Scotland has a realistic and legal right to declare its independence as a separate state which gives it a considerable degree of control over what its long term relationship with England is. Upset the Scottish electorate and an independence vote becomes more likely. London is not blessed with the same scenario.
Basically, Scotland has a clear whip hand with long term relations with England as only five per cent of the electorate need to be offended by removal of Barnett formula level of funding for a future YES referendum win, taking the oil and gas with us.
Scottish people receive an extra £1600 more tan they are taxed on non oil revenue. Luckily if oil revenue is notionally divided between Scotland and rUK, the apparent deficit disappears.
Imagine the political effect of increasing the tax burden on Scotland by £1600 per person per annum. What would the vote for independence be then?
Realistic? No. Legal? Yes, along with any other region in the UK that so fancies it — that’s not unique to Scotland. “Yes” have just been given a drubbing in the referendum with young and old alike voting en masse to stay with the Union. The only time Scotland will have a realistic shot at declaring independence again is after 2044, at the very earliest. Your inability to swallow the fact that the independence movement was destroyed at the polls, with the leader pushing for change being forced to resign as his own constituents rejecting his plan for independence, is really making you type some nonsense in this thread.
Originally Posted by Pjen
'Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were given extra funding because of their demographic and geographic problems. London on the other hand gets the same per head allocation of resources purely because it is the capital.
Scotland has an additional claim, moral and political, to extra money because of oil revenues. Morally in that oil from Scottish waters sustained the UK for the past fifty years, and politically because, should Westminster equalise the subvention and send Scotland into penury or high taxes, they will be aware that offending the voters of Scotland sufficiently to encourage five per cent of the population to change their 2014 votes it would result in Independence being claimed in a future referendum or other method of leaving the union. The Barnett formula or something like it is virtually guaranteed.’
Well all of that sounds highly contentious and debatable.
It was only intended to be a temporary measure for a year or two and heavily influenced by the party politics and demography of the time, back in that heady year, 1978 when the whole country was facing ruin.
Even the originator of the formula, Lord Barnett, considers its continued use a terrible mistake and it is wrong to use for the basis of allocating funds to devolved parliaments. Especially when there are a politicians like Salmond who have been using the money to bribe the electorate.
Listen to the man himself:
There is a case for modifying the Barnett formula and I expect demands will become louder as the English (and the Welsh, for that matter) find their voice on the subject.
The offshore Oil in Scottish waters is a UK asset and it was exploited using UK finance. There is no moral question to answer. That is a diversion.
If it is the policy of the SNP to cry for another Referendum in response to anything to do with fixing these serious constitutional and economic imbalances related to devolution, then the public are going to lose patience pretty quickly. I don’t think anyones nerves would stand another one. That particular seam has been exhausted. Scotland decided to stay in the UK and it is now a UK problem that has to be solved.
There are no easy answers but a continuing subsidy for Scotland from the rest of the UK cannot be allowed to go on, it simply is not fair.
Not in any meaningful sense. If you declare independence, the UK can keep on doing exactly what it’s currently doing, including governing Scotland, and there’ll be nothing you can do about it. At least without massive support from things like NATO, the EU, the UN, you know, all those bodies that the UK is a member in good standing of.
You can’t, in practice, become independent without our consent. You (personally) need to accept that, ditch the ridiculous Braveheart fantasies, and work within the political system. A system that has consistently and decisively rejected independence.
Scotland does have all these rights. Just as it has the right to feel the wrath of international monetary markets when it declares an independence vote this time without the agreement of Westminster. Just as it also has the right to feel the economic wrath of a pissed off Westminster. If you think the scare stories during *this *referendum were bad just wait until we face an England that openly opposes us economically. Your figure of needing only a 5% change in electorate opinion is therefore largely irrelevant. The entire debate(for better or for worse) will have shifted.
I have stated before that Westminster politicians will live to regret the promise Devo Max. We can already see where the fight is headed.
The International Court of Justice has said that declarations of independence aren’t against international law. To my knowledge, they’re not against UK law, either.
What Pjen fails to understand is that Scotland declaring its independence would be like me declaring myself Emperor. Perfectly legal, and perfectly ineffective.
They do have that right, and if the majority of countries in the world recognised their independence, and were willing to act to force the UK to recognise it, it would happen. They don’t, however, have the ability to make anyone recognise them.
Having the right to do something doesn’t actually mean that one has the ability to do something, it means that one can’t be prevented from doing it. Scotland, in my understanding, could claim it was independent and solicit recognition of that status without being in breach of any law. That wouldn’t mean UK law didn’t apply there, as long as the UK was willing and able to enforce that law.
An analogy would be to “sovereign citizens” in the US. They have the right to claim that they are such, but by itself that doesn’t change anything.
Nicola Sturgeon has just been on the Scottish news saying that the country is on a course towards independence and she will have no compunction in calling a further referendum if necessary. She says tat stimuli may be a UK decision to withdraw from the EU which would be inimical to Scottish interests, or a failure to keep promises about devolution and funding through Barnett.
Scotland stands apart from any other region in the UK in having its own judicial system, approaching two decades of devolution, a viable economy, a recognisable national identity within its boundaries, and recognition from Westminster that it has a right to claim independence.
There is no fixed rule that the next available referendum will be in thirty years; it could be quite soon and only 5% of the electorate need to change their minds. I wonder how many NO votes were dependent on the Vow regarding Barnett and Devo max.
You are ignoring the Edinburgh Agreement. The UK having once agreed that the possible independence of Scotland should be decided by a referendum would find it difficult to go back on that admission.
I believe that like Ireland in the last century, Scotland is on an irrevocable paths to either Home Rule within the UK or independence- probably one followed by another. All the arguments being marshalled here were applied to the impossibility of Ireland leaving the UK. Ireland seems to be quite independent currently despite the nay Sayers.
The will of the people together with the appurtenances of Statehood. Not to mention that the UK has given de facto agreement by the Edinburgh Agreement.
A referendum agreed upon with the consent of Westminster not a referendum decided by the Scottish Parliament alone. If you are going down that route Westminster would be as good to boycott such a future referendum. It could simply claim any future referendum result as invalid - once more with the judgement of the international money markets behind it.
You show no understanding of history or politics. Just keep going with your legalistic arguments; such arguments did not stop Ireland getting Home Rule and almost every colony being given independence despite similar arguments from legalistic imperialists.