Scotland. Independent?

[Solopower]

Do we need a thread on Scotland?

Here are some opinions - what do you think?

Ian Bell: www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/a-vote-for-independence-not-for-salmonds-policies.17698693
The Scottish people should have the right to choose.

Iain McWhirter: www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/why-snp-has-to-work-to-win-round-scunnered-scots.17677823
Most people have other priorities just now and are too tired to care.

Humza Yousaf
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/26/scottish-independence-labour?newsfeed=true
The Scottish Labour Party should back independence and go against the party line.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine

^flatpackhamster I guess there will always be problems with people feeling unrepresented in the family, in the town, in the country.

It does seem a tad foolish for an entire country to have no say.^

Scotland's population is 5.2 million. SE England's population is 8 million. How is it 'foolish' for Scotland to have to endure a dopey co-alition government for 2 years but not 'foolish' for SE England to be treated as a milchkau and dumping ground for 13?

What makes the Scots so special that democracy is suddenly 'broken' when their favourite party doesn't run Westminster?

SE England is not a country. Scotland is. You have to draw the line somewhere. Countries being in control of their affairs is reasonably sensible. Counties/regions less so. (I am assume, perhaps wrongly, that for SE England to become independent would be even more complex than Scotland)

Having said that, maybe more powers should be devolved to a regional level in England?

Scotland has hundreds of years of history as an independent nation. The SE of England doesn't.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine

SE England is not a country. Scotland is. You have to draw the line somewhere. Countries being in control of their affairs is reasonably sensible. Counties/regions less so. (I am assume, perhaps wrongly, that for SE England to become independent would be even more complex than Scotland)
Having said that, maybe more powers should be devolved to a regional level in England?

MarySA
Scotland has hundreds of years of history as an independent nation. The SE of England doesn't.

I don't agree with the premise that self-determination is only applicable under certain circumstances.

Not that we're dealing with an issue of self-determination here, of course. Scots backed party A and B and party C won the election, so that's how it goes.

Not that we're dealing with an issue of self-determination here, of course. Scots backed party A and B and party C won the election, so that's how it goes.

I'm sure I'm being thick, but I don't understand what you are trying to say?

'Abra1d That doesn't make sense. If most people by number didn't want a labour government they wouldn't have got one. That is how first past the post works.'

You are assuming all constituencies have equal numbers of votes.

Well Icleand survives outside the EU (and is recovering from the recent crisis with the banks) so in principle Scotland ought to be able to.

It might need to pay more attention to that great Scot Adam Smith though in ordering its economic affairs.

If I were Scottish I might be quite excited at the prospect of going it alone but would not be able to see the point of being a tiny country dictated to by the EU.

If this does actually happen it will be interesting to see the reaction of other groupings that might want to follow Scotland's example, for example Basques, Catalans, Flemish etc.

As an extra complicating feature, are we assuming that Shetland and Orkney would want to go with Scotland?

'Out of the ten smallest seats, 9 are held by Labour and 1 by the Liberal Democrats. The largest seats tend to be Conservative ? places like Daventry (88,758), Northampton South (89,722) and Banbury (87,168). Leaving aside the Isle of Wight, out of the 10 largest English seats, 7 are Conservative, 3 are Lib Dem. At the last election, the fact that the boundaries were 14 years out of date benefitted Labour to the tune of 10 seats, costing the Conservatives around 8 seats and the Lib Dems around 2 seats.'

'Wales however continues to enjoy over-representation at Westminister ? using England?s electoral quota they would have 32 seats, but thanks to the lower electoral quota in Wales they currently have 40 seats. Since Wales contains large numbers of Labour strongholds, this benefits Labour. How many seats Labour would lose if Wales only had 32 seats would depend on the exact boundaries, but it would probably be about 5

UK Polling Report Election Guide.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine

I'm sure I'm being thick, but I don't understand what you are trying to say?

I was saying that the Scots voted for SNP and Labour candidates, and the Tories and Lib Dems got enough votes to form a government. For the previous 13 years, the Scots voted for SNP and Labour candidates, and Labour got enough votes to form a government.

All constituencies do have approximately equal numbers of voters.

But there is over 600 MPs. A few tens on way or the other doesn't using make a huge difference. Hence why the small number of Scottish MPs doesn't really impact on the mass of English ones.

