Episode 52 - September Grab Bag

So for today's episode, we're going to talk about a couple of different things.

The first thing we're going to talk about is actually something that was submitted to us.

Because the other day, Mike, you put out a tweet basically saying, hey, what should we talk about on the podcast this week? And we got a response from...

uh amber

dr amber britain hale my friend she's uh she's great i've been on the the breakdown show with her a few times now uh very very smart commentator on foreign policy and stuff like that so she suggested to us to talk about this issue that's kind of bubbling for a while but just kind of had some news story about potential conference happening over it and that's a potential breakup of the united kingdom which It's been on the radar, like I said, for quite some time now, depending on how you want to put it, going back, I don't know, almost to when the United Kingdom united in the first place.

There were calls to reverse that or break it up.

So it's not an uncommon thing over British history.

We kind of forget the UK is made up of four different countries.

It's England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, the three of the The other one on the main British Isle, then the other one, obviously, Northern Ireland.

There have been backs and forths about whether one of those territories should split off, multiple territories.

They all have their own independence

movements,

various degrees of success.

The Scottish independence movement has had referenda and stuff in the past for leaving.

some of which have come pretty close to success.

You have the constant issue of uniting Ireland or not.

Obviously, there was a lot of brouhaha over that back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s with Irish terrorism and things like that.

Basically, a low-level or mid-level war kind of going on in Northern Ireland almost the entire time.

And then Wales is kind of just like the redheaded stepsister, which, you know, if you know anything about Wales, they often do have red hair.

So that's one of those things that no one really thinks about.

Wales isn't really going anywhere.

They've been basically linked with England for much, much longer than the other two have.

and so this is kind of a perennial question um something that a few things have kind of supercharged it though obviously brexit um back in i think that was what 2016 same year as trump got elected um which is the united kingdom left the european union which was something that was much more popular in england um than it was for instance in scotland and so that kind of caused some internal divisions or exacerbated some to

be

more more honest And there's also been a long process of what's called devolution, which basically means that the parliament that we think of, the British Parliament that meets in London, and that beautiful building right off the Thames, that is the parliament for the country, but there are also parliaments for each of the constituent nations.