I heard that Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales leaders are planning to meet to break up UK. Is it really true? Anyone from UK here who can tell me what is actually happening there?
Russian money is happening there.
Northern Ireland always saying something along those lines no one listens to them. The Welsh leader is new and is just mouthing off because it will make some headlines for him, SNP get the Scottish riled up, I don’t know how much the average Scott really wants to leave the Union if anyone had a point they would but I tend to think that it’s just the loud minority.
Although personally I think we would all be better off if we just move the capital to literally anywhere other than London.
I think if there was another Scottish referendum now, Scotland would leave the UK. It was close last time, but brexit really fucked everything up and the UK’s general behaviour ever since hasn’t been exactly reassuring. I think the majority of Scots would rejoin the EU.
That’s not the question though. If Scotland leave the UK they would then need to apply for EU membership, which is no sure fire thing.
Yeah, it’s been a time since you guys have London as your capital. What about Manchester?
A lot of it is a storm in a bottle. There are periodic discussions about it. It tends to be when the central government (based in London) gets to South East England centric.
Right now the numbers wanting independence are higher than usual, but not into the realms of breaking away imminently. However, it’s also worth noting that a lot of England is also pissed off with parliament for various reasons. We seem to have a similar capture issue to America (excessive willingness to please big business/money over the people from both sides).
Basically it’s a shot across the bows to the UK parliament to do their fucking jobs, not just line their own pockets.
It’s true. My uncle is the Prime Minister of Wales and he was in meetings with Billy Connolly, David Beckham and Liam Neeson all weekend.
Well my uncle works for Nintendo and put the Metroid Justin Bailey cheat code in for me, his favorite nephew, Justin Bailey.
my uncle is john nintendo and told me if you get all the stars in the new mario game you unock pikachu
Really or are you just joking?
Username checks out
Really. They had tea yesterday.
It’s true i was the tea
It’s true, I was the table
Wales doesn’t have a prime minister.
It started with this article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/09/13/irish-scots-and-welsh-leaders-meet-to-plot-break-up-uk/
Basically right now an independence referendum in Scotland can only be authorised by the Westminster (London) government. Whether Scotland wants one or not, thats how it is.
For the first time there are independence-supporting administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The first ministers of those countries will meet on Monday and agree a path forward, ultimately to make it harder for Westminster to say ‘no’ to future referendums.
This doesn’t ‘kick start the break up of the UK’ - all it does is put pressure on Westminster not to block independence referendums when there’s an appetite for them. The Prime Minister and his government can choose to ignore that. Nothing is changing.
The Telegraph and other right-leaning nonsense rags have latched onto this, exaggerating it because its red meat for their target audience. I think that’s where the ‘Russian interference’ is, but I’m not a unionist and one of them might explain it better.
Yankee here. If you have the time, I’d like to know a little bit more on what’s actually been happening over there. Honestly, with everything going on, it’s been hard to keep up. It’s been a lot of noise and very little information.
Sure, what would you like to know?
It hasn’t really changed since the 2014 referendum. For/against Scottish independence still hovers around 50:50, usually more on the pro-union side.
Problem is all the dollars flowing across the Atlantic to right-wing causes. Ten years ago Scotland was predominantly left-leaning. The culture wars and brainwashing on social media have lead to a lot of people being preoccupied with things like trans women and immigrants. Immigration is a funny one - we aren’t affected as bad with that as, say, the south of England. We actually need immigration to keep society functioning.
Right-wing parties are now something like 30% and is predominantly for remaining in the union, but the lefty vote is split between pro-independence and unionist parties. The majority in Holyrood (the Scottish parliament) is mostly members of Independence supporting parties, but the overall popular vote is for the Union.
Because independence support is not definitive the UK gov’s position is ‘no’ to more referendums. As long as support for independence is split down the middle it’ll keep going round in circles and continue to dominate Scottish politics.
