On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 08:11:22 +0000, Stimpy
wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 02:08:49 +0000, James Farrar wrote

Another variation on UKIP ? Apparently some bloke called Gary Bushell
is their candidate for the Mayoralty of Greater London :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Democrats
which seems to mention desires on the territory of a neighbouring
country, a policy which largely fell out of favour in the rest of
Europe about 1938.

What, Monmouthshire?

Some us on this group live in Monmouthshire and are very happy with it being
in Wales!

In which case, you would get your chance to have your say in the
referendum that is proposed!

On 8 Jan, 19:19, Arthur Figgis wrote:

(snip)

http://www.therockalltimes.co.uk/pol...k-rockall.html says:

should they feel obliged to pursue the matter, we'd like to point out
the following interesting statistics:

Total number of ballistic missile submarines:
UK: 4
Denmark: 0

Total number of operationally-available nuclear warheads:
UK: 200+
Denmark: 0


Fantastic bit of research Arthur - the aforementioned article has
solved the mystery of exactly why the UK has spend £XXXX billion on a
nuclear arms programme - it's so we can enforce our claim on Rockall.

Still, imagine how much better out nuclear arsenal would be if we'd
spent the £9bn that's been frittered away on the West Coast
modernisation on a proper doomsday device... then no-one would mess
with us and our Rockall.

"Charles Ellson" wrote in message
...
It was for practical purposes only a paperwork annexation which was
also attempted by Iceland and the Irish Republic. These claims have
all been declared invalid by the United Nations as it is not
recognised as habitable land despite the efforts of an ex-SAS man who
camped on the rock for a few weeks. Perhaps reclaiming Doggerland is
more practical ?

The SAS man was Tom McClean who was sent by Maggie to live in a box for 40
days on Rockall. I wonder why the box had a "Barrett" sticker on the side?
I also wonder why he was allowed to illegally use Amatuer Radio frequencies
to chat to his brother back in Scotland? At least Helen Sharman was given an
Amateur Callsign to use when she went into Space.

KW

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, Arthur Figgis wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 7 Jan 2008, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:51:57 GMT, "www.waspies.net"
wrote:

THC wrote:
On Jan 7, 12:58 am, "Paul Scott"
wrote:
I thought he was talking sense until he mentioned 'heritage', 'diesel'
and
'world cup'...

Agreed, especially since the economic case for the Croxley Link is
AIUI partly built on closing Watford Met and releasing the land for
housing development.

Who are the Hillingdon English Democrats...POWER TO THE PEOPLEEEEEEEE!

Another variation on UKIP ? Apparently some bloke called Gary Bushell is
their candidate for the Mayoralty of Greater London :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Democrats which seems to mention
desires on the territory of a neighbouring country, a policy which largely
fell out of favour in the rest of Europe about 1938.

Oh no, it's all the rage in trendsetting New Europe. None of the former
Yugoslavian countries would be seen dead without a claim on someone else's
territory!

The Lonely Planet book "Western Balkans" says they struggled to find a
name for the volume, having rejected "Greater [insert name of country]
and the Occupied Territories"

Brilliant! File under 'too good to check' ...

tom

--
Science Never Sleeps

"Mizter T" wrote in message
...
Fantastic bit of research Arthur - the aforementioned article has
solved the mystery of exactly why the UK has spend £XXXX billion on a
nuclear arms programme - it's so we can enforce our claim on Rockall.

Still, imagine how much better out nuclear arsenal would be if we'd
spent the £9bn that's been frittered away on the West Coast
modernisation on a proper doomsday device... then no-one would mess
with us and our Rockall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Never mind those nasty Danes....

We will always have Rockhall in BOLTON!

See.. http://tinyurl.com/32z6v7

of course this is also quite close... http://tinyurl.com/2kvaco

KW

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 19:46:22 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:46:16 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

Arthur Figgis wrote:
Charles Ellson wrote:
On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:51:57 GMT, "www.waspies.net"
wrote:

Who are the Hillingdon English Democrats...POWER TO THE
PEOPLEEEEEEEE!
Another variation on UKIP ? Apparently some bloke called Gary
Bushell is their candidate for the Mayoralty of Greater London :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Democrats
which seems to mention desires on the territory of a neighbouring
country, a policy which largely fell out of favour in the rest of
Europe about 1938.

Spain, Ireland and various Balkan places at least have laid claim to
territory since then, and Russia has annexed territory.

Not forgetting the UK's annexation of territory in September 1955, "the
final territorial expansion of the British Empire" according to
Wikipedia. (The territory was the island of Rockall.)

It was for practical purposes only a paperwork annexation which was also
attempted by Iceland and the Irish Republic. These claims have all been
declared invalid by the United Nations

I don't think that's true. Can you cite a source for that?

