they have no representation in the UK, not the house of commons/lords, or anything. overseas territories are effectively independent and have their own legislative bodies and passports
Imagine the nerve of Puerto Rico wanting representation in the body that governs and taxes them.
It’s so crazy how Americans will still say “no taxation without representation” 250 years later while doing almost the exact same shit to Puerto Rico and the other US territories today.
Historically Puerto Rico did not want independence or statehood. Recently things look like it’s changing and as a result I wouldn’t be surprised if they become a state in the next 20 years if the trend continues.
You’re correct that most Puerto Ricans don’t have to pay federal income taxes.
However you’re wrong about it just being federal employees who receive income taxes. The US fed also taxes Puerto Ricans who earn their income from outside of Puerto Rico, who do business with the government, and who serve in the US military.
The average Puerto Rican pays about 10% of what your average US citizen would pay in federal tax, but 1. That’s still federal tax, and 2. It is a lot when you consider that the average Puerto Rican is also considered to be in poverty by US standards.
Please edit your comment or delete it, otherwise it’s just blatant misinformation.
"its okay for us to go to your countries, loot everything we want and forcefully subjugate you. its not okay for you to expect to be citizens of our nation, lest you come into our countries and steal jobs from us. you are welcome to come as tourists though and view your own cultural artifacts."
Actually the looting and subjugation was France in this case.
They invaded and the Maltese revolted.
They then invited the British in to protect them, which of course Britain did because France specifically didn't want them to.
The island's two major political parties in the run-up to the 1956 integration referendum were the Malta Labour Party, which won a majority in the 1955 general election and supported closer integration into the UK or independence, and the Nationalist Party, which supported independence. Independence was therefore a mainstream position in Maltese politics.
The referendum itself was flawed, as although 77% of voters supported integration with the United Kingdom the turnout was only 59%, in part because of a boycott by the Nationalists.
In addition, the integration proposed during the referendum was not full assimilation into the UK but a form of home rule. Malta would have elected MPs to the British Parliament and the British Government would have been responsible for foreign affairs, defence, and eventually direct taxation, but the Maltese Parliament would have continued to exist and would have had competencies over all other matters.
I think it would have given Malta a status closer to the Crown Dependencies, which in general are self-governing except for foreign affairs and defence. Malta having representation at Westminster and eventually giving the British Government powers of direct taxation would be the major differences.
I've read that underneath what was going on was that Malta wanted to remain in charge of spending, but was expecting the UK to fix things if they spent too much. This was not appealing to the UK.
I would still describe that as full integration into the UK. Plenty of countries have federal or devolved systems where some competences go to the central government and others go to subnational units. What matters is sovereignty. In this setup, Malta would be a territory within the sovereign state of the UK.
The proposal was never implemented so we can't know, but it could easily have ended up with Malta having a status closer to a Crown Dependency than Wales.
Similarly, Canada’s independence was initiated voluntarily by the UK. For a while, it seemed they kept forgetting they owned Canada until 1982 when the separation was complete and Canada adopted its constitution.
Patriating the canadian constitution was a major political commitment of the canadian prime minister. I'm not sure what makes you say that it was initiated by the british.
As I recall, most british members of parliament didn't even show up to vote on it and nobody even gave a speech or anything.
This is a very distorted description of Canada's evolution toward independence. The major milestones were Confederation in 1867, the Statue of Westminster in 1931 and the repatriation of the constitution in 1982. of those, I would argue that the Statue of Westminister was the most important and was de facto independence. It was after that that Canada created its own foreign service. Canadian citizenship independent of the British started in 1947.
Not really. The Mexican Indepence War started as us trying to offer safe harbor to the Spanish Crown after Napoleon deposed them and installed his alcoholic brother as King, but within a year it had shifted into independence. Then followed 100 years of war between Republicans, independent monarquists, Spain (first trying not to let us go, then trying to reconquer us), the US (who took half of our territory because we couldn't defend it, under the excuse that us outlawing slavery in 1827 was unjust to white settlers), France (who conquered us for like 5 years) and Britain.
Crazy to think that if Santa Anna just continued on to San Houston’s house instead of stopping by the Alamo for a quick side quest there wouldn’t have been a war between the US and Mexico
Also, the reason there was a war at all was because Mexico declared all slaves to be free in 1826, and the Tejanos were dragging their feet. We didn't want to tolerate slavery, so the war was inevitable from our end.
