Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[Takhisis]

Has the sky fallen already?

That will not happen tomorrow.

 

[Broken_Erika]

The sky HAS fallen, the world has ended, and we are all in Hell.

 

[Lohrenswald]

The sky HAS fallen, the world has ended, and we are all in Hell.

hell, also known as eu

 

[Takhisis]

Stop ruining my Astérix references…!

 

[Broken_Erika]

Never read Astérix, only Tintin, and Garfield. those were my comics as a kid.

 

[Takhisis]

Never read Astérix

This is unacceptable. To the dungeon.

 

[Arakhor]

So, I mean, that'd be a creative definition of "liars".

They weren't using the 2016 manifesto in 2013/2014 when "once in a lifetime" kept being dragged out, presumably to make Scots afraid of missing out on a chance at independence.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Stop ruining my Astérix references…!

Asterix would have voted Leave, he was always fighting the Roman empire.

Theresa May has not said that the Scots can not have a referendum merely that they cannot have another official one right now.

The SNP would have a referendum every year in the hope that eventually the unionists would forget to show up and vote.

Theresa May is not a complicated person and yet people seem determined to read intentions she has not expressed.

 

[Arakhor]

Theresa May has not said that the Scots can not have a referendum merely that they cannot have another official one right now.

Funnily enough, we're still old enough not to play silly buggers like that.

 

[Kyriakos]

Stop ruining my Astérix references…!

 

[Gigaz]

Asterix would have voted Leave, he was always fighting the Roman empire.

Asterix' village wasn't even technically a member, right?
It's somehow funny - The Roman empire was a ruthlessly imperialist state which had little regard for the rights of people in conquered provinces. And still, centuries later, people think that its a shame that it disintegrated. Tells you something about the EU.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Kinda like the way they idolize Napoleon.....

 

[JohannaK]

It's somehow sad that people cant tell the difference between the Roman or French Empires and the EU.

 

[Kyriakos]

Previous empire with a capital at Brussels was the belgian Congo.

 

[Arakhor]

The Congo was a private Crown domain. Can we do without such hyperbolic comparisonsite?

 

[Kyriakos]

The Congo was a private Crown domain. Can we do without such hyperbolic comparisonsite?

No, that was the Leopoldian Congo. Then it got controlled by the country, and conditions were awesome.

 

[Traitorfish]

They weren't using the 2016 manifesto in 2013/2014 when "once in a lifetime" kept being dragged out, presumably to make Scots afraid of missing out on a chance at independence.

That would seem to fall somewhat short of a binding commitment. Rhetoric now exposed as hyperbole, yes, but an over-stated description of the perceived uniqueness of the opportunity, rather than something a reasonable person would interpret as a commitment not to hold a second referendum until every Scot born before 1999 was in the ground.

Theresa May has not said that the Scots can not have a referendum merely that they cannot have another official one right now.

That isn't actually May's right to decide, legally speaking. It's between our two parliaments. Just because May has started talking like a dictator doesn't mean she is one

Of course it doesn't. The SNP has an approximately social-democratoid manifesto with slices of Green Party policy excerpts sandwiched here and there between the pages but that's all been hidden behind a few coats of independentist rhetoric. After any independence the party would need to reinvent itself into a party that has side-aims secondary to devolution/independence and develop those into a set of parties.

That's true, but I think the SNP has been doing that, or at least laying the groundwork for it. They've played, at various times and in various contexts, liberals, socialists and agrarians, cultural nationalists and cosmopolitan multiculturalists, sowing goodwill in every democratic that doesn't wear an Orange sash. This gives them a lot of room to manouvre in an independence Scotland: if the Conservatives establish themselves as the Party of Opposition, the SNP lurch left, devour what's left of the Labour vote, and become solid Nordic social democrats; if Labour reconciles with independence and recovers, the SNP lurch right, drive the Tories into their Orange redoubt, and become solid Central European liberals; if both Labour and the Tories stabilise themselves, the SNP establishes itself as the moderate voice of the whole nation.

I think the first and third options are the most likely: Scottish Labour have thoroughly the goodwill that they spent a century accumulating, while the Scottish Conservatives have been quite carefully distanced themselves from the Orange tendency and re-positioned themselves as the party of "pro-business" Anglophiles. I don't think that Labour are so far-gone that the SNP will become the sole party of the left, there's too much residual loyalty, but they're relying on an increasingly geriatric voter-base, as middle aged and young voters who don't remember the post-war glory days shift to the SNP and Greens.

So the whole aim of the party as expressed by their official name has been achieved.

In what sense? "National Party" describes a party that purports to represent "the nation". The existence of a Scottish nation isn't contingent on achieving independence, and, nationalists would argue, does lose a need for represention on achieving it.

btw what political stances did Ireland have before independence, other than for/against home rule, independence and so on? Scotland already has established parties (not that the Conservatives or the shambling remains of Labour will have much clout if they keep like this) besides the SNP.

Well, it's complicated; self-government was a deeper organising force in pre-war Irish politics than it is in Scotland, or at least was until very recently, as it remains in Northern Ireland. Post-independence, the Treaty split politics in even more confusing ways, and you add into that the influence of political Catholicism in Ireland, never formally institutionalised as in Germany but all the more a wildcard for it; analogies to twenty-first Scotland are not easy.

But, it still stands as proof, independence is not the death-knell of nationalist parties. As in Ireland, nationalism may simply become the new common sense, and existing parties shift themselves around it. The simplest description of the Irish case- an over-simplification, but a useful one- is that all previous parties except Labour were absorbed by the splintering factions of Sinn Féin, Irish independence from Britain became the precondition of political activity in the Free State, and the debate was over what that meant in practice.

