“Two-thirds of young Scottish voters plan to vote No in tomorrow’s referendum”. I guess you’ll have to wait for them to die off too.
ETA: Is it part of the Yes platform to wish death on their countrymen with the opposing viewpoint?
The Quebec model is that the electorate gets sick of it and gives the party pushing it a great big thumping at the polls.
That was the strategy as far as I can tell. It didn’t work out as they hoped it would.
I would also note that both the PQ and BQ are still pursuing sovereignty.
While there are a lot of similarities between the two independence movements, there are some significant differences as well.
One of the most significant differences is that it is still within the living memory of some Canadians that French Canadians, most of whom are Quebecois, were genuinely treated as second class citizens in some respects and were at the short end of the stick in terms of how Canada was economically organized. The separatist movement grew out of a group of people who had justification to feel marginalized, who were not very far removed from the consctiption crisis of the Second World War, and who lived in a world - this was the 1960s when things really started going - where new countries were being born from the ashes of imperialism on a pretty regular basis.
It is also worth noting that Quebec came from a place where it was a much larger part of Canada than Scotland is of the UK. In 1976, when the PQ gained power, Quebec was a bigger part of Canada’s population and economy than it is today and Montreal was, by far, Canada’s greatest city.
The separatist movement in Quebec has since petered out largely because the old grievances are, well, old. Canada has recognized French as an official language, decentralized even further, stopped treating Francophones like crap, and is now so far past the conscription crisis that for most people you might as well be talking about the Crimean War. There is, and always will be, a central core of nationalists. That’s inevitable as long as you have an ethnic or linguistic minority that is the majority in a defined geopolitical subdivision in a country where they are otherwise the minority. But really the peak time for Quebec sovereignty was a long time ago - unless, of course, Canada changes in some significant way that raises a legitimate beef again.
None of this has any real analogy to the Scottish independence movement. Virtually all Scots speak English so there is no linguistic divide. Both movements are based in large part on emotion and ethnic nationalism. But while Quebec’s movement sprang from systemic grievances, I get the sense Scotland’s beef has been pushed along* by the policies of the government of the day.* “Universal health care is in danger!” has never been a serious cry of Quebec’s separatists, and there is no evidence at all that Quebec’s separatist movement has done well during times that the federal government is ideologically distant from Quebec; while Quebec is largely more liberal than the rest of Canada, the movement has done well under Liberal governments and has absolutely tanked during the conservative government of Stephen Harper.
The first rule of debate is “check your sources”. What was the origin of this statistic? I will tell you:
“More than 250 people aged between 14 and 20 were interviewed for the study, which concentrated on the views of minority ethnic young Scots, although the views of white voters were also included.”
Includes 14 year olds
Only 250 (1000 needed for plus or minus three per cent reliability.
Weighted towards non Scottish born ethnic minority Scots.
Apart from that it is a reliable source.
I do know from the debate among 16 and 17 year olds at the Hydro they bad to ask YES voters to sit on the NO side as not enough people supporting NO turned up to fill the hall; they were asked to sit on the wrong side and not cheer for YES.
Speaking of voters dying off, demographic analysis shows that areas voting “Yes” have a lower life expectancy than those where people voted “No”.
“According to the data, Scots who voted Yes in the referendum tend to be younger, poorer, and more likely to be out of work than than those who voted No.”
So the obvious strategy for pro-independence forces is to pursue policies that result in economic stagnation, unemployment and premature death. :eek:
If you are of the impression that 16-year-olds do not change their political opinions as they age, you are, sir, in for a lifetime of surprise and disappointment.
The analysis of the vote by psephologists showed that every decile of age below 65 voted for independence, but the voters between 65 and 80 plus voted heavily against giving the majority to NO. Basically it is boomers and younger versus the pre war cap in hand unionist generation. Not a matter of age but a matter of generational experience. Additionally, older people had a greater turnout rate.
Okay, so how will that change? Do you think people don’t become more conservative and fearful of change as they grow older?
What you’re seeing is not a static thing that will change opinions as old voters die. Young voters become old and they’ll be harder to convince to vote “yes.”
Cite?
Cite?
I’ll admit that the Yes campaign disproportionately attracted young voters of the poor and unemployed variety. Sounds like their next phase is to glower in the corner while waiting for another generation of people to drop dead, then repeat the whole process hoping everything will be different that time. The warmth and positivity is palpable…
Not my original source which was from the BBC analysis on Friday, but
Regarding differential turnout by age, see any analysis of any British election in the last fifty years, or just stand outside a polling station and watch.
I hate to play this silly game, but if you look closely at THAT poll, almost half of the people were “interviewed online”, whatever that means, and it’s pretty weird that the sample yielded the exact same overall results as the election.
About half the opinion polls now are either telephone or online.
Full details:
2047people adjusted for age, social class and other factors (see the PDFs).
If you are rejecting this, no poll will be acceptable to you.
So I’m looking at your link and nowhere in it does it show that “every decile of age below 65 voted for independence.”
On Page 3, Table 2, it has votes broken by age group… but they are not all broken up by “decile.” And when they are, the 55-64 decile voted No (as did the 18-24 group, which isn’t a “decile.”)
I you go to the summary, you will see that every decile below the age of 55 voted yes. So, it’s 55, not 65.
The BBC had it as YES to 65.
As I said my original source was on broadcast news on the BBC. The Ashcroft poll os intended to support what I was saying based on the BBC poll.
So someone explain this out, if you would. The over 55 is such amassive part of the population that their 6% above 50 managed to give the no vote a 10% advantage in the final vote? That math seems eyebrow raising.