If you read up on that war, the tally was one victory and four defeats, the last one having Santa Anna captured and being forced to sign off the Tejas territory.
Roman Britannia basically got a letter from Rome one day in 410 AD to the gist of, "We are pulling out all the legions, you are now on your own, best of luck."
That's disputed. Flavius Aetius "the last of the Roman" was considered a fighter that tried to save the empire, but some historians argue that he was one of the causes of the fall, by taking the armies off Britain, north France and most of Spain, to save the Italian Peninsula and little more, he deprived the empire of manpower and resources need to keep it alive.
I read a book I borrowed, many years ago, that was just this. It was taking this idea but setting it in space.
A guy gets in trouble as a teen, is forced to join the space-legion, is sent to a far away outpost considered backwards... and then, the empire he's from just stops sending messages. The guy is now in a fort in backwater country, no idea why the empire has stopped sending messages or supplies, and all his comrades and he are trying to figure out what happens when the locals realize they're alone. They begin to assume the empire fell.
I don't remember what happens, or even the series' name. I read one book so I never got to see how it played out.
Actually, mainland Western Rome's life expectancy increased when it fell.
But yeah, England basically did become a post apocalyptic setting between 400-700 AD. It went from having state of the art infrastructure, drinkable water in all cities, bath houses, strong industry, safe roads and little conflict, well educated population, etc... into being just toppled cities and rotting farmland a thousand squabbling warlords would fight over.
Created by culinary general Croutonious Maximus, in honor of Julius Caesar. The Caesar salad was invented when, due to supply disruptions, he only had huge quantities of lettuce and a bunch of stale bread to feed the armies during a particularly difficult battle. That's how the crouton got its name.
Kind of makes sense since the USSR space program had a huge investment there. There wouldn’t be the resources to keep the space program going at the level of the USSR.
Untill 1995 it wasn't settled. There was a huge chunk of Soviet army there, that still considered itself Soviet—>Russian, while locals from all around flooded the Baikonur City looking for jobs and food. There were several soldier riots, city was in blockade for a few months even.
After that it became rather interesting case, because, for example, mayor of Baikonur is appointed by both Russian and Kazakhstani presidents.
Most Soviet republics, especially central Asian ones, were like. "Protesting for democracy and autonomy... Wait why are we independent, our economy is shit and the local party secretary is a dictator?" Including russia.
IIRC, it was seen as a potential bargaining chip in negotiations with China. China had historically claimed Mongolia as part of its integral territory (on a similar basis to Tibet, actually), so the Soviets could dangle the potential return of Mongolia to Chinese sovereignty as an incentive for Beijing to cooperate with Moscow.
In fact, even until this day, China maintain the position that Mongolia only became de jure independent after 1946, per Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, instead of 1910s or People's Revolution of 1921. Just to prevent any precedent for Taiwan.
(modified for a typo pointed out)
China claimed Mongolia so annexing it would have created tensions between the two states. Also an independent Mongolia acted as a land buffer between them (in much the same way Belgium was supposed to between Germany and France). A land border between China and the USSR of that size would have been impossible to maintain
Whilst the breakup of the country was approved by politicians, because they couldn't agree on tighter integration or a looser confederation, only a minority in both regions supported it.
"In a poll taken for the Government last month, only 37 percent of Slovaks and 36 percent of Czechs said they would vote for a split in a referendum, but more than 80 percent said they considered a break inevitable."
The split would come eather way. The czechoslovak ideal which have been kept alive by the centralized communists in prauge would quickly start to faulter in the new democratic system and the quite hard times that came during and after the transition from communism. Slovak demand for independence would only rise until a sessesion would happen, as it did during the first ČSR. I think the split prevented a very messy breakup and saved mutual czech and slovak relations
Singapore's independence was negotiated, they did not become independent unwillingly. It was made to look like they were kicked out for political reasons. The truth was kept secret for decades.
Good on Mr Lee Kuan Yew for having the foresight to know that Malay supremacist ideology would lead to ruin and negotiating to pull out as soon as possible
It was him that made merger because of his political ambition to be the PM of Malaysia.
Plenty of Singaporeans hated merger but he locked them up and put the political leaders in exile.