What factors do you feel are the predominant drivers of independent sentiment on the left? I know Brexit and rejoining the EU are close to the top, but what makes the right want to stay with the union?
Many factors but probably the biggest is the parade of Conservative governments since and including Margaret Thatcher.
The Conservatives (or ‘the Tories’) have been wildly popular south of the border but not so much up here. Scotland was very much Tory country at one point but that changed with Thatcher. Her economic policies absolutely devastated many of the poorer parts of the UK but Glasgow and the west of the country were arguably the worst hit. Glasgow has come up a lot but the deprivation there compared to places like London is obscene. Until recently it was one of the poorest areas in Europe (its possible it still is).
Thatcher was followed by Cameron (caused Brexit and ‘austerity’), Johnson (Brexit mouthpiece, covid spending), and Truss (50 days in power and managed to crash the economy) amongst others.
The way Westminster works is that every MP is supposed to have roughly a similar number of constituents. Because we have a smaller population than England we have far fewer MPs. So typically the SNP or Labour clears the board in Scotland, while the Tories take England. This leads to a feeling that the Tories are ‘imposed’ on Scotland as a consequence of the union. Thus, if we were independent we’d be rid of them.
There’s other factors, like sectarianism (protestant unionism vs separatist Catholics), wealthy (ie conservative) landowners, etc but the Tories is where most of it comes from.
The right… farming and fishing. There is (or used to be) a feeling that the Tories looked after the farmers and fishermen. Thats largely been trashed since Brexit (both groups lost lots of European grant money). The wealthy landowners have always exercised their power via the Tories and the print media - they worry their land will be taken off them in an independent Scotland (highly likely). Then theres that old chestnut of foreign influence via social media, exacerbating the immigration debate. The right is predominantly Unionist, thus if you’re right-leaning you’re typically unionist.
Telegraph is right leaning? Damn, idk that.
Yes its nickname is The Torygraph
Well Tories are kinda better if we compare it with far right. The right wing you guys have in UK is nothing compared to what I have in my country (we do not have a presence of left wing in our politics (except for some minority labor unions)).
Pretty sure, yeah. Most of the UK papers are. The only one I know for sure is The Guardian. There’s probably others.
The Observer, The Independent and The National (Scottish), The i and The Scotsman are either neutral or lefty.
The only one I know for sure is The Guardian.
Is there a “not” missing? The Guardian is left leaning except their transphobia.
Hot take. The guardian is know for being excessively woke to most people. Even i find it a little much sometimes, and I’m a total pinko. Have you any examples of their transphobia? Not being a dick, i’ve just never, ever heard that before.
I would debate the “most people” part, but I guess we move in different circles. As well as the links posted by toomanypancakes, hundreds of the Guardian’s own staff signed a letter criticising its “pattern of publishing transphobic content”.
It is notorious in the trans community for having some strongly transphobic regular columnists.
If you do an online search for “guardian transphobia” you will find numerous media reports and trans people’s reddit posts about it over the years.
Here’s an article somewhat amusingly from The Guardian on it
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/02/guardian-editorial-response-transgender-rights-ukAlso this vice article includes lots of links to relevant guardian articles
https://www.vice.com/en/article/guardian-trans-journalists/Thanks for sharing; I genuinely didn’t know that was something they’d been criticised for. I’ll read the linked articles when I get a chance, but this is certainly news to me.
EDIT. Actually I may not read the articles. One is nearly 20 years old and the newest is over 5.
They’re from 2018 and 2022? I’m confused, but you certainly don’t have to read them.
I only know BBC when it comes to British media and that feels lefty or neutral
The BBC barely feels neutral, has mostly leaned right over the past decade.
The only major left-leaning non-tabloid one I can think of is the Guardian.
what is non tabloid?
It means semi-serious. Basically, you have broadsheets that purport to push serious journalism and tabloid papers that are more sensationalist and low-brow. Tabloids in the UK include The Sun (hugely popular, Murdoch-owned, right-wing scandal rag) and the way less popular Mirror (a left-leaning paper that sort of emulates The Sun’s style in an attempt to appeal to the masses).
