Why is Scotland so different?

[Indiestarr]

Does anyone have any insight? Presumably Scotland has the same post-industrial decline and deprivation issues as the north east of England and Wales, and yet their vote was pretty much the complete opposite of these areas. How is it they are almost uniformly progressive when the rest of the UK (NI aside) is anything but?

How do you plan for a complex game of chess? Apart from move by move?

I think immigration is a red herring. Of course Scotland has far less than England. But I'm now living in the NE of England which voted strongly for leave and immigration here is not a big issue at all. In the cities which have seen the impact of immigration the vote was generally remain. There was a breakdown in the Guardian yesterday.

I do think the indyref has made Scots more aware of the issues around going it alone. And I think that campaign went on so long that everyone in Scotland did become more educated about the issues. Because the issues were discussed rather than there being an equivalent to Farage shouting 'beware the foreigners' for a few weeks to scare people into voting OUT.

It's beginning to sound like one big Tory jolly as they 'knew' no one would really vote leave, so they held the referendum then they did and suddenly the Tories realised they had no clue about how pissed off the majority of the British people feel about them. And that is why neither side made a plan - because it wasn't meant to happen. That's why they're all scared.

"How do you plan for a complex game of chess? Apart from move by move?"

That's a terrible analogy, you pick an opening and play that sequence of moves of course...

Fear of another referendum is keeping me awake at night. It was bloody awful.

"But what I don't get at the moment is why it is deemed acceptable for some people to say it is ok to be anti-English (racist to me) in one referendum then be accusing others of racism for voting leave in another?"

The indyref was anti-Westminster, not anti-English. I'm sure there were anti-English sentiments around (I, as an English person living in Scotland never experienced any) but the campaign never, ever made it xenophobic towards the English (or anyone else). Right from the start, the SNP made it clear that this was a matter for the people who lived in Scotland - where you were born, what your nationality was or who you supported in football was irrelevant. The Brexit campaign, on the other hand, was explicitly and constantly anti-immigrant. Reducing the number of immigrants was a key argument, EU citizens living in Britain had no vote and major leaders in the lead campaign endorsed disgusting racism (e.g,, Farage's poster). Totally different.

"And that is why neither side made a plan"

Yes, but why did so many people vote for...nothing?

There's no idea about what they want to negotiate for, what sort of Britain they're imagining, it's literally, we'll leave and just see what happens - with a whole country, well 4 and Gibraltar.

I spent a couple of years living in Glasgow and for such a large city its population was very homogenous than in an equivalent sized English city and definitely less immigrants. There was more community spirit as people had a lot more in common and a shared history. Also people tended to stay in the same city/ area all their lives than in England. Most of the students at the 2 universities tended to come from Glasgow and live at home. As a result they were very invested in their city and Scotland as a whole. Politicians were usually from local communities and the electorate would have no qualms going up to them in the street and holding them to account. In a way the community spirit in Scotland feels probably like England did in the 50's

Where is Nicola Sturgeons anti-English rhethoric?
Quotes please.

Also it isn't ok to be anti-English. Yes there were some utter tossers on the yes side who were on that side for the wrong reasons. There were also as I have said before and will keep repeating a LOT of English people on the Yes side. Edinburgh has a high English population. I went to uni with more English people than Scots. Most of them voted Yes. I doubt they are anti-English (and no unpleasant and unacceptable though it is it isn't racism).

If you live in Scotland you got a vote in Indyref regardless of country of origin. You did not get a vote for being Scottish but living elsewhere. It was a vote by the people who live in Scotland about what happens to the country in which they live. Not a vote by Scottish people about English people guess what? Not everything is about England

Turninaria Glasgow os very different from Edinburgh. You find a lower percentage of Edinburgh born and bred people (and the ones you do find tend to be from the less well healed parts- the well off are more mobile).
However, even where I grew up (and this is also true of Glasgow) there was an Italian community and quite a lot of Poles as well as a Asian community. Most of the othering I encountered was about religion not cultural background.

Perhaps the differences are historical & cultural. Scotland has been influenced as much by continental Europe as it has England. The Act of the Union guaranteed the independence of the law, education & the church in Scotland for all time.

Scottish law is hybrid & like Europe influenced by Roman law. The Auld Alliance with France dates back to 1295. There was the claret trade & until about 100 years ago Scots living in France had the right to dual citizenship. Charles de Gaulle once described the alliance between Scotland and France as the oldest alliance in the world. He said there were always Scots who fought side beside with the French & the French feel no people had been more generous with their friendship.

Common humanity & egalitarianism are inherent. Celts had their own welfare system. Burns wrote about humanity & internationalism (A Mans A Man For A That.) The saying "we're a' Jock Tamson's bairns" encapsulates egalitarian sentiments.

English culture seems to based more on a sense of pride in England & the English people, & hierarchy. It's well documented that at times English culture is viewed superior to other cultures. Charles Dickens xenophobic character Mr Podsnapper in Our Mutual Friend assumed airs of superior virtue & noble resignation & disliked anything non-English. "Little Englander" meaning an English person who thinks England is better than all other countries, & that England should only work together with other countries when there is an advantage for England in doing so.

I think you have a rather romanticised view of Scotland.

I think you have a rather romanticised view of Scotland.

