> The separatists say we are dominated by England, but I often wonder who dominates who? The separatists want to replace this working Union with the EU, a failing 40-year old experiment in which we would only play a minor part, and be dominated by Germany.

The UK is far more lopsided than the EU. England has a majority of the population (~83%) and a majority of seats in both the House of Commons (~82%) and the House of Lords. By contrast, while Germany is the biggest country in the EU, it still contains a minority of the EU population (~16%), and a minority of the votes in the EU institutions. The EU also has much better institutional mechanisms to protect the rights of its smaller/weaker constituents than the UK does – e.g. unanimity for many major decisions, double majority voting in the Council of the European Union (55%–72% majority of member states representing 65% of the EU population) – by contrast, the House of Commons and the House of Lords both have a decisive English majority and 50%+1 in each chamber is enough votes to pass anything at all.