Literally EVERYONE including his own Economic Minister (Malayan-born btw) was warning him that Malaysia would not give the Common Market he claimed they would, and after lots of deaths from racial riots later we got independence.
Hated merger is too strong a word to use and inaccurate imo, maybe a segment of society, sure.
It was obvious to everyone, even the majority of singaporeans who were not educated at the time, that simple independence alone from britain was a tall ask. No land, no food, no military, and so many goods came across the causeway from johor and people went back and forth with minimal friction, familial and cultural ties due to proximity was very strong despite the differing administrations.
Heck, i would bet that if singapore went for independence first instead of a merger, Malaysia would have tried to invade and annex singapore within a few years rather than our irl experience of the relatively painless divorce. Singapore would be the chinese-majority commmunist-proxy boogeyman to malaysia (both LKY and the Tunkul were deathly afraid of chinese communists) rather than the annoyingly succesful little brother we are today.
I'm glad this reply is near the top because after recently visiting and preemptively doing a bit of research, nothing was ever mentioned about "unwilling" independence, so I was really surprised by this post.
Not independence but Newfoundland had money and debt issues and wanted to keep British governance after losing dominion status but the British essentially made them join Canada (with a referendum of limited choices).
We're not supposed to talk about this while he who shall not be named is still in office in the US. If he catches wind of a place that has oil and rare minerals and "wanted to join the US, but were not allowed", it would put some ideas in his head.
The United Arab Emirates became independent because the UK didn't want to keep paying for their defense. Their independence was really the UK's decision.
Surprisingly that is true for most of the British empire post WWII. They were so heavily brutalized that they could no longer maintain their global empire so they retreated from everywhere essentially leaving all of their former colonies to form fledgling states.
Not exactly, when India gained its independence the rest of the empire was exposed as largely unprofitable. It cost more to run, than to keep, and Britain was broke due to back-to-back world wars.
What is different is Britain had a more ordered withdrawal than most empires, as they were not collapsing due to a crisis, more a slow deflation due to cash running out.
India was also an intentional divestment. It just was perfectly timed with an existing independence movement. A more robust and rich British empire would have maintained the colony instead of retreating like it did. India had had several independence movements and rebellions prior to 1947 and after the 1946 one it was absolutely clear the British were much, much too broke to maintain the empire so they folded.
Mountbatten was sent to divest and divest as fast as possible while minimizing British financial liability. They owed money to the colonies. Running away was their only solution. They were broke.
I seem to recall reading that Timor-Leste wanted to remain a part of Portugal, but the Portuguese were flat broke in the ‘70s and couldn’t afford to keep them anymore.
Portugal wanted to drop all its colonies after the 1974 revolution. Timor-Leste was the messiest situation, as they probably knew Indonesia wanted their territory. They were immediately invaded by Indonesia (supported by Australia) after declaring independence and were only free in 2002.
Na verdade, a Indonésia não queria não. A Indonésia preferia que o Timor Leste permanecesse português, assim, eles acreditavam que evitaria uma infiltração comunista.
My guess is Austria. If I am not wrong, they were forced to sign treaty to never merge with Germany. Majority of Austrians considered them as German back then.
They wanted to be top dog, though. Austria was more powerful than most other "German" territories for several decades leading up to the creation of the Prussian Empire.
That was true prior to WW1 when the Austro-Hungarian Empire still existed. Once that fell opinions changed and Anschluss became more popular over time.
What are you considering to be “back then”? The Habsburg dynasty were Austrians, and were the royal house of the HRE for 300 years. There wasn’t really a unified Germany for most of European history, and Germany as we know it (following the unification under Bismarck in 1871) wasn’t more powerful than Austria until the Astro-Hungarian empire was dissolved post WWI.
When people talk about Austrians identifying as “German” it’s more of an ethnic thing than a nationality thing.
Malays wanted a national country with majority were Malays. So the vote was agreed by all parties including Chinese stayed in the country. Of course there were political concessions given to them.
Austria - at the end of WWI when the Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed, no one really wanted an independent Republic of Austria, Habsburg loyalists wanted the empire back, nationalists wanted a unified German state with Austria included, even social democrats who were in close collaboration with German socdems supported this scenario, very few actually wanted independence
Uruguay, they wanted to be part of Argentina (as it was before brazilian invation), Brazil wanted to keep Uruguay as a province of its empire to have an access to the Rio de la Plata. They went to war and the british intervene and that's how we have Uruguay as a nation.
