Interesting Links for 01-11-2016

[andrewducker]

How Amazon are swallowing the publishing business (tags: amazon publishing ) Firms urged to prepare for new 12-sided pound coin (tags: money uk currency ) Why doesn’t England just leave the UK? (tags: uk england europe ) Unpaid internships could be banned (tags: work uk pay ) Original post on Dreamwidth - there are

Comments

[steepholm]

That's an attractive idea (though why the focus is on England rather than England-and-Wales I'm not sure), but it puts the cart before the horse. In the absence of any England-wide assembly or parliament, it's hard to see how England could decide to leave the UK. What body would confirm such a decision?

[skington]

There's already such a thing as English Votes for English Laws, and Parliament could easily decide to make up a constitutional precedent on the hoof - it does that sort of thing all the time.

I think the main obstacle for this sort of thing is that England (or England-and-Wales, whatever) would very much like to carry on being the successor state for trivial things like the permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

[steepholm]

Of course you're entirely correct as to the latter point: even though the nuclear weapons that guarantee that seat would be based in the UK, on the Clyde.

No doubt a secession referendum could be passed by the UK parliament - it is sovereign, after all - but it would be a non-starter unless there were some democratic England-wide body (with a concomitant civil service, etc.) ready to take power in the event of a Yes vote. And of course there has been no such body since 1707. That's why I say the article puts the cart before the horse. First get your national parliament, then bid for independence. Just like the Scots, in fact.

[skington]

In practice England would just keep Westminster and the UK civil service. It would be silly otherwise: what would the remaining UK do with a Parliament and a civil service based in a foreign country?

[octopoid_horror]

I'm sure that banning unpaid internships will mean that the kind of industries where it's expected will suddenly all have a lot of "volunteers" and will expect you to have done "volunteer work" there before getting into that industry.