Referendum on Scottish Independence

[amadeus]

I'm not really educated about it, but I don't see what ordinary Scots would get out of it.

 

[really]

Agreed, I simply meant that the argument of "most law comes from Europe" isn't true. I'm not against DevoMax, which also seems popular among Scots - more control over important things like economics, but leave the messy stuff like diplomacy and military to Westminster.

OK fair enough - about half of it comes from Europe: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/8067510/Up-to-half-of-British-laws-come-from-Europe-House-of-Commons-Library-claims.html
Diplomacy and military stuff doesn't have to be messy. Ireland hasn't been at war since 1923.
We are approaching a century of peaceful existence (and to head off any potential points about the troubles - they happened almost exclusively in the UK)

Leave the messy stuff to Westminster is quite a patronising view.

 

[Winner]

So, is the referendum going to succeed?

 

[Kyriakos]

Some quite relevant news, that a UK court ruled the decision by the eu court to ban full life sentences (ie without any review later on) as not standing, and thus it won't be forced in the UK.
The court was examining the case of those two muslim immigrants who sawed off the head of an english soldier a few months ago. Article at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...s-ruled-legal-by-court-of-appeal-9135538.html

Another victory for the powerful eu which enjoys the respect of all

So hurry up Scotland if you want to be part of the eu, declare now so that the rest of the UK leaves and you stay.

 

[Quackers]

So, is the referendum going to succeed?

Short answer: no.

An aggregate of polls for the past year have all pointed to "no" to independence.
I think the SNP + Traitorfish are basically relying on the non-voters to magically come to the polls and all vote yes.

Also, the bookies have short odds for "no" to independence.

 

[Winner]

Ah, that's a shame.

 

[Alassius]

Leave the messy stuff to Westminster is quite a patronising view.

Yes if it comes from Westminster. Not so much if it's voted for by Scottish people, in a three-way referendum for example.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Also, the bookies have short odds for "no" to independence.

Ah yes, the final deciders of any British debate!

 

[Winner]

I have a proposal:

hold referendums on EU membership in all parts of the UK separately.

I.e., if Scotland decides to stay while England chooses to leave, it will mean dissolution.

 

[Domen]

An aggregate of polls for the past year have all pointed to "no" to independence.

Not all of them (check those from 23–28 Aug 2013 and 24–31 Aug 2011):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014#Two_option_polling

By the way - political polls are not really reliable (this is IMO a general rule when it comes to political polls).

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Edit:

I suggest all TV stations in Scotland should broadcast "Braveheart" and "Rob Roy" on 17 September 2014.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Rob Roy and Braveheart were released within two months of each other.

 

[Traitorfish]

Hmmm, aren't we talking about the working class being more right-wing than the middle class here? On social issues at least.

We're talking about them being more right-wing than the left-wing middle class (and even then, as you say, only in regards to certain issues), but not more right-wing than the middle class generally.

Agreed, I simply meant that the argument of "most law comes from Europe" isn't true. I'm not against DevoMax, which also seems popular among Scots - more control over important things like economics, but leave the messy stuff like diplomacy and military to Westminster.

DevoMax is indeed very popular, and is pretty much guaranteed to win if it makes it on to the ballot. That's why Cameron has been so reluctant about including it: he knows he'd lose it, with the added sting that Salmond could still play a result of yes to DevoMax, no to independence as a moral victory for the nationalist movement.

I'm not really educated about it, but I don't see what ordinary Scots would get out of it.

Probably not much. But, we're not getting much out of the Union, either. A lot of it comes down to least-worsts.

Short answer: no.

An aggregate of polls for the past year have all pointed to "no" to independence.
I think the SNP + Traitorfish are basically relying on the non-voters to magically come to the polls and all vote yes.

"Magical" seems a flippant way of putting it.

Non-voters don't always decline to vote out of simple laziness. Most of them don't vote because they don't regard the electoral system as representative of their interests. For the poorer half of society, it is literally not worth the bother.

