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Northern Independence Party

brogdale said:
With 35% of constituencies in the North being Tory held, there must be many Northerners who find it problematic to buy into an identity cast in labour solidarity.
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Perhaps they are the barrier to the imminent drift into blood and soil ?
 
Rimbaud said:
The industrial revolution stuff still feels relevant to me, because deprived areas in the North generally suffered from deindustrialisation. Going round somewhere like Sunderland, which is really grim these days but was formerly a boom town when my grandparents were my age, it is hard not to feel a sense of loss over the ship building industry. And I've always found it sad to learn that so much technology of world historical importance was from up here but then the communities who built it have in many cases been thrown on the scrapheap once they outlived their usefulness.

I was born after the miner's strike but I always heard stories about it, and it is something emotive to me. It isn't just the historical story which is emotive to me, but it still feels like an aspect of my living struggles as the high unemployment rate at home necessitated me moving away to find work, and getting caught in exploitative rent arrangements as a result. So I often feel angry about having to move away for work, and this ties into a general anger about the injustice of deindustrialisation and how the miners were treated etc.

That's why the stuff about the industrial revolution feels powerful and relevant to me, and I don't find it be a hackneyed cliche at all. That's probably why I enjoyed it more than you, the industrial heritage stuff really works on me.
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This is problematic because aside from falling flat with a shitload of people who have no such identity, it's rooted in loss, and particularly loss of something that can't be straightforwardly replaced. Heritage is important, as is the understanding of who and what was responsible for past wrongs, but the future of the north (probably) isn't in revival of shipbuilding or mining, it's building something new on our own terms. I don't know how much I can be bothered to press this point, but I don't want to see northern identity and politics wrapped up into a classic misery cliché. Liverpool - wrongly - gets a particular focus of this on its own but we all do.
 
Anyway as I've tried to tell you idiots a few times, this should be the anthem.




Isn't the point of anthems basically to get people marching off to war? I would probably sign up to be cannon foddered if they played this at me. I would join the Soviet Union if they put on theirs too tbf.

And it's got Jerusalem in it, which the English should have used as theirs, and if we take it then they can't, the twats.
 
mauvais said:
Anyway as I've tried to tell you idiots a few times, this should be the anthem.




Isn't the point of anthems basically to get people marching off to war? I would probably sign up to be cannon foddered if they played this at me. I would join the Soviet Union if they put on theirs too tbf.

And it's got Jerusalem in it, which the English should have used as theirs, and if we take it then they can't, the twats.
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I'd be more onboard with this Guy Called Gerald banger tbh

 
mauvais said:
Anyway as I've tried to tell you idiots a few times, this should be the anthem.




Isn't the point of anthems basically to get people marching off to war? I would probably sign up to be cannon foddered if they played this at me. I would join the Soviet Union if they put on theirs too tbf.

And it's got Jerusalem in it, which the English should have used as theirs, and if we take it then they can't, the twats.
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I've probably bored everyone with this tale already...but I'm prompted to recall the evening in 1987 when I took a work mate from Sunderland to the Gills/Sunderland Div 3 playoff at Priestfield. After we'd parked up, gone to the pub and then had chips he declared that the Medway towns were 'worse than Sunderland'. He thought he was visiting the 'Garden of England'.

No one region has a monopoly on misery.
 
Teaboy said:
I suspect the Union of Celtic Republics might want to consult with a few arable farmers before they settle on that map.
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I'm presuming they'd be part of the EU and therefore break bread with the wheat farmers of the Paris Basin?
 
brogdale said:
I've probably bored everyone with this tale already...but I'm prompted to recall the evening in 1987 when I took a work mate from Sunderland to the Gills/Sunderland Div 3 playoff at Priestfield. After we'd parked up, gone to the pub and then had chips he declared that the Medway towns were 'worse than Sunderland'. He thought he was visiting the 'Garden of England'.

No one region has a monopoly on misery.
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Wow! Considering how desperate pessimism was the standard mindset of Sunderland supporters at that time, that's a fairly damning verdict!
 
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krink said:
Wow! Considering how desperate pessimism was the standard mindset of Sunderland supporters at that time, that's a fairly damning verdict!
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Yeah, the Cats were proper shite and we put them down, only failing to gain promo because of the Swindlers from Swindon.:mad:
My mate was referring to the towns themselves, rather than the team; the bastard.
 
