Where does the Scottish Everendum stand?

Great Debates
821

Marking Stephan’s Answers on British identity

“British juries have twelve people”

True, for the vast majority of Britain.

NOT IN SCOTLAND
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It is easy to exchange the British pound Sterling abroad

Entirely true.

NOT SCOTTISH NOTES

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The Highest Criminal Court in Britain used to be the House of Lords and is now the Supreme Court.

Entirely true.

NOT IN SCOTLAND

Quote:
In Britain we have an established church

Entirely true.
NOT IN SCOTLAND, WALES OR NORTHERN IRELAND

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English is the only National language on Britain
False. Wow, you got one. There’s only one National Language in Scotland (English), though, so your point doesn’t relate to your pet issue at all.

WELSH ENGLISH AND SCOTS GAELIC ARE THE NATIONAL LANGUAGES
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I hope all British people will be supporting our team in the 2018 world cup

What’s wrong with hoping that? I mean yeah, it’s unrealistic due to certain anti-English attitudes, but it’s a nice thought. Most English people would support Scotland rather than any other team but England.

ENGLAND IS NOT SCOTLAND’ TEAM.
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English philosopher David Hume…

False, someone didn’t do their research.

HE WAS SCOTTISH
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In Britain for decades you have had the right to a solicitor before being questioned by the police and your interview must be recorded.

I’d hope this is fucking true, and if it’s not the case in any part of the UK it needs to be rectified quickly.

NOT TRUE IN SCOTLAND. NO NECESSARY RECORDING AND UNTIL LAST YEAR POLICE COULD QUESTION FOR SIX HOURS BEFORE OFFERING A SOLICITOR.

ZERO OUT OF EIGHT.

I SUSPECT THIS IS A FAIR TEST OF YOUR INOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES.

822

Exactly. So it’s true for the vast majority of Britain.

Utter nonsense.

Really? There’s a Scottish court that can overrule the Supreme Court? Oh, there isn’t. The Supreme Court is the (joint) highest court in the land.

So, in England there’s an established church. England is in Britain, therefore, in Britain, there is an established church. You are acting like Scotland is the only part of Britain.

No, Scots Gaelic is not a national language, neither is Cornish or British Sign Language, or Scots for that matter. English and Welsh, that’s it.

Well done. No-one ever said it was. They expressed a hope that Scots, as well as all other Britons, would support England.

No fucking shit, Sherlock. That’s why I said it’s false that he’s English.

Less shouting, more reading, perhaps?

Well Scotland needs to sort itself out then.

No, 7 out of 8. The only one I was wrong about was the last, and that you allow the police unrecorded questioning of suspects is not something to be proud of!

It’s abundantly clear that I know far more about Scotland than you do about England.

823

Yes, assuming that the executive is legitimate. Who makes that decision? Oh yeah, the judiciary.

Your “even” is misplaced. Correct, they can’t dissolve Parliament on the advice of the PM. That doesn’t speak to other situations, such as where the PM has lost the confidence of the Monarch, the Judiciary, the People, or Parliament.

William invaded, and had mass popular support. If a PM without such support attempted to change the Monarch, he would be ignored and his government dissolved.

Britain’s constitution has the rather wonderful feature that, if something’s not working, the people that matter will make something else up on the spot until it does work. The idea that anybody could proclaim a dictatorship with no support based on a technicality is absurd.

824

Annotated answers

“British juries have twelve people”

Scottish juries have 15 members

It is easy to exchange the British pound Sterling

Scottish notes are Sterling but difficult to exchange abroad

The Highest Criminal Court in Britain used to be the House of Lords and is now the Supreme Court.

High Court of the Justiciary is the highest criminal court

In Britain we have an established church

Only in England

English is the only National language on Britain

Welsh is a full national language. Fluency in Scots Gaelic is a qualification for British citizenship.

I hope all British people will be supporting our team in the 2018 world cup

You hope, others don’t.

English philosopher David Hume…

Born Edinburgh

In Britain for decades you have had the right to a solicitor before being questioned by the police and your interview must be recorded.

PACE only applies to England and Wales. Scotland avoided the ‘fitting up’ problem by a requirement for two corrobatoey forms of evidence- confession alone is inadequate. Police were allowed six hours to interrogate though this was amended last year at the behest of the ECHR.

825

Actually not. Judges are appointed by the Executive and can be removed by the Queen only following a petition by both Houses of Parliament.

Actually, Parliament conveniently fudged the reasoning behind the overthrow of James II/VII, and in order to appease the Tories, there was no inclination of Parliament asserting any right to overthrow the monarch. Instead you got the whole mealy-mouthed ‘abdication’ excuse.

I don’t think this would hold much water today though, and it would pretty much be a rare thing for a monarch to survive without at least the tolerance of Parliament.

826

Keep digging. It exposes your ignorance and anglocentrism.

827

I misspoke slightly… A determined House of Commons could pack the Lords and instruct the monarch or remove the monarch.

It is certainly accepted since Bagehot that the Monarch serves at the wish of Parliament.

828

If the issue were to be over whether or not to overthrow the monarch, I doubt it, as the Commons cannot create peerages, the Queen does. And She probably wouldn’t be willing to appoint peers hostile to Herself during such a crisis as that.

True, that’s the informal side of the constitution. There’s nothing formal that requires it, and the legal fiction remains that the monarch is as involved in Executive matters as King Charles I was.

829

Nope. I was, and remain, correct. You seem to be clinging to a blatantly false idea that something can only be considered British if it applies to the whole of Britain, which is nonsense.

