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QuoteScottish independence: A yes vote will produce a leaner, meaner Scotland
The no campaign offers merely stasis. Even with devo max, Scots would remain in political shackles. It's time to break free
Simon Jenkins
The Guardian, Thursday 4 September 2014 19.30 BST

I sit overlooking Cardiff Bay as seven warships, including the destroyer HMS Duncan, manoeuvre gingerly into position. They join an army of 10,000 assorted police and guards to lock down the city so that Nato can eat a banquet in Cardiff castle. Not since the Field of the Cloth of Gold can such extravagance have masked such impotence. From the castle walls, statesmen hurl empty threats at Russia and Islamic State, who are currently dismembering Ukraine and Iraq, two nations the west claimed only recently to have "liberated". No one notices that their host, the UK, also faces dismemberment. Nato's response to a global revolt against over-centralised and insensitive states is to quaff champagne and gobble canapés.

Whatever comes of Scotland's impending independence referendum, Britain owes that country a vote of thanks. For six months it has staged a festival of democracy, an Edinburgh tattoo of argument. Not a politician, not an airwave, not a town hall, not a wall, tree or road sign is free of the debate. If, as predicted, turnout tops 80%, that is a triumph in itself. Political participation is not dead when it matters.

How would I vote? As a British citizen residing in London, I would vote no. I would be shocked at how England's rulers have incurred the loathing and distrust first of most of Ireland and then of half of Scotland. This incompetence reached its climax in the no campaign itself, the jeering, patronising, money-obsessed "project fear" designed to warn the Scots to stay close to nurse. The assumption that independence is all about cash is bad enough. Worse have been the expatriate celebrity endorsements – why have they all left home? – and scares that Scotland will lose its monarch, its missiles, its brains and the BBC, getting only poverty and terrorists in return.

I would therefore hope that a no vote might encourage London to seek some new federation for its dependencies in the "first English empire", picking up on Herbert Asquith's 1912 "home rule for all". The shock of the past year might warn the English establishment to embrace constitutional reform. It might put stuffing into David Cameron's empty localism and avert the humiliation of a collapsed union.

But as a Londoner I have no such vote. I have to go to Edinburgh and imagine myself a Scot. In that case there is no argument. I would vote yes.

I am sure the outcome of the referendum, whichever way it goes, will be nothing like the alarms or promises made by both sides. Pick apart the no vote's "devo-max" and the yes vote's "independence-lite", and the practical differences are not great. Both will deliver a distinctive Scotland yet one still close to England. Whatever deal follows whatever vote, there will be joint citizens, open borders, a common currency, joint banking, arrangements on welfare, security, tax-gathering and broadcasting. Scotland may set its taxes differently, but the scope for drastic change will be limited. It can already raise or lower its income tax but has not dared to do so.

As for money, the issues are fiercely contested and wildly out of line. But the consensus appears to be that the £10.5bn net transfer to Scotland could be roughly balanced by Scotland's notional oil revenue. An independent Scotland would lose a billion a year in windfarm subsidies from English energy consumers and might have to carry over £100bn of debt. It would certainly be tough, but that is what independence is about. Poll evidence suggests that Scottish voters are unmoved by the no campaign's economic alarmism, leaving money as a matter for politicians to sort out.

I would vote yes because the no campaign has offered merely stasis. Its leader Alistair Darling's vision is of union as sole guarantor of prosperity. Yet this paternalism has trapped Scotland in dependency and lack of enterprise for half a century. Nor is it clear what his offer of devo max really means. If Scotland were able to raise more of its own taxes, the risk is that the Treasury would offset them with cuts in the subvention. Scotland might see a more adventurous future, but it would remain in political shackles.

Alex Salmond's vision is equally flawed. His socialist heaven of tax and spend, floating on a lake of oil, must be rubbish. He offers voters an extra £1,000 a head after independence, when the reality must be public sector belt tightening. Scotland's budget would lose Treasury underpinning. Its borrowing would be at risk. Its ministers would be on their mettle. Financial crisis would lead to Greek-style austerity, whereupon voters would chuck Salmond out. The Tories might even revive as the party of discipline and offshore capitalism.

I would vote yes because, though I disbelieve both Darling and Salmond, Salmond's lies would precipitate a crisis that would have to lead to a leaner, meaner Scotland, one bolstered by the well-known advantages of newborn states and more intimate governments. Scotland's whingeing and blaming of London would stop. It would be driven towards true self-sufficiency, capable of resembling Denmark, Norway, Ireland or Slovakia as a haven for fleet-footed entrepreneurs.

I have lost count of the referendum debates I have attended. They are dominated by expatriate Scots who have no intention of returning home but who enjoy telling Scotland its business from the fleshpots of London. They see union much as their grandparents saw empire, as a historical inevitability to be defended against all argument. Many are blind to the hypocrisy of deploring Britain's subservience to Brussels yet insisting on Scotland's subservience to London.

The United Kingdom really ended with the departure of Ireland in 1922. In the past half-century the drift to self-determination has been remorseless. In the 1970s, 40% of Scots saw themselves as "British"; now only 23% do. To them, arguments about currencies, subsidies and oil are not the issue. They have been debating the essence of democracy – by whom should they be ruled? They are arguing constitutions, not spreadsheets.

Most Scots know that independence could only be partial, but half-wish to negotiate it as between sovereign peoples. This craving for ever greater regional autonomy is rampant across Europe, from Spain to the Russian border. It slides into partition only when, as in Yugoslavia, central government is deaf to its demands. Whether or not Scotland votes for independence, it will have made its own decision in its own way. To that extent, it is a sovereign state in embryo.

QuoteA split UK is not for a week but for ever
Martin WolfBy Martin WolfAuthor alerts

On September 18 the Scottish referendum will decide whether the country in which I was born will continue to exist. I will have no vote. But this does not mean it does not matter to me. On the contrary, it matters a great deal. My parents came as refugees to Britain. When they took citizenship, they were proud to think of themselves as British. To me, "English" is an ethnic identity and "British" a civic one. I am a citizen of the world's most successful multinational state. If Scotland were to depart, I would lose an important part of myself.

I might add that the political unity of the island we share made a priceless contribution to the freedom not just of the British but of Europe. This may seem less important today. But is that sure to be true for ever? Again, the cultural differences between the English and Scottish, which now make separation seem so reasonable, have been a source of historical strength. Out of diversity emerged something bigger than the sum of its cultural parts. This may seem unimportant now. But will that be true for ever?

This referendum must not be just about what happens in the next few years or even the next 30. This divorce will almost certainly be for ever. The choice then has to be made by the Scots on the basis of their feelings of identity. It must also reflect a belief that the benefits of following their own path outweigh those from continuing to share political institutions with the people who will always make up the bulk of the population of Great Britain.

Set against these considerations, the actual debate is depressingly – indeed, almost unbelievably – myopic and small-minded: myopic, because it focuses so heavily on the short-term consequences of a decision that must be for ever; small-minded, because it focuses so heavily on economics. Economics is not everything.

This week, we heard what sounded like pitches from rival hucksters. Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, promised his people an "independence bonus" of £2,000 per household, while Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the UK Treasury, argued that the "dividend" from the union would be £1,400 per Scot.

Voters will respond to these arguments. On the short to medium-term prospects, the UK government is right to argue that the position of an independent Scotland would be hard, which is also consistent with the analyses of independent experts, such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Scotland's fiscal deficit in 2012-13 was already slightly larger than that of the UK as a whole. Moreover, uncertain and volatile receipts from North Sea oil averaged 15 per cent of notional Scottish revenue over the past five years. The Office for Budgetary Responsibility forecasts that these receipts will fall from £6.1bn in 2012-13 to £3.2bn in 2016-17, while the Scottish government claims they will be as much as £6.9bn.

Above all, this is just one of the uncertainties facing an independent Scotland. Others include the terms of separation from the rest of the UK, including the monetary system and the division of the public debt, terms and timing of membership of the EU and the terms on which Scotland could borrow, which would certainly be worse than for the UK.

The Scottish government suggests it could transform the economy by increasing the rate of productivity growth, raising labour-force participation, especially of mothers, and increasing immigration. It is indeed possible that the long-term performance of the Scottish economy would be better if it became independent than if it remained part of the UK, though the enumerated policies certainly do not ensure that result. These gains might also more than offset the benefits of pooling risks (including those from over-reliance on the financial sector or on oil and gas) within the UK.

But they are not a sure thing. The idea of an independence bonus is a sleight of hand. To take one example, more immigrants should indeed mean more revenue. They must also mean more public spending. As for productivity, the idea that we know how to raise it is a fantasy.

Yet what is more striking is how paltry the debate has become. Rather than say it favours independence whatever the costs, because it is the only way for Scotland to fulfil its national destiny, the Scottish government pretends it will be a simple, costless exercise instead of a journey into an uncertain, demanding future. Meanwhile, the UK prime minister feels unable to go to Scotland to say what seems to be essential: that, whatever the political differences between England and Scotland, he wants Scotland to stay in the union not because it makes us all a bit better off economically but because we in the rest of the UK value Scotland, the Scots and the shared and successful country these peoples have built together.