I have bunged them a few tenners over the last few months purely as they've been entertaining, in a cathartic post-Corbyn way, but I'm still on the fence about whether the approach has legs, and if it does whether that's entirely a good thing. I don't think the British state is going to let go of Scotland; it's certainly not going to accept northern sedition.
 
killer b said:
Surprisingly decent interview with the NIP guy on Novara tonight (so far at least, I'm only halfway in)

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I found that really interesting, and he personally holds up really well. I liked his anti-nationalism and actively talking down northern-essentialism.
The fact that a number of northern Labour activists have obviously felt dumped by Labour and are now signed up and working for NIP is an interesting dynamic.
Godspeed to them.
 
lazythursday said:
I have bunged them a few tenners over the last few months purely as they've been entertaining, in a cathartic post-Corbyn way, but I'm still on the fence about whether the approach has legs, and if it does whether that's entirely a good thing. I don't think the British state is going to let go of Scotland; it's certainly not going to accept northern sedition.
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I think they would be better to try a more moderate approach of more autonomy and local democracy for the North. But this might be less attention grabbing than their current approach.

I'm increasingly starting to think that even the most moderate social democratic change is no longer possible in the Westminster system as the elite bubble dominates the major parties and won't budge an inch. For this reason I think that breaking up or federalising the UK might be a good way to break their power and get a more responsive democracy, similar to Germany or other states in Northern Europe. This really isn't so much to fucking hope for and other countries seem capable of it somehow. The reaction of the PLP to Corbyn and now Starmer's crackdown on the left has convinced me that taking power away from Westminster is the next thing to try.

I really hope NIP do well enough as it would frighten the British establishment if Scotland, Wales and the North are all pushing to break free, and there might be more willingness to compromise as a result. Similar to how the welfare state and expansion of democracy was allowed as an alternative to revolution.
 
lazythursday said:
I have bunged them a few tenners over the last few months purely as they've been entertaining, in a cathartic post-Corbyn way, but I'm still on the fence about whether the approach has legs, and if it does whether that's entirely a good thing. I don't think the British state is going to let go of Scotland; it's certainly not going to accept northern sedition.
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I doubt there's any real chance of Northern independence actually being a thing - that feels pretty secondary to me though tbh. Proudfoot is pretty explicit that any pressure they can bring to bear is a positive - there's a lot more a strong regionalist party could do to improve stuff in their region short of full independence.
 
Yes there's a lot of pressure they could potentially come to have - Nigel Farage is the defining UK politician of the last twenty years through the campaigning power of UKIP/Brexit Party - that's the benchmark for NIP to aim for.

One possible problem NIP might face as they grow is entryism and factionalism...From what Philip Proudfoot was saying it sounds like they're trying to be a highly democratic party. When the overall membership numbers are low at this early stage that might leave it open to being swung off course, and also potentially allow loose canons to rock the boat. UKIP was full of loons of course, and it didn't ultimately do them any harm.
 
killer b said:
I doubt there's any real chance of Northern independence actually being a thing - that feels pretty secondary to me though tbh. Proudfoot is pretty explicit that any pressure they can bring to bear is a positive - there's a lot more a strong regionalist party could do to improve stuff in their region short of full independence.
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Just watched that video and was quite impressed at the audacity of saying that they will prioritise Labour-Tory marginals because that is how you get influence in FPTP system. Labour have fucked off the left enough that they don't deserve any mercy, and economically may even be to the right of the Tories now.

It is exactly this sort of audacity that could shake things up.
 
mauvais said:
Anyway as I've tried to tell you idiots a few times, this should be the anthem.




Isn't the point of anthems basically to get people marching off to war? I would probably sign up to be cannon foddered if they played this at me. I would join the Soviet Union if they put on theirs too tbf.

And it's got Jerusalem in it, which the English should have used as theirs, and if we take it then they can't, the twats.
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Jarusalem has always been the anthem of the "oop North" my parents/grandparents etc refused point blank to ever sing "God Save the Queen" - which is why it's played straight after the national anthem at th'challenge cup final.
 
Does north Derbyshire count as the north to the NIP?

Also, the anthem should be Jerusalem and anyone who disagrees is just wrong.
 
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