Taking England back to the Dark Ages

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27731725

by chestnut-tree • 12 years ago

53 23 12 years ago

bbc.co.uk

restless• 12 years ago

"Because size does matter. It seems to me that progressive, reasonable, pacific and prosperous states - like the Nordic countries, or Switzerland or New Zealand - tend to be less than 10 million people." That is what I often thought regarding the EU. A EU of regions instead of nations. United under a banner for economy, foreign affairs, standards and military and let the regions handle social insurance, police, taxes. Im actually a big fan of the EU but right now it seems to go in some wrong directions and politicans of national governments always using Bruessel as an excuse, while the EU itself is not speaking with one voice in conflicts like in Ukraine.

tormeh3• 12 years ago

Yeah, the EU as a concept is phenomenal. Its execution is more questionable and its PR is flat out disastrous, with national politicians blaming it for all kinds of ills.

Also, banana curvature. Really, how was the EU not able to squash that myth? I get that the EU fundamentally answers to national governments and not voters directly, but the tiniest bit of PR effort towards voters might help in the long run, don't you think?

rodgerd• 12 years ago

Really, how was the EU not able to squash that myth?

When people like Rupert Murdoch are heavily invested in having people adopt a particular view it's rather hard to make headway with anything so unimportant as the truth.

pjc50• 12 years ago

- It wasn't entirely false, just misleading (there is a standard defining what a banana is for the purposes of trade categorisation, tax and subsidy)

- the EU does not believe it's dependent on the goodwill of voters; the elected part of the EU itself is the weakest

- the UK media is very anti-EU and the EU has no real UK media operation

- it's "tone accurate": the EU does produce an awful lot of fiddly little rules. The proposal to ban unsealed olive oil from restaurant tables got quite far recently before the public heard about it and it was laughed out of feasibility.

rayiner• 12 years ago

The problem with this theory is that military force is the begin and end of sovereignty. Once you let go of that, weaker regions become beholden to the Wishes of the stronger ones.

avmich2• 12 years ago

That used to be the case, but changes slowly now. Enough less powerful states may understand common needs and unite to combat the stronger region, both economically and militarily.

m_mueller• 12 years ago

As a Swiss I like your idea - I do think that an EU handled the right way[TM] could be a successor to national governments of federalistic countries such as Switzerland. However, there is one big thing missing right now in the EU (and you do hint at it yourself): Strong civil rights for the population resulting in keeping the political apparatus in check. The right to stop (and even introduce) any and every law through national votes keeps politicians nicely at bay. Large government projects need to be explained really well if people are to vote for it - yet they're still possible as the gotthard base tunnel proves[1]. Even the banking secrecy has the effect of keeping governments humble when it comes to taxation - people will simply just pay what they think is fair. It comes down to the government being more like an employee rather than an employer - and the Swiss people would loose dearly if they had to give this up. The EU at this point would require a complete reboot to get such strong mechanisms of checks and balances - and I'm not convinced that the Swiss system couldn't work for larger entities.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel.

DoubleMalt• 12 years ago

I don't like borders. Maybe it is because I come from a small country (of almost exactly the blessed size mentioned in the article) and perceived borders mostly as an impediment to exploring the world.

In my opinion the one great thing the European Union brought to us is to tear down these pesky border stations where people insist on checking your passport and exact medieval tolls on goods that are transported a few miles just because the few miles cross a mostly imagined line.

However borders can be removed by implosion, too. If you assign more and more rights to smaller and smaller units borders will get less and less important.

The Seven Kingdoms of Anglia will probably join the Schengen treaty as they don't have a common big external border to protect.

That way we get all benefits: Decisions are made closer at the people and the number of borders that impede our movements will be reduced.

gerbal• 12 years ago

A cool policy would be allowing European regions to gain independence from their larger state incumbent on devolution of some powers to the EU.

throwaway344• 12 years ago

Yeah, further European integration is really good for separatist politicians all over Europe, from Veneno to Scotland to Catalonia to wherever.

