by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Given what a shit-show American politics has been the last five years, and how much it’s grated on my nerves to hear non-Americans tell me what they think should happen to my country, I probably shouldn’t talk about this. But no one listens to me, so here we go.
Is it possible that the problems of the Anglo-American world could be fixed if England joined the United States? Let’s look into this.
As it stands, the UK is slouching towards dissolution as Scotland wants to leave the UK to rejoin the EU. If successful, Ireland would likely re-unite and Wales would bounce. So, you would have England all alone, struggling to look for a way to come back without sheepishly, hat-in-hand, going back to the EU and reforming the UK under a different legal framework.
So, why not join the US instead?
Here’s the state of play — first, England would have to make a decision about the Monarchy. Either they tell the Queen to go to Canada, or they don’t. If they don’t, then the Americans would have to pass a Constitutional Amendment allowing a state NOT to have a “republican form of government.”
Given how divided the United States is right now, that seems like a tough sell.
So, let’s say the Queen leaves for Ottawa, clearing that hurdle. Well, the argument could be made this would be an easy sell across the political spectrum. England would be ripe for the Tories to become Republicans. The addition of Labour and the LibDems into the American Electoral College system would be…interesting.
What would likely happen is there would be something of a revolution in the UK as Tories-now-Republicans were expected to tow the bonkers agenda of the modern Republican Party. Or, put another way, it would likely take a decade for the English political system to sort itself out as some Tories became Republicans, while a lot of Tories and LibDems became Democrats and Labour just, well, became as irrelevant as it is now anyway.
It’s possible that once Americans overcame their 50+ stars on the flag phobia, that letting the huge England into the Union would give the Democrats the leverage to add DC and Puerto Rico as states. I would propose that the State of England’s addition would help everyone involved (after some pretty massive bumps in the beginning) and maybe even help the United States avoid a civil war.
The reason being — the influx of a bunch of white people into the Union might cause racist fuck Republicans to calm the fuck down for a generation, long enough for the browning of America to happen without American imploding and using WMD on ourselves.
But there would be pretty significant consequences to the lives of average English people. The NHS would probably be ruled unConstitutional almost immediately. Taxes would be slashed down to virtually nothing and government services would declined accordingly. There would likely be a massive, massive brain drain as American English decided to look for a better life in the lower 48.
And there might be a sense of cultural isolation in Europe. The American educational system would likely replace the traditional British version. And, to some extent, everything would suck. And, yet, the case could be made that a massive amount of unlocked potential would be tapped as the State of England became tighter with the other parts of the Union.
No one listens to me. That’s probably a good thing.
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