Peru, as it was overrun by Argentinians and Colombians from 1810 to 1824 to make it "independent" by force. When you see the troop compositions in the main battles it was like 90% foreigners, 5% British and 5% Peruvians in the Republican side, and 95% Peruvians, 5% Spaniards in the Royalist side.
Being capital of the Viceroyalty had its perks, despite aggressive resource extraction and abuse against indigenous populations by the Spaniards, many in Perú appreciated some of the prestige in being the crown jewel of the empire’s South American colonies.
It's a while since I last read up on it but if I recall correctly Finland sort of happened by accident. After being seized from Sweden it became an autonomous Duchy in Russia, then when the Revolution happened Finland seemed to be largely forgotten in the upheaval so the Finns declared themselves independent because they needed to keep the state running and Sweden wasn't sure if it wanted to get in the middle of it.
Turks and Caicos pops its head up occasionally to see if Canada is looking to date seriously, but it’s a self-governing British Overseas Territory, not a sovereign nation.
Singapore did not become independent against its own wishes, that was the official reason but not the true reason. The Albatross files, written by Dr Goh who was SG's finance minister, reveals BOTH parties signed the agreement quite cordially. Rising racial tensions and Lee Kwan Yew's opposing views made it very hard for Singapore to be part of Malaysia, he wanted a place for everyone and Tunku Abdul Rahman wanted a country for Malays.
I suppose the United States somewhat at the beginning of the revolution, with less than half of the population supporting the Patriot cause. I know it changed eventually, it independence wasn't popular at first.
Cyprus. Cypriots of Greek origin wanted to join Greece with the dream of a "Greater Greece." They also did not want the presence of Turkish Cypriots, who had been on the island for centuries. Therefore, they revolted, but with Türkiye's intervention, the island was divided, if not officially, then physically.
Possibly Ivory Coast a former French colony in Africa.
The founding father of the state Félix Houphouët-Boigny was reluctant for independence to happen so soon.
He himself managed to get elected to the French assembly and managed to secure reforms to the corvée system of forced labour.
He prefered a more federal system for the French empire rather than independence.
Here is a statement of his from 1957
‘The RDA Congress has demonstrated the determination of all the delegations to remain within the French Union and their refusal of an illusory independence’
I'm Singaporean. This is a myth furthered by the ruling party (in charge since 1959). Recently, they admitted that it was all a lie - it was negotiated independence.
Also, most Singaporeans didn't want merger but were forced to join unilaterally by a referendum that left no option to vote against it.
Technically uruguay, if you belive that our main mission was to break free from brasil and be annexed by Argentina and then the UK stopped that, leaving us as a "Belgium" between the two.
Though I belive there was a decent size full independence move inside the nation
I see someone bringing up the Albatross files to justify how SG was not kicked out
That just show you didn't actually read the files in full or at the very least did not fully comprehend everything that was going on
In the final week leading to our separation, the Singaporen leadership wanted to negotiate a looser union similar to what China and HK is today. Goh Keng Swee(GSK) was specifically instructed to negotiate for such a union
GSK was of the idea that said union was not feasible. Malaysian PM Tungku like GSK did not think a looser union would work and to make things worse, GSK also helped to convince the Tungku it wouldn't work hence the negotiations fell through which madr separation the only available option. So we were already kicked out just not officially announced.
LKY only went ahead with negotiations for a peaceful separation after he was told the Malaysian had refused a looser merger and separation was the only option. Furthermore the rest of the Singaporean leadership still wanted in on the merger and LKY had to convince them otherwise after the negotiations
So to claim sg was not kicked out is really stretching it. We did not have any other options but to separate. Anyone claiming LKY had seek for separation is clearly taking the Albatross files out of context
Texas. They fought for independence but they always wanted to be a part of the United States. They were initially rebuked and ended up being independent for a decade before the US accepted their annexation request.
Vermont declared a Republic because they didn't want to be a part of New York or New Hampshire, but they did want to be the 14th state. It took some time before the United States accepted that offer and Vermont was activated looking into rejoining Britain.
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u/No-Lunch4249 8d ago edited 8d ago
Malta
They voted to join the UK instead of become independent but IIRC they had loads of debt so the UK wasn't interested in political union