The debate over the future of the union should not be reduced to huckstering over short-term gains or to debating implausible promises. If the story is to end in separation, let us at least try to have a debate worthy of our extraordinary shared history.
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Quote from: Grallon on September 05, 2014, 04:42:14 PM
I do hope the Scots will not make the same abysmal mistake we did here by voting no.  I hear Cameron is promising major changes if the No wins... we've heard it all before here in Quebec - and we got screwed, sideways and back again - by some of our very own people.

But the Yes wins I'll make a point to visit Scotland.

Quote from: derspiess on September 05, 2014, 04:40:45 PMThey already have a buttload of autonomy & stuff.

QuoteEdit: Btw Sheilbh, what's the breakdown among the younger generation (18-25)?

QuoteAs chances of UK split grow, costs to the world become clearer
By Anatole Kaletsky SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

CONSERVATIVE | INDEPENDENCE | LABOUR | REFERENDUM | SCOTLAND
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.reuters.com%2Fanatole-kaletsky%2Ffiles%2F2014%2F09%2FRTR44CU7-1024x712.jpg&hash=db5182e27df102ac69b8140619f40a81c9d1d4d2)
A man puts money in his sporran at the Birnam Highland Games in Scotland

Until this week almost nobody outside Scotland took very seriously the possibility that Europe's most stable and durable nation, the only big country on earth not to have suffered invasion, revolution or civil war at any time in the past 268 years, might soon be wiped off the map. It now seems quite conceivable, however, that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will cease to exist after the referendum on Scottish independence to be held on September 18.

The prospects for Scotland and Britain changed abruptly on Tuesday when YouGov, one of Britain's most authoritative polling organizations, published a survey showing the unionist lead narrowing to just 53-47, compared with the margins of 10 to 20 percentage points that were typical of previous polls. So sudden and large was the shift in the numbers that Peter Kellner, the President of YouGov, could hardly believe his own numbers. As he said on his weekly blog:
"Alex Salmond [the Scottish Nationalist leader] seemed to be heading for a heavy defeat...But now a close finish looks likely, and a 'yes' victory is a real possibility. When I first saw our data, I wanted to make sure the movement was real. All polls, however carefully conducted, are subject to sampling error. Can we be sure this rise in support for independence is real? I am now certain it is."

By tracking how individual voters had changed their minds on the referendum, Kellner concluded that the independence campaign were gaining four voters for every one they were losing, while the unionists were losing two supporters for every one gained. Analyzing the data by party affiliations yielded the same conclusion: the shift in opinion was for real.

Beyond the statistical cross-checking, there are several reasons to believe that a breakup of the United Kingdom has become a genuine possibility. For a start, the shift in public opinion had a clear catalyst: a televised debate last week that was clearly won by Salmond. More fundamentally, the assumption that the Scots would be mainly swayed by economic issues, which favor risk-averse voting for the status quo, has turned proved wrong. It now appears that many voters are focusing mostly on the political implications of independence. Many Scots see the referendum as an opportunity to turn their country into a Scandinavian-style social democracy, expressing a collectivist national spirit that has been suppressed by English conservatism, especially since Margaret Thatcher's election in 1979. The fact that Scotland elected only a single Conservative Member of Parliament in the last UK election provides clear evidence of this ideological divergence.

Whatever the reasons for the independence upsurge, financial markets have suddenly taken notice. Tuesday's YouGov poll triggered an immediate sell-off in sterling, the biggest jump in the expected currency volatility implied by option premiums since the 2011 euro crisis, and big falls in the shares of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). The panicky reaction made sense.

Even if the chances of Scottish independence remain quite low – the odds are only 20 per cent according to political betting markets – the consequences of this low probability event would be immense. The Scottish referendum could trigger all kinds of other risks that financial markets and international business leaders have not yet fully understood.

Most of financial and business analysis has understandably focused on economic issues such as currency arrangements, government guarantees for financial institutions and revenues from North Sea oil. Troubling as these are, the political consequences of independence would be even more disruptive.

The problems would begin immediately after the referendum, since a vote for independence victory would probably trigger a rebellion against David Cameron by right-wing members of his own party, whose historic name is the "Conservative and Unionist Party." Another reason to expect mutiny is ironically that Conservatives would to win elections in England easily in the future, after Scotland's Labour members of Parliament are permanently gone from Westminster. This confidence would, in turn, allow party activists to opt for a leader more in line with their own euro-skeptical and right-wing views than the moderate Cameron.

Whether or not Cameron could survive defeat in the referendum, a huge constitutional challenge would loom in May 2015, when a general election must be held in the UK as a whole. Scottish independence would shatter the democratic legitimacy of whatever government emerged from this election. If Labour won a majority, its victory would depend on Scottish MPs due to be expelled from Westminster at the end of the independence negotiations in 2016 or 2017. A Labour-led government elected next year would therefore have no democratic mandate.

If, on the other hand, the Tories manage to win next year's election, even after a Scottish independence vote this month, they will become extremely confident of securing an even larger majority after Scotland is gone. If Cameron is then replaced with a much more Euro-skeptical prime minister who would campaign for Britain to leave the EU, a British electorate without pro-European Scottish voters would almost certainly endorse this decision in a referendum.

Finally, we need to consider the impact of Scotland voting to stay in the union, but only by a narrow margin. If the vote turns out to be as close as suggested by the latest polls, then the nationalists are unlikely to accept the outcome as final. Cameron's authority as prime minister and Conservative leader would still be seriously diminished and the outcome of next year's general election, already "too close to call", would swing in favor of Labour. Even if the Tories did stay in power, the outcome of the EU referendum in 2017 would become increasingly uncertain.

In sum, political instability looks like becoming a permanent fact of life in Britain unless the unionists can win the Scottish referendum by a decisive margin. Since such a clean-cut outcome now looks unlikely, the volatility this week in sterling and other British assets is probably a portent of things to come.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the number of Conservative members of Parliament from Scotland. David Mundell is a Conservative representing Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 05, 2014, 04:53:34 PM
Less than an American state. From what I can tell probably even less than some American cities.

Quote from: Tamas on September 05, 2014, 06:00:11 PM
It puzzles me how half the Scotts can think that the massive upheaval that would follow independence would worth it.

Quote from: Tyr on September 05, 2014, 06:03:58 PM
What is most shocking about this referendum is the complete lack of seriousness with which people are treating it. Even in Scotland it almost seems like a joke. There is just none of the feeling that something truly massive could be on the cards. The campaign has just been... I don't know. Lacking. Considering what it is about.

Quote from: Scipio on September 05, 2014, 06:37:00 PM
It's even dumber than Texan independence.

Quote from: PRC on September 05, 2014, 06:48:58 PM

Quote from: Scipio on September 05, 2014, 06:37:00 PM
It's even dumber than Texan independence.

Is Texan independence an actual thing beyond some small fringe element?

Quote from: Tamas on September 05, 2014, 06:00:11 PM
It puzzles me how half the Scotts can think that the massive upheaval that would follow independence would worth it.

Quote from: Grallon on September 05, 2014, 09:04:02 PM
Scotland was an independent realm before - it can be so again.

Quote from: Ideologue on September 05, 2014, 09:09:36 PM
Faceless corporations and rich fucks in general have a lot easier time subverting tiny nations than they do real ones.

Quote from: Ideologue on September 05, 2014, 11:32:29 PM
They want to take down all the English signs except for the ones that direct the Anglophones to the extermination camps.

Quote from: Jacob on September 05, 2014, 06:03:19 PM

Quote from: Tamas on September 05, 2014, 06:00:11 PM
It puzzles me how half the Scotts can think that the massive upheaval that would follow independence would worth it.

It seems to me that in general people's perception of the magnitude of their problems scales to fill the available problems. In other words, whatever it is they're unhappy with is a really really really big problem, and it's worthwhile to take drastic action to fix it.

QuoteFaceless corporations and rich fucks in general have a lot easier time subverting tiny nations than they do real ones.

Quote from: derspiess on September 05, 2014, 04:40:45 PM
As a Scottish American

Quote from: Jacob on September 05, 2014, 04:43:24 PM

Quote from: Grallon on September 05, 2014, 04:42:14 PM
I do hope the Scots will not make the same abysmal mistake we did here by voting no.  I hear Cameron is promising major changes if the No wins... we've heard it all before here in Quebec - and we got screwed, sideways and back again - by some of our very own people.

But the Yes wins I'll make a point to visit Scotland.

A strong reason to vote no, then.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 05, 2014, 05:27:33 PM
Incidentally I'm in a full-blown panic about them leaving now - as someone who absolutely loves Scotland and quite likes the union. But I feel like I'm alone.

