Could Wales leave the United Kingdom?

[alp227]

Leanne Wood is rather different from most of the UK's politicians. Forty years old and a mother of one, she still lives in the same street in the Rhondda Valley where she was born and brought up. She thinks the crash of 2008 should have "resulted in the rejection of capitalism and many of its basic economic and political assumptions", and that the UK's coalition amounts to a "hyper-competitive, imperial/militaristic, climate-change-ignoring and privatising government". She is also a proud republican, who refuses to attend the kind of official events at which the Queen turns up, and was once thrown out of the Welsh Assembly for referring to the reigning monarch as "Mrs Windsor". If any of this chimes with your general view of what's wrong with the world, it's fair to say that you'd like her.

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/01/could-wales-leave-united-kingdom

[Historic NY]

1. Scotland is weighing that option too.

[Kablooie]

2. Could Whales leave the Underwater Kingdom?

I know it makes no sense at all but I'm sleepy and my mind isn't working properly.


Pardon.


.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Doubtful

Even Scotland leaving is suspect. Spain has already made it clear they would veto Scotland joining the EU which may influence this.

Fair to say that you'd like her ? She sounds like a nutjob to me.

[MichaelMcGuire]

11. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (Mr García-Margallo)

Has already rubbished it.These reports unsurprisingly came from unnamed British officials as most do.

He called the report "absolutely false" and the Spanish Foreign Minister said that "in no instance" had anyone expressed "any disquiet" to the UK govt about Scottish Independence. And even if it was true.

As for EU membership for Scotland senior EU officials said;

"lawyers for the EU who said an independent Scotland could be treated as one of two successor states (The other RUK), and that a separate seat for Edinburgh would require only a simple majority vote. No single EU member would have a veto."

Scotland is a successor state to the EU as would what's currently called the UK.

In other words
the EU have said that the rump UK would find itself in an identical position to a newly independent Scotland

[dipsydoodle]

12. The actual issue

was in relation to the Basques wanting to do the same.

Spain is standing in the way of Scotland's ambitions to become an independent nation within the European Union because of fears that it could spark the break-up of the Spanish state.

Spanish officials have registered concerns with counterparts in the United Kingdom over the Scottish government's independence blueprint, senior Whitehall sources confirmed yesterday.

Spain has indicated it could block an independent Scotland's accession to the European Union, sources said. It has already refused to recognise Kosovo's existence as an independent state. Madrid fears such moves will encourage separatist ambitions in Spanish regions, particularly Catalonia and the Basque region. Spain's refusal to recognise Kosovo has frustrated the former Serbian province's ambitions to enter the union.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/spain-could-wield-veto-over-scotlands-eu-membership-6292846.html

[MichaelMcGuire]

13. I'm aware of that article, its that one that Mr García-Margallo is referring too nt

[dmallind]

4. Jasper Fforde nails it - the Socialist People's Republic of Wales

arises at last!

Can factories for re-engineered Neanderthals and embargoes on cheese be far behind?

[dipsydoodle]

6. They're mainly

coal , sheep and good at singing.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Unlikely, I think

I think there are quite a number of people who vote Plaid Cymru due to local issues, because it is on the left, and because they think it stands up for Wales when dealing with the national government; but I doubt that a majority of Welsh people would actually support independence (as compared with devolution).

[mysuzuki2]

7. Why stop at mere independence?

send all the bloody Sassnaeg back to Germany!

[fedsron2us]

9. That would be a good portion of the people of modern Wales then

My wife is Welsh born in Splott in Cardiff. Splott is an Anglo Saxon not a Welsh place name

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splott

[mysuzuki2]

10. Spoilsport! Why ruin a good snarky post with mere facts.

[fedsron2us]

8. History suggests such a break is not going to happen

Unlike Scotland Wales has no history as a 'nation' state. with its own Parliament, legal system, monarch etc. The medieval Welsh princes that fought the English kings did not control most of what is current Wales. In addition prior to that time Wales was part of the Roman province of Britannia that also occupied all of England.

On the political front Plaid Cymru history of insisting that Welsh identity was synonymous with the Welsh language has divided people in the province as much as it has united them against rule from Westminster. This has changed recently but there is still a suspicion amongst working class English speakers in the South of Wales that post indpendence they would be second class citizens in a Welsh speaking state. This makes a vote for outright independence a very long shot unless the the Central government in London screws up big time. Of course, with the numpties in the Tory party anything is possible.

As for the crown even Alex Salmond is not thinking of ditching HRH as Queen of Scots.

[geardaddy]

14. I can't realistically see it happening.