Indyref Part 4

[SantanaLopez]

Evening all :)

What does anyone think will happen to political parties in Scotland in the event of a Yes vote? Will new ones emerge representing Left, Middle and Right?

I hope the Green Party will gain more power, although I know that's probably a pipe dream.
New parties will almost certainly emerge though.

Now subtract the majority of the financial services industry
Possibly.
Very likely, judging by the enquiries for office accommodation being made in London by certain major companies.

And the UK Civil service jobs that are disproportionately higher in number.
Scotland will also require a civil service.
But a smaller one.

And the Shipbuilders (No MOD ships will be built in a foreign country)
They can build commercial ships, and possibly ships for the Scottish Defence Force. There were 4 offers on Ferguson's so obviously more than one person thinks ship building still has a place.
Ferguson's is a tiny yard.
The major UK ships will be built in Portsmouth or Belfast in future. Scotland will not need anything like them for its own navy.

Oh and the extra admin costs of running your own state. rather than the "economies of scale" of using UK facilities
It is quite likely our admin costs would be less. A lot easier to administer to 5 million people than 60 million.
So you agree about the civil service (see above).

And the question of the currency.
Currency union/sterlingisation in short term. Own currency/Euro in long term.
No currency union. Sterlingisation will be difficult and expensive, and no more Scottish-issued currency notes.

And EU membership.
Realistically, not an issue.
Realistically you'll get back in, but without the UK's concessions that other countries hate. Makes membership much more expensive.

And the extra costs of NOT being in the UK market
??
Agreed. Difficult to quantify but it's always more difficult to sell to a foreign country.

And the forecast decline in oil revenues.
Of course the oil is going to run out in a few years. It will help during the transition but is not needed long term.

And the overall negative effect on oil prices of shale gas and renewables.
Most of the renewables are in Scotland.
Renewables are only possible with huge subsidies. Without the UK you'll have to subsidise them yourself, and that makes them very expensive indeed. So there goes your "oil fund".

UK won't buy your renewables because they don't qualify any more against EU specified targets - must be 'home grown'. cUK will need to further develop its own renewables to meet targets.

None of this will change your mind of course if you are determined to vote Yes, but do be aware of what you are wishing for.

Crossrail - London is the capital of the UK. Should no cities be subsidised for major projects?

HS2 - it should come further north. Ultimately it could benefit the economy of those cities, if it is extended.

Olympics - this brought a lot of tourism (including to Scotland, not everyone who came to the UK just went to the Games and then went home again, Edinburgh Council did quite a lot of promotion related to the Games), there was also additional funding made available under the Barnett Formula. And on a more minor note, the furnishing of the athletes village were apparently re-used for the Commonwealth Games.

There were also Scottish athletes in Team GB. And there was a lot of enthusiasm for sports generated. I was speaking to our area's school sports co-ordinator and she said she'd had loads of requests for information on sports clubs, help to set up new sports clubs etc.

Grovel, I think the political scene in Scotland will see a radical change. There is, for example, no such thing as "Scottish Labour" (it's an "accounting unit" of the Labour party) so a new, genuinely left of centre party or parties will emerge. The early Scottish Parliaments had quite strong representation from the far left, and the Tories are so toxic a new centre right group will have to form. I see the Greens becoming much stronger, Patrick Harvie has played a blinder.

It'll be interesting to see how it all shapes up.

Grovel-

I think long term after the yes vote the majority of the snp will shift left towards the common weal model. The people on the right of the snp may join with ex tories into a new centre right Scottish party. I don't think a party called 'the conservatives' will exist in Scotland anymore.

I think Labour will rebrand itself. It will be interesting to see which of the now Scottish labour MPs will join the Scottish parliament and who will seek an English seat. I think Jim Murphy will head south.

I'd like to see the SSP recover from TS and get a few msps again. The greens will probably continue to have a few seats.

The Scottish lib dems- I really dont see where they would fit into all of this.

I think Labour might rise from the ashes - Is wouldn't be surprised I'd some Labour MPs/MSPs come out for Yes in the next couple of weeks. Its be a gamble, but they'd have more chance of a job I'm iScotland if they did.