Quote from: Ideologue on September 05, 2014, 08:55:01 PM
If he knew what was good for him, he would.  The notion of self-determination is self-evidently retarded in a modern liberal democracy.  Especially when the constituent parts will stay EU members and literally nothing will change for anyone except the elites, who'll rake off North Sea oil money or whatever it is that's driving the vile Scottish rebellion.

Quote from: Grallon on September 05, 2014, 08:53:28 PM

Quote from: Tamas on September 05, 2014, 06:00:11 PM
It puzzles me how half the Scotts can think that the massive upheaval that would follow independence would worth it.

Ask yourself if you'd still like to be part of Austria-Hungary?



G.

Quote from: Tyr on September 06, 2014, 11:05:42 AM
I do think a lot of the identity thing is founded on ignorance. When they point at England being so different what they really mean by England is London. The posh part of London (mostly not actually in the city itself but there you go).

QuoteThe SNP are such sneaks with the way this whole thing is happening.

QuoteNo/No. It would be a disaster.

QuoteI had an impression The Economist has been pretty fretful about the prospects of "Yes" winning. They are true to their art of understatement but they do not seem to favour the "Yes" vote one bit.

Quote from: Tamas on September 06, 2014, 12:52:51 PM
Hells yeah.

Quote from: Ideologue on September 05, 2014, 09:09:36 PM
Faceless corporations and rich fucks in general have a lot easier time subverting tiny nations than they do real ones.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on September 06, 2014, 06:19:19 PM
Most hilarious scenario would be Scotland leaving the UK, with the UK leaving the EU. Scotland in the EU instead of the UK.

Quote from: mongers on September 06, 2014, 06:56:07 PM
Yes for us pro-European English, it's utterly hilarious.  <_<

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 06, 2014, 07:01:05 PM

Quote from: mongers on September 06, 2014, 06:56:07 PM
Yes for us pro-European English, it's utterly hilarious.  <_<

Well since the passing of Ted Heath that must be you, Ken Clarke and the four remaining Liberal Democrats :P :console:

Quote
A new opinion poll being published on Sunday put Scotland's pro-independence camp ahead for the first time in the campaign, just 11 days before the referendum on splitting from Britain.

The YouGov poll for the Sunday Times newspaper gave the "Yes" camp 51 percent support compared to the "No" camp's 49 percent, excluding undecided voters.

Although the two-point lead is within the margin of error, the findings dramatically up the stakes ahead of the vote on September 18, handing valuable momentum to the Scottish National Party's campaign.

The Sunday Times also reported that the British Queen now feels "a great deal of concern" over the independence vote and has asked for daily updates.

The government of David Cameron is now expected to reveal last-minute concessions - including the devolution of more powers to Scots - in an attempt to keep the 300-year-old union alive.

The Better Together campaign, which backs Scotland staying in the UK, has been ahead in opinion polls across the board for months but its lead has narrowed in recent days.

The "No" camp had a 22-point lead in YouGov polling just one month ago. But another YouGov survey for the Times newspaper on Tuesday showed a marked narrowing of the gap to six points
.....

Quote from: mongers on September 06, 2014, 07:02:33 PM
edit:
Yesterday I was chatting with someone who's worked with Boris Johnson and she was adamant that he's really a one nation Tory and pro-European, so maybe there's more of us than you think? :P

QuoteThe "No" camp had a 22-point lead in YouGov polling just one month ago. But another YouGov survey for the Times newspaper on Tuesday showed a marked narrowing of the gap to six points

QuoteAlex Salmond is within sight of his promised land: Scottish independence is more than just a dream.
333 comments 2 September 2014 14:03Alex Massie 

I don't want to appear too immodest but, you know, I told you so. Back in February I wrote an article for this paper warning that Scotland's independence referendum would be a damn close run thing. That was true then and it remains true now.

Today's YouGov poll reports that, once undecided voters have been removed from consideration, 47 percent of Scots intend to vote for independence while 53 percent will back the Unionist cause. If the odds remain against Alex Salmond it's also the case that the price on independence is shortening. Paddy Power's over/under calculation of a Yes vote now stands at 46.5 percent. A few weeks ago it was at 42.5 percent. It's a kind of quickening.

Today's poll is significant, as James says, because YouGov had hitherto been the pollster least likely to produce results that offered the Yes campaign much encouragement. You know it's bad when Better Together insiders give up trying to deny the reality that the nationalists have enjoyed a polling bounce. Indeed, last night there was a palpable, dread-filled sense in Unionist circles that expressed itself in variations of a very simple verdict: Oh fuck.

True, the poll of polls offers Unionists some encouragement but, like so much in the No campaign, that's something that's more comfortable clinging to the past than looking to the future.

The irony, perhaps, is that as the referendum date approaches the campaigns are converging, not diverging. The latest No campaign posters (pictured above) have been widely mocked by Yessers. That was to be expected. Nor have they much impressed people who might, however inelegantly, be deemed high-information voters. But they are a means  by which the No campaign wishes to play the nationalists at their own game.

That is, they seek to use patriotism against the nationalists. It's hardly subtle but logic and reason and policy be damned, this is a bloody fight about emotions. It's about, Better Together thinks, giving voters permission to cast a "patriotic" vote for No. "We're not saying you don't love your country if you're voting Yes" one insider says, "but we're not having a conversation with SNP voters. We're not competing for them, we're competing for undecided voters." They remain confident, despite everything, that these messages "work incredibly well with the people they are targeting". The risk, of course, is they may drive another group of waverers towards a Yes vote.

In any case if, as the old saw has it, there are precious few atheists in foxholes, there are few remaining undecided voters either. Perhaps no more than 300,000 (on a high turnout) and possibly as few as 150,000 (on a turnout of 75 percent). This isn't a normal political campaign in which voters have a range of options including, rather importantly, the choice to stay at home. Every vote might actually matter on September 18th. The greatest comfort for Unionists is that, on present evidence, Yes still need to win the vast majority of those remaining undecided voters. Assuming, that is, there's no shift elsewhere.

That's the theory, at any rate. It is another reminder, however, that the No campaign has rarely set the agenda. Instead it has been forced, much of the time, to react to whatever the Yes campaign has said.

In some respects that was inevitable. It is the Yes campaign that must make the case for independence and the No side has had little choice but to object No, hang on a minute. What about this? Even so, this has been a structural weakness. It encourages the suspicion that the No campaign is essentially hanging on and hoping to cross the line just half a step ahead of the nationalists. Any kind of win will do, even a narrow one. Then again, a narrow one might yet be the only kind available. (By narrow, I mean anything less than a dozen points.)

Emotion was always going to be a large part of the Yes campaign's closing argument. This is a vote for Scotland and her infinite future or a vote against Scotland and in favour of a thin and narrow prospectus for just the same-old politics.

It's not, in the end and despite the claims made by both campaigns, really about policy so much as it's a matter of Them and Us. A question of how you feel and what you believe more than a cost-benefit analysis of a detailed prospectus for life after independence.

There is a sense, I think, in which many voters have tired of the endless statistical wrangling that's supposed to predict – and prove! – the future one way or the other. If true, that's a win for the Yes campaign since sidelining those concerns – particularly on the economy – opens a path to voters who quite like the idea of independence – the idea of Scotland! – but are nervous about how, or even whether, it might actually be accomplished.

From a Unionist perspective, it does not help that, in general, London has been useless. Even now Westminster seems more interested in the Clacton by-election than in the referendum that will decide the future stability and integrity of the United Kingdom. Viewed from North Britain, this seems desperately petty and small. There is, whether one likes it or not, a sense that perhaps they're just not that into us. At the very least they appear to take us – and the result of the referendum – for granted. And this, naturally, cheers Yessers.

Then again, this can be a lose-lose situation for Unionists. London's apparent indifference is galling but there are moments when you could be forgiven for thinking indifference is at least preferable to the ignorance  - and indiscipline – shown by London-based politicians when they do speak about Scotland. Yes, Boris, that means you (though you are not the only guilty party).

David Cameron's Scottish Problem is well-known and has been the subject of much analysis. But if Cameron's difficulty north of the Tweed and Solway is at least understandable, Ed Miliband's lack of commitment to the Unionist cause has been disgraceful. You'd hardly know, right now, that Labour are likely to be the largest party in Westminster as soon as next May. There are Labour activists in Scotland who wonder why they seem, as they see it, to have been deserted by Miliband and his cabinet.

Perhaps this is the 'kick up the arse' Better Together needed. Perhaps the frisson of nervousness now felt in Unionist circles is just a pre-referendum wobble. The odds do still, after all, favour a No vote.

Perhaps voters will flirt with divorce before deciding that, actually, their marriage deserves another go. But, again, that's not something that can be taken for granted. It has never been, of course, which leaves one to wonder why so many did take it for granted for so long?

