 pm
#592989
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.
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.
Jack believed in the inherent goodness of humanity, and felt a deep social responsibility to protect that. Through us all, Jack marches on.