Again with the nonsense about ignorant Anglocentrism… Simply false. If something exists in England, it necessarily exists in Britain. The Church Of England is British, for example. As is the Church Of Scotland.

And your claim that “Scottish juries have 15 members” proves false the claim that “most British juries have 12 members” is absurd. Unless you consider that “over 90%” doesn’t count as most… I guess you might believe that, you have demonstrated that you struggle with words.

And Welsh and English are the only languages of the UK, as opposed to in the UK. Scots Gaelic is no more a national language of the UK than Polish or Hindi.

830

I though you were talking about a determined PM? Or are you moving the goalposts now?

831

Exactly. So it’s true for the vast majority of Britain.

Only an anglocentric person would say that. In the UK criminal juries may have 12 or 15 members

Utter nonsense.

Scottish notes are denominated in Sterling and are British pounds. Only an anglocentric would deny that.

Really? There’s a Scottish court that can overrule the Supreme Court? Oh, there isn’t. The Supreme Court is the (joint) highest court in the land.

Yes. There is no criminal appeal from the High Court of Judiciary on criminal matters. Their decision and sentence is not further appealable. The only exception is in administrative law when it affects UK treaty obligations such as the ECHR.

So, in England there’s an established church. England is in Britain, therefore, in Britain, there is an established church. You are acting like Scotland is the only part of Britain.

So anglocentric again.
No, Scots Gaelic is not a national language, neither is Cornish or British Sign Language, or Scots for that matter. English and Welsh, that’s it.

See my note above about Welsh as a full national language and Scots Gaelic as the only additional language for citizenship purposes.
Well done. No-one ever said it was. They expressed a hope that Scots, as well as all other Britons, would support England.
Anglocentric…

No fucking shit, Sherlock. That’s why I said it’s false that he’s English.

OK but your English was unclear.
Well Scotland needs to sort itself out then.

Anglocentric. For centuries it was possible to convict someone in England on the mere statement of the police. That was not possible in Scotland. England dealt with it by PACE. Scotland had corroboration and now guaranteed legal representation.

832

Parliament is Supreme.

833

Part of my point was that English people conclave England with Britain. Your answers demonstrated that quite clearly.

The CofE nay exists in England. It is absent in Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

Although it is true that it is a church in Britain, it is not the established church in Britain anymore than Britain has a Presbyterian church in ascendancy.

834

Nonsense. Wales and Northern Ireland would like a word. The vast majority of juries in the UK - those of the majority of the component countries - have 12 members.

No shit. They are just as valid as Bank of England pounds. You’re the only one claiming otherwise.

Ah, so it’s also the highest court, along with the Supreme Court, then? Like I said…

Yes. exactly. As I said, English and Welsh are the only national languages. I’m sure you’ll somehow manage to claim that mentioning Welsh is somehow Anglocentric.

Now, if you asked my opinion, I’d like to see Scots Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, British Sign Language, and possibly Ulster Scots or Irish Gaelic if there’s the demand, recognised as national languages. But, as it stands, they’re not. Opinion doesn’t trump facts.

How the fuck is at anglocentric for English people to support Scotland in international tournaments when England aren’t playing, and hope for reciprocation? That’s the very opposite of Anglocentrism, it’s recognising and embracing the Union.

Oh no, England was bad in the past so that excuses Scotland being bad now? Bullshit.

835

Things appear to be a little heated this morning. Let’s just everyone dial that back a bit.

836

It is an established church in Britain, and part of the British Government. The Bishops who sit in the Lords are not restricted to England only.

Now, perhaps they should be, and in my opinion there’s no place for an established church these days. But opinions, once again, don’t trump facts.

It’s also false that there’s no Episcopal church in Scotland, if that’s what you mean by saying it’s absent there. Otherwise, it’s as meaningless as saying Yorkshire doesn’t exist in Scotland.

837

I can only assume that’s a “yes”.

And of course, they are, except when they’re not, and the times when they’re not aren’t clearly spelled out. One of the great advantages of not having a written constitution, one can’t hide behind technicalities. The Monarch, the courts, and the people can also be supreme if necessary.

838

As I mentioned in one of the other threads, I managed to get banned from the forum of Rev Stuart Campbell, of Wings Over Scotland fame, back when he ran his own videogames-related forum.

My crime was to say that as someone who grew up in England (to a parent from England and a parent from Scotland no less) I always wanted Scotland to win at Football (except when playing England). He went ballistic, with all sorts of weird claims that doing so was looking down on Scotland. It was a real eye opener, seeing the views of a rabid nationalist first hand and also why I cannot even begin to take WoS (amusingly his previous site was “World of Stuart”, clearly he likes the WoS abbreviation) seriously as I have first hand experience of how biased, English hating (despite living in sodding Bath) and utterly deranged he is.

Scottish nationalists can be a very weird bunch. I’m sure theres loads of sane ones, but like usually happens you only hear the crazy ones. Campbell is one and unfortunately several of my relatives are too. Not my Mum though who, despite being from Renfrew, wasn’t allowed to vote. Apparently it was too expensive to ask people South of the border even if they were from Scotland. Hurrah for democracy!

839

Ha ha, believe it or not I had a few dealings with him as well… Odd bloke, to put it mildly. He didn’t like it much when I was one of the founder members of a breakaway forum from World Of Stuart when he decided to try charging for it.

It does seem odd to me that these people who seem to spend so much time and energy thinking about England, how much they hate England, what England has supposedly done to them, and so forth, refer to others as Anglocentric.

840

Despite the desperate nick picks above it is pretty obvious that Steopan is anglocentric on many occasions, choosing to believe that the state of affairs in England are the state of affairs in Britain as a whole,