For England it is difficult to envisage any insuperable disadvantage in the break up of the UK, but easy to see definite and substantial advantages. Most importantly, England would be able to act wholeheartedly in her own interests. Her considerable population, wealth and general sophistication would ensure that she could maintain without any real difficulty the present levels of government provision from the welfare state to the military. The powers vital to a sovereign state – the ability to control immigration, trade and the laws of the land – would be once again in English hands. Acting within the confines of the nation would allow meaningful democratic control to once again be exercised over parliament as politicians could no longer act as Quislings in the service of globalism because they would have to account .
England would no longer pay subsidies to the Celtic Fringe. These currently total around £16 billion as there are around 10 million Celts and each receives from the Treasury approximately £1,600 per head more than the English receive. In addition, the tax take in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales is less per capita than in England and the take-up of benefits higher (benefits are not devolved). Consequently, England has to pay disproportionately more of the UK benefits cost than her share of the UK population. The same applies to other non-devolved areas such as defence and foreign policy.
England’s removal from the EU would save around £5-6 billions just on the net difference between what is paid to Brussels and what Britain gets back. Much, probably most, of the remaining money is ill-spent because it can only be used in ways sanctioned by the EU. Most of the Dangeld paid to Brussels is paid by England. That burden would be removed from the English taxpayer. Further savings would come from removing the dead hand of EU directives from Britain, the cost of which is overwhelming borne by England.
Billions more can be saved by ending foreign Aid. This is currently around £9 billion pa. It will rise in the next few years to between £11-12 billion because of Gordon Brown’s committment to donating the UN’s target figure of 0.7 per cent of GDP by 2014. Most of this money is paid by the English taxpayer.
The only important disadvantages for England could be balance of payments deficits (primarily from the loss of oil, gas and whiskey production) and ructions in the international institutional sphere. Happily, adverse balances of trade are (eventually) self-correcting even if the correction, as is the case with America, can seem an age coming. Moreover, with the free global currency market and a floating pound, an adverse balance of trade does not hold the horrors it once did, for international borrowing is infinitely easier than it was and devaluation of the currency is not viewed as a national humiliation. England might be temporarily embarrassed by a substantially increased trade deficit, but there is no reason to believe that it would be prolonged or seriously affect the English economy.
As for international upheaval, it is conceivable that England would be unable to sustain a claim to Britain’s privileged position on international bodies such as the UN Security Council and the board of IMF. However, this is unlikely for a number of reasons. To begin with there is the precedent of Russia which assumed all of the Soviet Union’s international entitlements. Britain is also the United States’ only halfway reliable ally on most of these international boards. To this may be added Britain’s position as one of the larger international paymasters and providers of reliable military muscle. None of these facts need essentially change with the substitution of England for Britain. Perhaps most importantly, the denial to England of any of Britain’s institutional places would pose the awkward question of who was to take any vacant position. This could (and almost certainly would) in turn raise the whole question of whether the constitutions of most world bodies are equitable or suited to the modern world. (The constitutions were after all created approximately fifty years ago and are in no sense equitable). To deny England would mean the opening of a can of worms.
Conversely, it could be plausibly argued that membership of such international bodies represents a liability rather than an advantage and England would be well shot of them.
