Does the UK face extinction? – Fintan O’Toole on the Union’s future

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The UK is “muddling towards extinction”, says the Irish thinker and journalist Fintan O’Toole. Neglected by a Westminster political class that’s preoccupied by Brexit, the things that once held it together are disappearing. He tells Ros Taylor how England is embracing a nationalism it can’t articulate, why the SNP has failed to get what it wants, and why the UK is not the natural union that its supporters believe it to be. “The UK was not a natural occurrence.” “Englishness knows what it is not, but not what it is.” “With Brexit, this is always where it was going to end up — and no one in Britain cared.” “The English reluctantly accepted Scots, but only through an unequal relationship.” Fintan O’Toole’s latest book is We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland since 1958. https://www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Audio production by Robin Leeburn. Assistant producer: Kasia Tomasiewicz. Lead Producer: Jacob Jarvis. Music: Kenny Dickinson. Group editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production Instagram | Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:01.6	Hello and welcome to the bunker I'm Ros Taylor. Is the UK going to
1:08.8	be able to stay together despite the shock of Brexit or are we drifting
1:12.3	inexorably apart and is that a good
1:14.9	thing or a bad one joining me is the Irish thinker and journalist Finton O'Toole
1:19.8	welcome to the bunker Finton that's lovely to be with you, Raz.
1:24.2	So you wrote a piece in Foreign Affairs magazine recently,
1:26.8	which has been causing a bit of a stir,
1:28.5	and you said the UK was muddling towards extinction. I think that would come as quite shock to many people
1:34.7	embroiled in Westminster politics who only have a vague sense sometimes of what is happening
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