Clearly not everyones concept of personal identity maps satisfactorily onto the choices at hand.
Referendums invite the ‘protest’ vote. What will annoy the current crop of politicians in power the most?
In Scotland, the is the SNP vote. In England, it is the UKIP vote.
They, should they achieve power, will in turn be similarly despised as their inadequacies become clear.
I guess the Tea Party fulfills a similar role in the US: a bunch of noisy populists who have little constructive to say except to articulate some of the issues that frustrate the electorate that established politicians have failed to address.
Scottish independence and all its complicated constitutional ramifications is not the issue foremost in the mind of the electors, nor indeed is the immigration issue in the rest of the UK. They are simply convenient examples of the failings and general dissatisfaction with the politicians and political system. Politicians should be regularly tested, but voting for mavericks and causing constitutional crises is no solution.
I can see the counter argument, it’s called the Republic of Ireland, which I’ve been too countless times and is a nice place. I’m doing somewhat of a Polemic due to the amount of pro-Independence literature out there, especially in the Guardian which irritated me. That was the reason for this thread.
SNP is certainly not a protest vote. It may have been a generation ago, but for the past four years they have governed Scotland with aplomb. There is very little real dissent over Government actions in Scotland among ordinary people- at Holyrood there are differences but there is no massive split at citizen level as there is in the rest of the UK (NI, Wales AND England). I have lived here for a decade and found politics (save for Independence) to be communitarian. The only likely outcomes of any election here are the moderate left somewhat more liberal SNP and a moserate left somewhat less liberal Labour led administration. There is no chance of the massive swings of angry voters that occurs in other realms. Politically Scotland seems quite at peace with its general governance.
London is full of Irish who have escaped the moribund economy and austerity that followed the precipitous financial disaster of 2008. They have little but derision for the politicians who contrived the unsustainable credit boom and subsequent crash.
What now of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy that could create wealth out of a fantasy?
Ireland is a pretty country with an attractive culture, but it holds no lessons for Scotland except to distrust politicians who manipulate the electorate with unsustainable bribes and try to convince them that they have some kind of golden touch that creates economic miracles.
Salmond and the SNP seem to be up to the same trick, promising a bright prosperous future. Talking up unrealistic expectations and exploiting deep seated insecurities, at the same time understating the huge expense of restructuring the economy and constitution.
It will be a sad day if the Scots swallow that baloney. Scots are supposed to be canny and ambitious, which is why the tend to end up running large parts of the UK economy and win high political office.
Are we going to see 800,000 Scots head back to Scotland and help Mr Salmond create the kind of stay-at-home Nordic backwater he has in mind? That would certainly liven up the Scottish Parliament.
The whole thing is a folly and will be to the detriment of everyone in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Most of whom, won’t get to vote on the subject.
I think Scottish Independence and the promised vote of UK membership of the EU are two monumental mistakes by Cameron done to placate the two ugly sisters of UK politics: Scottish and English nationalism. Referendums are a wild gamble that rely on the judgement of a electorate who will give it as much critical discrimination as the X-factor or some other God-awful TV popularity contest.
Well said, Pjen. I’d like to also say that the Scottish Tories are a bit different to their counterparts down south - their current leader, Ruth Davidson, is a gay woman, for a start. Most of the hard-core Thatcherite Scots Tories headed south.
I wonder if things would be quite as cosy if the Scottish government had to run the entire country, with the accompanying hard tax and spending decisions to take, and no Westminster to blame things on?
What matters is self-determination. A coherent potential state elected a government on a platform of allowing a vote for independence. That vote has been organised for September and the mature and sensible Scottish electorate will make a decision then.
Much of the rhetoric here is based on the same attitude that made Britain’s loss of Empire so painful- a failure to allow other nations and states rights above the mother country.
What we do know is that the Scottish people will decide.
I have faith in representative democracy that befits a modern state.
These referendums are simply a device for politicians to dodge their responsibilities and foist decisions with many, difficult consequences onto a public that is unused to such questions and certainly has a poor grasp of the implications. Claiming that it is more democratic is little more that fig leaf that hides a desperate act of political expediency that will cause untold harm.
