Should Northumbria be recognised?

[Nationalist Northumbria]

For those of you who don't know where Northumbria is, it's part of England. It wasn't always this way: while Northumbrians were English, Northumbria being part of England as opposed to an autonomous kingdom owing homage to English kings took a while to be sorted out. Some people, usually leftists dissatisfied by the defeat of a certain Jeremy Corbyn at the 2019 general election and subsequent ascension to the Labour leadership of moderate social democrat Keir Starmer, want Northumbria to be independent. There are some with different motives for Northumbrian independence, but that's the vast majority of its supporters.

Personally, I do not think Northumbria should be recognised. Northumbrian independence is a ridiculous idea (quite apart from the usual nonsense about it being too small to be a country: North East England has twice the population of Estonia, and nobody is suggesting they should have to rejoin Russia) and the independence its supporters want is independence for the whole of Northern England under the name 'Northumbria', which would lead to the subordination of the Northumbrian nation to the interests of the M62 corridor, not actual Northumbrian independence.

[The Two Jerseys]

Personally, I do not think Northumbria should be recognised. Northumbrian independence is a ridiculous idea

Do you know where your captors are holding you?

[Denoidumbutoniurucwivobrs]

It would be neat if it were a constituent country, but as an independent country it could not survive.

[Mundaneland]

Personally, I'd support the virtual disbanding of the Westminster government and a loose confederation of largely self-governing provinces of which Northumbria would be one. To be clear, that would be approximatly in line with the ancient kingdom of Northumbria, the whole north of England, not the modern county which would be far too small for any meaningful self-governance. So there would be Northumbria (North), Mercia (Midlands) and Wessex (South) with London a seperate self-governing province on its own to prevent it from dominating any other province it might be put into. Each would have its own Parliament and would decide on most areas of policy. Westminster would then be confined to areas like defence and foreign affairs. I think that would produce a more workable government closer to the people and less remote.

[Catalonia 2070 RP]

If the majority vote yes, then yes. If the majority vote no, than no.

[Dogmeat]

Only as a province of Greater Doggerland.

[Dumb Ideologies]

There's an obvious motivation for this given the London-centric nature of political power in Britain. It's always a bit tricky in practice to push this sort of idea though because you can't apply the regional model everywhere across the country as in many areas there isn't much of a sense of regional identity above and beyond your local town or city but below the national level. Both because of historic local rivalries and repeated redrawings and reorganisations of local government in the past that've been more about achieving a particular population size in the boundary than whether they're very meaningful to people. If you start talking about devolution and more assemblies/parliaments in those areas the main reaction will be "oh no not more politicians" and "what a waste of money".

So if you're wanting to have locally meaningful scales of government a regional extra tier with more devolved powers is something that would only be applied in a few places. Which makes local government structure a bit of a mess bureaucratically in terms of what tier has what powers.

Local government reorganisation and devolution for just one area is quite a lot of hassle and expense so it would need a very large groundswell of support to overcome the time, money, effort etc. barriers of "let's not bother".

[Fartsniffage]

There's an obvious motivation for this given the London-centric nature of political power in Britain. It's always a bit tricky in practice to push this sort of idea though because you can't apply the regional model everywhere across the country as in many areas there isn't much of a sense of regional identity above and beyond your local town or city but below the national level. Both because of historic local rivalries and repeated redrawings and reorganisations of local government in the past that've been more about achieving a particular population size in the boundary than whether they're very meaningful to people. If you start talking about devolution and more assemblies/parliaments in those areas the main reaction will be "oh no not more politicians" and "what a waste of money".

So if you're wanting to have locally meaningful scales of government a regional extra tier with more devolved powers is something that would only be applied in a few places. Which makes local government structure a bit of a mess bureaucratically in terms of what tier has what powers.

Local government reorganisation and devolution for just one area is quite a lot of hassle and expense so it would need a very large groundswell of support to overcome the time, money, effort etc. barriers of "let's not bother".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Nort ... referendum

[Republic Of Ludwigsburg]

No. They don't want independence, and Northumbria is historically part of England.

[Sordhau]

Personally, I do not think Northumbria should be recognised. Northumbrian independence is a ridiculous idea (quite apart from the usual nonsense about it being too small to be a country: North East England has twice the population of Estonia, and nobody is suggesting they should have to rejoin Russia) and the independence its supporters want is independence for the whole of Northern England under the name 'Northumbria', which would lead to the subordination of the Northumbrian nation to the interests of the M62 corridor, not actual Northumbrian independence.

...Have you been hacked?

[Sedgistan]

See: viewtopic.php?p=39860831#p39860831

We have had a spate of "should X be recognised as a country" threads, and copycats are getting locked.