The "independence pact"

[Sunnnyday]

I'm surprised no-one's started a thread on this, so here goes. The leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have signed a Joint Memorandum of Understanding and have called on the UK Government to start preparing for constitutional change.
Listening to the BBC on this, there is currently no majority in favour of splitting from the UK in any of the devolved nations, though Scotland is closer to it than the other two. It's a matter of those who are currently in government being in favour, rather than their populations being in favour. So is this no more than a publicity stunt?
And should any referendum on such a huge issue, which, regardless of your viewpoint, will cause enormous contention, upheaval and disruption over many years, be on a majority vote basis? Have we learnt anything from Brexit?
I'm also confused as to why the leaders of Scotland and Wales are apparently confident that their countries would be swiftly welcomed into the EU, and how they would manage a hard border with England.

The former soviet countries started their lives with no debt and no expectations from their citizens. Scotland is used to spending 12% more than it receives in taxes (hence the deficit). In England this is just 4%. If can be done but Scotland is going to have to make some very big, permanent spending cuts. Does Scotland want to do that when they’ve been living high on the hog for so long? Whet do they get out of it? Ex soviet countries got freedom from Soviet oppression. It would take the maddest of braveheart nutters to suggest we are ‘oppressed’ here in Scotland.

AI. Try asking it yourself if Indy will be a bed of roses.

This is always the case. It makes me cringe so much when Scot’s declare themselves so much nicer and caring than the horrid English.

As a member I should be. Sorry, don't have a clue what you're up on. I'm flattered that you know what I am.

We are English and live in England, sometimes I think it would be quite nice to be independent.
No more Scottish moans about the Barnet Formula.
The Irish would have to sort themselves out with no one else to blame. If they are short of money the USA would love to contribute.
Wales would also stop blaming us for finance problems and bimble along at 20mph on their way to being a complete theme park. Wonderful scenery and heritage railways.
Northern Ireland and Scotland could adopt the Euro as a first step. You don't need permission from the EU just start using it.

Apparently Wales wants to get the same treatment under the Barnet Formula that Scotland gets, and Swinney has refused to support Wales on that issue. That was in the news a couple of days ago.

I'm confused as to why Wales would want to move closer to or even re-join the EU, as the majority voted leave in 2016 (52.5% voters in Wales chose to leave the EU, compared with 47.5% supporting Remain). 🤔

You adopt the Euro from your own currency, so Scotland would have to produce its own currency, prove that it’s stable then move to the euro.

I firmly believe Scotland would be worse off if Independent and I don’t want that for my DC
Scotland voted no in 2014 and I see nothing to suggest that would be different now

I suppose the idea of Wales leaving the UK and continuing not to be in the EU is even more ridiculous than the idea of them leaving the UK and joining the EU. It's very much pie in the sky at the moment though, as a strong majority don't currently want independence.

I’m struggling with this one, all of your arguments are highlighting that in your opinion things are terrible in Scotland and because of that we shouldn’t change things.

It's a logical fallacy.

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that the Scottish government are not being honest about what going for independence, and applying to join the EU, would involve. We need a grown-up discussion about the realities involved. Instead, we're told pie in the sky stories.

I can think of a way to make the population of Scotland happier than they are now. The Scottish government could start doing a fantastic job with the very extensive powers that devolution has given them. Including education and health, and the power to do something about the applications to build giant AI data centres. And in fact Andy Burnham is talking about devolving even more powers. And if Farage doesn't become the next prime minister (which would probably be a game changer in a number of ways), my guess is that the UK will move closer and closer to the EU, even if it doesn't re-join. That may well be a more realistic aim than an independent Scotland joining the EU.

You're the one who makes no sense - insisting that all Scottish workers have had a wonderful education, for instance. You must know that that's not true.

The important question for me is how Scotland is going to ensure it retains a good share of the economic benefits of the (24?) data centres being planned, if we end up with American owned firms exploiting our resources for the sake of some jobs paying average wages we’ll end up with a new wave of industrial exploitation. A tricky balance - we don’t want all of the data centre investment going elsewhere but it is the opportunity that will likely underpin whether economically Scotland can thrive or not.

So much of the Indy debate strikes me as the national politics of yesteryear - we need to focus on the next century in terms of jobs. There is no successful independent Scotland without decent jobs, and AI, renewables, all of that is the heart of it for me.

Not read the whole thread yet but I am in Wales and my loose thoughts on this alliance is that apart from having leaders with a desire to split from England, these are places with very different needs and priorities. There's far more appetite in Scotland for independence than there is in Wales. 1/3 support a split here, which means that 2/3 do not. Wales was pro Brexit. Scotland was not. Scotland does okay from the Barnett formula (or at least that was the impression I got from Swinney in a bbc wales interview earlier this week), whereas Wales' leader feels we are disadvantaged by it. N Ireland has its own unique history and position.