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 06, 2014, 08:04:07 PM

Quote from: mongers on September 06, 2014, 07:02:33 PM
edit:
Yesterday I was chatting with someone who's worked with Boris Johnson and she was adamant that he's really a one nation Tory and pro-European, so maybe there's more of us than you think? :P

Louise Mensch said that Boris's big secret is that he's a raving Europhile and that'll come out if he ever runs for the leadership.

......

QuoteAlso Cameron's relative indifference, comes over has him accepting a long term loss to ensure a short-term advantage ie near guaranteed Tory majorities in the commons for a handful of parliaments.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 06, 2014, 08:47:29 PM
I've read several pieces on that poll. Just saw myself in the mirror and, realising I'm a violent shade of puce, I'm going to bed :weep: :bleeding:

Quote from: viper37 on September 06, 2014, 05:51:27 PM

Quote from: Valmy on September 05, 2014, 08:19:39 PM
Anyway nothing to do but just hope the Scots end up doing the right thing.

So you support scottish independance?

Quote from: Zoupa on September 06, 2014, 10:10:07 PM
I wonder who the first head of state to visit Edinbourg will be...

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 06, 2014, 08:47:29 PM
I've read several pieces on that poll. Just saw myself in the mirror and, realising I'm a violent shade of puce, I'm going to bed :weep: :bleeding:

Quote from: viper37 on September 06, 2014, 05:52:41 PM

Quote from: Ideologue on September 05, 2014, 09:09:36 PM
Faceless corporations and rich fucks in general have a lot easier time subverting tiny nations than they do real ones.

so, everything is fine in the US, I guess? :)

Quote from: Valmy on September 06, 2014, 11:03:55 PM

Quote from: viper37 on September 06, 2014, 05:52:41 PM

Quote from: Ideologue on September 05, 2014, 09:09:36 PM
Faceless corporations and rich fucks in general have a lot easier time subverting tiny nations than they do real ones.

so, everything is fine in the US, I guess? :)

Clearly all of our problems would be solved if we split into a bunch of smaller countries.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 05, 2014, 05:27:33 PM

QuoteUntil this week almost nobody outside Scotland took very seriously the possibility that Europe's most stable and durable nation, the only big country on earth not to have suffered invasion, revolution or civil war at any time in the past 268 years, might soon be wiped off the map. It now seems quite conceivable, however, that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will cease to exist after the referendum on Scottish independence to be held on September 18.

QuoteHow is the dissolution of the union not an English issue as well? It's quite telling that this is considered a purely Scottish issue and not a British one where the government should most certainly campaign to keep Britain together.

Quote from: Tyr on September 07, 2014, 01:22:28 AM
The issue isn't to dissolve the UK, it's for Scotland to go independent.

Quote from: Zanza on September 07, 2014, 02:23:40 AM

Quote from: Tyr on September 07, 2014, 01:22:28 AM
The issue isn't to dissolve the UK, it's for Scotland to go independent.

What does the "United" in UK stand for if Scotland leaves? You would just be the Kingdom of England with its dependencies then.

Quote from: Zoupa on September 06, 2014, 10:10:07 PM
I wonder who the first head of state to visit Edinbourg will be...

QuoteThe London politicians are in a tough place. If they get too involved it will be presented as the evil English telling Scotland what to do. Cameron's approach is pretty decent IMO, it's an issue to be decided by scots amongst themselves.

QuoteHow is the dissolution of the union not an English issue as well? It's quite telling that this is considered a purely Scottish issue and not a British one where the government should most certainly campaign to keep Britain together.

QuoteScottish referendum: this is the hardest campaign I have ever had to call
Andrew Rawnsley reports from Edinburgh on the momentous political challenge that faces the UK, whatever the result
Share 296

The ballot paper simply asks: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" That is the beauty of a referendum – and the brutality. Complexity is mercilessly reduced to the binary. Yes or no? The kaleidoscopic relationship between the nations of these islands; all those decades of rivalry, friendly and not so friendly; all those centuries mingling blood and ideas and people; all that rich intricacy is boiled down to one stark choice.

Yet they are anything but simple, the arguments swirling through Scotland and beginning to gust into England at the climax of the campaign. Behind the one on the ballot paper are a thicket of other questions, larger even than the destiny of five million Scots and the fate of the rest of the UK. Is there a future for the idea of multinational union, the concept which this island rather accidentally pioneered when two thrones were united under a Stuart king called James and two peoples were then combined under his great granddaughter Anne? In the turbulent opening decades of the early 21st century, is smaller and separate smarter, or is it cleverer to pool resources and seek safety in numbers? Does the politics of identity now trump the politics of ideology and are both struggling not to be overwhelmed by the anti-politics of a visceral contempt for the very business of governing?

There are people who have emphatic answers. Standing on the Irn-Bru crate which he is taking around 100 public squares, Jim Murphy, the Labour martyr to nationalist egg-throwers, who wears the splatter on his jacket like battle honours, speaks for the union with an eloquent intensity as he decries the independence campaign as purveyors of false hope. "Changing your passport," he says, "never put a penny in anyone's pocket." From the other side come nationalist voices burning with matching emotion as they argue that Scotland must seize a "once in a generation" opportunity, not just for its own sake, but to be a beacon for how government can be better and society fairer.

It makes for great theatre on the street and electric engagements on TV, but these clashes are not entirely representative of what is going on. For I have also met plenty of folk who regret this brutal polarity. One such is Richard Holloway, a former bishop of Edinburgh and chairman of the Scottish Arts Council. He makes a terrific case for Scotland remaining part of a radically decentralised, federated UK, but he can't vote for "devo max": it is not on the ballot paper. Aggrieved at being forced to choose between "rubber-stamping the status quo" and independence, he will vote for the latter as a self-described "anguished yes".

Then there are the "agonised noes", as I would describe the woman who told me she thought the status quo rotten but independence too risky. So she would vote against it, but with the fear that Westminster would respond with a big sigh of relief swiftly followed by "a return to business as usual". At an Edinburgh community centre, one woman said: "There seems to be daily pressure on me to decide who I am."

The man who is doing the pressing is Alex Salmond. This referendum wouldn't be happening without his tenacious pursuit of the cause through all the years when it looked hopeless, his cunning as a tactician and his skills as a campaigner. He celebrated his 10th anniversary as SNP leader by going walkabout in the centre of Glasgow with his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon. They were accompanied by a cheering claque of supporters. The nationalists have always had the advantage when it comes to generating public displays of energy and excitement. They have also been better organised. Back in January, I attended a dinner with the SNP leader at which he gloated that he had caught the no camp napping by bulk-buying billboard sites for the campaign endgame. Scotland will see the results on Monday, when the country is plastered with yes posters.

It is at the heart of nationalist strategy to project independence as an idea whose time has come, a historical inevitability that can no longer be resisted. The recent poll surges in their favour give them momentum, a precious commodity in the final furlong. If voting for independence is a leap of faith, a gathering sense that sentiment is swinging that way has the potential to be a self-fulfilling prophecy by emboldening more Scots to make the leap. Shivers of fear are now running up the spines of the UK-wide parties as they wake up to the possibility that the secession of Scotland could be under way in less than a fortnight. Tories are talking about David Cameron being forced to resign and Labour people are having fits of the vapours. In the words of one senior Labour figure: "It is squeaky bum time."

There are Scots who feel passionately attached to the union. One man buttonholed me on Edinburgh's Grassmarket. He wanted to argue with the contention of Tom Devine, the pre-eminent historian of Scotland, that the union might as well be dissolved because all that England and Scotland have left in common is history and family. "Even if that were true," he said, "those things matter." Labour's Douglas Alexander, not a politician who usually trades in emotion, tells me he would feel "a profound sense of grievance and loss if I were deprived of the British side of my identity".

Where Better Together has struggled is in shaping those feelings into a message that makes the union sound like something worth fighting for. Alistair Darling was penetrating on the fiscal hazards of independence in his TV debates with Alex Salmond, but the former chancellor struggled when it came to articulating a positive vision of the future of the union. His worst moment was when a member of the audience asked: "You say we're better together. What's better together about now?" Shoogly is a good Scottish word to describe the look on his face as he struggled to formulate a response.

Andrew Wilson, a former MSP who is one of the most interesting exponents of independence, characterises the relationship between Scotland and England, by which I think he mainly means London, as a corrupted bargain: "You send us your talented people and resources, we send you the methadone of public subsidy." Not many other nationalists would put it quite like that, but a lot of Scots nod along with the basic contention that the relationship is bust.

Salmond also has the best line – best in the sense that it is hard for his opponents to counter. "No one will run the affairs of this country better than the people who live in Scotland." His cause has also been given rocket fuel by contemporary discontents. As one leading figure in the no campaign says: "The last five years have been shite for many people and they are looking for someone to blame."

