Hacker News Reader

Comment by conanite | Hacker News Reader

Scotland and NI quit UK to form their own republic and rejoin EU together. Everyone happy. Maybe even republic of Scotland-Ireland.

View on HN

> Everyone happy

You don't know anything about Northern Ireland I see.

Rejoining EU would not be automatic. They will have to to again all the accession iter.

EU countries that have issues with independence movements (e.g. Spain w.r.t Catalonia) will not let automatic re-join, because the "You will be out of EU if you secede" is one of the arguments used for saying that secession is a bad move.

Yes they would have to join, but if Brexit happened they are no longer in the EU and so need to leave the UK and then apply for the EU. Wonder if they would need to go through a period of not being in either?

Imagine a hard border on Scotland.

Don't think the monarchy would approve of that much.

I'm not sure they would be the last holdout in the face of obvious EU condemnation, and it's always possible that the ECJ would rule that they had never left the EU.

Meanwhile, everyone has forgotten the UK's land border with Spain at Gibraltar...

The Gaelic/Celtic Union is an idea that has been batted around for a while now. It might be political fantasy, but the populaces seem to be general amenable (not including, ironically, the various "unionists").

Honestly, the Brexit that would probably keep the most people happy is if England and Wales minus London left the UK, and the remainder of the UK plus London stayed in the EU. Scotland would have to become a special economic zone though.

I wouldn't. Mainly because being the latter half of a country name would be a slap in the face and a general embarrassment of the nation. All for just over half the population that for some reason didn't want money from the EU because most people here are that poor. Amazing really.

That aligns with a lot of pro-Brexit rhetoric, that is London does what's best for London and the rest of England can go pound sand.

Haven't you got that backwards? It would be the rest of England leaving, against London's wishes, while there's nothing but inaction on London's part. How have you got that turned around so that it's London forcing their will on the rest of England?

It becomes even more ironic when you recall that the (largely Unionist) Ulster Scots in NI are well... Scots...

The United Kingdom of Great Ireland and Northern Britain?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com