[QUOTE=Ryan_Liam;17333731
Yup, because destroying a 300 year old Union to spite those Thatcherite Tories is what matters.[/QUOTE]
Yes, that’s exactly what I said. :rolleyes:
There’s a fairly cohesive part of the UK that has some measure of autonomy. It increasingly doesn’t fit politically with Westminster, and there is a vote about that. What is the problem?
If the Scots had an issue with self-determination, the Union would not have lasted 300 years.
The British Empire was as much a creation of Scotland as it was of England and Wales. The Scots where an important driving force making it all happen. There are many Scots who are quite convinced that they run the UK.
It will be a vote for less political power, a smaller economy, less influence in the world. For a country barely able to defend itself that will teeter on the edge of bankruptcy destined for years of difficult negotiation with its larger neighbour, the conclusions of which will render both countries exhausted and impoverished.
How the voters can be regarded as mature and sensible when it will includes kids from the age of 16? Clearly, the hope is that voters will not give it much thought at all and simply will use their emotions. Who has the political X-Factor?
What do you imagine is going on today? A pro-indy party gains a clear majority in a devolved parliament - under an electoral system that was designed to make a clear majority unlikely, btw - and now there is another referendum vote (the third in my lifetime) to deal with issues of self-determination. Does that not tell you something?
Just as a logical exercise, how long does a union have to last before it becomes permanent?
In 1737, could you reasonably have said “If the Scots had an issue with self-determination, the Union would not have lasted 30 years” ? Where is that sweet spot between an impermanent union and a permanent one?
This is a serious quesiton, and applies to the US as well. Apparently, 1776 (or 1783, or 1789: pick your date) to 1861 was long enough to make it permanent. Split the difference and call it 80 years. The United Arab Republic was only three years. Yugoslavia was 1918–1991, 73 years, and the Soviet Union a little less than that. Dodged a bullet, there!
So shall we say at 80 years a union becomes irrevocable? By this logic, we really need to put the Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empires back together. Bad luck that they overlap.
Or is it that the union lasts only as long as it works, whether three years or 309?
Can you articulate a reason why, having lasted 300+ years, the UK must continue?
That is not the feeling in Scotland. Even those Scots who are going to vote No feel that this is the right thing to do- no one here doubts that the referendum is necessary to settle the future of the nation.
It is only quibblers elsewhere that try to cast doubt on the right and ability of the Scottish people to make up their own minds.
Maybe you would have preferred it if the SNP had declared unilateral independence on the back of their 45% plurality at the last election.
There was an electoral mandate for this as it was clear from the SNP Manifesto that if they were elected they would call a referendum. They were elected (in a system that was designed to stop them!) and there will be a referendum.
Given the current Parliamentary vote for independence, what else can be done other than decide it by referendum?
Will this actually settle anything, though? I mean, if the vote goes for independence, that’ll settle things that way, assuming the rest of the UK and Parliament and all continue to go along with it, but if there’s a no vote, won’t this just come back again and and again and again?
The Scots evidently do currently have a problem with self-determination as they elected a government hell bent on it in the most open way possible. They removed one moderately left of centre coalition for a left of centre single party government with 45% of the vote (more than any UK Government has had in over a century!
Scotland was a driving force in Empire. It now may become a driving force as a small European country without pretention.
It is up to the Scots to decide whether they want to take the risks and whether they want to plan for the advantages.
Letting 16 year olds vote is a canard. There are very few of them and apparently they are more unionist than their parents according to the little polling done.
I am getting really quite frustrated with outsiders treating the Scottish electorate as in some manner inadequate and not competent to decide their future. I am beginning to appreciate what it must be to be Irish with a Bully State next door!
I have mentioned that many posts ago. My prediction is that the vote will be very close. If it is Yes there will be no going back and independence of some kind will follow (I suspect a fudge with the continuation of a supra national “United Kingdom” with two sovereign states with full international recognition, or maybe even a formalisation of the whole Islands structure of the Good Friday agreement. This is how the retreat from empire from 1776 on has happened- fudge and compromise followed by some sort of cooperation. Who was it that described the Commonwealth as the Methadone of Empire.
If the vote is a narrow rejection, and we get another 5-10 years of right wing illiberal UK governments (whether Conservative or Labour) which is what is on offer currently, then the wound will fester and I can see a second bite at the cherry.