The Tories as are are dead. No chance of a resurrection there without a major rebrand - I'm sure there will be some right wing party evolve to fill the vacuum though.

Lib Dems pretty dead to I think.

SNP will probably cease to exist after independence - too many disparate views temporarily together because all want independence.

I think the Greens have got a good shot now though.

Sallingforth

Sorry, I am too battle weary to answer your points one by one again. Yes, there will be job losses and costs incurred by a newly independent Scotland. There will also be bonuses and savings. The net result broadly the same.

but do be aware of what you are wishing for.
Thank you for your kind thoughts, but I have been researching this exhaustively ever since the referendum process began. I am then sort of person who has to research any major and minor decision, so trust me, I have done my research, and I am entirely sure of what I am voting for.

weatherall
I think HMRC based in Scotland.
More jobs to be closed or moved down to England. UK won't employ civil servants in a foreign country.

We already produce more electricity than we need.
What will you do with it? UK will no longer pay more than the basic market price without the renewable subsidies. Will you subsidise the UK's electricity?

why can't we subsidise the shipyards.
Not if you rejoin the EU. It's illegal.
And you'd have to pay huge amounts to make them compete with Korea.

What does anyone think will happen to political parties in Scotland in the event of a Yes vote? Will new ones emerge representing Left, Middle and Right?

I think in an independent Scotland you would see a greater diversity of political parties (which IMHO is a good thing). First Past the Post voting, used for Westminster General Elections, is thought to almost inevitably lead to "two-party politics" (this is known as "Duverger's Law" ). Proportionally the Liberal Democrats got 23% of the vote (only 6% less than Labour!) in the 2010 election, but only got 8.8% of the seats. So FPTP really hammers the "little" parties and prevents them from ever growing in proportion to their voter base.

Holyrood is currently elected according to the "Additional Member System", which is a mixture of FPTP and proportional representation - so you get to vote for an MSP for your constituency, with 73 constituency MSPs in Holyrood, but then you also vote for a party, and the final 56 seats are distributed according to these votes. It still isn't as representative as true PR but it retains the constituency system which I think people find valuable (i.e. having a person who has a duty to a specific area). But it's certainly more representative than pure FPTP and give smaller parties more of a chance.

Overall I think this would result in more consensus politics, with lots of different parties having a voice. I also think independence could see a resurgence in both Scottish Labour and a Scottish Conservative party, as they can in many real senses begin to shape themselves anew and start to look very different from the current UK-wide Labour and Conservative parties.

R.e. all of the above, a massive caveat is that of course Holyrood right now is absolutely dominated by a single party - the SNP. I heard a very interesting discussion of this in which someone suggested that currently the SNP were dominant because they were one of the few parties that put MSPs up for election who were not also career politicians down in Westminster. So, the SNP are getting a lot of votes currently because you get your money's worth out of them -- voters know an SNP MSP will be present in Scotland and will not have mixed allegiances to the two different parliaments. Post-independence, though, I truly think it's anyone's game.

I may have mentioned this previously but it's interesting to think that Churchill did not win the first General Election after WWII!

ItsAllGoingToBeFine

Good. I'm not seeking to change anyone's mind. I've said all along that if Scotland chooses independence then I wish you the best of luck.

I've also done my thorough research and I think it will be good for cUK, with the probably exception of another spike in house prices around London due to the new FS jobs.

In spite of all that though, I'll be sorry to see you go :(

I really must leave this thread and work properly, but NCForAye makes a good point about the LibDem vote. Similarly in 2010 the Tories got just under 17% of the Scottish vote but only one seat. I've never voted Tory myself, but I can see them taking a greater share of the vote in an independent Scotland - maybe not in the first election, but at some point in the medium term. I can also see the SNP re-shaping themselves to an extent, perhaps losing some members to other parties.

OOAOML

"Work properly?"

The referendum has taken over my life. I just can't stop thinking and worrying about it!

