Polls tend to be a case of asking a few hundred people a set of questions and selling the analysis to news hungry journalists. The polls will come thick and fast as the date of the vote approaches.
Different polls ask questions differently and get different answers. Also it kind of depends on the people being interviewed understanding the questions and responding with an honest answer. Error margins can be very wide, which limits their usefulness.
The only thing this one tells you is that there are a lot of people who ‘don’t know’.
This is the problem with referendums and why we do not do them very often in the UK. These are complex issues best left to professional politicians to decide. That is what we we pay them for.
Most people will probably decide based on whether they believe the SNP rhetoric that they will be better off economically. I read somewhere that if the Scots think that they might be better off by £500 a year, they will vote for this major constitutional change.
Yes, here it is…
Bribing the electorate is always a sure-fire way to win votes.
The vote is wide open at the moment and there are still quite a long way to go until September.
Now if you really want to be pedantic about the difference between what is Great Britain, The British Isles, The Irish Republic and the various incarnation of the United Kingdom, this guy, CPGrey has a concise and amusing explanation.
The Atlantic Isles…LOL! Did you just make that up?
Want to preserve the union? Find out why those people are polling “yes” and address their needs.
Simple as that.
What seems to be happening instead is that you and other are railing, “how dare you consider breaking up our glorious union?”
It’s like a marriage where one party says “You know, I used to love you, but I’m just not happy. I think I might be better off on my own,” and the spouse says “WHAT! WE’RE THE BEST THING EVER! I’M THE BEST THING EVER! Of course we’re staying together. You’d be a fool to go off on your own, and you’d fail and die, and none of our friends care about you anyway.”
Instead, the spouse should say, “Why aren’t you happy? How can we fix this?”
Some of use are starting to think, " well, if that’s the way you feel about it, maybe we’re better off without you. But don’t expect an amicable divorce, even if it would be objectively in both parties’ interests ".
All I’m saying, as a citizen of your children, is that after 300 years you should grow the fuck up and get some counselling before you start talking to the divorce attorneys. Seriously, the fact that so many Scots are saying they want to leave means the Union isn’t working. You can either try to fix it, or be a jerk about it. It seems like England has chosen “be a jerk,” but I don’t understand why. Why not admit there are problems and try to solve them?
Single opinion polls are pretty meaningless. A series of opinion polls from various organisations and pollers, over six months that shows travel in one direction from a gap of 15 % to a gap of 2-5% is difficult to gainsay. We can be pretty certain stating that last year the Better Together bunch were in a winning position and now its looking like neck and neck with six months to go.
Bribing the electorate with good possibilities about the future seems more effective than threatening Scots with how awful life qould be if they leave- there has been hardly any positive campaigning from them about the benefits of Union- their choice of campaign, but they come over as bullies and moaners- not attractive.
Grey makes a serious error- many Northern Irish identify as Irish rather than British and hold Irish passports. He also fails to note that all powers of the Crown fall to ‘the Queen in Parliament’, that is to the current Prime Minister. But it is an amusing take if slightly in error over other minor matters such as church establishment.
Atlantic Isles and Atlantic Archipelago have been used by people who note that although all inhabitants of the Islands were Britons two millennia ago, now there is a substantial minority who find the appellation British to be offensive and incorrect as they identify as un-British. It was used in a book about Nationality and ‘These Islands’ as the Irish call them, and Atlantic Archipelago is note in Wikipedia.
The divorce would be terribly amicable as it would be entirely in both parties’ interests to maintain stability. Signs of acrimony would see loss of AAA status and rising interest rates among other problems.
That will probably be the next Better Together tactic- If you leave me I’ll make your life hell (see the post above about divorce!)
Devo mini-max is on the table already with the recent all party report on devolution. Should the vote be close, I suspect considerable acrimony as demands are made and possibly refused.
As I have said above, if it is a narrow defeat for independence, I believe the question will be revisited within a decade, especially if it is a decade that starts with a Conservative UK government.
We did, we gave the Scottish devolution in 1997 and a referendum on independence, they get no tuition fees in Scotland, they have a better quality of life. I can be emotional about Unionism because it’s part of my identity, something I’m proud of, and something Scots, English and Welsh and the Northern Irish can all share in, and have contributed in. Maybe I don’t want to see something like that flushed down the toilet by the likes of Pjen. I don’t need to scare monger anyone. But I’m tired of the narrative being pro-independence, hence why I started this thread.
