Scottish Indyref 2

[ExecutiveFiat]

I think it’s inevitable now and only a matter of when not if!
When will it happen and will it be a yes? What are your predictions?

I was yes the last time and I will be voting yes again if there is another referendum. Scottish government is not perfect, but independence does mean the ability to vote for whichever party is best placed to run the country. Regrettably, Scottish votes make no difference in national elections or referendums and I believe change must happen.

@otracosa “Northumberland is where I’d go” Wall to wall gammon country😀😫

I'm pro indy but don't know if this is a good time for another vote. I think voters are sick of everything right now and there's not the same energy as in 2014.

At the same time we hate Boris, Reece Mog and brexit here so see first hand how little Scotland's voice matters in rUK.

In this union we are treated as an irrelevance. Look at brexit, the majority of scotland voted to remain, by quite a margin, but because Scotland's population is only 5 and a bit million what we want doesn't matter. In this union England decides always.

But where there are only two options, you have to take the majority vote. What are you expecting - that we overturn Brexit and the wishes of the majority of the people in the UK because Scotland & NI somehow matter MORE than England & Wales? The referendum wasn't carried out on a home nation basis - purely one vote per one adult. If the majority of the population lives in England then of course 'England' is going to carry far more weight, but every Scottish vote was worth exactly the same as every English (and Welsh and Northern Irish) vote within the UK.

If the combined populations of England & Wales had voted exactly 50:50, then we would have been remaining in the EU solely because of the voters in Scotland & NI, which would have tipped the balance the other way.

The population of London is approaching double that of Scotland and they voted 60:40 in favour of remaining. Do we consider them an irrelevance and what they want doesn't matter? No, because, although a very large number of people live there, it was a UK-wide referendum - and the majority of the people in the whole of the UK voted to leave. That's how democracy works.

“ But where there are only two options, you have to take the majority vote. What are you expecting - that we overturn Brexit and the wishes of the majority of the people in the UK because Scotland & NI somehow matter MORE than England & Wales? ”

The difference between London and Scotland is that Scotland is a constituent country of the UK, a nation under international law and part of the union via treaty. London is a territory of England and the UK. It’s different.

Political reality of the outcome could have seen a hard Brexit for England and Wales and a softer Brexit for Scotland and NI. Or even for Scotland and NI to remain in EU, like Denmark does with Greenland and the Faroes being part of Denmark but outside of EU.

But no, it was “fuck you, you’ll do as you’re told” to every constructive proposal.

So we’ll be leaving.

I completely agree with your other points and have no doubt that Scotland could prosper as an independent nation - I just don't see why, whilst Scotland is still part of the UK, people in Scotland should somehow have more of a per capita vote or say in UK-wide decisions than people in the rest of the UK.

I'm not really understanding the posts that say if Scotland became independent, they would move to England / Wales.

Surely they must be English or Welsh by birth if they assume they can have the freedom of choice to live there ? If that's the case then I doubt the Scots would be troubled by this, but if they are Scottish then they wouldn't automatically have the 'right' to emigrate without jobs, visas etc as is required by other countries now ?

I don't really understand the negative and angry undertone on this subject which is emerging either, surely the public voting should be enough without all the histrionics ? I'm aware that it's been voted on already, but Brexit is a factor which should be taken into account and if a second referendum is called at least the voters will have another chance to be heard. I really think all the voters who don't want another referendum are simply worried that they've lost the small majority they had due to Brexit, as if they are 'certain' the majority of voters still want to remain, what's the problem with voting on it again to be sure ?

We shouldn’t have more of a say. Brexit should not be stopped and I really mean that.

However, we should have a special deal or the option of choosing independence.

The unionist campaign which won in 2014 promised extensively and with great fanfare that voting against independence meant Scotland staying in the EU.

Political reality of the outcome could have seen a hard Brexit for England and Wales and a softer Brexit for Scotland and NI. Or even for Scotland and NI to remain in EU, like Denmark does with Greenland and the Faroes being part of Denmark but outside of EU.

But no, it was “fuck you, you’ll do as you’re told” to every constructive proposal.

So we’ll be leaving.

Greenland is geographically distant from Denmark and has a population of under 60,000. Without wanting to be disrespectful to Greenlanders, it's neither culturally nor politically a major world player. The UK also has overseas territories which are not part of the EU.

As far as the UN, the EU and the world in general is concerned, the UK is one country and I doubt they really care how we administer ourselves internally. To be honest, many millions of people across the world would probably see it that London = the UK and the other three home nations, along with the rest of us in England but outside London, as largely irrelevant.

How could it really work in practice having different areas of the UK as part of the EU and other areas not part of it - or with vastly different rules and international relations? It would be the effective end of the UK, which I understand and respect is your desire - and I genuinely wish you all the best if you're granted another referendum and the majority of your countryfolk decide to leave the UK. Nobody should feel compelled to stay in a 'marriage' if they don't want to, but you do have to officially divorce before your independence of the union can be properly acknowledged.

What kind of margin would yes voters be happy with implementing independence on?

51/49?

The unionist campaign which won in 2014 promised extensively and with great fanfare that voting against independence meant Scotland staying in the EU.

Then they lied and misrepresented facts in an attempt to influence voters - this happens across the board in the run up to all elections and significant political campaigns and should hardly come as a surprise to most voters.

Technically, they were kind of right as, five years on, Scotland and the rest of the UK ARE still in the EU. Granted, we're preparing to leave now, but how would you feel, following the original Indyref, if we'd had the Brexit referendum 10, 20, 30, 50 years later on down the line, with the same result? Would you still have felt betrayed and lied to?