But this, well, this is a bit different. This isn't just about which over-privileged tosspot is going to spend four years misrepresenting them to the Supreme Soviet of Crooks' and Scoundrels' Deputies. This is something rather more fundamental. And given how nervous the proposition makes the establishment, given that the studies you cite also show a notably greater enthusiasm for independence among the young and the poor, it is not unimaginable to think that some may be moved

I don't this necessarily will happen. I don't even think it probably will. It might just be the my natural pessimism, but if we wake up to a "no" result, I won't be surprised. But it's not implausible, and it's not made any less plausible by refusing to consider any possibility that you're not comfortable with.

 

[Domen]

"Scottish English" (?) accent is awesome (it sounds a bit like stereotypical German English accent to me):


Link to video.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Probably not much. But, we're not getting much out of the Union, either. A lot of it comes down to least-worsts.

Kind of like what the Catalans are saying.

One thing that would be great is to have the UK parliament pass something similar to our Clarity Act. If the independent-minded Scots want independence, let them go off and not share their pretty pot of oil. But the union-backing Scots will stay and leave them with a patchwork of enclaves.

I'm not really educated about it, but I don't see what ordinary Scots would get out of it.

I guess it gives them something to blame their problems on. But once out of the UK, they'd probably find that their hardships still exist and compounded by additional issues that arise from their ill-advised move. And unlike the Quebecois and the Catalans, they don't even have have the culture card to play.

 

[Domen]

BTW - why this referendum will be on Thursday?

Shouldn't it be on Sunday or Saturday or on some other work-free day?

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Link to video.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

What are these? They rule you?

It's a pity. Laughing idiots in power is a big problem in Russia too...

 

[Winston Hughes]

What's to prevent immigrant communities from holding racist views?

I guess there probably are reasons why they'd be less likely to hold such views than natives, but you're right that it's not a straightforward case of racist natives and non-racist immigrants. However...

Firstly, that tends to reinforces my original argument. Secondly, it strikes me as a bit of a stretch to think that 50% of immigrants would favour a reduction in immigration because they're racist against immigrants per se. Thirdly, in my experience, the 'anti-immigration is racism' line in question is aimed squarely at the white, native-born population (which, to be fair, is the group amongst which both anti-immigration and racist/xenophobic sentiments seem most prevalent - the mistake is dealing with the former sentiments as if they can result only from the latter).

But so much of the mainstream discourse around the working class is so heavily constructed in terms of these flattened, inhuman clichés of competing racialised "communities", defined in terms of selfishness, anxiety and hostility to outsiders. Incapable of any overarching solidarities except nationalism, and that only through the mediation of the creaking, half-feudal British state, so what remains is the right on a platform of "national unity" and the "left" on a platform of communal patronage. And that just isn't a productive framework, but I think it's a framework that you're at least close to reproducing here.

I don't recognise your vision of 'mainstream discourse'. I have encountered what you're talking about, but only in the academic context, wherein it represents a self-consciously intellectual discourse, usually underpinned by left-leaning political beliefs. To the extent I can even identify a genuine 'mainstream' view of the British working classes, it's diverse to the point of being contradictory, composed of perspectives so many and varied as to defy easy reduction or generalisation. And, being as this reflects quite accurately the truth of the situation, therein lies my point: assuming that there exists a latent consensus amongst the British working classes, just waiting for someone to tap into it, is a recipe for political failure.

If we're going to take the working class seriously, we need to be able to imagine them as social and political agents in their own right. Citizens, workers, whatever language you prefer, it's necessary to imagine them as capable of actual political decision-making, not just as collective repositories of habit and prejudice. This wasn't always a proposition alien to the British left, and indeed it used to be the Labour Party's stated justification for existing, back when they fancied themselves socialists, but it's something they seem to struggle with nowadays.

It wasn't always a proposition alien to British politics in general. But, to my mind, a good deal of responsibility for the decline of that view can be laid at the feet of the 70s/80s leftists who sought to turn Labour into a party of all the victims, ignoring political realities in favour of a narrowly ideological view of working class interests (not to mention a staunchly oppositional attitude to dissent, seeming to make a fetish out of solidarity). Thatcherism - the other major force behind the development of our current political situation - encouraged and relied upon a sense of agency amongst those sectors of the working classes that were turned off by Labour. Thatcher took this and played divide-and-conquer with remarkable success. But neither her cynicism nor the consequences of her policies do anything to validate the approach of Labour's militant left. On the contrary, it was the latter's oh-so-principled political capitulation that enabled her to wreak such damage.