I don't know about Orkney and Shetland. There have been mutterings about them staying under Westminster rule, or even becoming independent themselves.

Would certainly put a spanner in the works if they didn't go with Scotland seeing as they have a fair wodge of the oil, and a lot of the marine energy resources.

Interesting times ahead :)

It's BLARDY democracy. If one is unhappy with the situation, then lobby, campaign and WORK to gain the critical mass to get something done about it. The nationalists in Scotland have gone from zero to majority in the last twenty years, because they believe in an independent Scotland.

If you believe that things aren't fair where you live, then yeah, maybe the system is broken and they do have a point. Even if the nationals get a no vote then they should still be looked upon as an example of democracy in action. Enough people work towards something, then it will change eventually.

I support independence because I don't think having more democracy and more power in a vote is a bad thing. I think it will be better for Scotland and for England.

Amazing that my iPhone autocorrects BLARDY into capitals.

Sorry. I stand corrected. I thought that was the whole point of constituencies.

It is being changed though so that all constituencies are within 5% of each other.

Long article here on why this doesn't solve that many problems:

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2011/01/07/britain?s-unequally-sized-constituencies-no-problem/

ItsAllGoingToBeFine Tue 29-May-12 15:52:12

All constituencies do have approximately equal numbers of voters.

That simply isn't the case as this Wiki link shows.. The smallest constituency (ignoring the Scottish islands), Arfon in Wales, has 41,000 electors. The largest, the Isle of Wight, has 110,000. Typical sizes range from 60,000 to 80,000. That's a huge difference.

But there is over 600 MPs. A few tens on way or the other doesn't using make a huge difference. Hence why the small number of Scottish MPs doesn't really impact on the mass of English ones.

It does make a huge difference. Gordon Brown forced through tuition fees for England by using Scottish Labour MPs votes. Scottish students weren't affected by the legislation.

If the majority of Scots want independence then it should happen. Can't see what's to argue about. At the present time a government with one MP representing Scotland is in power. How can that be good for Scotland.

i think the question is, really, DO the majority of Scots want it? It's still to be seen.
I hope so, but i don't know which way it's going to go.

About the EU, heard on the News today that 70% of Tory Party members either want out or want to vote on it.

Could we have a situation in which England, Wales and N Ireland are out of the EU and Scotland is in??

Also, on the question of the monarchy, the SNP like the Queen, but she is 80 odd, and would they be as fond of P Charles?

I have to say I quite fancy having 1:5 mill of a chance of making my voice heard, rather than 1:60 mill - but I suspect that it won't make that much difference in practice.

Then there's the huge expense of it all - just the campaigns (paid for by our taxes, are they?) and the voting and the cufuffle. Why?

Don't think that the campaigns are tax funded, but i could be wrong.

We would be a commonwealth country so we'd still have the monarch, whoever the next one is. Is it supposed to be Prince Charles? Cant say I've ever kept up with these things.

Would we, JennyPiccolo? As I understand it, all the referendum would do would be establish our right to self determination. Then we'd have to do the self-determining, ie decide on matters like monarchy/EU/currency, etc.

What no-one knows - I think - is how or what we'd decide. We can't assume that the SNP would have a majority after Independence - in fact we can't assume anything.

And - I've been wondering what would happen to the army? The Scottish regiments are a huge part of the British Army, but would we just contribute in the same way as other Commonwealth countries do, or would we extract our Scottish nationals from the British Army and set up our own little force? Does anyone know what percentage of the members of the forces want independence?

i think there was something about the monarchy pre dating the act of union, so it would stay in place anyway.

There would be a general election the year after the independence referendum, so in theory an independent scotland could vote in a labour/tory/whatever government not long after.

The army thing would be negotiated with Westminster. I think ideally the nationals want to keep the scottish regiments but i really dont know a lot about defence and the like to comment on how likely it would be.

some good blogs to read are bella caledonia and lallans peat worrier, both are pro-indy but very well informed. The latter is particularly clued up on the legalities of all the issues.

Thank you, JennyPiccolo.

Oh. From the Yes campaign site:

'Scotland would remain part of the EU. EU law doesn't allow for Scotland to be unilaterally kicked out on independence. And, EU law also makes clear that Scotland can't be forced to join the euro. We will continue to use the pound, just as we do today'