Scottish Nationalists: Why leave one union to join another?

[FrancinePefko42]

From my understanding, the primary motive for Scotland leaving the United Kingdom is to have full autonomy as independent sovereign state - with all the freedom that would confer.

Why does being closely tied to Brussels have greater appeal than retaining the ties with England?

Brussels protects the names showing provenance eg Stornoway black pudding, Scotch whisky

Brussels also raised objections to Scotland adopting minimum pricing for alcohol. If Westminster had done this you would have been up in arms. Because it was Brussels - you say "oh right, fine".

Which is irrelevant because ALL MPs get to vote on all bills before they are passed into law. EVEL DOES NOT CHANGE THAT. You really dont know what eval is do you? And I really cant be arsed explaining it to you

You’re telling me I don’t understand legislation expressly designed to make sure that only English MPs get to vote on English matters by insisting that all MPs (which isn’t true) get to vote. And then telling me I don’t understand, that would be funny if it wasn’t so ridiculous.

It is you who needs to do your research, your hatred of the SNP has led to you just rabbiting whatever you’ve heard somewhere to make your point, which I’ve disproved with actual facts.

Not my fault you don’t like the truth.

Francine I’m not engaging with your goady and patronising posts. You carry on making up entire conversations that never happened because you twist whatever anyone writes anyway.

It raised objections but Scotland still passed legislation. Objections and debate are fine.

Heckling and braying and disrespect are not fine.

LoveInTokyo StoorieHouse

Are there any factual errors in any of my posts?

If so, please point them out and I will happily correct them and acknowledge any inaccuracies.

Well I know how the electoral system works and how you run for Parliament, so your effort was entirely redundant. My point was that you need a fuck ton of money to do what you are suggesting, and that even if you had that kind of money it would almost certainly be wasted because the system is designed to preserve the status quo and not let any new or different parties gain a foothold. There will be no Macron-style surprises in the UK, sadly.

Did you know that the Lib Dems got nearly five times as many votes per MP as the Tories did? And even with such inherent unfairness in the system which is deliberately designed to ensure their victory (or, once in a generation or so, Labour’s, just to trick people into thinking they live in a democracy where their vote actually counts for something), they still couldn’t get a majority, but are acting as though they did.

What chance does a new party have against that? Even the Lib Dems don’t stand a chance, and they’re an established party who were part of the coalition government just over three years ago.

YeTalkShiteHen
Francine I’m not engaging with your goady and patronising posts. You carry on making up entire conversations that never happened because you twist whatever anyone writes anyway

When I respond I copy and paste actual words used.

LoveInTokyo
the system is designed to preserve the status quo and not let any new or different parties gain a foothold

I don't agree. When the Labour Party was established, it did not have a "fuck ton" of money and the time, the Conservative and Liberal Parties appeared to be the only two options. If the "system" had been "designed to preserve the status quo", Labour would never had a look in (nor the SNP for that matter).

The SNP actually do pretty well out of the first past the post system and are arguably over-represented in Westminster by comparison with their share of the vote. (I realise this may not be a popular thing to say on a Scottish independence thread and I apologise, but it’s mathematically true.)

An SNP voter has a much higher chance of being represented by an MP of their choosing than a Lib Dem voter anywhere.

But the SNP will never be able form a government because there aren’t enough constituencies in Scotland to get a majority in Westminster, and it would be politically untenable for any UK-wide party to go into coalition with the SNP because their stated aim is to break up the UK.

LoveInTokyo
Did you know that the Lib Dems got nearly five times as many votes per MP as the Tories did?

I was not aware of that. But "votes per MP" seems to be a rather arbitrary use of basic arithmetic to make a not particularly persuasive point. Of course a party with only 12 MPs is going to have a far higher number of "votes per MP" than a party with 316 MPs (given that most constituencies have roughly similar numbers of voters).

Of course a party with only 12 MPs is going to have a far higher number of "votes per MP" than a party with 316 MPs (given that most constituencies have roughly similar numbers of voters).

This makes no sense.

It has nothing to do with the number of voters in each constituency. It is a feature inherent in the first past the post system.

If we had a proportional representation system then the Lib Dems would have far more MPs and the Tories would have far fewer. And yes, it means we would have to get use to coalition governments, where practical decisions would have to be made in the spirit of compromise and political extremists (of any persuasion) would be unlikely to ever be able to dominate public discourse and drag an unwilling majority along with them, as is currently the case.

PR would be very bad for the SNP though, because they benefit from the first past the post system where it is better to have your voters concentrated in a smaller geographic area so you can win more seats with less effort, than to have them spread across the whole country.

