To think Scotland will now get their independence in next few years after election result?

[wishiwasabraverman]

Just that really...SNP did absolutely brilliantly. Shows that the majority of the Scottish people are behind them. Am I right in thinking they will get their independence in a couple of years?

@TheSandman I am not sure what your point is? I cannot comment on how Switzerland conduct their democracy. ..I have just made a comment on how I see the situation in the uk.

Also elections are not the same as a referendum. .,,elections hold the elected to account , a referendum decides a single issue.

[quote Graffitiqueen]@UrAWizHarry staying in the EU really wasn't the entire basis for the campaign was it, come on be realistic.

Oh and if it mattered that much to the scottish people, then they would have given Nicola as stonking majority. They didn't did they?[/quote]
It was a huge part of it.

And you clearly don't understand how the Scottish election system works. Getting a majority in Holyrood is nigh-on impossible. As it is, they only missed by one seat and with the Greens there is a significant pro-independence majority.

I really hope so.

@Ivhadn
Your ‘highly educated’ English friends though Scotland wad North England?? Really?? Methinks you are telling porky pies!

Listening to the news, I believe Boris is going to make Scotland an offer it can't refuse, money wise, which will mean Nicola must choose between taking the country out of the union and managing all finances without union help, or stay and take the money.

@skirk64

While I would be sad to see the Scots go, it would be very entertaining for the rest of the UK. The Scots would be leaving the union, therefore the rest of the UK would be in the position of power when it came to negotiations. Yes, they can leave, but if they don't pay us what we demand then they can have no entitlement to assets that are currently in Scotland but belong to the UK. It's true they could walk away from their share of the national debt, but that would badly damage their credit rating before they've even become independent.

The argument that the previous referendum was based on lies is laughable, by the way. All referendums and elections are based on lies! The most successful liar wins, hence the SNP maintain power.

I see the contempt for Scotland is still alive and kicking on mn.

@UrAWizHarry the trigger for the last referendum was an snp majority. That hasn't happened here, in fact most votes were for pro union parties. If leaving the EU was really such a trigger then most votes would have been pro Indy.

If this was a proxy referendum then the nats lost on vote count.

I am not sure if it means independence. Many Scots I know including myself voted SNP as they felt they could offer better things for us but will not necessarily vote yes to independence. I also know people who said yes last time but are worried that the timing with the pandemic is terrible.

[quote Graffitiqueen]@UrAWizHarry the trigger for the last referendum was an snp majority. That hasn't happened here, in fact most votes were for pro union parties. If leaving the EU was really such a trigger then most votes would have been pro Indy.

If this was a proxy referendum then the nats lost on vote count. [/quote]
The total number of votes in a representative democracy is irrelevant. Otherwise what authority do you think the Tories have in WM? More people voted against them than for.

What matters is seats, and together with the greens there is a clear pro-independence majority. That's a simple fact.

No. Sturgeon should focus on what she currently has control over, yet is doing nothing about it.

She had control over NHS, yet our NHS is shocking. We are sending people to England for treatment because thanks to covid we can't cope. Couldn't do that if independent, yet I'd imagine some of those taking treatment from England are independence voters.

She told councils to not increase tax, our council did as did several others. For what exactly? It's not like they do anything around here. And it's all snp councillors doing this.

Schools are a joke, loads of them needing rebuilt. They've done nothing about that the entire time they've been in power. We used to have a good education system, now its ranked way down.

They haven't proven that we will have a better life outside of the union, it's just all hate tactics against Westminster which aren't arguments, it's like children fighting on the playground, it's embarrassing.

It's just constant talk about referendums. How are all of you supporters going to feel if we get independence, but then all of these problems don't go away, your tax increases heavily? What if things aren't as rosy as sturgeon claims and we end up bankrupt? Going to still be happy because we are away from the rotten English? 'We are bankrupt, more homeless, more unemployed, country has gone to shit, but at least we don't have the English to help us.'

