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posted by on Tuesday March 28 2017, @11:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the five-easy-pieces dept.

This weekend comes word that two of the masterminds behind the United Kingdom’s ongoing divorce from the European Union, Nigel Farage and Arron Banks. The duo just returned from the United States, where they reportedly helped raise a million bucks for one of the Calexit campaigns floating around — a scheme that would split the state into two eastern and western regions.

Farage and Banks are known as the Bad Boys of Brexit, and for good reason. As the controversial leader of the UK Independence Party, or Ukip for short, the one-time broadcaster Farage stirred up the anti-immigration pot in England among the white British working class. Banks, who co-founded the Leave.EU group, angered many when he claimed that Britain’s UK membership is “like having a first class ticket on the Titanic.’’ He also got into hot water with his controversial move to commission a poll after the murder of British politician Jo Cox, asking respondents whether the crime would have an impact on public opinion.

Now the Bad Boys have brought their shtick to California, according to a report in the Daily Mail which says the pair are helping exit backers trying to pit the eastern, more rural side of California against the western ‘coastal elite’ liberals in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The plan would be to create a Republican stronghold in the new state cleaved off California’s eastern flank, thus giving the GOP two more senators and electoral college votes for a 2020 presidential election.

Mercury News continues:

Meanwhile, a second Calexit campaign is underway. It’s called Yes California and it would see the state seceding from America entirely. If that initiative successfully finds a place on the ballot, a Yes vote would repeal clauses in the California Constitution stating “California is an inseparable part of the United States and that the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land, ‘’ according to a statement from California’s Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s office said.

[Ed note: corrected typo in this story's last paragraph and expanded same to include the entire paragraph from which it was extracted. --martyb]


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:10PM (2 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:10PM (#485862) Journal

    I grew up in the West and spent a lot of time in California, but it was always on the coast or in the central valley. The coast was movie stars, techno-lords, and retired military, and the central valley was agrobusiness overlords who affect Republicanism because it aligns best with the plantations they run. Wasn't until this summer I spent significant time in the north and east of the Sierras. Those are two different worlds, the north feeling like Oregon and east of the Sierras like New Mexico, Arizona, or Colorado. Breaking California up into four states comprising those regions would work pretty well. It wouldn't change the political balance in the larger country much either, with the coast and north staying blue and the central and east going red.

    Breaking California off into an entirely separate country would be much more tramautic to everyone than it would have been for the South to succeed before. California is a powerhouse across a lot of sectors so it could very well stand on its own. But it's so deeply tied into the rest of America that extricating itself from the whole would do a lot of damage for a long time. The people who voted for Brexit probably thought the divorce would be immediate, but they're probably going to find it's going to take at least as long to get untangled as it took to integrate before, and the same would be true for Calexit.

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    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:07PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:07PM (#486180)

    It could stand on it's own for everything except military(the US would not leave its resources there), water, power generation, trade agreements, and on and on. If any one single state were to break off and be self sufficient it would more likely be Texas or Alaska.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:03PM (#486215)

    The people who voted for Brexit probably thought it was going to herald in a new era in Middle Earth where Frodo and Sam would bake cookies on Wednesdays and everyone would get together under the tree on the common to sing rousing choruses about WW1 until uncle Bilbo got sleepy and got carried home.