# The Scottish Independence Vote- the aftermath **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 19, 2014, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927 "2014-09-19T14:18:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/41 "2014-09-20T03:50:02Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Centralism and the West Lothian question. So are you opposed to the West Lothian question being tied with further devolution of powers? ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/42 "2014-09-20T03:50:31Z")
> [@rsa](#): > > **[West Lothian question](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lothian_question)** > > As for revenue, doesn’t Scotland produce most of the oil and all of the Scotch Whisky in the UK? Yes. If oil from Scottish fields is counted then expenditure versus revenue is approximately equal in Scotland on the Barnett formula level. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/43 "2014-09-20T04:00:13Z")
Difficult to make Scotch whisky outwith Scotland. ( Although the dear good barley is frequently English. ) Not that some people haven’t tried. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/44 "2014-09-20T04:23:22Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Difficult to make Scotch whisky outwith Scotland. ( Although the dear good barley is frequently English. ) > > Not that some people haven’t tried. Impossible to make Scotch whisky outwith Scotland, but ther have been some good whiskies that taste as good as Scotch in a Scotch style. We shared a bottle of exceptionally good Japanese Malt last year as an experiment; it had won prizes at blind tastings. Brand is almost everything and people are buying the tradition rather than the quality. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/45 "2014-09-20T04:26:16Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > So are you opposed to the West Lothian question being tied with further devolution of powers? Only if they are kept to the same timescale. Further devolution has been planned since the setting up of the Calman Commission many years ago and was delayed by the referendum. A decision on devolution can be made promptly and probably needs to be to keep the Scots quiet. Solving the West Lothian question rationally is going to take more time. One can be done expeditiously, the other requires time and consideration. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/46 "2014-09-20T04:35:49Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Hmmm… I don’t think “de facto independence” means what is happenning in Scotland. What probably HAS happened is there is no returning to statu quo ante – seeing all the promises of so much more devolution and special considerations, it may well be that many will argue that the “No” vote ended up being for something itself different from mere continuance of the heretofore extant union. > > At least watching the news report from afar it looked towards the end a number of politicians on both sides were arguing less on independence or union per se and more on who would give or take away more welfare state perks. > > [Mel] > _“They can take our lives! But they cannot take, our FREE TUITIIOONN!!!”_ > [/Mel] I love this. We have people Americansplaining to us that what we really wanted was more generous welfare - whether we voted “[No](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=17745448#post17745448)” or “[Yes](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17738732&postcount=26)”. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/47 "2014-09-20T04:36:51Z")
To answer the question in “Scottish Terms”. They hoped for a Bannockburn. They got a Culloden. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/48 "2014-09-20T04:45:54Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > To answer the question in “Scottish Terms”. > > They hoped for a Bannockburn. They got a Culloden. Christ on a fucking bike. We _are_ real people and whatever we decided, we didn’t do it for the amusement of the outside world. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/49 "2014-09-20T04:46:01Z")
Not really: at Drummossie, the Scottish & English great land-owning aristocrats and fat sleek politicians won. This time the Conservative party won. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/50 "2014-09-20T04:49:36Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Not really: at Drummossie, the Scottish & English great land-owning aristocrats and fat sleek politicians won. > This time the Conservative party won. To which post were you responding? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/51 "2014-09-20T04:57:55Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > Christ on a fucking bike. We _are_ real people and whatever we decided, we didn’t do it for the amusement of the outside world. :rolleyes: Dude, get a life and a sense of humour. This vote and referendum generally and its conduct was a credit to Scotland and the UK. Stop being so sensitive. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/52 "2014-09-20T05:04:14Z")