Basically the guardian and i (that’s their name, a lowercase letter i, it’s so stupid)
Meh its okay but they’re under pressure to give voice to racist bigots in the interest of ‘balance’.
You should listen to 5 live (one of their radio stations). You wouldn’t believe what they let some people say live on air.
I support the removal of Northern Ireland from the UK so that it can be reunited into the Irish Republic.
did you ask northern Ireland first?
Did England fucking ask Northern Ireland first?
Does that matter? It’s about time someone starts asking them.
Will voted remain overwhelmingly so the kind of have been asked.
lemmy.world moment
Erm, yes.
The truth is that the British practiced colonizing Ireland before they took their show global. They even partitioned the Island. The British get horny for partitioning stuff. They partitioned India and Palestine too.
British Patriotism requires amnesia. God damn the King.
Ireland was partitioned due to a referendum, so yes they were asked.
No such referendum occurred. British legislation came into effect without a public vote.
Irish leaders were promised by British negotiators that there would be an “immediate and terrible war” in Ireland if they did not agree.
A referendum was held in 1973, so I should have said partition continued due to a referendum.
However even the opt-out of 1922 could be seen as the result of a public vote, as Sinn Féin campaigned the 1921 election focused almost solely on the issue of partition, and underperformed with 20% of the popular vote.
Unionist and nationalist paramilitaries had been formed during the previous decade, and both had been generously armed by Germany during the war. Unionist paramilitaries had taken to marching through English cities en masse, promising England would face consequences if a united Ireland gained independence.
“England”
Jaysus lad learn your history.
Probably a Yank. They’ve never been too keen on history or geography… or maths… or any education, really.
who is yank?
A United States citizen.
Do you know the answer to your question? Did they?
Nope, but it should still also be a referendum.
Are you Irish?
not for a while. There are always calls for independence from groups there but Scotland had a vote to stayor leave a while back and they wanted to stay.
Something they came to regret after brexit. I doubt the vote would be the same today.
I haven’t looked at it recently but it was a close vote, like withing a couple percentage points.
I doubt any of the current parties have the political capital to run the vote again in the near future.Brexit has shown us that a change of this magnitude should require an absolute majority (66%+)
The Scottish wanted to do a new vote after the Brexit was voted in, but that was quickly shut down by the UK government.
*how odd*
It was understood to be a once in a generation vote. People can’t just leave in a strop just because things change. That’s what things do.
Sure, but “things change” sounds like something relatively minor, Brexit was a major history altering event.
Which happens in the voyage of a country. It isn’t about convenience.
It isn’t about convenience.
I could make the same argument for the Scottish trying to recast their “once in a generation” vote. Also, a generation is about twenty years, so for the sake of arguing you could expect another vote in 2034.
Telling people there was already a vote so it can’t be redone if circumstances change sounds pretty anti-democratic.
As things currently stand, Andy Burnham will just flat-out reject their demands. The only way I can see him agreeing to another referendum is if the next general election leads to a hung parliament with Labour as the biggest party.
A better question would be if such a referendum would succeed.
Scotland: probably not. But then again, one of the biggest reasons the Scottish people voted to remain twelve years ago was due to them losing their EU membership by going independent. They could apply to join the EU, but it’s very possible that Spain could veto their accession on the basis that they don’t want to give legitimacy to the Catalan independence movement. Brexit is a game-changer that could make Indyref2 succeed. And Hungary under Viktor Orban could have rejected it because he was a useful idiot to Russia. What doesn’t help Scotland’s case for independence is that the SNP nosedived in popularity since Nicola Sturgeon resigned.
Wales: definitely not. Support for Welsh independence is actually pretty damn low. Plaid Cymru winning big in the Senedd moreso represents how badly Labour fucked up under Keir Starmer. Welsh voters tactically voted them in to prevent a Reform UK majority.