A regular theme of Salmond's speeches is to lay all of Scotland's ills at the door of "the Westminster elite", the same trope that Nigel Farage uses so effectively to some English audiences. Among reasons to go independent that I have heard from yes voters were new discontents such as the bedroom tax, and older reasons to be angry such as the Iraq war, along with quite a lot of mentions of the expenses scandal. The nationalists have also been adept, if rather deceptive, at presenting independence as the miracle cure. Austerity, corrupt politicians, remote politicians, elitist politicians, the consequences of globalisation – all will evaporate if only Scotland releases itself from the choking yoke of an over-weening London. And – which is true – they'd never again be governed by Tory prime ministers that Scots didn't vote for. Salmond can inveigh against Margaret Thatcher and the poll tax to applause from people far too young to have been alive in the 1980s.

There is an irony here. As Holloway remarks: "The Scots are, in many ways, quite a conservative people." A likely upshot of independence would be the revival of the centre-right as a political force. Salmond himself has been heard to say so. But today it is almost culturally illegitimate to be a Tory in Scotland. The most helpful thing the leader of the Scottish Tories has done for the cause of the union is to say that it "isn't looking likely" that Cameron will win the next general election.

Both sides agree that the outcome now hinges on the behaviour of those voters who have been traditionally Labour. That is why 100 Labour MPs will be north of the Tweed this week, among them the party's "big hitters", with the message that Scots don't have to vote for independence to be rid of the Tories because Labour will win the next UK election. They will seek to amplify Ed Miliband's message: "We can build a more just Scotland within a more just United Kingdom." The push will culminate with a rally that the Labour leader will front alongside Gordon Brown.

How well this will work – telling Scots to spurn independence because the Labour cavalry is galloping over the hill – is a bit moot. It asks Scots to trust in Labour's rather slender national opinion poll lead. Another problem is that Labour is not held in great affection in Scotland anyway. If it were, the nationalists would not have won the last two elections to the Holyrood parliament.

Where the nationalists are still on very boggy ground is convincingly describing the sequel: what would happen the morning after Scotland woke up to find itself independent. The two sides have now shelled each other with so many rival claims about oil revenues, currency and borrowing that they have numbed each other and probably the electorate as well. What tells is that the only tax cut that Salmond has promised is one which will be of most benefit to large companies: an independent Scotland would set its corporation tax rate at 3p in the pound less than George Osborne. On his Glasgow walkabout, the SNP leader was stalked by no campaigners baiting him with placards bearing the slogan: "Tax cuts for the rich!".

Whatever he says about job creation, making a priority of handing more money to multinationals sounds like a funny way of laying the foundations of a more egalitarian country. The big hole in the nationalist prospectus is that it promises Scots that they can have Scandinavian standards of public services with American levels of tax.

The other disingenuous element of their case is about sovereignty itself. An independent Scotland would obviously be free to make more choices about its future: gone would be the Trident nuclear subs. But many of its choices would still be constricted within parameters set by major external forces. Those forces would include London, a city with more people and money than the whole of Scotland put together. If Scotland did somehow manage to retain the use of the pound, its interest rates would be set by a bank governor and a monetary policy committee appointed by a Westminster chancellor. If it was readmitted into the European Union – which, after some aggro, I expect it would be – an independent Scotland would have to negotiate many of its choices through Brussels. The value of its oil and gas would be determined by decisions made in Riyadh, Tehran, Moscow and Beijing. The cost of its borrowing would be set by bond traders in New York and Frankfurt – and, yes, those evil bloodsuckers who live and work in London, quite a lot of them Scots.

Small can be more nimble, more buccaneering, more prosperous. Some pro-independence business leaders say that part of the appeal is that John Swinney, Scotland's finance minister, is easier to get on the phone than Osborne or Ed Balls. This cuts both ways. Small can also be more vulnerable to corporate pressure. The Swiss-headquartered owners of Grangemouth, the vast refinery on the Firth of Forth, are already very influential actors in Scotland. They would be even more powerful in an independent Scotland.

From the no side, people tell me that they think the best card left for them to play is the argument that a canny Scotland would seek to exploit "the best of both worlds" by gaining more freedom to govern itself within the union, without taking the gamble of going it alone in an insecure world. "Change without risk," is how it is described. All the main UK-wide parties have now signed up to versions of "devo max"; where they've so far failed is convincing enough Scots that they are sincere about it.

Of the many campaigns I have covered, this is one of the most tricky to call. The hard-to-predict elements include "the missing million": the people who never or rarely vote at an election, but who are expected to come out in large numbers for the referendum. The nationalists think that ought to help them and I am told the first returns from postal voting suggest an extremely high turnout. Another factor hard to gauge is the number of "shy noes" – Scots too embarrassed to say that they are going to vote against independence for fear of being seen as unpatriotic. The opinion pollsters are very twitchy about getting this one wrong.

Whatever the result, it won't be easy for anyone to plausibly claim that the outcome represents a settled consensus of Scottish public opinion. Scotland will have spoken, but she will not speak with an unequivocal voice. Which is why you hear Scottish civic leaders expressing foreboding that it will be hard for wounds to heal and for the losing side to swallow defeat. Edinburgh's poet laureate, Christine De Luca, has even penned an ode to reconciliation called The Morning After.

There was a position that would have gathered a very solid consensus behind it. Had it been offered as a choice, I am certain there would have been a thumping majority for "devo max". From that, I conclude this. If Scotland votes to terminate the union, a generation of Westminster politicians will have to reflect in their post-resignation memoirs on why they were so slow to see it coming and too late in shaping a response. If Scotland gives the union another chance, a constitutional reconfiguration will have to be pursued with conviction and urgency. And it can't stop at Scotland: for England also has her discontents with the union. The very concept of a United Kingdom has never before faced such a test.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 06:19:46 AM

Quote from: Zoupa on September 06, 2014, 10:10:07 PM
I wonder who the first head of state to visit Edinbourg will be...

Probably their own:

Quote from: Tonitrus on September 07, 2014, 07:13:59 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 06:19:46 AM

Quote from: Zoupa on September 06, 2014, 10:10:07 PM
I wonder who the first head of state to visit Edinbourg will be...

Probably their own:

Unless they decide to throw off the monarchial yoke in favor of being a republic.  :P

Quote from: Viking on September 07, 2014, 08:33:09 AM

Quote from: Tonitrus on September 07, 2014, 07:13:59 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 06:19:46 AM

Quote from: Zoupa on September 06, 2014, 10:10:07 PM
I wonder who the first head of state to visit Edinbourg will be...

Probably their own:

Unless they decide to throw off the monarchial yoke in favor of being a republic.  :P

That will never work. President Alex Salmond? President Sean Connery? Once you ask that question the republic is not an option at all.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 06:49:00 AM
Lots of articles today calling for a more federal system which is a very good idea and something that should've been done a long time ago. Trouble is none of them explain how you get a federal system to work when one of the constituent parts has 85% of the population.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 06:49:00 AM
An interesting piece by Andrew Rawnsley:

QuoteScottish referendum: this is the hardest campaign I have ever had to call
Andrew Rawnsley reports from Edinburgh on the momentous political challenge that faces the UK, whatever the result
Share 296

d The Morning After.

There was a position that would have gathered a very solid consensus behind it. Had it been offered as a choice, I am certain there would have been a thumping majority for "devo max". From that, I conclude this. If Scotland votes to terminate the union, a generation of Westminster politicians will have to reflect in their post-resignation memoirs on why they were so slow to see it coming and too late in shaping a response. If Scotland gives the union another chance, a constitutional reconfiguration will have to be pursued with conviction and urgency. And it can't stop at Scotland: for England also has her discontents with the union. The very concept of a United Kingdom has never before faced such a test.

Lots of articles today calling for a more federal system which is a very good idea and something that should've been done a long time ago. Trouble is none of them explain how you get a federal system to work when one of the constituent parts has 85% of the population.

Quote from: viper37 on September 07, 2014, 11:59:49 AM
Had the South been allowed to secede, do you think things would be better or worst for the rest of the USA?

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on September 07, 2014, 12:19:37 PM

Quote from: viper37 on September 07, 2014, 11:59:49 AM
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.

Quote from: Tamas on September 07, 2014, 01:13:31 PM
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.

Quote from: Tamas on September 07, 2014, 01:13:31 PM
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.

Quote from: celedhring on September 07, 2014, 09:19:01 AMHow 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.

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

QuoteI 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.

QuoteThe 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.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on September 07, 2014, 03:15:32 PM
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.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 03:17:16 PM

Quote from: celedhring on September 07, 2014, 09:19:01 AMHow 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?

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 03:17:16 PM
they'll take years to get back into the EU.

QuoteRemember 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.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 03:17:16 PM
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.

Quote from: viper37 on September 07, 2014, 04:12:45 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 03:17:16 PM
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?

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on September 07, 2014, 03:15:32 PM

Quote from: Tamas on September 07, 2014, 01:13:31 PM
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.

Quote from: Tyr on September 07, 2014, 04:09:38 PM
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.

QuoteMayors... 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.

Quote from: Tyr on September 07, 2014, 04:15:22 PM
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.

