They wouldn’t be closing the border, but they’d make it a lot more difficult for Scots to go about their business with England. To not follow through upon the negative implications of leaving the Union, then what’s the point of the Union continuing with Wales or even Northern Ireland as members when there is no disadvantage to going it alone? Some demonstration will have to be implemented to show this, I’m not saying this is rational or right, but it wouldn’t be surprising.
I was just clarifying the reasons why there is a movement for independence. What you say may or may not be true, and indeed these are the sorts of issues that are being debated.
It would definitely surprise me
And this kind of veiled threat is precisely what is making a ‘Yes’ vote so likely. The Better Together campaign should focus on the positive aspects of being together, not on the - entirely hypothetical - negative consequences of independence
It’s not a threat, it’s a hypothetical. But you cannot pretend that everything after Independence would be cordial and genial, even if that’s desired, there’d still be an expectation of consequences of leaving the Union. The yes vote isn’t a likely situation yet.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/18/uk-scotland-independence-polls-idUKKBN0DY0D020140518
Accepting your point about the likelihood of a “Yes” vote, I nonetheless have trouble seeing statements that amount to “If you vote to leave, we’ll make life difficult for you - even if doing so wouldn’t be in our own rational best interests” as anything other than a threat.
I remain clueless as to what it is that people expect when they make this criticism.
Either way it’s the same message. You can say “Look, we have x, isn’t that a great part of being British?” and put out a nice positive image. But, if presented with that message, the obvious question for a voter in the referendum would be “Will we still have x if we vote for independence?” If the answer is “yes”, then it’s hardly an argument for the union, and if the answer is “no”, it’s labelled as “fear mongering”.
Because it’s not a decision that will be made by the English electorate; it’s a decision that will be made by the UK government, which will understand that any popularity it might garner by erecting border controls (and I doubt, myself, that it would garner any) would be very short-term indeed. As for keeping Scottish citizens out, is that feasible when they are almost all British citizens? Or are you envisaging that the UK government will strip British citizenship from anyone who is granted Scottish citizenship and doesn’t disclaim it? Because I’m really not seeing that.
The RoI/UK Common Travel Areas was in place from 1923, even before the precise course of the NI border had been finalised. (It was suspended in 1939 due to some bother going on elsewhere, and not restored until 1952.)
Yes, politics is affected by emotion, but I honestly cannot see a wave of emotion among English unionists demanding the closure of the English/Scottish border. Apart from other factors (like common sense), the closure of the English/Scottish border is the precise opposite of what an English unionist, who considers Britain to be a natural cultural and political unity, would want. He should want to minimise the impact of Scottish independence, not maximise it.
Even if there are English unionists who are gripped by this madness, UK governments tend to be pragmatic. Apart from the direct and indirect costs of erecting and maintaining border controls, bear in mind that the main reason the UK secured an opt-out from the Schengen arrangements was the existence of the CTA. If Scotland isn’t in a CTA with the UK, it will certainly be expected to join the Schengen area (and will probably want to, if a CTA with the UK is really off the table). Ireland will have to consider its position - we’re already committed to joining Schengen if the CTA comes to an end - and even the rump UK will come under pressure to join Schengen. The CTA is only a viable alternative to Schengen if the CTA is, in fact, viable; it is really in the UK’s interests to sabotage the CTA in order to gratify the irrational impulses of English unionists who, when push comes to shove, turn out not to be quite so unionist in sentiment as they have pretended to be?
I don’t think the accusations of “fear mongering” are based on that, though. As an example, the position that the rUK government would not even discuss a currency union is just absurd. Of course they would, at least, they would if they’re acting in the best interests of their electorate. Same with EU membership.
And we have people on this very thread saying, in effect, “if you vote yes, we’ll fuck you up just because we can.”
I think this plays off an intrinsic weakness in the unionist position.
If you think that union is in the best interests of both Scotland and the rest of the UK then, logically, you should always favour maximising the degree of unity between them. Which means that, if Scotland becomes independent, you should still favour open borders, mutual co-operation, sharing of resources and information, etc, to the greatest possible extent. And therefore if someone asks a question of the form “will an independent Scotland still have such-and-such in common with the rest of the UK?” your instinct should be to answer “yes, if at all possible”. And if you fail to give that answer then you look not like a sincere unionist, but like a little-Englander seeking to control England’s neighbours, and expressing petulance if you can’t.
And (no offence, Ryan_Liam!) saying things like “I would favour a common travel area, but an outraged UK electorate might demand border controls” doesn’t get around this problem. It simply displaces the aura of being a little-Englander from the individual commentator to the nation as a whole. If you really think the English will feel and behave like this, how can you possibly be a unionist? It is plainly not in the interest of the Scots to enter or remain in a political union with a much larger nation which, you assure them, would take such an attitude to them.
There may be sound unionist arguments, but “the English would cut off their noses to spite their faces in order to injure the Scots” is not one. I think the unionist campaign must focus on the advantage (to Scotland) of the commonalities which must necessarily be lost if Scotland becomes a sovereign state.
If there is no disadvantage to going it alone, then there is indeed no point to the Union continuing, and I am puzzled as to why anyone would want it to continue. Deliberately manufacturing a disadvantage for both parties would seem perverse; it seems to presume that the continuation of the Union is inherently good, even if there is no point to the Union.