Northern Ireland: maybe. The gap has narrowed since Brexit, and there is a particular clause in the Good Friday Agreement where the Secretary of State must agree to hold a referendum to unite Ireland if it appears likely that such a vote would succeed. I think the reason why this hasn’t happened is because our deal with the EU has largely shielded Northern Ireland from the negative consequences of Brexit via a backstop.
Ain’t Andy resigned?
Nope. Starmer resigned. Burnham became Prime Minister a few weeks ago.
Let’s see how long he remain
If we’re lucky, he might outlast two cabbages.
what is meaning of that? I am sorry, I am not good at English idioms and proverbs.
One of the recent prime ministers famously didn’t outlast a lettuce. Someone (a newspaper iirc) set up a photo shoot with a lettuce and let it rot; the PM (Liz Truss) was out before the lettuce.
There isn’t really any appetite for him to resign. The whole point of him going was for Burnham to become prime minister, they literally don’t have anyone else left, he is all they’ve got, which I suppose is better than the Tories who’ve got no one, the absolute best that they could put up would be Jimmy Dimly, and that’s scraping the barrel.
I fear that far right will take over your country. I am already worried for Germany since AfD won at one place and how they were doing N@zi salutes. And also, how billionaires are backing the far right agenda is insane.
Northern Ireland is likely a major reason why Brexit hasn’t been finalized yet. There is really no good solution to the trilemma.
Part of me was wondering if the Tories were going to let an Irish reunification vote happen while they were in power as a way to tie up the last issues with Brexit.
Given the Tories track record up until that point, I wouldn’t put it past the brexitiers to have not thought about Northern Ireland until after the referendum, and it was pointed out that it would be a problem.
Yay for United Kingdom of Craic! Ye soon be electing the king yearly based on might and soundness of his banter.
No. Not true. There are very vocal groups that are calling referendums and voting on things that are not even part of the scope of elections to divide the union.
All this noise could be a Rusia operation to reduce the influence that together production and labor markets can yield much more than independently. Doing that without being part of a common market like the EU is simply not happening, no one will win anything if it comes to happen, just Rusia and other hostile countries.
Russia might amplify it, but I saw a Telegraph article submitted here with a dire headline along those lines, which I imagine was aimed at getting Conservatives riled up.
This is all it is.
I don’t quite understand, Scotland and Wales already aren’t part of the common market. By seceding from the UK, they might actually have an easier time joining the common market and strengthening the EU, which is the real unified power block.
EU countries with their own separatist regions, like Spain, would veto Scotland or Wales being accepted, to prove to their own separatist regions that it won’t be easy.
“Every political movement I disagree with is Russian”
Lots of divisive political movements in the West really are pushed and supported by Russia. Are you disputing that?
Obviously not. Are you disputing the legitimacy of the welsh and scottish independence movements? Which I’m sure you are extremely knowledgable on.
No, of course I’m not disputing them. It just seemed like a weird, pro-Russia take.
The socctish independence movements are literally centuries old. Arguably millenia. They have been around long before Russia’s dickheadery. It’s not “weird” or “pro-russia” to say that, but it’s very weird to assert that they are some kind of astroturfed KGB plot.
Is the legitimacy dispute here in the room with us now?
Because I don’t see it in that comment.
Huh? The room?
Alex Salmond literally had a TV show on the Kremlin propaganda outfit RT, and as First Minister simpered in a GQ interview
[Putin’s] restored a substantial part of Russian pride and that must be a good thing
The European Council on Foreign Relations noted the extensive Kremlin interest in IndyRef.
A Kremlin-controlled state news agency published hundreds of pro-independence articles, including over 100 on referendum day alone, which were reposted on social media. The Kremlin sent “observers” who later claimed the vote was rigged.
Alex Salmond being daft doesn’t delegitimise the entire indepence movement, most of which can’t stand him. It’s always been a grassroots idea and no amount of articles by putin can have any effect on that, let alone only a couple hundred.