As Artur Mas, current leader of the goverment of Catalonia said: "I think that the right answer would be the following one: imagine that the European Union turns into the United States of Europe. In this case, with a federal structure, Catalonia would like to be one of the states of that federation. If you look at the United States of America, you will realise that, with a population of about 300 million people, they have 50 states. The European union, with more than 500 million people, could have more than 60 or 70, or maybe 75 states. And why couldn’t Catalonia be one of these states, in a federal structure and with the powers of a state which belongs to a federal structure? So, with less powers than an independent country but more powers than we have today. In that case, Spain would have less powers, and France and Germany and Holland, but Catalonia would have more powers…"

firstOrder• 12 years ago

Well the existence of the UK is what erected a border between the 6 north counties of Ireland and the 26 south counties of Ireland. So what might remove some borders is a weakening of the United Kingdom.

maaarghk• 12 years ago

^ that's basically why I'm voting Yes to Scottish independence, in fact. I'm worried by the trend in Westminster that "foreigner blaming" has become normalised and there is already talk of holding an in-out referendum on EU membership.

I want to live in a smaller country, with decisions made closer to home; but with open, welcoming borders. Actually there is evidence that we need immigration in Scotland. We have an ageing (for want of a better word) "indigenous" population - but we can mitigate the problems this poses if we can build a great job market and promote our world-class universities; we can attract talented young people from across the world to our universities and give them jobs here. Build a truly multi-national country. That's the intention of the SNP and the Greens, anyway, and its one I support very much, and I will vote any way I can to get us closer to that dream.

arethuza• 12 years ago

Very similar to my own reasons for voting "Yes" - my other being getting rid of Trident.

derekp7• 12 years ago

This is one of those stories where I wish the title conveyed more information. At first I thought it was going to be about light pollution and how we can't see most of the stars anymore.

avmich2• 12 years ago

Could be an article about the state of education in the country :) .

jacques_chester2• 12 years ago

Sample size affects variability. Small countries appear at both the top and the bottom of any given league table because more populous nations begin to approach the mean.

It's the same reason that the best and worst schools are small schools; the best and worst health outcomes are in rural areas and so on.

tormeh3• 12 years ago

Nah. Small northern European countries outperform the mean consistently. Even the baltics are doing better than Poland. Not everything is random variation. Big countries (Pakistan: 186m, Congo: 70-something) can be pretty fucked up too. Your assumption is that the underlying natural value is independent of country size, mine is that it isn't.

jacques_chester2• 12 years ago

Not everything is random variation.

But it must be acknowledged and accounted for. Smaller samples a regularly more variable; conclusions drawn about them are weaker.

vixin• 12 years ago

Well, as long as we make border crossing more convenient for travellers, we will I am sure, be happy to spend £55 millon per day (UK) for the privilege of belonging to an anti-democratic superstate in the making which ignores referenda from citizens who don't vote the right way in elections.

M2Ys4U• 12 years ago

Ugh, can we (collectively) stop repeating that lie about how much we pay to the EU please?

As for anti-democratic, just look at who is trying to prevent the nominated candidate from the largest party in the Parliament from being chosen as the President: The UK government. It's the executives of the member states that provide the biggest anti-democratic element of the EU by trying to cling on to their power (under the guide of "sovereignty").

martiuk• 12 years ago

Very Crusader Kings 2.

I would love to be a citizen of the Kingdom of Mercia[1], the devolution of power to bring national issues closer to the people that live there, are great reasons.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercia

NAFV_P• 12 years ago

Regarding the Heptarchy, please look at [0] .. [3]. [0] && [2] refer to members of the original Heptarchy, the other two are regions of our current era. My hood, Gloucester, is mentioned in all four articles.

  Doctor Foster went to Gloucester
  In a puddle of rain
  He stepped in a puddle
  Right up to his middle
  And never went there again

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercia

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midlands

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessex

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_West_England

Taking England back to the Dark Ages

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