The second Scottish independence referendum

[gracer]

@coremelt

Well I’m half Welsh so I can say this. I think it’s partly because the ex-pat scots and scottish decendents are usually very proud of their heritage and can point to a strong scottish culture. Whiskey, Fighting the English again and again, kilts, bagpipes, etc etc.

Wales is famous for sheep, coal mines and… ok having some “mountains” which would be called hills in any other country. There’s really just not that much to be proud of. Wales voted No for it’s own assembly in 1979 then barely scraped a yes vote in 1997. It also of course doesn’t have any off shore oil reserves (ok maybe thats the real reason).

You forgot leeks and the fact that Wales is the most beautiful place in the world. :mad: (North Wales, that is. South Wales means nothing to me.)

[Quartz]

@coremelt

The Scottish Labour party might want to have a word with you.

No they won’t. The SNP have replaced Scottish Labour as the party of the Left. I’m going to have to vote for the Unionists next time around.

If Parliament refuses then you can expect a massive swing towards the SNP in the next election.

We’ll see. The next general election is in 2020, a time just about long enough for Brexit to be seen to be working or not.

[Cliffy_Biro]

@coremelt

Wales is famous for sheep, coal mines and… ok having some “mountains” which would be called hills in any other country. There’s really just not that much to be proud of.

The land of song? Not to mention rugby, poets, religious movements and social movements.
While watching the Euro 2016 football tournament, I can’t say that I was struck by a lack of national pride among the Welsh. Are you sure you’re half one of them?

[Baron_Greenback]

@Cliffy_Biro

While watching the Euro 2016 football tournament, I can’t say that I was struck by a lack of national pride among the Welsh. Are you sure you’re half one of them?

I know, right?

coremelt, watch this

It's the rugby crowd singing the national anthem at the national stadium (it's legit great, and moving). This is not a nation that lacks pride.

[PatrickLondon]

@coremelt

If the rUK leaves the schengen area and Scotland stays in the EU then there would have to be immigration at the Scottish border.

Slightly the other way around, in that the UK isn’t in Schengen at the moment, but would the EU insist on Scotland joining? In which case, there would indeed have to be immigration control at the Scottish border (but London is currently discussing the possibility of avoiding hard controls on the Irish border and maintaining the existing common travel area, by getting the Irish government to agree to undertake UK immigration clearance checks at their entry ports).

[Dr.Drake]

@Baron_Greenback

I know, right?

coremelt, watch this

It's the rugby crowd singing the national anthem at the national stadium (it's legit great, and moving). This is not a nation that lacks pride.

I’m going to chime in with coremelt. The Welsh certainly have great pride in their culture, but they lack confidence, and there’s a lot of internalized inferiority.

[Flyer]

@gracer

You forgot leeks and the fact that Wales is the most beautiful place in the world. :mad: (North Wales, that is. South Wales means nothing to me.)

A place that tiny has BOTH a North and a South?

[Quartz]

From a private mailing list, undoubtedly stolen from elsewhere, of course:

So I was thinking, if I can sort of claim to be Scottish in some way,
then I can vote in the next few indyrefs. I bet there are all sorts of
cross border links if you go back far enough.

And I found an official website! Much like Corbyn’s three quid
socialists, I can put down a fiver cash and be entered onto a register
of ethnic Scots, with full voting rights in any referendum. Here’s my
chance to help them get it right next time!

I suppose I should have read the instructions more carefully, the
website said something about “prove you are Scottish” and there was a
payment page asking for five quid via paypal or card.

Just after I signed up, I got an email that said thank you for
applying to be Scottish, by paying five quid you’ve proved you are
obviously not. But thanks for your interest.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@coremelt

Well I’m half Welsh so I can say this. I think it’s partly because the ex-pat scots and scottish decendents are usually very proud of their heritage and can point to a strong scottish culture. Whiskey, Fighting the English again and again, kilts, bagpipes, etc etc…

I see you carefully omitted haggis.

[BigAppleBucky]

This is what comes of having separate soccer teams. If there was just one UK World Cup team none of this talk would be happening.

[UDS]

@Cliffy_Biro

Well, some Scots do, nationalist ones, although I’m not sure how many of them would use a corny word like “Sassenach.”

Fair enough! My tongue was firmly in my cheek there.

@Cliffy_Biro

It’s really a tautology. If you believe in an independent Scotland then naturally it seems right that oil in Scottish waters belongs to Scotland. If you believe in Scotland as part of the UK then the oil belongs to the UK as a whole.

If the question is “How would an independent Scotland do, financially?”, then I think it’s fair to say that you have to take some position on how oil reserves would be allocated as between Scotland and the rump-UK. The basis on which the Treasury currently accounts for oil revenues explicitly doesn’t do this, which is why it’s not an appropriate basis for addressing the question posed.

