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Re:Are cities the new countries? by arethuza on Monday January 18, 2016 @07:27AM (#10923977)
Arguably the UK already has a pretty "federal" structure - just that the whole thing is dominated, naturally enough by England and London.

Any attempt to balance things out would require devolving powers to the English regions, which nobody seems to want.

Re:Are cities the new countries? by pjc50 on Monday January 18, 2016 @07:42AM (#10924050)
pretty "federal" structure

Absolutely not, the separation of powers is both unclear and inconsistent among the devolved nations. It's also not really constitutionally guaranteed. The devolved assemblies have very limited powers over taxation and welfare spending.

Re:Are cities the new countries? by arethuza on Monday January 18, 2016 @08:01AM (#10924116)
Apologies - I guess I should have checked my understanding of "federal" before making such a comment!

I loved this description of the UK:

"an archipelagic supergroup comprised of four variously willing members."

mentioned in this article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/the...

Re:Are cities the new countries? by pjc50 on Monday January 18, 2016 @08:40AM (#10924291)
That's a suitably euphemistic way of putting it :)

The thirty or so years of recent low-level civil war in Northern Ireland are not mentioned there, or indeed anywhere in mainstream UK politics.

The 19th century Empire was run centrally from Whitehall. Gradually it rolled back in the 20th century: Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Israel, various Arab middle eastern countries, and so on. This has left the country with an imperial-derived system suited for paternalistically ruling people it considers inferior from a distance. It's just that the distance has scoped down. People within the UK and even within England are starting to regard it as distant and uninterested, especially in the recent floods this year and the last. It's on a much smaller scale than the Katrina disaster but I think the resentment is starting to build in a similar way.

Small-government conservativism in the UK means considering abandoning Liverpool as it's too far away.

Re:Are cities the new countries? by s_kilk on Monday January 18, 2016 @08:12AM (#10924159)
See also the promise of greater powers for Scotland before the 2014 Independance Referendum, a promise which was later reneged on.

Westminster still very much holds the leash, and reserve the right to yank it at their leisure.