Yep -- for me the whole representation thing isn't about "getting rid of the Tories forever". It's about fixing a system that doesn't democratically represent the votes that are submitted, be they for the Green Party or, yes, the Conservative Party!

Itsallgoingtobefine I'd be very surprised if Scotland really has been putting more into the UK economy than it takes out

Including oil it has www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16477990

Nice Cherry Picking !

I took the trouble to read your link.
In it Ms Flanders writes "For readers who'd rather not wade through the statistics: the answer is yes, Scotland does get a net subsidy."

and:
"The basic facts are that Scotland accounts for 8.4% of the UK population, 8.3% of the UK's total output and 8.3% of the UK's non-oil tax revenues - but 9.2% of total UK public spending.

Scottish Executive figures for 2009-10 show that spending per capita in Scotland was £11,370, versus £10,320 for the UK. In other words, spending in Scotland was £1,030 - or 10% higher - per head of population than the UK average.

What about revenues? The same source shows Scottish total non-oil tax revenues coming in at £42.7bn in 2009-10, or £8,221 per head, which compares with total public expenditure attributable to Scotland of £59.2bn, or £11,370 per head."

And:
"On this basis, Scotland 'got' £16.5bn more in UK public spending in 2009-10 than it contributed to total UK revenues - or a 'subsidy' of around £3,150 per head."

It's easy to cherry pick, but the article you quoted seems to mainly show the opposite to your argument!

If the government can subsidise the banks why can't we subsidise the shipyards.

They're not even remotely comparable. The banks were bailed out because had they gone down the entire country would have ground to a halt. At one point RBS only had enough cash left to last a matter of hours. What would have happened if they'd run out - seriously. Not just "bankers getting their comeuppance" but normal people with nothing to do with the industry being in serious trouble. The money 'given' to them was also loans or investments in the companies.

Shipbuilding is an important industry but in terms of how integral it is to the day to day functioning of the country then the difference is pretty stark.

"Why are you blaming HMRC? I expect they were content to agree since it probably saved them some work, but that didn't stop SNP using the power if they really wanted to.

For seven years you could have been helping the low paid and unemployed, and you haven't bothered. You complain about the need for food banks but refused to increase benefits. And now you want even more powers.

Sorry, but that's not a very good advertisement for the SNP"

I'm not interested in any advertisements for the SNP. I'm not an SNP voter and I dislike the bulk of their economic policies.

Nevertheless, lets address a couple of misunderstandings here.

The snp - "refused to increase benefits". Err, the Scottish Government doesn't have any control of benefits. It would be better, in my view, if they did, either through independence or further devolution, have control of these. They did, however, introduce a fund to negate the impact of the bedroom tax on vulnerable people. And they did actually bother to vote against the bedroom tax, unlike many Labour MPs. They all voted against the benefit cap, which Labour supported. So the charge that the SNP refused to increase benefits is pretty dim.

On the subject of raising tax. It's not a question of "blaming" HMRC. Just that in 2000 the Scottish Government paid HMRC a reasonable sum (12 million) in order for them to be able to process the data necessary to implement the tax raising power, and then paid 50K a year to keep that information updated. But then HMRC planned to update its computer systems and requested an additional funds to transfer this functionality to the new system, while reporting that it would not even be useable until 2012/13. This would have meant that the Scottish Government, would eventually have spent 20.3 million on facilitating a tax raising power which, if used, would push up taxes for the lowest earners as well as the highest and couldn't be used until 2012/13 due to HMRC IT upgrades, and at which point the Calman Commission was to recommend different tax raising powers anyway. As the Scottish Government declined to pay the additional 7 million, HMRC changed their IT systems without retaining the necessary information, and the facility is no longer usable. So, no, since then the SNP couldn't have simply used the power "if they really wanted to". This doesn't even begin to cover the Scottish Governments own administrative costs in introducing the tax pre-2007, or general compliance costs. All this to administrate a tax which was not ringfenced in such a way that would ensure that any 'excess' raised by the Scottish Government was not cut straight from the block grant anyway.