The disputing countries seem to have acknowledged the International
Convention on the Law of the Sea (a UN device) by ratifying the
relevant treaties rather than "going to court" over the matter.

http://www.gpuk.org/atlantic/press/c...29courier.html
has an undated reference

http://www.gpuk.org/atlantic/politics/c_report.html
refers to the "competing claims" as of Sept 1996, apparently as yet to
be decided.

http://iclq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/46/4/761.pdf has:-
"ON 21 July 1997 the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary announced
the United Kingdom's decision to accede to the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea ("the Convention"), a decision which
was acted upon four days later in New York."
Rockall has six mentions in the text.

Consequential changes were made to UK fishing limits by S.I.1997/1750
which removed Rockall as a measurement point and replaced it with
St.Kilda.


as it is not recognised as habitable land despite the efforts of an
ex-SAS man who camped on the rock for a few weeks.

You're right about it not being habitable, and despite the SAS camping
trip, i don't think anybody claims it is, even the UK. As an uninhabitable
rock, it has no effect on the allocation of exclusive economic zones or
continental shelf rights, and so nobody really cares who actually owns it.
Britain annexed because of the rocket testing thing. Furthermore, AIUI,
Rockall just falls within the UK's EEZ, and so it gets too look after it
in terms of mining, ecological protection, etc.

St. Kilda trumps Donegal for the EEZ measurement AFAICT although ISTR
there might be a certain amount of mutually-agreed straight-line
drawing of the UK-IRL boundary for the sake of simplicity.

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, Ken Ward wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote in message
...
Fantastic bit of research Arthur - the aforementioned article has
solved the mystery of exactly why the UK has spend £XXXX billion on a
nuclear arms programme - it's so we can enforce our claim on Rockall.

Still, imagine how much better out nuclear arsenal would be if we'd
spent the £9bn that's been frittered away on the West Coast
modernisation on a proper doomsday device... then no-one would mess
with us and our Rockall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Never mind those nasty Danes....

We will always have Rockhall in BOLTON!

Ah, i can see where you've gone wrong, there - what you have is f*ck all
in Bolton.

[fx: runs away]

tom

--
mimeotraditionalists

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 19:46:22 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:46:16 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

Arthur Figgis wrote:
Charles Ellson wrote:
On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:51:57 GMT, "www.waspies.net"
wrote:

Who are the Hillingdon English Democrats...POWER TO THE
PEOPLEEEEEEEE!
Another variation on UKIP ? Apparently some bloke called Gary
Bushell is their candidate for the Mayoralty of Greater London :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Democrats
which seems to mention desires on the territory of a neighbouring
country, a policy which largely fell out of favour in the rest of
Europe about 1938.

Spain, Ireland and various Balkan places at least have laid claim to
territory since then, and Russia has annexed territory.

Not forgetting the UK's annexation of territory in September 1955, "the
final territorial expansion of the British Empire" according to
Wikipedia. (The territory was the island of Rockall.)

It was for practical purposes only a paperwork annexation which was also
attempted by Iceland and the Irish Republic. These claims have all been
declared invalid by the United Nations

I don't think that's true. Can you cite a source for that?

The disputing countries seem to have acknowledged the International
Convention on the Law of the Sea (a UN device) by ratifying the
relevant treaties rather than "going to court" over the matter.

It's certainly true they've all ratified that treaty, and that it's a UN
effort (it's actually called the United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea, not the International etc), and that signing the treaty meant
relinquishing any EEZ claims based on Rockall; i don't think i'd say that
counts as the UN declaring anything invalid, but at this point we're
splitting hairs.

Also, having had a look through the treaty, i don't think there's anything
in there which has any effect on sovereignty over islands; it's true that
it says that who owns Rockall is irrelevant to the apportionment of EEZs
and the continental shelf, but it doesn't seem to say anything about who
does own Rockall.

Here's article 121:

Article 121 - Regime of islands

1. An island is a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water,
which is above water at high tide.

2. Except as provided for in paragraph 3, the territorial sea, the
contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf of
an island are determined in accordance with the provisions of this
Convention applicable to other land territory.

3. Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of
their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.

Note that paragraph 3 *doesn't* stop Rockall generating a region of
territorial sea or a contiguous zone, just EEZ and shelf. FWIW.

as it is not recognised as habitable land despite the efforts of an
ex-SAS man who camped on the rock for a few weeks.

