by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
Absolutely no one reads this blog, so I feel comfortable indulging my personal love of scenarios here without much thought that anyone is actually take issue with it. And if they do — I don’t mean to advocate anything. Sometimes I grow a little obsessive with my flights of fancy and write a lot about something I have no business writing about.
So, here I am again, mulling A Very British Revolution. The scenario goes like this — sometime very soon, the Government (Brexiters) and Parliament (Remainers) find themselves on a collision course. The scenario only works if Parliament, sensing it has the support of the populace, tells Boris Johnson’s Government to fuck off. I just don’t see this happening, but for the sake of the scenario, let’s say it happens. If this did happen, the things would grow pretty momentus pretty quick. It would not be too difficult to assume that Parliament would find itself in the position of nearly being forced to form a Revolutionary Government of its own. If they had their wits about them, they would use their popular support among Londoners to seize City Hall, the BBC and the police.
At this point, things would grow murky. I would propose that they would feel a lot of pressure to form a Republican Parliament that would abolish the monarchy. One issue would be what would happen to the other divisions of the UK. In a way, the case could be made that you could probably keep Scotland in the new republic a lot easier than you might think. In fact, I would use revoking Article 50 as a bargaining chip to keep Scotland joined with the England. You promise the Scots a written constitution that would give them formalized rights much like an American state. This would avoid the Scots having to formally leave the EU in the first place and keep the some semblance of the UK effectively in existence. If you can keep the Scots, you can keep the rest of the country together. (Which to me would be the goal in the first place.)
What you would call this new country is anyone’s guess. United States of Britain? United Republics of Great Britain? And then if you want to get all technical about it, the issue of the flag would also be up for debate, I guess. But I don’t really know enough about that to be able to pace that part of the scenario out.
But all of that is the absolute worse case scenario. That would be the political equivalent of an asteroid striking the planet. In all likelihood, either the bad guys of Boris Johnson’s tinpot dictatorship Government wins or the whole thing is punted down the road again. Or the real damage, the real crisis happens after No Deal Brexit itself.
As I have noted before, just because you had a revolution in Great Britain, doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have a civil war immediately afterwards. Just because the Government lost the mandate of heaven, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t go down fighting. And if things have gotten so bad that the Crown is overthrown, then all bets are off. People would likely get hurt and I definitely don’t want that. That’s why this is just me idly mulling possibilities for my own “enjoyment.” The moment any of this scenario becomes a reality, it won’t be much fun at all.
But if the United Republics of Great Britain did manage to survive a Second English Civil War, I would guess the Crown would leave for the bosom of Canada. That makes the most sense. I guess. It would be a bit surreal — much like when the Portuguese crown fled to Brazil during the Napoleonic Wars.
And, really, me writing about this says more about me being unhappy that nothing seems to stop Trump from turning the States into an authoritarian state than my desire to see a revolution in Great Britain. I just wish the Good Guys could win in Great Britain and maybe encourage Americans to have a little bit more spunk in their resistance to Trump.
Let me stress, I don’t want anyone to get hurt and I’m not advocating anything. It’s not my country and I know real people would be involved — and put in danger — if any of what I’ve suggested were to actually happen. And, again, no one reads this blog so it’s not like anyone should care what I have to say. I’m just a nobody in the States looking across the pond with growing unease as to what’s happening in the UK.
