Scottish Independence

[Eddie Teach]

Had the South been allowed to secede, do you think things would be better or worst for the rest of the USA?

The country would have been weakened which would be worse for the world.

[celedhring]

Had the South been allowed to secede, do you think things would be better or worst for the rest of the USA?

The country would have been weakened which would be worse for the world.

The CSA would've been a world-class tyranny imho.

[Tamas]

I don't know what is so bad about "fear mongering". The only logical choice for England is to punish Scotland if they leave. What else should they do? The Scotts themselves would be saying that they want nothing of the cooperation with England, so let them show what non-coperation looks like.

The very big mistake that has been made in this campaign is trying to act all nice "oh sure if you want to leave, fine, but let me try to convince you otherwise". Screw that.

[mongers]

I don't know what is so bad about "fear mongering". The only logical choice for England is to punish Scotland if they leave. What else should they do? The Scotts themselves would be saying that they want nothing of the cooperation with England, so let them show what non-coperation looks like.

The very big mistake that has been made in this campaign is trying to act all nice "oh sure if you want to leave, fine, but let me try to convince you otherwise". Screw that.

I know this won't get passed your librarytarian filters, but what about acting in a brotherly way? :gasp:

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I don't know what is so bad about "fear mongering". The only logical choice for England is to punish Scotland if they leave. What else should they do? The Scotts themselves would be saying that they want nothing of the cooperation with England, so let them show what non-coperation looks like.

The very big mistake that has been made in this campaign is trying to act all nice "oh sure if you want to leave, fine, but let me try to convince you otherwise". Screw that.

desiring independence is different from desiring non-cooperation.
And if the fear-mongering fails you end up with a neighbour that just has an extra reason not to like you.

[Sheilbh]

How would that be worse than the current asymmetrical system in place though? Particularly if there's increased devolution and the West-Lothian question becomes more and more acute.

It wouldn't necessarily be worse.

I think the issue would be if you had a PM of the UK from one party and a PM of England (with a mandate from 85% of the people) from a different party and they clashed. Or how you successfully balance federal representation at the UK level without absurdly disenfranchising England. The US and Germany have lots of states of various sizes which avoids that. In the UK it'd be like California, Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho trying to federalise.

Incidentally how much coverage is this getting in Catalonia/Spain?

The sensible way, having England broken up into a few different lands.

Remember the North-East's referendum for a regional assembly? 77% no, 23% yes. There's no desire for that. Strengthen existing areas like councils and cities by all means, but I don't think there's much belief in England in a 'South-West' region for example.

I don't know what is so bad about "fear mongering". The only logical choice for England is to punish Scotland if they leave. What else should they do? The Scotts themselves would be saying that they want nothing of the cooperation with England, so let them show what non-coperation looks like.

Your Balkans are showing.

Why would England want to punish a country with which she shares a lot of history, a border, a head of state, numerous cross-border migrants and workers and gets a lot of gas from? Why wouldn't we want our neighbours to be successful? Spite?

Frankly I think a lot of the talk about the currency issue are a bit overblown. My view is that the markets would panic and force both sides into resolving that very, very quickly. The other economic issues will take time.

The very big mistake that has been made in this campaign is trying to act all nice "oh sure if you want to leave, fine, but let me try to convince you otherwise". Screw that.

No-one's said that though. So far they've been told they can't have currency union, they can't keep Sterling without union, they can't peg their currency to Sterling (I'm fairly sure the last one's not an English decision), that we might need to consider border guards and they'll take years to get back into the EU. In addition to that, of course, Scotland will decline economically, have to massively cut the welfare state and lose the £2000 a year per person that the Treasury says is the economic benefit of union. It's threat after threat with a palate cleanser of condescension.

It won't work because a lot of it's probably not entirely true, it's too easily rebutted and it's tough to make a patriotic Scottish case for union when in effect you're saying Scotland couldn't survive without the generous munificence and support of England. Worse than that this is above all an argument about identity and what we can do together that's better as Britain than apart, belittling Scotland's hardly going to help.

I must have missed the sunset and light campaign you've seen.

Incidentally I'm worried about the effect of this on England. It's slightly more Euro-sceptic and anti-immigrant than Scotland. Which sort of reminds you that union was an Enlightenment era project. I think Britain made England a more open, liberal place. We might end up with a more base sort of nationalism doing very well. Nigel Farage springs to mind.

[Sheilbh]

desiring independence is different from desiring non-cooperation.
And if the fear-mongering fails you end up with a neighbour that just has an extra reason not to like you.

Indeed. The SNP have often said they want to end the political union but that won't end the 'social union' of friends and family that already exists.

[celedhring]

How would that be worse than the current asymmetrical system in place though? Particularly if there's increased devolution and the West-Lothian question becomes more and more acute.

It wouldn't necessarily be worse.

I think the issue would be if you had a PM of the UK from one party and a PM of England (with a mandate from 85% of the people) from a different party and they clashed. Or how you successfully balance federal representation at the UK level without absurdly disenfranchising England. The US and Germany have lots of states of various sizes which avoids that. In the UK it'd be like California, Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho trying to federalise.

Incidentally how much coverage is this getting in Catalonia/Spain?

Quite a bit, given the predicament we find ourselves in.