> [@rsa](#): > > As for revenue, doesn’t Scotland produce most of the oil and all of the Scotch Whisky in the UK? Maybe it’s the AA prude in me, but basing your economy to that extent on a particularly nasty booze (that cannot compare with a fine Kentucky bourbon, neat, and not Jack Daniels, which is swill) that could go out of fashion with plutocrats and Kim Jong-un tomorrow, seems risky. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/53 "2014-09-20T05:06:38Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > I love this. We have people Americansplaining to us that what we really wanted was more generous welfare - whether we voted “[No](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=17745448#post17745448)” or “[Yes](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17738732&postcount=26)”. Is that me in your first link? I wasn’t speculating that “No” voters wanted more welfare. I was speculating that “Yes” voters wanted more welfare. And I only even brought it up because **Pjen** dared me to “explain the paradox”. It’s only been a day, and I’ve already heard jokes in other sources about how the few Yes majority areas also appear to be the areas most full of delinquents - I didn’t just make that up. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/54 "2014-09-20T05:22:29Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > To which post were you responding? That before yours. > [@](#): > > They hoped for a Bannockburn. They got a Culloden. Drummossie, the mortal moor, was rather a giveaway. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/55 "2014-09-20T05:22:30Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > :rolleyes: Dude, get a life and a sense of humour. This vote and referendum generally and its conduct was a credit to Scotland and the UK. Stop being so sensitive. I think, as one on the losing side of this, I needed and got a sense of humour about two years ago. A life? Nah, I don’t know about that. It sounds difficult. But I am excused, surely, for being upset. I mean, my fellow countrymen actually _want_ this? Wow. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/56 "2014-09-20T05:27:23Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > But I am excused, surely, for being upset. I mean, my fellow countrymen actually _want_ this? Wow. Maybe they\* didn’t want\* the nationalists, as distinct from rejecting anything else. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/57 "2014-09-20T05:30:48Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > Is that me in your first link? I wasn’t speculating that “No” voters wanted more welfare. I was speculating that “Yes” voters wanted more welfare. And I only even brought it up because **Pjen** dared me to “explain the paradox”. > > It’s only been a day, and I’ve already heard jokes in other sources about how the few Yes majority areas also appear to be the areas most full of delinquents - I didn’t just make that up. “Full of delinquents”? Yes, Glasgow is full of delinquents. I accept that you didn’t just make that up, but someone did, and you shouldn’t have believed them. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/58 "2014-09-20T05:34:03Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Maybe they\* didn’t want\* the nationalists, as distinct from rejecting anything else. They answered “No” to the question. Beyond that I will merely hope. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/59 "2014-09-20T05:55:36Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > “Full of delinquents”? > > Yes, Glasgow is full of delinquents. > > I accept that you didn’t just make that up, but someone did, and you shouldn’t have believed them. The term you are looking for is areas of social distress. Such areas have inhabitants with no purpose in life because of that social stress. Stigmatising them as delinquents says more to me about you than about them. The point you are missing that historically these are Labour areas voting against Labour and for independence whereas tradition SNP areas largely voted against independence; that is the paradox. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2014, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927/60 "2014-09-20T05:57:19Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > Christ on a fucking bike. We _are_ real people and whatever we decided, we didn’t do it for the amusement of the outside world. Sure, but maybe some mocking is not is not out of order. Much of the support for the yes campaign seems to have been based upon the fantasy that political independence from England, and the dead hand of the English Tories, would enable the Scots to create their own little social-democratic utopia, whatever might happen (probably increased Tory dominance) in the rest of the UK. That was never going to work, as the majority of Scots have clearly and sensibly realized. Either Scotland would have gradually have become an isolated and impoverished remnant of socialism, like, say Cuba, or, more likely, it would have continued to be a cog in the great system of global capitalism, but one with a lot less clout and power to resist neoliberal rightward pressures (and economic exploitation by larger powers) than a united UK potentially has. The Scottish independence movement _was_, and always has been, based on silly, romantic, nationalistic dreams, no mater how much people tried to tell themselves it was about better, more humane governance. Nationalism is an absolutely terrible tool if what you want to do is move a society and economy further to the left, and all the radical zeal devoted to the nationalist cause would have gone even more to waste than it has now if “yes” had won. We need a better governed, more humane, more democratic Britain, certainly, and to some extent the Scottish independence campaign has done us good service by accentuating that fact, and the level of disillusionment that people (not just in Scotland) feel not just with the Tories and Lib Dems, but particularly with “New” Labour, which now seems to be beholden to global capital just as much, or more, than the Tories are. However, only a large, powerful state has any hope of ever being able to stand up to global capital. British politics could certainly do with a major shake up, but breaking Britain apart into smaller, weaker segments, was only ever going to make things worse for all those segments, and especially the smaller ones. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-scottish-independence-vote-the-aftermath/698927.md?page=4)