There’s an influencialschool of thought in history that tends to disregard “great men”, “important dates” and “pivotal events” in favour of the study of long-term civilisational characteristics and their slow evolution. But, as far as I know, even its proponents don’t deny that history sometimes accelerates and that sudden shifts can and do occasionally happen.
2016 was a very interesting year, for various reasons and I’ve spent some time pondering the events that took place in the last 12 months. I can’t say that I’ve come to any conclusion but I’d like to see how fellow dopers feel about some of the admittedly far-fetched scenarios that I’ve thought of. This thread may be the first of a couple on this theme.
So given, looking at the options in the poll, which one do you think is the most realistic. I’ll refrain from voting for the moment, as I always do when I launch a poll in order to see what your opinion are. I do have a few ideas but I’ll reserve them for later so as not to influence the initial discussion.
I would have needed multiple choice. I think the highest likelihood is for the second, but that any “rejoining” will take a while. Whether that while is a few decades will depend on a lot of factors including what does one call “a few”.
I could easily see the UK rejoining a fundamentally different European organisation, i.e. one that is avowedly not a pathway to a super-state. Perhaps in many years time. The problem has never been with the concept of european collaboration, just the depth and direction of travel.
That is far more likely than any formal arrangement with the USA. That, I don’t see happening in any universe we currently inhabit.
The possibility of it does increase with Brexit, but the possibility of even an EU/Schengen-style entity would require the USA to have UHC at a minimum or there would be medical tourism. And a closer union than that would be opposed by politicians in all countries because it would either give the USA too little or too much power since it is as large as all other majority-primary-anglophone countries combined. That said, I wouldn’t oppose a large Anglophone country modeled on some combination of the UK and the USA because it would mean I would get UHC since the additional population who favors it would push us over the edge votewise. I’d say it would also mean I’d get to live in England if I wanted to, but it would likely send real estate prices in south England even higher as the Russian billionaires are joined by American billionaires. Not to mention housing prices in many metro centers of America as the same thing happens in reverse from the rest of the union.
I recall mutterings about ‘The Atlantic Isles’ - Britain, Ireland, Iceland, and so on - but Britain and Ireland have a bit of history between them. But would Britain join America? I don’t think so.
I can well believe this is the planning end-game of our joint keenest minds, Donald and Boris. Based on something they read said by old Sherlock [ actually despite some admiration, I’ve come more now to realise what a republican puritan idiot Doyle could be ]. But it would never happen.
It may be wishful thinking, but either Britain won’t leave in any meaningful way, or will rejoin within a decade ( on probationary terms worse than having not had a referendum of the idiot mass ). There’s no doubt leaving has already severely impacted our economy and we haven’t even touched the door handle.
I’m actually torn between two answers (yes, I should have made it a multiple-choice poll).
The optimist in me says that the UK will be back in the EU within my lifetime - I’m 42. Brexit seems to me to be such an obvious folly that rejoining (or not really leaving for that matter, although that may prove impossible politically) will soon look like the only sane option.
A union between the UK and the US happening through some weird star alignment (option 3 - Highly unlikely in my poll) is my second choice. I don’t really think it will happen but the linguistic, cultural and historical links are real and deep. Moreover, the recent developments make me think that the UK is shifting away from Europe in its general outlook and getting closer to the US. For instance, I consider Brexit and the 2016 US Presidential Elections result as the two sides of the same coin. It could also be argued the UK has often appeared to be a rather reticent member of the EU, never really in tune with its ideal unlike the original founders.
However, I consider this far from a done deal, and I don’t believe in “historical destiny”, which leads me to rule out options 4 and 5.
Option 2, with the UK forever independent and thriving is a huge delusion in my view.
Britain is already a trans-atlantic state. They have many island territories spread across the Atlantic including Bermuda, St. Helena, Falklands, and Cayman Islands.
Actually, in a burst of mixed panic and generosity — whilst not slamming the door on Hitler’s peace proposals — Churchill announced the joining of Britain and France into a Union again, in 1940.
Although the French PM agreed, only about 10 other Frenchmen were in favour, and some cabinet minsters preferred rule by Germany to rule by Britain.
**Cost of Brexit: The impact on business and the economy so far
** The level of business investment is expected by the Bank of England to be around 25% lower by 2019 relative to its pre-referendum forecasts, damaging our future productivity growth
I think the UK will eventually rejoin the EU. Due to proximity if nothing else the majority of their trade should head that direction and while they have a better barrier to immigration than their continental neighbor’s long term I think they will be willing to open their borders to immigration in exchange for piles of money.
As far as them joining the US it makes no sense for either party. If the UK joining the US it would probably be split into four states with England becoming the largest population state, Scottland moving to 23, Wales would be 31 and Northern Ireland would be 39. So collectively they would get 8 senators and assume we just grew the house 83 reps. So they would go from controlling their destiny to having a 7.5% say in the Senate and 16% say in the House. That’s a huge decrease in their power and while it would push the US enough the generally have Democratic majorities in both houses their individual say would be much lower.
From the US perspective, we’d be adding a second financial center and easier access to Europe (and I guess cheaper scotch) at the hassle of having them much displaced in time zones for management purposes. It seems that the increased tax base probably wouldn’t be worth the administrative headache.
It would make much more sense for the US and Canada to merge well before the US and UK merged at least Canada has huge environmental resources to bring to the table and administration would be much simpler. Maybe if the US and Canada merged and the UK absorbed Ireland and Iceland then it would be worth talking about but that seems a long way off.
I think it’s pretty clear that Quartz is asking why you (emphasis added) used the past tense. If you are talking about possible, future impact, that’s one thing. Was that a typo or a mistake to have stated that it already happened?
As for the OP, I picked #2, but I think it’s wrong to say that the UK is “self-sufficient”. It’s not, but that was the closest answer I thought was correct.
Same here. I picked #2 as its the closest to the answer I thought. I don’t see the merger as even a remote possibility with the US under any conceivable circumstances, and, personally, unless the EU makes some substantive changes I doubt the UK is going to rejoin as things stand right now.
I can’t think of a single benefit to the UK for merging with the US, and I can’t think of a single benefit to the US for merging with the UK.
If it were such a great idea, wouldn’t the UK and Canada be a much better match? I mean, considering that they actually were politically joined and Canada slowly gained more and more autonomy until complete independence. So what would be the benefit to Canada to going back to union with the UK? What are you Canada, chicken?
It may be that some day in the future both the UK and US are members of some supranational government, but bilateral union is nonsensical. It could only happen in a situation where both countries have been transformed by events into something unrecognizable. Imperator Thrag of the far future Atlantic Dominion may one day rule both land masses, but they won’t be the UK or the US anymore.
Are we talking about political union or economic union? I see that the OP used the term “state”, but I assumed he was talking about an economic union similar to the EU. If it’s a political union, how could anyone pick anything other than #2?
No, not going to happen, but I’m not going to speculate on what the UK will do in the future. I just know that ‘submerging themselves in the colonies’ hegemony’ is not it.