QuoteIf 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.

Quote from: Tyr on September 07, 2014, 04:34:55 PM
The Swedish ERM2 loophole is no longer there for new EU members.
Sweden's toleration is grandfathered in

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 04:30:42 PM

Quote from: Tyr on September 07, 2014, 04:15:22 PM
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.

No they wouldn't. Sweden's legally committed to joining the Euro and would probably meet all the entry criteria. No one's forcing them into it, or likely to do so despite the fact that they're probably in breach of their commitments.

QuoteIf 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 think it'll be over very quickly and they'll meet their goal, if they win, of independence in 2016.

It's got to be negotiated and the public in both countries absolutely have to be involved because we're democracies. It'd be insane if they weren't. But there'll be a general election in 2015, and there should be one for the Scottish Parliament in 2015 too, so both sides will have a mandate. The difference is Alex Salmond's a very good politician who'd just have won the fight of his life. Whether it's Miliband or Cameron, they're a hollow man who's just lost the country.

My own guess is that lots of it'll be tough but a combination of market pressure (on currency and debt) and shared national interest plus American pressure (Scotland staying in NATO minus Trident) would mean a lot will be settled quite quickly. And there are a few areas where we're already separate. Scotland's got its own education and legal system for example.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 08, 2014, 02:50:08 AM
I would think those with their own personality could find an identity even without their own postage stamps and national bird.

Quote from: Martinus on September 08, 2014, 04:02:10 AM
This kind of "pride of the periphery", whether coming from a Serbian or a Quebecois, has always been baffling to me.

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on September 08, 2014, 04:30:34 AM

Quote from: Martinus on September 08, 2014, 04:02:10 AM
This kind of "pride of the periphery", whether coming from a Serbian or a Quebecois, has always been baffling to me.

Or a Lithuanian? :shifty:

Quote from: Martinus on September 08, 2014, 04:02:10 AM
This kind of "pride of the periphery", whether coming from a Serbian or a Quebecois, has always been baffling to me.

Quote from: Warspite on September 08, 2014, 05:25:59 AM

Quote from: Martinus on September 08, 2014, 04:02:10 AM
This kind of "pride of the periphery", whether coming from a Serbian or a Quebecois, has always been baffling to me.

Well, it makes more sense in Europe now, given that the EU allows small states to flourish.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 06:49:00 AM
Lots of articles today calling for a more federal system which is a very good idea and something that should've been done a long time ago. Trouble is none of them explain how you get a federal system to work when one of the constituent parts has 85% of the population.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 04:30:42 PM
My own guess is that lots of it'll be tough but a combination of market pressure (on currency and debt) and shared national interest plus American pressure (Scotland staying in NATO minus Trident) would mean a lot will be settled quite quickly. And there are a few areas where we're already separate. Scotland's got its own education and legal system for example.

Quote from: mongers on September 08, 2014, 08:17:07 AM
10 days to save the Union.   :hmm:


How do you fight this, can you even? :

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 08, 2014, 09:44:33 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 07, 2014, 04:30:42 PM
My own guess is that lots of it'll be tough but a combination of market pressure (on currency and debt) and shared national interest plus American pressure (Scotland staying in NATO minus Trident) would mean a lot will be settled quite quickly. And there are a few areas where we're already separate. Scotland's got its own education and legal system for example.

That may be so but only days before the vote there doesn't seem ot be any clear picture on what the settlement on currency would be.  If Scotland wants to use sterling, then the reality will be that England will be in driver's seat, both in any negotiation for Scotland's admission to the currency bloc and for any subsequent administration.  Rational self-interest if nothing else would push England to use that leverage.   Why go independent to settle for such a result?  It does seem a bit like Yi says - a grasp at "bird and stamp" symbolism.

QuoteFareweel to a' our Scottish fame,
Fareweel our ancient glory;
Fareweel ev'n to the Scottish name,
Sae fam'd in martial story.
Now Sark rins over Solway sands,
An' Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark where England's province stands-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

What force or guile could not subdue,
Thro' many warlike ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few,
For hireling traitor's wages.
The English stell we could disdain,
Secure in valour's station;
But English gold has been our bane-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

O would, or I had seen the day
That Treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lien in clay,
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour,
I'll mak this declaration;
We're bought and sold for English gold-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation! 

Quote from: Malthus on September 08, 2014, 09:49:17 AM
Really, it's an appeal to Robbie Burns:

Quote from: Tamas on September 08, 2014, 04:36:50 AM
It is a world of difference when Baltic States are worried about getting back under the heels of the Russian Czar, and Scotland or Quebec throwing a first world problem QQ fest being ready to fuck up themselves over minor issues.

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 12:48:50 PM
Viper, the various regions of the US have very distinct cultural identities, despite being part of a larger country.  Try comparing Oregon, to Kansas, to Alabama, to Massechussets - four very, very different states and identities.

Quote from: mongers on September 08, 2014, 08:17:07 AM
10 days to save the Union.   :hmm:


How do you fight this, can you even? :

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BxAmiE4IcAAQj-F.jpg)

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 08, 2014, 01:23:56 PM
I get that it is natural to view all problems through the prism of one's own experience, but it isn't very enlightening.  Scotland/UK is not Québec/Canada, or Hungary/AH Empire, or Flanders/Belgium, or whatever.  Each case is different.

The Scots may have very good reason to want independence, I am not in a position to say much on that.  What is interesting is that the Yes case seems to making certain questionable assumptions or sloppy arguments on pretty vital issues, like currency.  Let's assume a future independent Scotland in the EU and a rump Britain that exits - that is actually a pretty plausible outcome a few years out if Yes wins.  Would it really make sense for Scotland as an EU member to use a currency run by a country outside the EU?

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 08, 2014, 01:23:56 PM
I get that it is natural to view all problems through the prism of one's own experience, but it isn't very enlightening.  Scotland/UK is not Québec/Canada, or Hungary/AH Empire, or Flanders/Belgium, or whatever.  Each case is different.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 08, 2014, 09:46:51 AM

Quote from: mongers on September 08, 2014, 08:17:07 AM
10 days to save the Union.   :hmm:


How do you fight this, can you even? :

By pointing out that it guarantees Tory rule to the south for the forseeable future, and the likely exit from the EU of independent Scotland's most important economic partner.
To think that won't impact Scotland is bonkers. 
Are these the best arguments "Yes" has?  Seems incredibly poorly thought through.

Quote from: Berkut on September 08, 2014, 01:46:46 PM
But whatever - knock yourselves out. I wish one of them would succeed, if for no other reason than watching it crash and burn might make the other STFU already with their constant whining.

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 02:04:09 PM
First, it is possible to argue that an independent Quebec and Scotland would be economically better off.  Primarily by having control over their own currency and central bank they would be able to seek exchange rates and interests rates that would better reflect their own local economy.

Quote from: viper37 on September 08, 2014, 02:17:30 PM
Incidentally, can you name one failed country, following independance, who chose to rejoin the motherland?

Quote from: viper37 on September 08, 2014, 02:17:30 PM
Incidentally, can you name one failed country, following independance, who chose to rejoin the motherland?

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 08, 2014, 02:21:20 PM

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 02:04:09 PM
First, it is possible to argue that an independent Quebec and Scotland would be economically better off.  Primarily by having control over their own currency and central bank they would be able to seek exchange rates and interests rates that would better reflect their own local economy.

Possibly.  Except of course that the Scots apparently want to keep sterling and thus cancel out this advantage.

Quote from: viper37 on September 08, 2014, 02:17:30 PM

Quote from: Berkut on September 08, 2014, 01:46:46 PM
But whatever - knock yourselves out. I wish one of them would succeed, if for no other reason than watching it crash and burn might make the other STFU already with their constant whining.

Czechs don't seem worst than they were.  Slovakia had a rough patch getting out of communism but seems better of today than they were before.
I'm not sure about Kosovo, but I doubt it can be worst than in Yugoslavia.  Or Serbian domination.

Incidentally, can you name one failed country, following democratically attained independance, who chose to rejoin the motherland?

Quote from: viper37 on September 08, 2014, 02:42:48 PM

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 02:24:13 PM
East Germany.

Did they ever vote on the issue in the first place?

Quote from: Razgovory on September 08, 2014, 02:36:04 PM
I can only think of handful of countries that democratically attained independence.  It's an odd requirement.

Quote from: Razgovory on September 08, 2014, 02:36:04 PM

Quote from: viper37 on September 08, 2014, 02:17:30 PM

Quote from: Berkut on September 08, 2014, 01:46:46 PM
But whatever - knock yourselves out. I wish one of them would succeed, if for no other reason than watching it crash and burn might make the other STFU already with their constant whining.

Czechs don't seem worst than they were.  Slovakia had a rough patch getting out of communism but seems better of today than they were before.
I'm not sure about Kosovo, but I doubt it can be worst than in Yugoslavia.  Or Serbian domination.

