As Scotland votes for independence what becomes of the British Flag?

[Agschmid]

Tomorrow Scotland will hold a historic vote on whether to break away from the United Kingdom or not. Never mind the social, political, economic ramifications of secession—if the Scots bail out, there will be a bit of a graphic design problem to address.

That's because the Union Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom, is in fact a 19th-Century mashup of three different flags: The English's St. George's Cross blazon...



...Northern Ireland's Saint Patrick's Saltire (a "saltire" being a diagonal cross)...



...and Scotland's Saint Andrew's Cross, which is technically a saltire.



Put them all together, and you've got three great tastes that (perhaps used to) taste great together:



More here...

What do you think will happen?

[customerserviceguy]

1. The UK lost a major piece of Ireland

and the Union Jack didn't change at all. Yes, they hung on to several counties in Northern Ireland, but that's irrelevant.

If Scotland goes its own way, the flag of the UK will not change.

[Ken Burch]

6. Northern Ireland is sometimes referred to as Ulster, but that's not really accurate.

Northern Ireland contains only six of the nine counties of the historic province of Ulster(the other three were excluded from it because they had Catholic majorities). They SHOULD just call it "Ulst".

[Art_from_Ark]

8. Or maybe they should call it "Ulcer"

[Ken Burch]

9. I think a lot of them do, actually. n/t.

[ZombieHorde]

2. They should burn them.

And then burn the rest of the world's flags. Burn them all.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. I had no idea the Union Jack was a blend of the three flags

Kinda cool actually.

Learn something new every day.

[MADem]

4. Design a new flag that has some Welsh influence up in there.

A nice dragon in the middle would WOW the Harry Potter fans....

[Agschmid]

10. That would be cool to see!

[MADem]

15. Crisis averted, apparently.... (well, from the view of London, anyway)

I think all those polls that relied on the internet over-sampled some segments of the population, and didn't take into account pensioners who might not have felt so sanguine about their monthly paychecks under a new regime.

Cameron can stop shitting those bricks, I guess!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/world/europe/scotland-independence-vote-no.html?_r=0

EDINBURGH — Voters in Scotland decisively rejected independence from the United Kingdom in a referendum that had threatened to break up the 307-year union, but also appeared to open the way for a looser, more federal Britain.

With results tallied from all 32 voting districts, the “no” campaign won 55.3 percent of the vote while the pro-independence side won 44.7 percent. The margin was greater than forecast by virtually all pre-election polls.

The outcome was a deep disappointment for the vocal, enthusiastic pro-independence movement led by the Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, who had seen an opportunity to make a centuries-old nationalist dream a reality and forced the three main British parties into panicked promises that they would grant substantial new power to the Scottish Parliament.....

[sibelian]

5. They will have to take scissors and indiviually cut out all the blue triangles

Last edited Thu Sep 18, 2014, 05:48 AM - Edit history (1)

In ALL the worlds flags that have the Union Jack in them.

[Ken Burch]

7. Including Hawaii's

[marions ghost]

11. ha ha

the Union Jack won't change...but thx for the info.

[Agschmid]

13. If we lost a state do you think we'd keep all 50 stars?

[marions ghost]

14. No-- keep it for District of Columbia

--------

[Silent3]

12. How about the same Union Jack, but...

...with a unicorn-shaped hole cut out of it?