@Cliffy_Biro

Not sure why Wales is dismissed so readily, by the way. Population of three million vs five million in Scotland.

But the relevant comparison is not Scotland v Wales; it’s Scotland v rest-of-the-UK. And Wales is so small, financially and economically, relevant to England (as is NI) that it makes little material difference to the comparison whether you just look at figures for England, or you aggregate figures for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

I’m not seeking to exclude Wales and NI; I’m just making the point that for a quick-and-dirty answer to the question raised by Ludovic (“Is England subsidising Scotland or vice versa?”) it makes no difference whether you just answer the question, or start by correcting it and insisting that Wales and NI be included in the reckoning. The answer in either case is “it depends on how you account for oil revenues”.

[Lord_Feldon]

@PatrickLondon

Slightly the other way around, in that the UK isn’t in Schengen at the moment, but would the EU insist on Scotland joining?

New member states are required to join, but as with joining the eurozone there are so many caveats and additional requirements that it can be delayed for a long time. Even if Scotland was found not to be entitled to the UK’s exemption, it could literally take decades.

[coremelt]

@gracer

You forgot leeks and the fact that Wales is the most beautiful place in the world. :mad: (North Wales, that is. South Wales means nothing to me.)

North wales is pleasant enough, but I’ve travelled a lot and the most beautiful place in the world, nah that probably goes to Ha Long Bay in Vietnam but it’s pretty hard to pick among the top 10 and non of them is North Wales. Sorry…

Yeah ok I was wrong about Welsh national pride but I think Dr Drake hit the nail on the head about the internalized inferiority.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@Cliffy_Biro

Not sure why Wales is dismissed so readily, by the way. Population of three million vs five million in Scotland.

Because the people of Wales would rather have Elizabeth II as their monarch than the Prince of Wales?

[Go_Arachnid_Laser_1]

@BigAppleBucky

This is what comes of having separate soccer teams. If there was just one UK World Cup team none of this talk would be happening.

I fear that if the glorious Welsh team became suddenly saddled with any of those terrible English players, that would only increase resentment…

[AK84]

I suspect that the post-Brexit fallout is going to make all but the most determined “Yes” voters pause and I doubt any Westminster government would agree to a referendum without the terms of a potential separation being already agreed.

[coremelt]

@AK84

I suspect that the post-Brexit fallout is going to make all but the most determined “Yes” voters pause and I doubt any Westminster government would agree to a referendum without the terms of a potential separation being already agreed.

You’ve got this backwards, the people of Scotland want to leave the UK so they can stay in the EU. So the post Brexit fallout is exactly why there is a demand for the second referendum.

[Stanislaus]

@UDS

Neither. The UK is running a budget deficit, and both in England and in Scotland (lets ignore Wales and Northern Ireland for simplicity; they are too small to affect the overall picture) public expenditure per capita exceeds revenue per capita.

On Treasury figures, the per capita deficit is larger in Scotland than in England, but that largely depends on the Treasury accounting choice to allocate oil revenues neither to England nor to Scotland, but to a “national” category that they have invented for the purpose. Your Scot regards this as Sassenach duplicity; if oil revenues were allocated according to the waters where the oil reserves lie, then the Scottish deficit (per capita) is about the same as the English.

This isn’t true: even when Scotland is allocated its full geographical share of oil revenues, it still has a higher budget deficit than the UK.

The charts and analyisis here(in the Impact of Oil section) section do a good job of clarifying:

Three times in the last 15 years the oil tide has risen high enough to submerge the underlying £1,700 per capita deficit difference and give Scotland a lower deficit than the rest of the UK. When the oil tide flows out we can see more of that underlying £1,700/person deficit difference, we see more of the £9.1bn.

…

For Scotland to cover the underlying £9.1bn deficit gap we’ need total North Sea oil revenues of £10.1bn (because c.90% of North Sea oil revenues are attributable to Scotland).

…

This is where the IFS £7.6bn “black-hole” figure comes from; they’re simply recognising that when Scotland’s share of North Sea oil revenues slumps as low as £600m (as the OBR forecast for 2015-16) then more of the underlying deficit gap will be exposed. Note that the OBR forecast a further slight deterioration of North Sea oil revenues in 2016-17; the black-hole is not expected to be getting any smaller.

[Gyrate]

@Flyer

A place that tiny has BOTH a North and a South?

And then there’s Aberystwyth…

[Malden_Capell]

@Gyrate

And then there’s Aberystwyth…

And Essex! Try getting people from Harlow and Takeley to admit they’re in the same county as Basildon.