Incidentally, can you name one failed country, following democratically attained independance, who chose to rejoin the motherland?

I can only think of handful of countries that democratically attained independence.  It's an odd requirement.

Quote from: Malthus on September 08, 2014, 01:17:28 PM
Scottish idependence: so boring a topic, it must be replaced by Quebecs'?  :hmm:

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 02:47:29 PM


Most countries that obtain independence have a vote to secure it.  South Sudan, Eritrea, Kosovo, East Timor - all had votes prior to independence.

What is more unusual is citizens in stable democratic countries who vote in favour of independence.  Of those, only Czech / Slovak split comes to mind (though I guess arguable Montenegro could also qualify).

Quote from: Razgovory on September 08, 2014, 03:05:08 PM

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 02:47:29 PM


Most countries that obtain independence have a vote to secure it.  South Sudan, Eritrea, Kosovo, East Timor - all had votes prior to independence.

What is more unusual is citizens in stable democratic countries who vote in favour of independence.  Of those, only Czech / Slovak split comes to mind (though I guess arguable Montenegro could also qualify).

I'm under the impression that those countries also saw quite a bit violence.  Even if you have an election, the armed bands wandering around sort of discredits the election.  The only ones I know of are some elements of the British empire and the Czech/slovak thingy.

Quote from: Zoupa on September 08, 2014, 01:02:10 PM
BB I would contend there is more in common culturally between an Oregonian and an Alabaman than between you and me.

En commencant par la langue.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on September 08, 2014, 03:06:53 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on September 08, 2014, 03:05:08 PM

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 02:47:29 PM


Most countries that obtain independence have a vote to secure it.  South Sudan, Eritrea, Kosovo, East Timor - all had votes prior to independence.

What is more unusual is citizens in stable democratic countries who vote in favour of independence.  Of those, only Czech / Slovak split comes to mind (though I guess arguable Montenegro could also qualify).

I'm under the impression that those countries also saw quite a bit violence.  Even if you have an election, the armed bands wandering around sort of discredits the election.  The only ones I know of are some elements of the British empire and the Czech/slovak thingy.

Norway-Sweden maybe? (just guessing here)

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 02:25:49 PM
It's curious that you would cut out the exact portion of my post that discussed that... :hmm:

Quote from: Malthus on September 08, 2014, 01:32:18 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 08, 2014, 01:23:56 PM
I get that it is natural to view all problems through the prism of one's own experience, but it isn't very enlightening.  Scotland/UK is not Québec/Canada, or Hungary/AH Empire, or Flanders/Belgium, or whatever.  Each case is different.

The Scots may have very good reason to want independence, I am not in a position to say much on that.  What is interesting is that the Yes case seems to making certain questionable assumptions or sloppy arguments on pretty vital issues, like currency.  Let's assume a future independent Scotland in the EU and a rump Britain that exits - that is actually a pretty plausible outcome a few years out if Yes wins.  Would it really make sense for Scotland as an EU member to use a currency run by a country outside the EU?

My guess is that the actual, practical economic and political issues aren't really the point (though a case can certainly be made that they ought to be). The appeals are to emotion, and not reason; I was serious about this being really "about" the poetry of Robbie Burns. Hence, a certain sloppiness on the practicalities of a "yes" outcome - these aren't really the issues that are driving the yes vote.

Quote from: sbr on September 08, 2014, 03:11:59 PM
What the fuck, that was uncalled for . :mad:

Quote from: viper37 on September 08, 2014, 02:17:30 PM

Quote from: Berkut on September 08, 2014, 01:46:46 PM
But whatever - knock yourselves out. I wish one of them would succeed, if for no other reason than watching it crash and burn might make the other STFU already with their constant whining.

Czechs don't seem worst than they were.  Slovakia had a rough patch getting out of communism but seems better of today than they were before.
I'm not sure about Kosovo, but I doubt it can be worst than in Yugoslavia.  Or Serbian domination.

Incidentally, can you name one failed country, following democratically attained independance, who chose to rejoin the motherland?

Quote from: Martinus on September 08, 2014, 03:22:38 PM
The thing is, this is not just the UK debate - with the UK on the verge of leaving and, at the same time, splitting up, it is the EU debate. It seems like the EU is at its weakest in years. Let's hope it survives. It needs the UK in, though and I don't think the UK without Scotland will stay.

Quote from: Tyr on September 08, 2014, 04:03:06 PM
What do people make of an independent Scotland's chances of joining the eu?
I can't help but see a lot of problems- upset at Scotland jumping the queue, Scotland not having it's own central bank, worry from other eu countries about secessionists, etc...

Quote from: Martinus on September 08, 2014, 04:02:10 AM
This kind of "pride of the periphery", whether coming from a Serbian or a Quebecois, has always been baffling to me.

QuoteI would think those with their own personality could find an identity even without their own postage stamps and national bird.

QuoteAnd the thing is, this region isn't really all that better off with the half-assed mini states the West created out of the Dual Monarchy's ashes. Did nationalistic hatred decrease? Quite the contrary. Did it stop the region from being the playground of Germany and Russia? Quite the contrary. Did it help the economy of the successor states? Quite the contrary.

QuoteAs long as the USA is kind enough to protect us.

QuoteThat may be so but only days before the vote there doesn't seem ot be any clear picture on what the settlement on currency would be.  If Scotland wants to use sterling, then the reality will be that England will be in driver's seat, both in any negotiation for Scotland's admission to the currency bloc and for any subsequent administration.  Rational self-interest if nothing else would push England to use that leverage.   Why go independent to settle for such a result?  It does seem a bit like Yi says - a grasp at "bird and stamp" symbolism.

QuoteReally, it's an appeal to Robbie Burns:

QuoteWhat do people make of an independent Scotland's chances of joining the eu?
I can't help but see a lot of problems- upset at Scotland jumping the queue, Scotland not having it's own central bank, worry from other eu countries about secessionists, etc...

QuoteA show on the BBC doing a seemingly good job on presenting both sides of the argument mentioned that the breakup of Czechoslovakia took IIRC 3 years and more than ten thousand treaties.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 08, 2014, 04:49:46 PM
How would we have an idea before the vote? If there was a plan it would mean the unionists have already conceded defeat.

Quote from: Valmy on September 08, 2014, 04:57:39 PM
Why would a Unionist Scot be holding an English flag and not a Union flag?  Color me baffled.

QuoteThe English flag is racist?  Damn how am I supposed to celebrate English Heritage day now?  Oh wait there is no such thing...whew.

QuoteI mean: I haven't heard a clear aspirational plan from the Yes forces other than a rather breezy assumption that sterling will be taken up without much difficulty or impact.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 08, 2014, 05:21:58 PM
Incidentally reports of another poll showing the same trend and a yes majority.

Miliband has called on Scots to vote on the basis of class consciousness not national consciousness giving a hopeful reprise to the Second International. And probably one as ineffective as the last.

Gordon Brown's out prowling round Scotland (where he is more popular, but not universally adored) detailing the new powers Labour will act to give the Scottish Parliament.

George Galloway is, and I never thought I'd say this, rather brilliantly out there campaigning for the union among the leftie Labour voters who are this campaigns swing voters. So Godspeed to him.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 08, 2014, 03:59:30 PM
Yes, this is crucial.
To say this vote is about Scottish independence is not really correct because Scotland intends immediately to join the EU.  So it is really trading off being a significant region in a big EU state to be a small EU state.  As a practical matter, this means Scotland will have little influence on certain key external policies and on significant regulatory matters.  It will have control over certain internal matters like health and education, but it already has that anyways.

Quote from: mongers on September 08, 2014, 05:26:09 PM
Really. :blink:

I don't doubt you accuracy of your assessment, maybe its just the epic ego at play,thinking he can single-handedly save the day? :unsure:

QuoteGeorge Galloway's one-man mission to save the Union

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.spectator.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F11%2FGalloway1.jpg&hash=713b972e59a7387342007f142387a8a75897920d)
'If you're not afraid, you should be' — Galloway's tub-thumping makes the government's campaign look like a pussy cat
138 Comments 16 November 2013 Alex Massie 
(Photo: Getty)


George Galloway is unhappy. One of his interlocutors on Twitter has told him to 'Fuck off back to England'. Gorgeous George is in Glasgow for the first in a series of roadshows in which he sets out his case for Scotland remaining part of the Union and he's not going anywhere. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Not even to England.

This will disappoint his many critics. But Galloway has a new, higher calling: saving whatever remains of the British left. To do that he must first save Britain. Which means persuading his fellow Scots they should remain a part of the United Kingdom. Like a latter-day Othello, he loves us not wisely but too well.

'If I thought Scottish Labour leaders were capable of persuading people to vote no, I wouldn't need to be here,' he bellows. Here in Glasgow's City Halls and nearly 500 souls have paid £12 (plus booking fees) to hear a fedora-sporting Galloway make his case for the Union. If few politicians could command this kind of audience at that kind of price, it still occurs to me that Preacher Galloway is needlessly limiting the size of his flock. Be that as it may, 'Alistair Darling is a nice fellow but he's no one's idea of a leader.'