Looking more recently, the most telling criticism of the New Labour government is not that it abandoned the top-down ideological socialism of the previous era (the deadest of dead horses), but that it didn't invest anywhere near enough effort in trying to build an alternative platform, instead choosing to play mix-and-match with Thatcherite and Old Labour ideals. It's a grave indictment indeed that Cameron's 'Big Society', empty as it has (inevitably) proved in practice, bore much greater resemblance to a fresh and optimistic vision of democratic social agency than anything mooted in Labour ranks.

Not that it really matters, in the end, because Labour isn't going to try to appeal to working class non-voters anyway. I'm not sure that it's actually capable of doing so, a this point, capable of offering the working class anything like empowerment rather than just survival, that it's even really able to understanding what that means. It's going to keep competing for the right-wing middle class vote, and it's going to keep failing, because middle class right-wingers are going to vote for the more plainly middle class, more plainly right-wing party. But that isn't something Scots should feel responsible for, is my central point, and not something we should let stop us playing the good rat and abandoning the sinking ship.

To the extent that any change as radical as independence ought to give politics a shake-up, I can certainly see why the prospect would appeal. The hope that it might result in Scotland embracing a more empowering vision of state action (and inaction) is a valid one, and I can't blame you for dreaming of a political landscape in which the Tories are but a minor player.

However, I worry that the present economic climate - with the shakiness of the EU and its currency still looming large - is one in which independence presents too many uncertainties to be worth the risk. An acrimonious divorce is the last thing any of us needs right now, and I fear that's exactly what we'll get if Scotland votes 'yes' in September.

BTW - why this referendum will be on Thursday?

We always vote on Thursdays. We're too drunk the rest of the week.

 

[Domen]

From the comments to that YT video with David Cameron:

We all saw that last time Scotland voted in the general election England had voted blues, oranges etc - the whole of Scotland practically voted Labour - our vote didn't count - it didn't matter a ing toss - we didn't vote Cameron in, our whole country didn't vote that rich boy in. As a country we are by numbers lower than England (but hell not in strength or fight), We will never ever win an election for what we as Scotland want being united because having David Cameron as a government leader shows us we will always have to accept what England decides . I'm Scottish I'm proud and when I vote I want it to count, I want my country to have a vote as people died to get but Scotland will only ever get what England decide if we don't do something to change it. I loved Britain as a whole, it's what I've known but things have moved on and if you can't be Scottish and actually count when you vote then as Scotland you don't have a vote - I sure as hell as a Scottish person would have liked my vote for united Britain to have counted but it won't and it won't ever. So I will vote independence for the hope that we will actually get a government we vote for and not the government England voted.

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Documentary:


Link to video.

 

[Winston Hughes]

From the comments to that YT video with David Cameron:

She makes a fair point, but it's worth remembering that there will always be large areas of Scotland which haven't voted for the government in power, even after independence. Absent Scottish nationalism, what she's arguing for is subsidiarity.

Edit: Dissatisfaction with the present UK government is a really bad reason for Scottish independence. Decisions made by those holding power in Westminster will continue to have a huge effect on matters of Scottish interest even if Scotland votes 'yes'. Going the other way, it would be nice if they could force the UK to ditch our ridiculous impression of a nuclear deterrent (to which Scottish bases are essential), but I can see the new Scottish administration trading that off in the first round of negotiations, selling Faslane for a reduced share of the debt or whatever.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

She makes a fair point, but it's worth remembering that there will always be large areas of Scotland which haven't voted for the government in power, even after independence. Absent Scottish nationalism, what she's arguing for is subsidiarity.

Democracy, by nature, the "tyranny of the majority" as some would say.

If this is such a compelling excuse to seceed, then I am afraid the Atlantic provinces and the Territories would've left Canada long ago since election results in Canada are largely controlled by Ontario and Quebec.

And it's not like every Scot votes the same. Many support Labour, many supported Liberal Democrat, and some supported Conservatives.