Spend an enjoyable evening last night catching up with a friend from Uni () who I hadn't seen in years and come back to see the discussion has progressed on to EVEL, which both Francine and Fangirl claim is a fair exchange for Engish MPs not voting on Scottish matters

Pleased to see that others have already pointed out how English MPs did vote to take back devolved powers from Scotland. Not only was there less than 30 minutes debate allowed , but no Scottish MPs were allowed to speak in the debate - and with the exception of the English MPs who did get to speak very few English MPs actually listened to the debate, just all trouping through to vote once the division bell.

And it's only thanks to Blackford's "stunt" that most interested people in England know about this as the BBC didn't initially report on it.

Calyx

It [the EU] raised objections [against minimum pricing for alcohol] but Scotland still passed legislation. Objections and debate are fine.Heckling and braying and disrespect are not fine.

What do you think the reaction would have been if the objections had been raised by Westminster? I suspect we might have heard a lot more along the lines of "Awa an tak a fuck tae yersel, hen" if London rather than Brussels had tried to stick their nose in.

LoveinTokyo PR would be very bad for the SNP though

And yet despite that, the SNP continue to support PR ....it's called principles

Prettybird
"EVEL, which both Francine and Fangirl claim is a fair exchange"
Can you point me to a single post where I have mentioned EVEL?
Thanks in advance

Today 09:20 LoveInTokyo

"Of course a party with only 12 MPs is going to have a far higher number of "votes per MP" than a party with 316 MPs (given that most constituencies have roughly similar numbers of voters)."

This makes no sense.
Why does it make no sense? If you divide by 12, you'll end up with a much bigger number than if you divide by 316. Even Nicola Sturgeon's maths teacher would have been able to explain that to her not saying she would have understood

prettybird

I didn't know that.

At the same time, it makes sense.

I guess if your ultimate aim is to leave the UK and become an independent country, there is little to be gained in the long term from supporting a particular voting system simply because it gets you a higher number of MPs in the political system you wish to leave.

And as I said in a previous post, whilst on a local level (and in terms of parliamentary debates and voting in Westminster) an SNP voter is far more likely to be represented by an MP of their choosing than a Lib Dem voter, it still doesn't resolve the problem that they are voting for a party which can never win and will almost certainly never be a party of government, even in a coalition.

If Scotland voted to leave the UK in a second independence referendum, the SNP would have to rebrand and reposition itself somewhat anyway, because the independence battle would have been won. So at that point SNP voters may well diverge, depending on what their views were on matters other than independence. At that point, a PR system may indeed be the best way forward for an independent Scotland.

So you may as well start as you mean to go on, I guess!

As an English person I would be sad if the UK broke up, but I can certainly see the arguments in favour of Scottish independence, especially in light of Brexit.

There is one thing I don't understand though. David Cameron promised an in-out referendum on EU membership in 2013. OK he didn't have a majority at that point, but it was always a possibility. Why was the decision made to hold the Scottish independence referendum in 2014?

I remember one of the strongest arguments for Scotland remaining part of the UK was that if they voted to secede they would have to leave the EU and apply to rejoin and the Spanish government would veto them for ever and ever to prevent those pesky Catalans from getting any ideas. Wouldn't it have made more sense to wait until at least after the general election in 2015 to see which way the wind was blowing, and then perhaps to wait until after the EU referendum?

I'd actually meant to put in "I'm paraphrasing and summarising" so mea culpa but that was in essence what you (and fangirl ) have been implying: that England doesn't get a say or to vote on Scottish matters (but Brussels does ) - when the contrary is blatantly and explicitly true.

"Why does it make no sense? If you divide by 12, you'll end up with a much bigger number than if you divide by 316. Even Nicola Sturgeon's maths teacher would have been able to explain that to her not saying she would have understood"

sigh

Votes per MP.

The Lib Dems have 12 MPs. They got 2,371,910 votes. That's about 197,659 Lib Dem voters per Lib Dem MP.

The Tories have 330 MPs. They got 13,636,684 votes. That's about 41,323 Tory voters per Tory MP.

The SNP have 56 MPs. They got 977,569 votes. That's about 17,457 SNP voters per SNP MP.

People who don't understand basic maths live in glass houses shouldn't slag off Nicola Sturgeon's arithmetic skills throw stones.

....but as ever, I don't really care what you think. Others can make their own judgement when they've read the alternative viewpoints and examples of how Westminster "democracy" is working.

I don't agree. When the Labour Party was established, it did not have a "fuck ton" of money and the time, the Conservative and Liberal Parties appeared to be the only two options.

When the Labour party was getting itself established, the franchise was changing. It had been limited to men with property - it was opened up to all men over 21 and women over 30 with property. www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/overview/thevote/

No doubt WW1 helped to change attitudes, as WW2 did later.

Cameron would also have blamed the LibDems for thwarting his promise of a Referendum, but then he won a surprise majority, and that scuppered his plan.

I wish there was a way of forcing the moon faced pig fucker Cameron to come back and sort out the mess he left behind.