Shouldn’t the issue of Scottish independence rise above the Conservative party? I mean really, is that the biggest issue and raison d’etre for Scotland to cut loose? Because you don’t like the Conservatives?
For signs of acrimony, you’re ignoring the fact that quite possibly a large chunk of the UK electorate won’t be feeling amicable to the Scottish, that’s not scaremongering, that’s one of the possible outcomes, there’s no way to gauge the feeling of psychological shock and irrationality in the UK that will come out of Scotland cutting loose, this is something I think alot of people are ignoring.
No, the biggest issues have been quite well explained in this thread and do not include the British Conservative Party. However, Pjen is right in portraying the Conservatives as a potential ‘push’ factor that could make Scots more willing to vote ‘Yes’ in the referendum. Not the biggest issue and raison d’etre, but definitely a factor.
Of course, this is all very valid. But you can’t vote thinking about how others will react to your vote. Is increased England-Scotland tension a possible outcome of the referendum? Yes. Should that convince Scots to vote ‘No’ to independence? Definitely not. If anything, it might have the opposite effect.
That assumes that ‘Economic Man’ always votes in his rational interest - if he did that then nobody who pays basic rate income tax would ever vote Conservative, as there’s nothing in it for them.
That I don’t deny, but the assumptions of the pro-independence camp that ‘Everyone will just take this amicably’ are being overly optimistic. Sure, some people are rational and will be ok with Scotland being independent, but you can’t just ignore 300 years of history between the two countries and expect things to be normal, they won’t, probably won’t be for generations. Remember, there are Unionists in Scotland as well, who are a large proportion of the population, how will you placate them?
Russia would have to control the European continent before a substantial conventional attack on the UK would be feasible, even then, you guys also have nukes to fall back on. There is no credible existential military threat to the UK other than Russian nukes and the fact you guys have them too would make even the likes of Putin think twice before pressing the proverbial button.
Why would NATO want to foot the bill of a wealthy 5 million+ county that wants to be independent because they would prefer to keep their oil and gas profits to themselves to fund their welfare state? Iceland is a country with less than half a million people strategically located in the middle of nowhere that separates the nations of NATO. Norway has a similar population to Scotland and contributes armed forces that are very well respected (and they have a great welfare state too), why should Scotland get to slide with bringing nothing to the table?
The UK nuclear deterrent consists of four nuclear subs that are based at Faslane in Scotland. If Scotland votes for Independence and the government is controlled by the SNP, they have said their defence policy is to be non-nuclear.
Of course, they want to join NATO for the protection that affords, but they don’t actually want to make much of a contribution.
Not exactly Braveheart.
There has already been some discussion about how to divide the assets of the British Armed Forces in order to create a Scottish Army, Navy and Airforce.
It makes depressing reading. Defence is an expensive business and the budget an independent Scotland would have is paltry £2billon, despite the fact that they would incur substantial startup costs. I like the bit about using training jets with no radar as their air defence. They simply will not have the money to create anything like a credible defence force.
Your language is telling and irritating. “We gave the them Scottish Devolution in 1997” - only after ignoring the previous vote on it in 1979-
“The referendum resulted in a 51.6% support for the proposal which, with a turnout of 63.8%, fell short of the required 40% condition for the Scotland Act 1978 to be implemented.”
The idea that Britain could ‘Give’ devolution says it all.
It is not just the Conservative Party, it is the whole political and social drift. Politics up here is considerably more left wing and liberal, more internationalist and open-minded. There is a persistent clash with the conservative little Englander view. UKIP has little traction up here and the EDL/SDL even less. The tensions are stronger than ever now that the Blair/Brown/Milliband Labour party is a centrist conservative party.
Your comments about acrimony are just seen as scaremongering like most of the Better Together arguments.
It is not Economic man that is in question, but hard nosed politicians looking at the views of the international economic community- banks etc. British (Scottish/Rump) self interest will be an amicable settlement of most issues.
You just don’t get it do you? Membership of NATO is voluntary as is active participation. If the Scottish people feel that they will benefit from not being in NATO, or not having Nuclear weapons on their soil, or any other choice, that is their option- as chosen by Finland and Ireland. Making that choice as a small country might make economic and political sense. As with Ireland, Scotland would have de facto protection; the UK would still have to protect the North Eastern approach to the British Isles, Scotland would not be invaded or attacked unless a attack on the UK was imminent.
NATO has gone so far beyond its remit with its intervention in Afghanistan that it is time for questions to be asked about whether it is still s defensive union or a power bloc. Scotland may ask those questions.