They said "could ”
Ignore the comments here saying that this is Russian interference or that it came “out of nowhere”.
Ireland has always wanted independence and has wanted to reunite since partition happened. The people in Ireland who identified as British opposed that and had the entire British state/terror services at their disposal. That has changed a lot and now even British settlers here are talking publicly and seriously about the potential (pros and cons) of reunification.
The vast majority of Britons are ignorant and diseducated on this matter so be careful which comments you trust.
It was never meant to last forever but the tide has been turning for some time now.
I heard there has been a beef between English and Irish historically and I always wondered why Northern Ireland is not part of Ireland.
In a nutshell: colonialism.
I am also from a former British colony but I love you all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_a_United_Ireland
What? No poll shows “yes” leading.
No poll shows “yes” leading.
Polls done in Ireland consistently favour reunification.
In the North, the majority of Irish (labelled “Catholic” in polls) support reunification. Overall, they don’t have a majority yet due to those who identify as “British” or “neither”. which is why a border poll has not yet happened, but it has been trending upwards since about 2015.
We even have senior unionist politicians talking about it now and I see many protestants making videos online about becoming comfortable with the idea of reunification and even learning the language. Times are changing.
Polls dane in Ireland consistently favour reunification.
It would not be Ireland voting, it would be Northern Ireland.
I am sure one day it will happen, but it is not imminent.
Incorrect. Under the Good Friday Agreement, both the North and the the rest of Ireland must vote ‘yes’ to reunification by public referendum. This is one reason why Irish citizens are also polled on this issue.
I agree that it is not imminent. It seems somewhere between likely and inevitable.
Sure, what I mean is that regardless of whether or not Ireland votes yes - Northern Ireland must also vote yes. And it won’t happen until Northern Ireland specifically is ready.
No, this is out of nowhere and it’s basically just a formal request to the prime minister
If it goes anywhere, it’ll take some time
They’re planning to meet up to persuade the new prime minister (who is pro devolution generally) to do it in such a way as to allow the national assemblies to have more power, but it being a secret plot to break up the UK is a bit of rightwing hysteria and a massive over exaggeration.
Frankly I think the UK would like it if NI rejoined Ireland, it’d probably make things a lot simpler for everyone. There was a vote in the 70s and it was like 99% remain in the UK. The UK government has said that they’ll do a vote if it ever looked like the majority might want to rejoin but it’s not there right now. I know a few people from there and they agree with that.
I understand that a party that wants to reunify got voted into power there for the first time ever but I don’t think it was on any promise to reunify if you know what I mean, but I think things are slowly heading in that direction.
If the people of NI actually wanted to reunify I don’t know anyone in England who would have a problem with it, but the government won’t hand over any land if the majority of the people there want to remain part of the UK. Trump is just making his comments because he’s pissed that the UK wouldn’t help with the Epstein Wars.
It’s not breaking but it’s certainly broken
Broken in what sense?
Every way imaginable
I meant, are you talking from a right wing POV who think that Pakistani immigrants and grooming gangs are problem or from a left wing POV (idk honestly what are the concerns raised by the British left)?
I’m not political. I say what I see. And what I see is crime rates sky high, year long nhs waiting times, etc. I don’t look at it from a political perspective — if I did, I’d be scathing both left and right corrupt fuckers in parliament. They’re all the same any way you slice it.
what happened to nhs? I am not Brit but a lot of people from my country do work there.
To be clear, the NHS is just one example of everything that I see is broken in the UK, I’m not singling it out for any particular reason.
But to answer your question, lack of resources and funding (staff, equipment, money etc.) has led to basically staff shortages and what is widely considered to be inadequate healthcare. I’m not saying literally nobody gets good quality care, but a lot of people don’t and it’s not really acceptable, especially considering that some major surgery waiting lists can reach up to a year or more (in other words: if they need surgery then they will have to wait for it for a year or longer).
Damn.