Lol - thats the first time anyone has called me a romantic. When the occasion & evidence warrants it I can negatively judge & criticise Scotland.

I am still waiting for quotes of all the anti-English statements NS has made. Or even one.

STIDW, I think you are missing out one major element of the English character - the rebellion against authority in the search for independence and freedom. "An Englishman's home is his castle", there is a wish not to want to be bothered by the busybodies, the "named person" types. Magna Carta against the King, Henry VIII rebelling against Rome to get his own way and independence, the English Revolution and Cromwell against the King, the ending of slavery for the principle of freedom of people, the Peterloo Massacre where working people in Manchester marched for more democratic representation and rights from the ruling class who sent the cavalry against them to try and stop them.

The wish for freedom and independence is even evident in "Rule Britannia"
"Britons never, never, never will be slaves."

Being ruled by bureaucrats from Brussels and losing our independence is seen as a bad thing by many English who prefer self-governance by people we elect.

The Peasants' Revolt of 1381 which nearly succeeded and which has been compared to the UKIP Revolt of 2014, and which started in the counties of Essex and Kent in 1381 and also in 2014, which was led by an "Independence" party

This was Boris Johnson writing in 2014 at the height of the UKIP Revolt of 2014. In those days, Boris was hedging his bets, still backing the nobility against the people. It was only years later that Boris jumped ship and joined the people when he realised that the game was up and that the people were about to win.

"Boris Johnson: Eurosceptic success due to 'peasants' revolt'
...
The London mayor painted a scene of "pitchfork-wielding populists" converging on Brussels "drunk on local hooch and chanting nationalist slogans and preparing to give the federalist machinery a good old kicking with their authentically folkloric clogs".

Writing in the Telegraph, he compared Eurosceptic parties, including Ukip, Dutch rightwing firebrands and Greek anti-capitalists, to people taking part in "a kind of peasants' revolt" or a "jacquerie" – a bloody uprising against the French nobility in 1358."

www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/26/boris-johnson-eurosceptic-success-peasants-revolt-european-elections

Craig, the rebels of the magna Carta were very much not English. In fact the Normans brushed aside the English after the Conquest and were very much the 'elites' everyone is going on about.

Look at the names

magnacarta800th.com/schools/biographies/the-25-barons-of-magna-carta/

What came into the culture was this elitism and feudalism and vestiges probably can be seen to this day in land ownership. The English did rebel against the Normans, but they responded by laying waste to the North, The Harrying of the North.

There were uprisings against Henry VIII. The pilgrimage of Grace marched, but Henry VIII responded unmercifully. Especially as the break with Rome gave opportunity to fill his coffers.

The break with Rome wasn't a grass roots movement. It was imposed top down and there were penalties (sometimes death) for not conforming.

I'm talking about England, of course. Scotland is different.

I agree, they weren't English, but they changed England and are now considered English and part of English history just like Royalty is considered English despite its German roots. People who come to England from abroad become English and contribute to English history.

Yes, we have always had "elitism", but the nobles rebelled against the ultimate elitism of the King, and now in 2016, we the people have rebelled against our elites, the useless idiots who govern us and told us to hand over our sovereignty.

We beat them in a Referendum that has stunned the entire world. We have shown the peoples of Europe that there is hope to become free and to escape the shackles of the European Union, its austerity, its banker led bureaucrats and all the chum ex-politicians who make laws on vacuum cleaners and toasters and all the rest of their crazy schemes.

Remember our useless elites' "pasty tax"?, the type of thing out of touch idiot elites try to impose on the people. We overturned it, we made the Bullingdon Boys change their policy because we held them to account, questioned them in the media and laughed at them when they had never eaten a pasty before except when a camera was around under the supervision of their teenage teams of spinners and whizzkids from Oxbridge.

They had to make a humiliating retreat, just as they have made u-turns on much else.

We can't overturn an EU bureaucrat "pasty tax" or a toaster regulation, we are powerless and have to let the EU idiots do as they please.

Finally, we said "enough". It is bad enough that we are run by our own useless idiots who are unrepresentative of the people who gave two fingers to the lot of them, but to have to also be ruled by Brussels bureaucrats who we can't even name is beyond a joke, and we have now got rid of their yoke.

claig. I ha e to say your typing speed inpresses me. You are everywhere just now. banging on about Englishness or do you keep big reams of this to c and p.

I'm telling you, she's not real, she's an AI programmed to only produce statements that originally came from UKIP leaflets.

There's no way a real person can actually believe there was a tax just for pasties.

The EU punished the Greek people for daring to elect a socialist government that wanted to end austerity. Our elites threatened to punish the British people with what has been called a "Punishment Budget" if we didn't vote as they said, but we the people punished the entire political class of chums and cronies by sticking two fingers up.

Now they are resigning and resiling and regretting what they did. Now they have to eat their words, their threats and their scares and they are all wheeled out for the cameras and have to say "we respect the will of the British people".

That is all we wanted, and that is what we won.

'do you keep big reams of this to c and p.'

No, it is all unique, never written or thought of before.

'programmed to only produce statements that originally came from UKIP leaflets'

I have never read a UKIP leaflet in my life. I don't do detail, I don't care about whether the figure is £350 million or £150 million net, because I vote on principle, for freedom and liberty and independence and the people vs the elites.