{"id":81864,"date":"2025-04-24T07:33:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T06:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=81864"},"modified":"2025-04-24T07:33:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T06:33:56","slug":"the-uk-is-not-sustainable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/04\/24\/the-uk-is-not-sustainable\/","title":{"rendered":"The UK is not sustainable"},"content":{"rendered":"

I note this was posted in The National<\/a> yesterday by my colleague, Paul Kavanagh, who posts under the name Wee Ginger Dug:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s St George's Day, and a new study has found that only 45% of people in England believe that keeping the United Kingdom together is a priority.<\/p>\n

The research by Professor Ailsa Henderson and Professor Richard Wyn Jones is titled The Shameful Conquest of England \u2013 and it also found a sense of \u201cgrievance about the perceived cost and political influence of other nations\u201d.<\/p>\n

The report said there was \u201ca striking degree of ambivalence about the continuing territorial integrity of the UK state among English-identifiers, including a tendency to regard the goal of Brexit as being far more important than maintaining the place of either Scotland or Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 2011 census found that 60% of people in England identify primarily or solely as English. A similar percentage of people in Scotland identify primarily or solely as Scottish.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The point is important.<\/p>\n

Most people in England are indifferent to Scotland.<\/p>\n

Most people in England have never been to Scotland.<\/p>\n

Most never want to do so.<\/p>\n

They do not like Scottish people, about whom they think in stereotypes.<\/p>\n

They think Scotland is a burden on England, even though it most definitely is not.<\/p>\n

And, unsurprisingly, in my opinion, given the contempt in which they know they are held, most people in Scotland have little regard for the English.<\/p>\n

It is not then sentiment in the two countries that is holding the Union together. It is the political will to dominate in England that does so, and the fear of confrontation and change in the SNP leadership that compounds that.<\/p>\n

This is not sustainable.<\/p>\n

The UK is not sustainable.<\/p>\n

It will just be time before it will splinter, and then ends. A country that does not believe in itself cannot survive.<\/p>\n

And then the empire will be over, and not a moment too soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I note this was posted in The National yesterday by my colleague, Paul Kavanagh, who posts under the name Wee Ginger Dug: It\u2019s St George’s
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-scotland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81872,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81864\/revisions\/81872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}