@Pottedpalme Yep! Genuinely clever people, who I greatly admire didn't realise Scotland was a separate country.

[quote listentotherainonthewindowpane]@TheSandman I am not sure what your point is? I cannot comment on how Switzerland conduct their democracy. ..I have just made a comment on how I see the situation in the uk.

Also elections are not the same as a referendum. .,,elections hold the elected to account , a referendum decides a single issue.[/quote]
And the Scottish Electorate just voted in a government that has, at the heart of its manifesto, a commitment to hold another referendum on this issue.

It would be 'undemocratic' of them not to deliver one. Or are you saying elected representatives don't have a duty to at least TRY and deliver what they promise?

You could argue 'Yes but not everyone who voted for the SNP wants a referendum', but that doesn't alter the fact that that is what the SNP said they're going to do given the chance and people voted for them.

The Tories ran on a "Nobody wants another Referendum, Stop Indyref2!" message. A clear, unambiguous alternative - and lost seats.

The conclusion can only be drawn that the Scottish people (or at least enough of them engaged enough to vote) want to be asked directly what they want. There may be a lot of people who want another referendum so they can vote 'no'. I don't know.

The only way to find out is to have the debate and hold that referendum.

Let’s ask the English too in the next referendum. Scotland would definitely get independence then.

@UrAWizHarry yes but we're not talking about the running of a country here. We're taking about indications of an appetite for another referendum in which case seats are irrelevant. Pro Uk votes were the majority in this election.

@LawnFever so another referendum can't be held because no voters are worried the outcome won't be the same, not exactly Democratic?

Where on earth could I dig up "highly educated people" who thought that Scotland was England? They sound underexposed to geography or even the weather forecast at the very least.

As an aside I once met a lovely lady in the US who asked what sort of dollars we used in Scotland. I did make the tiny effort needed to understand where she was coming from with that and we chatted about pounds and I showed her a note.

[quote Ivhadn]@Pottedpalme Yep! Genuinely clever people, who I greatly admire didn't realise Scotland was a separate country.[/quote]
I would suggest that you have set your ‘genuinely clever’ bar very low indeed!

Exactly PottedPalm.
Maybe an absent minded astrophysicist who sees no earthly boundaries?

[quote Graffitiqueen]@UrAWizHarry yes but we're not talking about the running of a country here. We're taking about indications of an appetite for another referendum in which case seats are irrelevant. Pro Uk votes were the majority in this election.
[/quote]
It's still irrelevant. What matters is a majority in parliment to persue a political agenda, which the SNP and Greens have.

The fact is, given nobody has to give a reason for their vote you have no idea how many people are pro-union/pro-independence based on last weeks result, but we do know the party which forms the government will have the ability to legislate for indyref2. That's the fact of the matter.

Actually they don't have the ability to legislate for another referendum. That's a reserved matter.

How will an independent Scotland finance itself?

BTW, the SNP didn't have a majority of the popular vote in 2011, and yet held the referendum anyway. So that clearly isn't an obstacle, is it.

@UrAWizHarry

BTW, the SNP didn't have a majority of the popular vote in 2011, and yet held the referendum anyway. So that clearly isn't an obstacle, is it.

So there's less of a mandate for indyref than there was in 2011 then and they lost that one. The SNP don't have a majority in terms of seats or votes. So why should we have one now?

And if we're talking about pro Indy votes then recent polls show that only a minority of green voters support Indy.

Sturgeon knows this and knows that at the moment she can't win so I expect she will make a lot of noise and not actually make much progress towards actually holding a ref.

Um no. I think support is waning. Support for non SNP parties was higher.

There in increasing frustration at them taking the eye off the ball in most other ways not to mention ludicrous legislation

Huge tactical voting to stop their majority. My mum held her nose and voted Tory

Ivhadn

I think your admiration is very misplaced as is your sense of these people's intelligence. 5 year olds know this stuff