Nobody could have promised to bind the democratic hands of voters in future decisions - just as you can bequeath your money to your children and make it explicitly clear how you want them to spend it; but once you die and the money is theirs, you subsequently have no say whatsoever in what they, or their children, later do with it.

Voted No last time and would vote No again.

Wonder what'll happen if it's another NO Will our obnoxious First Minister demand the best of 5 and push for indy3

I voted no last time but I feel there should be another referendum (and not necessarily because I'm changing my vote). I'd say there has been a sea change amongst my wider circle, lots of people who voted no last time are angry and feel that the "union" is a union no more. I think making trade deals will reflect that even more.

I live in Scotland. What the SNP have done to our education and health service is disgusting. I voted No the first time and if there's another then my answer will not change. I'm a proud Scot but an even prouder Brit!

I was a YES voter 5 years ago. Still a YES voter.

It's interesting that in 2016 and 2017 more voters in Scotland voted to Leave the EU than voted for the SNP.

Nobody could have promised to bind the democratic hands of voters in future decisions

David Cameron told us the only way to be sure of staying in the EU was to vote No, then almost immediately called the EU referendum which gave us a huge chance of being out of the EU, although anyone who said that would have been accused of scare-mongering.

But where there are only two options, you have to take the majority vote. What are you expecting - that we overturn Brexit and the wishes of the majority of the people in the UK because Scotland & NI somehow matter MORE than England & Wales?

If we're going to continue perpetuating the myth that we're in a union of equals then essentially yes.

You can't really have a union of equals if one member is 8 times bigger than the other 3 combined, unless you have some sort of vote weighting like the electoral college in America (not advocating that just an example).

Take brexit for example in a truely equal union then the only way brexit should have won is if there was a majority for leave in 3 out 4 of the constituent countries.

Or you can admit we're not a union of equals, rather 4 seperate countries, with very different ideologies, who have to go along with whatever the biggest member wants regardless of the effects it has on our own nation.

Almost all of Scotland voted to stay in the EU?

Hardly. There was a 67% turnout so over thirty percent didn't care enough to vote either way, and of those who bothered, 38% voted to leave.

Forgot to add that I really really wish people would stop thinking of independence and the SNP as the same thing. They are not and refusing to consider independence because you don't like them is stupidity of the highest order.

Who would be in government in an independent Scotland?

If its the tories or Labour then why bother with Indy? Of course it'll be the SNP.

of those who bothered, 38% voted to leave.

That's a convincing minority.

If its the tories or Labour then why bother with Indy? Of course it'll be the SNP.

Or a completely new party.
Commonweal, for instance, are coming up with lots of good ideas. They could become a new party.

You can't really have a union of equals if one member is 8 times bigger than the other 3 combined

Fair enough, if that's the way you see it, but I see it differently. I see it that we're a union of 60+million people, each of whom (once 18) has a vote. I live in the English Midlands and I don't consider somebody from Truro, Leicester or Alnwick any more or less my fellow countryperson than somebody from Thurso, Lisburn or Aberystwyth.

It irritates me greatly when the BBC urges me to sign in so that it can give me more relevant news from my home nation - as if I'd somehow be far more interested in a grumble about bin collections in Hexham than a huge business collapse in Perth, just because the former happens to be within the borders of my home nation and the latter doesn't.

If there is any feeling of division, I would feel myself to have inherently far more in common in outlook and lifestyle with other people who live in small-ish towns in Scotland, Wales & NI than with people in large English cities. Even so, it wouldn't occur to me to begrudge the fact that, collectively, the residents of those cities would have a much bigger say in political matters than would those in my own town.

Take brexit for example in a truely equal union then the only way brexit should have won is if there was a majority for leave in 3 out 4 of the constituent countries.

So if a few more thousand people in Wales had voted to remain, that should have effectively meant that the people in England - the vast majority of the population - would have had no say, just because of where national borders lie?

Or you can admit we're not a union of equals, rather 4 seperate countries, with very different ideologies, who have to go along with whatever the biggest member wants regardless of the effects it has on our own nation.

From that, you'd think that everybody in England and Wales had voted to leave and everybody in Scotland and NI had voted to remain. By a relatively small margin, almost half of the people in England are also going to be leaving the EU against their wishes. Meanwhile, 38% of Scottish people WILL be getting their wish to leave.

There are only two workable options: either we are a UNITED kingdom of 60+ million people, each with an equal individual vote, or we split however many ways and consider ourselves to be 2, 3 or 4 separate countries.

Even if we did become four completely separate nations (and just imagine the protests of those who voted not to split but end up in the sizeable minority), you would still have inequalities within the resulting nations as populations still tend to be concentrated in relatively small areas. Would you give the combined population of each settlement exactly the same political weight? i.e. if Glasgow overwhelmingly votes in favour of something but Alloa and Ullapool vote against, then their decision goes for the whole country because 2 out of 3 settlements wanted it?

But no, it was “fuck you, you’ll do as you’re told” to every constructive proposal

This applies to remain voters in the rest of the UK too.

Look at Gibraltar.

I do get Scotland's anger. But I voted remain too, and my remain vote wasn't less important because it was cast in England. I think people in Scotland forget all the time that millions of people in England voted to remain too.

But the referendum should absolutely have been set up so we could only leave the UK if all 4 (5) parts of the UK voted to leave, not just by simple majority. Alex Salmond proposed exactly that when the referendum legislation was passing through parliament and was told no because it wasn't binding (by David Lidington, who I actually do rate, but he certainly didn't tell the truth on that occasion).

All that said, the simple truth is that Scotland may well be dragged out of the EU against its will - possibly remaining in the SM/CU - but it has certainly brought into sharp focus that you can't expect Westminster to rule in your interest. And for that reason I can see a second indyref having the SNP's desired outcome.

I see Sausage Roll's point of view too. None of this is easy.