It's for a good reason that the Calman commission has recommended more flexible taxation powers, rather than the unprogressive flat rate adjustment, and all parties have welcomed these, regardless of the independence debate. Nobody but nobody is arguing that the SVR should be retained. You're flogging a dead horse here.

You're cherry picking too davros, the article is basically saying it's about your interpretation of the numbers and what context you put those number's in.

and besides IT'S THE FUTURE people, why are any of you embarrassing yourselves with this endless rehashing of things you don't know. It's dull.

and patronising.

Deeedeee you've done plenty of dull and patronising yourself. I'm fairly sure you're the person who said you wouldn't be listening to "any of your nonsense" when people challenged your views. How dare you say that we're embarrassing ourselves just for refusing to agree with you.

Deeedeee
Yes, I was cherry picking on purpose!
You are quite right the article states that it is down to interpretation of the figures. Interestingly it seems that the key factor in the interpretation is this:
"Now of course, the UK Treasury doesn't agree that the oil revenues belong to Scotland, and it almost certainly never will. In fact, as any Scottish Nationalist will happily tell you, it was the Treasury that helped to invent a new extra-territorial category of national output for North Sea oil, in the 1970s. Treasury statisticians will tell you it made sense to keep the oil sector separate from the broader UK economy. Mr Salmond will tell you it was a Whitehall plot to steal the oil from the Scots.

So there are two numbers to choose from, depending on whether you take a Whitehall view of oil, or the view from Holyrood."

So, once again we have the view from Westminster being wildly different from Alex Salmonds view. Once again we are back to the point of "Westminster (The English) are lying and stealing our Oil" and that he will dictate to the rUK after independence on currency union, and the Oil revenues, and x amount of other issues.
I hope for your sake that he (a politician may I remind you) can honour all these promises.

Oh and I don't think its patronising to present counter arguments based on facts!

and besides IT'S THE FUTURE people, why are any of you embarrassing yourselves with this endless rehashing of things you don't know. It's dull.

To be honest, I think both sides (both here and in the wider debate) are rehashing things now. I think pretty much everything has been discussed and picked over to the nth degree. But we're still talking about it because this decision matters so much to everyone. Unless we don't talk about it at all, I don't see how else a thread on this will go.

And now I've been sucked back in, I knew I should have closed the window and not hit refresh!

What do No voters think of Better Together's latest posters, claiming that one should vote No if you love Scotland/your family? Although it doesn't say it outright, most Yes and No voters seem to agree it insinuates that if you do love your country/family, you would vote No.

I am just interested, as I've heard a mix of Yes voters saying it's just silly, No voters saying the same but that it doesn't change their choice of vote, and 2 No voters (that I know of personally) who were already growing tired of BT and changed their mind on how they were voting (one changing to Yes, another to undecided), seeing it as the 'straw that broke the camel's back' kind of thing.

I don't think any of the above opinions are right or wrong, as they're just that - opinions, and obviously an advert doesn't represent a whole campaign. I don't base my opinions solely on Yes Scotland, either. I just wondered how it has been received.

DeeeDeee, these have been mostly a good natured and informative set of threads. I don't agree with any of your politics but you have the right to come on here and try and explain them. So does everyone else.
If you don't like it, you know what to do. The HIDE button is up there^^

The family one is a bit stupid tbh - mind you I've seen enough of that from the Yes camp too. If I see one more numpty saying "I'm voting yes because I care about my children's future" as if those voting no, what, want their children to starve! It's a trite line both have trotted out in various forms for example

The I love Scotland one I can see the point of, as to a certain extent the Yes campaign have been trying to claim a bit of a monopoly on loving Scotland/being patriotic etc. So I think a poster that says I love Scotland I'm voting no isn't an entirely unreasonable message to be putting out.

That child has pierced ears!

I did not notice that. Bleurgh!

I duly await accusation of being a snob.

I think the problem is that there has been a lack of a positive reason to vote yes, and this is what people want.

The current adverts are just stupid - everyone loves Scotland/their family no matter what way they plan to vote. They should have come up with some big inspirational reason why we are better together.