This is a fair point, but “yes, if at all possible” isn’t a pro-Union argument. Perhaps people do say “probably not” to matters of post-independence co-operation too much, but when asked to make actual pro-Union arguments, what else is there to say than “you’ll be worse off after independence, and here’s why”? It’s an entirely reasonable way to argue the point.
I also wonder on how many matters it is actually realistic to say “yes, if at all possible”. Many issues could be relatively simple enough to be handled in this way (like borders) but other issues are more complex. I think there is an assumption in some parts of the “yes” camp that independence can be a “have your cake and eat it” situation and it’s important to point out that it might not be that simple. If Scotland becomes independent, the rest of the UK will have to put its own needs before Scotland’s.
I also think there’s a bit of hypocrisy in the “fear mongering unionist” accusation. There are irrational and childish emotions on both sides. The independence movement is benefiting from hate mongering rather than fear mongering, but it’s no better. That’s not to say anyone on the “yes” side has full-blown hatred for their opponents, but many are partially driven by an emotional and negative reaction to the “others” in London. Each side would be just as happy to get their way through emotions and simplistic narratives as the other.
Scottish Citizens wouldn’t be kept ‘out’ we’re not talking about sealing the borders here, it would be the imposition of a national border with Scotland, as for the British government stripping Scottish citizens of citizenship, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility, even though I don’t agree with it.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/scottish-independence-uk-passport-loss-indication-1-2961819
I agree, however, once divisions between people start it’s hard to reverse them.
I didn’t pose it a dead certainty that the English would ‘feel and behave’ like this, I posed it as a hypothetical scenario, much of the thread has based Scotland post union with a healthy relationship with the rest of the UK, which is what we all want, however, history has proven, especially with Southern Ireland, that this kind of relationship isn’t necessarily forthcoming, and that we should all be aware of the pitfalls that come with Scotland leaving the Union.
And I dislike your implication that I’m a little-Englander due to my assertion that a dissolution of the Union between Scotland and England could result in a scenario where belligerent English nationalism is re-awoken, it can be a possibility.
Up page you were asking for evidence of Better Together scare stories; and then you produce this which is typical of the genre. Can you imagine the furore of stripping people of their nationality - as I have noted there are several classes dependent on residence, birth, acceptance of Scottish Passport- many possiblilities
Scots born in Scotland, resident in Scotland who take up formal Scottish Nationality and those that do not
Scots born in Scotland, resident in rump UK who DITTO
English Born, resident in Scotland who take up Scottish Nationality and those that do not
English born, resident in rump UK who take up Scottish nationality
etc etc.
Just which class or classes would be stripped of their Nationality.
With these scare stories over the Pound, EU membership, NATO membership, Capital Flight, Oil Futures etc, once they are deconstructed they are 90% bullying and bluster and 10% reality.
I’m not implying that you are a little-Englander. I’m saying that you yourself are suggesting that the English as a whole are little-Englanders, or will be if you scratch them. At the same time, I acknowledge that you have made it clear that you yourself do not share the sentiments and attitudes which you impute to the nation at large.
My point is, if your suspicions about how the English would behave are well-grounded, that’s a very good reason why the Scots should want out of the Union.
As I have said before, I think it’s very unlikely that anyone would be stripped of British citizenship in the context of Scottish independence. (And, if they were, that would betray an attitude towards Scotland which would underline the fact that the Scots had been quite right to get the hell out of the Union as fast as their kilted legs could carry them.)
Still, if the UK government did want to do this, there are established frameworks and models. In the late 1940, the formerly unitary status of “British subject” was subdivided into a variety of Commonwealth citizenships. The ideal was that every Commonwealth citizen would be both a British subject and a citizen of either Canada, or Australia, or the UK and colonies, etc. This ideal was never achieved; some British subjects acquired two or more citizenships of different Commonwealth countries, while others never acquired any (and so became “British subjects without citizenship”).
Still, the framework which was supposed to bring about the British-subject-plus-single-citizenship status was devised, and was put in place in various independence Acts, as colonies became Commonwealth member states. Typically, the people of about-to-become-independent Umbrellastan would all be Citizens of the UK and Colonies, and the Umbrellastan Independence Act would provide for (a) the independence of Umbrellastan and (b) the creation of a citizenship of Umbrellastan. And then it would go on to provide that, on independence day, every Citizen of the UK and Colonies who became a Citizen of Umbrellastan would cease to be a Citizen of the UK and Colonies. (Their status as British subjects would be unaffected at the time, though of course it was later to be taken away by the British Nationality Act 1981.)
In short, loss of British citizenship can easily be linked to acquisition of Scottish citizenship. UK law could provide that, on the independence of Scotland:
- every British citizen who becomes a Scottish citizen ceases to be a British citizen; or
- every British citizen who becomes a Scottish citizen ceases to be a British citizen, unless they disclaim Scottish citizenship within (say) one year of independence day; or
- every British citizen who becomes a Scottish citizen ceases to be a British citizen, unless they register with the UK government their desire to retain British citizenship.
And you can slice and dice this a bit further, if you want; e.g. applying one version of the rule to people ordinarily resident in Scotland and another to people resident anywhere else. Or you could exempt people from the loss-of-citizenship rules if they had been born in rump-UK, or had a parent born there. (An exemption of this kind was typical in the colonial independence Acts.) Or whatever.
I stress, I don’t think this is remotely likely. But if the UK government wanted to deprive any class of people of British citizenship on the occasion of Scottish independence, it’s technically quite straightforward. It’s a well-trodden path, and there are plenty of legislative and administrative precedents.