In 1910, many were Home Rulers but few were Nationalists; by 1940 most were Nationalists but few were Republicans; by 1970, most were Republicans but few were United Irelanders, and now we find that (the once-Provisional) Sinn Féin are the third largest party in the Dáil and the Taoiseach is talking about reunification, so who knows what tomorrow's commons sense will be?

 

[Takhisis]

Theresa May has not said that the Scots can not have a referendum merely that they cannot have another official one right now.

Which she can't have known that it wouldn't be interpreted as ‘not while I'm the Prime Minister’.

That's true, but I think the SNP has been doing that, or at least laying the groundwork for it. They've played, at various times and in various contexts, liberals, socialists and agrarians, cultural nationalists and cosmopolitan multiculturalists, sowing goodwill in every democratic that doesn't wear an Orange sash. This gives them a lot of room to manouvre in an independence Scotland: if the Conservatives establish themselves as the Party of Opposition, the SNP lurch left, devour what's left of the Labour vote, and become solid Nordic social democrats; if Labour reconciles with independence and recovers, the SNP lurch right, drive the Tories into their Orange redoubt, and become solid Central European liberals; if both Labour and the Tories stabilise themselves, the SNP establishes itself as the moderate voice of the whole nation.

But they're none of those at the moment. We're basically going for the same thing in turns: they'll have to choose at some point. In all probability the SNP will become a centre-leftish party.

I think the first and third options are the most likely: Scottish Labour have thoroughly the goodwill that they spent a century accumulating, while the Scottish Conservatives have been quite carefully distanced themselves from the Orange tendency and re-positioned themselves as the party of "pro-business" Anglophiles. I don't think that Labour are so far-gone that the SNP will become the sole party of the left, there's too much residual loyalty, but they're relying on an increasingly geriatric voter-base, as middle aged and young voters who don't remember the post-war glory days shift to the SNP and Greens.

The problem for Labour is that the post-war politicians are gone also and they're mostly replaced by Blairite idiots by now.

In what sense? "National Party" describes a party that purports to represent "the nation". The existence of a Scottish nation isn't contingent on achieving independence, and, nationalists would argue, does lose a need for represention on achieving it.

Yes, but it cannot be the driving force behind a party, unless you have a very strong movement for re-joining the UK.

Well, it's complicated; self-government was a deeper organising force in pre-war Irish politics than it is in Scotland, or at least was until very recently, as it remains in Northern Ireland. Post-independence, the Treaty split politics in even more confusing ways, and you add into that the influence of political Catholicism in Ireland, never formally institutionalised as in Germany but all the more a wildcard for it; analogies to twenty-first Scotland are not easy.

But, it still stands as proof, independence is not the death-knell of nationalist parties. As in Ireland, nationalism may simply become the new common sense, and existing parties shift themselves around it. The simplest description of the Irish case- an over-simplification, but a useful one- is that all previous parties except Labour were absorbed by the splintering factions of Sinn Féin, Irish independence from Britain became the precondition of political activity in the Free State, and the debate was over what that meant in practice.

In 1910, many were Home Rulers but few were Nationalists; by 1940 most were Nationalists but few were Republicans; by 1970, most were Republicans but few were United Irelanders, and now we find that (the once-Provisional) Sinn Féin are the third largest party in the Dáil and the Taoiseach is talking about reunification, so who knows what tomorrow's commons sense will be?

So ultimately it all depends on… well, so many factors that we can't predict with much certainty.

Still, Scotland does not have one single predominant church, nor, for that matter, so violent a sectarian divide, which I suppose is a good starting point.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Previous empire with a capital at Brussels was the belgian Congo.

Sideways Germany was late to the imperial colonalising game, which was a good thing because it went a bit insane with the slavery, hand chopping and ruthless suppression
I had to go and google up why Sideways Germany was choosen as the capital of EU and interestingly it was purely by accident, because just like the EU, certain countries (France and Germany) are STILL are fighting over where the capitol of the EU should be located. Meanwhile the "temporary" location in Brussels continues to be expanded.

Looks at FRANCE
Looks at GERMANY
Rolls eyes

http://www.brusselstimes.com/opinio...f-europe-because-belgium-starts-with-letter-b

 

[Mega Tsunami]

That isn't actually May's right to decide, legally speaking. It's between our two parliaments. Just because May has started talking like a dictator doesn't mean she is one

It is up to Westminster to give the necessary authority for a binding vote – nothing directly to do with Holyrood.
And the closest to a dictator around here is surely Nicola Sturgeon. She threatens to call an unofficial referendum anyway, something which Unionists will no doubt boycott and then Sturgeon will proclaim, in true dictatorial manner, the people of Scotland are behind her 98-2.

Actually, it appears she might have been the first one to blink. She is discovering there is not the stomach in Neverendumland up north for yet another plebiscite so soon after the previous ‘once in a generation’ vote.
She has now started talking about reaching a compromise with May about the timing of indyref2.

From the Guardian:
'No one is talking about it': has Sturgeon misjudged mood for independence?
<snip>
Clackmannanshire was a bellwether for the first Scottish indyref and for Brexit – and within the county a second vote doesn’t seem to be the top issue for locals
Was this surge a sign that the Scottish National party, by demanding a second referendum, has once again tapped into all the aspirations of Scotland’s youth? Not according to Duff: it was a shift from internet voting to putting old-fashioned ballot boxes in schools and colleges.

And the ballot paper itself offered a clue. The five candidates had to list their three top priorities. Education, human rights and health and wellbeing recurred over and over. No one mentioned Brexit - or independence.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-has-sturgeon-misjudged-mood-for-independence