One of the pro-union platforms in Catalonia is even named "Better Together" too. (in Spanish/Catalan, of course)

[Crazy_Ivan80]

they'll take years to get back into the EU.

unknown: there's no precedent and the blurbs the EU-politicians have said about it were for consumption of certain states more than anything else. It's a hurdle that'll be jumped when it arises and given that a number of potential new states would be on the paying, rather than the receiving side EU-wise I assume that the solution will be pragmatic.

[Josquius]

Remember the North-East's referendum for a regional assembly? 77% no, 23% yes. There's no desire for that. Strengthen existing areas like councils and cities by all means, but I don't think there's much belief in England in a 'South-West' region for example.

People are always keen to bring up the north east referendum. But it really has little bearing on the way things are today.
A few points have to be made about that:

1: The entire referendum was just a shambles. Postal vote only, in many places mixed in with other unpopular boundary change referenda (which were largely defeated but went ahead anyway), not campaigned about that I can remember at all apart from a giant inflatable rat in Durham city centre and some vague message about southerners being bad.

2: the referendum took place in a time before we had seen the success that the Scottish, welsh and London assemblies have had. We live in a very different country today.

3: English nationalists are quick to point to the north east referendum and say it means we don't want regional revolution but want an English parliament.... When the main reason for the no vote winning was not wanting to create another layer of government. An English parliament seems to fit this dislike of pointless extra layers more than a regional assembly.

4: the north east referendum is constantly used as an example of the English not wanting regional devolution.... Despite it being just one referendum in one area. Conveniently never mentioned by the English nationalists is the referendum in London where yes was a winner


Due to the lack of information about the referendum and what it meant, with it just being another layer of government being all I had to go on I think I may have voted no in the last referendum.
But I hate the idea of an English parliament and would campaign against it tooth and nail should it be on the cards.
I think I'm not the only one who would vote differently if there was another referendum on a regional assembly

[Sheilbh]

Okay but the referendum was in 2004 when Scotland, Wales and London had been up and running for a while. Also the reason the North-East was chosen was because it was seen as the most likely to say yes. If they didn't want a regional government there, why would they in, say, the South-East?

Also last year we had a huge number of referendums around the country for local Mayors and, from what I remember, the only place that wanted one was Bristol (I think Liverpool got one from a council vote). Mayors do seem to have a decent record of improving accountability at local government level. As you say the evidence is that people would rather not have more politicians than better devolution of power, I don't think there's been a sea change in the last ten years, especially after the expenses scandal.

[Josquius]

The Scottish assembly and London assembly (the main ones people look at. Sorry Wales) had been going a few years but they hadn't really had much of an impact yet. Their first policies were only just beginning to go into practice and they just didn't appear on people's radar the way they do today.
I really think that these days people in the north east would look to Scotland and it's better health and education system, it's better transport infrastructure, etc... And say "why don't we have that?"

There was on article on the bbc website just after the last big debate which showed where the debate was being discussed on twitter. London was an obvious bright spot in England, lots of scots down there. but also shining brightly was Tyne and Wear. People are a lot more aware these days than they were 10 years ago when the Scottish assembly was just some vague thing labour had done in Scotland.

Mayors... Yeah, I think that was a stupid idea. True Victorian thinking for the modern day. One thing Britain could do with is really overhauling local government so that metropolises ( and their surrounding areas.) can be far more effective working as one than the current state of Newcastle vs Gateshead vs south tune side vs north tyneside vs sunderland, etc... Fighting for scraps.

[viper37]

Frankly I think a lot of the talk about the currency issue are a bit overblown. My view is that the markets would panic and force both sides into resolving that very, very quickly. The other economic issues will take time.

Well, you can't force a country to not use your currency if they wish to.  You can simply not care about them for your monetary policies.

As there been talks of the Scots moving toward adoption of the Euro instead of the GBP?

[Josquius]

Frankly I think a lot of the talk about the currency issue are a bit overblown. My view is that the markets would panic and force both sides into resolving that very, very quickly. The other economic issues will take time.

Well, you can't force a country to not use your currency if they wish to.  You can simply not care about them for your monetary policies.

As there been talks of the Scots moving toward adoption of the Euro instead of the GBP?

No.
That was SNP policy pre euro crisis, Ireland was a model they wanted to emulate, but these days they like to pretend they never wanted that.
That they would be forced to adopt the euro if they want to join the eu is one area where the no campaign has been scared into stating quiet for fear of the yes campaign, masters of scare tactics themselves, yelling scare story.

[Tamas]

I don't know what is so bad about "fear mongering". The only logical choice for England is to punish Scotland if they leave. What else should they do? The Scotts themselves would be saying that they want nothing of the cooperation with England, so let them show what non-coperation looks like.

The very big mistake that has been made in this campaign is trying to act all nice "oh sure if you want to leave, fine, but let me try to convince you otherwise". Screw that.

desiring independence is different from desiring non-cooperation.
And if the fear-mongering fails you end up with a neighbour that just has an extra reason not to like you.

If Scotland goes, there will be years of bickering on how much debt they should take, about the navy bases, about the currency, about citizenships, jurisdiction on who knows what... I am betting the populist ambitious Scottish guy who decided he wants an own country to run will be happy to involve the public as a weapon in these negotiations.

I assume a lot of hurt feelings will be on both national sides when the dust settles.