Re: More future history questions - UK

>From: Phillip Atcliffe atcliffe@ntlworld.com
>
>Surely staying in the EU has a lot to do with what kind of financial 
>pain it will cause the economy. If the UK needs to start bailing out 
>Greece and other EU basket case economies on the back of the UK 
>recession I don't imagine that would be very popular.
>
>It will be interesting to see what the Scottish independance 
>movement does to the UK. If Scotland goes independant would Wales 
>follow and would losing Scotland be good for the English economy or 
>not? For the Royal Navy to give up it's scotish ports and relocate 
>them to Newcastle would be a major economic switch of funding and 
>employment. I don't see the RN giving up parts of it's fleet to 
>Scotland to all the Scots to have a navy to protect their economic 
>resources.

The (Scottish) science fiction writer Charlie Stross has
written a couple of near future books (Halting State, Rule
34) where Scotland is independent. In the book the Scots
can make their own laws, have their own parliament, etc;
but like England they're tightly integrated into the EU
so there are lots of transnational policies on travel,
business, etc that apply. There's a throw-away line about
Scotland relying on, and contributing to, the UK military
for defence (it's a peaceful future).

End result for Scottish independence looks more like a
US/Australian state or Canadian province, less like
Braveheart.

In the Pacific there are some small islands which have
basically outsourced defence and foreign policy to New
Zealand. You could say that Australia is the de-facto
protector of East Timor. This could be how the Oceanic
Union grows in the GZG timeline.

	cheers,
	Hugh