Both Scotland and Wales have experienced devolution and my impression is that our respective health services, education systems, roads etc are no better than England's. Which begs the question of whether these govt can be trusted to do something as huge as to manage independence effectively.
TBF Rhun ap Iorwerth seems decent and is untested but iirc voter turnout was low and he doesn't have an unquestionable majority.
I fear that EU membership will impose controls that make independence a compromise. And it will cost more than Wales has. I fear that Wales will get drowned out in an alliance by Scottish priorities.

I heard an interview with Swinney where I swear to god he used the phrase 'right to self determination' 600 times but was very light on the detail of how they are going to make Scotland better and why the SNP, who have been in power a long time, haven't cracked it yet. Could it be because SNP politicians are no better than the Westminster ones they continuously carp about?

Finally, there comes a point where Indy parties have to stop behaving as if Westminster govt are nothing to do with their own countries - they are represented by MPs in Westminster, voted for by their own populations and they do have as much of a say as any other MP.

I can't really comment on N Ireland but if I was a Welsh/Scottish politician I don't think I'd want to be closely tied to SinnFein.

@Aiming4Optimistic Good points. In Scotland, the SNP has been in power for 19 years now. I often hear people complain about how much worse things have got under their leadership. Schools, the NHS, the roads, the ferries, the obsession with trans, to the extent of going to court (spending public money) to argue for male murderers staying in the women's prison. The list goes on and on. Why would independence improve any of that? And how on earth can we expect a government that can't keep the ferries running or a party that doesn't put basic processes in place to stop its senior staff from embezzling hundreds of thousands of pounds to manage a successful split from the UK or a successful integration with the EU?

I also have my doubts as to how popular the EU actually is in Scotland. How many would have voted for Brexit if the SNP hadn't told them to vote against it? Would people who hate any level of control from Westminster be keen to accept control from Brussels? And Scotland would be a tiny fish in a big sea.

On the point about Scotland and Wales having their own MPs in Westminster - that's something that people in England sometimes complain about. Scottish and Welsh MPs can vote on issues that affect England, but English MPs can't vote in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments on issues that affect Scotland.

Surely we should change things to make them better, not a billion times worse?

Westminster is not the English Parliament. The English are actually the only nation without a parliament of their own.

Plus, what happened to EVEL?

Massive AI data centres are hugely problematic environmentally and are apparently a nightmare for nearby communities, producing a great deal of noise and degrading water sources. They guzzle up water and energy (one centre can use as much electricity as Edinburgh) but produce very few jobs once they've been built. And we're already seeing Scotland being targeted by foreigners, who have no interest in Scotland other than exploiting its land and natural resources.
And looking beyond that, AI will take our jobs in huge numbers - this is already starting to happen. And we are literally being told that it may destroy the human species.

Yes, that's what English people sometimes complain about. Scottish and Welsh MPs vote on matters that affect England, but similar issues that affect Scotland and Wales are only voted on in the devolved parliaments.

But there is EVEL? Is that still.the case?

Interestingly, I read recently that if the 2014 ref was restricted to people born in Scotland then it would have been a yes vote on the same percentage as the Brexit one.
No matter what beliefs you have, if a majority of native born Scots wanted to leave then clearly there’s something wrong with the current set-up.

What does that prove, though? What is the agenda of the people who are collecting this information? Are they trying to set the 'proper' Scots against those who haven't lived there for their whole lives? Should a Scottish-born person aged 25 have more right to dictate how they want their country to be run than a 75yo who was born elsewhere in the world but has lived in Scotland for the last 50 years?

Are they seeking to get people fuming against 'these immigrants coming in and changing our culture and spoiling it for us natives'? Reminds me of the rhetoric and beliefs of many supporters of certain other parties in the UK right now.

@BrezhnevsLuxuriantEyebrows Yes. I remember the Glasgow woman who was on the Brexit thread for years saying, in an awed tone, that Nicola Sturgeon was so good and generous that she had indicated that English people living in Scotland might be allowed to stay on in Scotland after independence!! That does leave you wondering what people who are not as good and generous as Nicola Sturgeon may think about incomers.
This was a more genuine issue in Estonia, where the decision was reached to allow Russians living in Estonia to stay on after the fall of the USSR. The background to that being the deportation to Russian labour camps (essentially a death sentence) and the straightforward execution of tens of thousands of Estonians.

According to Wikipedia -
The system of English Votes for English Laws was suspended in April 2020,[6] and abolished by Boris Johnson's Conservative government in July 2021, returning to the previous system with no special mechanism for English laws.[7]

Agree @Sunnnyday there are ways this could be mitigated - as it is we’re sleep walking into either a knee jerk no on data centres, or, exploitation. The whole AI thing does exactly look to me like a clear case where you cannot just trust the market. Gates, Amodei and Musk clearly understand this.