You're right about it not being habitable, and despite the SAS camping
trip, i don't think anybody claims it is, even the UK. As an
uninhabitable rock, it has no effect on the allocation of exclusive
economic zones or continental shelf rights, and so nobody really cares
who actually owns it. Britain annexed because of the rocket testing
thing. Furthermore, AIUI, Rockall just falls within the UK's EEZ, and
so it gets too look after it in terms of mining, ecological protection,
etc.

St. Kilda trumps Donegal for the EEZ measurement AFAICT although ISTR
there might be a certain amount of mutually-agreed straight-line drawing
of the UK-IRL boundary for the sake of simplicity.

Yes - cribbing mercilessly from Wikipedia:

http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLAT...-IRL1988CS.PDF

tom

--
mimeotraditionalists

On Wed, 9 Jan 2008 02:00:16 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 19:46:22 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:46:16 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

Arthur Figgis wrote:
Charles Ellson wrote:
On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:51:57 GMT, "www.waspies.net"
wrote:

Who are the Hillingdon English Democrats...POWER TO THE
PEOPLEEEEEEEE!
Another variation on UKIP ? Apparently some bloke called Gary
Bushell is their candidate for the Mayoralty of Greater London :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Democrats
which seems to mention desires on the territory of a neighbouring
country, a policy which largely fell out of favour in the rest of
Europe about 1938.

Spain, Ireland and various Balkan places at least have laid claim to
territory since then, and Russia has annexed territory.

Not forgetting the UK's annexation of territory in September 1955, "the
final territorial expansion of the British Empire" according to
Wikipedia. (The territory was the island of Rockall.)

It was for practical purposes only a paperwork annexation which was also
attempted by Iceland and the Irish Republic. These claims have all been
declared invalid by the United Nations

I don't think that's true. Can you cite a source for that?

The disputing countries seem to have acknowledged the International
Convention on the Law of the Sea (a UN device) by ratifying the
relevant treaties rather than "going to court" over the matter.

It's certainly true they've all ratified that treaty, and that it's a UN
effort (it's actually called the United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea, not the International etc), and that signing the treaty meant
relinquishing any EEZ claims based on Rockall; i don't think i'd say that
counts as the UN declaring anything invalid, but at this point we're
splitting hairs.

Also, having had a look through the treaty, i don't think there's anything
in there which has any effect on sovereignty over islands; it's true that
it says that who owns Rockall is irrelevant to the apportionment of EEZs
and the continental shelf, but it doesn't seem to say anything about who
does own Rockall.

Here's article 121:

Article 121 - Regime of islands

1. An island is a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water,
which is above water at high tide.

2. Except as provided for in paragraph 3, the territorial sea, the
contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf of
an island are determined in accordance with the provisions of this
Convention applicable to other land territory.

3. Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of
their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.

Note that paragraph 3 *doesn't* stop Rockall generating a region of
territorial sea or a contiguous zone, just EEZ and shelf. FWIW.

IIRC the catch is that Rockall has in law a territorial sea of its own
but it is too isolated from the next bit of sovereign territory to act
as an extension to that territory. The rock versus island argument (as
in the former doesn't count as "land") seems to be an ongoing matter
of consideration, being mentioned in "The Maritime Zones of Islands in
International Law" in Google Books with each new proposed definition
bringing up a reason from someone why it is defective.

as it is not recognised as habitable land despite the efforts of an
ex-SAS man who camped on the rock for a few weeks.

You're right about it not being habitable, and despite the SAS camping
trip, i don't think anybody claims it is, even the UK. As an
uninhabitable rock, it has no effect on the allocation of exclusive
economic zones or continental shelf rights, and so nobody really cares
who actually owns it. Britain annexed because of the rocket testing
thing. Furthermore, AIUI, Rockall just falls within the UK's EEZ, and
so it gets too look after it in terms of mining, ecological protection,
etc.

St. Kilda trumps Donegal for the EEZ measurement AFAICT although ISTR
there might be a certain amount of mutually-agreed straight-line drawing
of the UK-IRL boundary for the sake of simplicity.

Yes - cribbing mercilessly from Wikipedia:

http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLAT...-IRL1988CS.PDF

tom

I think you'll find that Starbucks are opening an outlet on Rockall in
the next few weeks, as it's the only place in the country that doesn't
have one yet!

as it is not recognised as habitable land despite the efforts of an
ex-SAS man who camped on the rock for a few weeks.

You're right about it not being habitable, and despite the SAS camping
trip, i don't think anybody claims it is, even the UK. As an
uninhabitable rock, it has no effect on the allocation of exclusive
economic zones or continental shelf rights, and so nobody really cares
who actually owns it. Britain annexed because of the rocket testing
thing. Furthermore, AIUI, Rockall just falls within the UK's EEZ, and so
it gets too look after it in terms of mining, ecological protection, etc.

tom