Time for George, then. In one respect Galloway has a point. The battle for the Union is, in reality, a battle for the hearts and minds of Labour Scotland. These are the voters upon whom the result of the independence referendum will hinge. Many of Tommy Sheridan's former colleagues in the Scottish Socialist party are part of the yes movement; this week Sir Charles Gray, the former Labour leader of Strathclyde Regional Council, announced he will vote for independence. If the Labour vote can be split, the yes campaign may win.

So George Galloway is David Cameron's friend in this fight. Perhaps even Cameron's 'useful idiot'. Not that Galloway is a Unionist. 'My flag is red,' he says, which is why independence is an act of betrayal. Worse, it is a proclamation of false consciousness. A factory worker in Coatbridge has more in common with a factory worker in Consett than either does with their bosses. Class still matters more than bloodlines or borders.

And anyway, if you think a Cuba-on-the-Clyde can be built you are deluding yourself (reader, I confess I found this reassuring). Independence means permanent Tory rule in England. (Not true, but that needn't detain us.) A low-tax, low-regulation, low-public-spending England will force Scotland to follow suit in a 'race to the bottom'. Otherwise what business will stay in Scotland? Here too, I found myself wishing Galloway's prognosis of neoliberal doom might actually -happen.

Socialism in one small Tartan country is impossible. Of course Scotland would not 'be a Burundi or a Bangladesh' after independence. But: 'You need a critical mass of people to stand up to the vicissitudes of global capitalism. Do you really think Scotland is up for that? For being an Albania? For being a Cuba?' At this point I began to worry we might all be talking at cross-purposes. Besides, what kind of independence is really on offer? Scotland will still have a 'German queen' as head of state. It will still be part of Nato, still a member of the EU. Still, above all, keep the pound and be subject to the Bank of England's authority. If that's independence, George Galloway is a Zionist banana.

But George isn't afraid to bring a knife to a public meeting, even his own public meeting. No Roman Catholic should vote for independence, he suggests. Catholics would become scapegoats for Scottish failure. He insists an independent Scotland would be an Orange Scotland. 'If you're not afraid of that, you should be.' He hints that pogroms and perhaps even ethnic cleansing might follow.

Since the Scottish Labour vote will decide the United Kingdom's future, Galloway's old-time religion — however contradictory or barmy it may seem — is a useful, if necessarily disreputable, adjunct to the official Unionist campaign. It is a reminder that for all nationalists complain about Unionist 'scaremongering', the official campaign is a pussy-cat when compared to Gorgeous George's approach.

Perhaps a third of those who have paid to hear two hours of Galloway's tub-thumping rhetoric seem minded to vote for independence. When Galloway suggested, 'Britain is a big ship, rusting and listing but still a big ship. Getting onto a small boat on the stormy seas of globalised capitalism seems like a bad idea. I'll stay on the big ship', many of his comrades seemed ready to abandon George to his fate.

Of course, he may yet abandon us too. It was interesting to hear Galloway talk of 'you' when he might have used 'us'. But then, as he grinned, 'You can still back me to be the next Mayor of London at 20/1.'

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 16 November 2013

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 08, 2014, 05:33:17 PM

Quote from: mongers on September 08, 2014, 05:26:09 PM
Really. :blink:

I don't doubt you accuracy of your assessment, maybe its just the epic ego at play,thinking he can single-handedly save the day? :unsure:

Yep and I think it's his convictions :o

Quote from: Zoupa on September 08, 2014, 01:02:10 PM
BB I would contend there is more in common culturally between an Oregonian and an Alabaman than between you and me.

En commencant par la langue.

Quote from: merithyn on September 08, 2014, 08:54:23 PM

Quote from: Zoupa on September 08, 2014, 01:02:10 PM
BB I would contend there is more in common culturally between an Oregonian and an Alabaman than between you and me.

En commencant par la langue.

I'm not sure that I agree with that. If you've been to the south, you know that they often do speak a very different language. My first cousin lives in Louisiana, and it's not uncommon for us to have a very different way of expressing the same thoughts and concerns. In addition, their culture is so different that there are topics that we just cannot discuss.

Communication isn't just the language. It's often far more than that.

Quote from: viper37 on September 08, 2014, 02:42:48 PM

Scotland, I don't know.  The monarchy decided of the union, the people followed. Don't know enough about Scottish and British history beyond that for that time period.

Quote from: Valmy on September 08, 2014, 04:57:39 PM
Why would a Unionist Scot be holding an English flag and not a Union flag?  Color me baffled.

The English flag is racist?  Damn how am I supposed to celebrate English Heritage day now?  Oh wait there is no such thing...whew.

Quote from: that George fellowA low-tax, low-regulation, low-public-spending England

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 04:05:23 PM

Quote from: Tyr on September 08, 2014, 04:03:06 PM
What do people make of an independent Scotland's chances of joining the eu?
I can't help but see a lot of problems- upset at Scotland jumping the queue, Scotland not having it's own central bank, worry from other eu countries about secessionists, etc...

I suspect that Scotland will be admitted to the EU sooner or later.  The EU as a whole doesn't want to be losing bits of itself.

I do think that the EU holds most of the cards though in accession negotiations however, and won't be easy or immediate for Scotland.

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 04:05:23 PM

Quote from: Tyr on September 08, 2014, 04:03:06 PM
What do people make of an independent Scotland's chances of joining the eu?
I can't help but see a lot of problems- upset at Scotland jumping the queue, Scotland not having it's own central bank, worry from other eu countries about secessionists, etc...

I suspect that Scotland will be admitted to the EU sooner or later.  The EU as a whole doesn't want to be losing bits of itself.

I do think that the EU holds most of the cards though in accession negotiations however, and won't be easy or immediate for Scotland.

Quote from: Tamas on September 09, 2014, 04:06:19 AM

Quote from: that George fellowA low-tax, low-regulation, low-public-spending England

:wub: ok let Scotland go!

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 03:47:55 AM

Quote from: Valmy on September 08, 2014, 04:57:39 PM
Why would a Unionist Scot be holding an English flag and not a Union flag?  Color me baffled.

The English flag is racist?  Damn how am I supposed to celebrate English Heritage day now?  Oh wait there is no such thing...whew.

Basically English Patriotism was way-layed by racists and they adopted it's symbols such as the flag. That's why he feels uneasy when he sees his national symbols. There has been a concious effort to re-claim these symbols but for people born before a certain date the flag wil always be associated with soccer hooligans and english neo-nazis.

Quote from: Zanza on September 09, 2014, 05:43:42 AM

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 04:05:23 PM

Quote from: Tyr on September 08, 2014, 04:03:06 PM
What do people make of an independent Scotland's chances of joining the eu?
I can't help but see a lot of problems- upset at Scotland jumping the queue, Scotland not having it's own central bank, worry from other eu countries about secessionists, etc...

I suspect that Scotland will be admitted to the EU sooner or later.  The EU as a whole doesn't want to be losing bits of itself.

I do think that the EU holds most of the cards though in accession negotiations however, and won't be easy or immediate for Scotland.

Why not? The entire EU acquis communautaire already applies in Scotland and Scots are EU citizens. You would just need some very minor adjustments to add Scotland as an EU member. I am sure that having a 29th EU country with Scotland is much easier than to dissolve a 300 year union between Scotland and England.

Quote from: jimmy olsen on September 09, 2014, 03:45:52 AM
Scotland will simply be dominated by the financial, buisness and political interests of London without any regards to Scottish opinion if this goes through. Scotland will be an English colony in all but name. Could this be the most self defeating seccession of all time?

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 09, 2014, 09:10:16 AM

Quote from: jimmy olsen on September 09, 2014, 03:45:52 AM
Scotland will simply be dominated by the financial, buisness and political interests of London without any regards to Scottish opinion if this goes through. Scotland will be an English colony in all but name. Could this be the most self defeating seccession of all time?

One of the curious aspects of the Yes position is the apparent assumption that if Scotland is de jure independent, somehow it won't matter who is running things just next door across the invisible line we call a political boundary. 

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 09:01:21 AM

Quote from: Zanza on September 09, 2014, 05:43:42 AM

Quote from: Barrister on September 08, 2014, 04:05:23 PM

Quote from: Tyr on September 08, 2014, 04:03:06 PM
What do people make of an independent Scotland's chances of joining the eu?
I can't help but see a lot of problems- upset at Scotland jumping the queue, Scotland not having it's own central bank, worry from other eu countries about secessionists, etc...

I suspect that Scotland will be admitted to the EU sooner or later.  The EU as a whole doesn't want to be losing bits of itself.

I do think that the EU holds most of the cards though in accession negotiations however, and won't be easy or immediate for Scotland.

Why not? The entire EU acquis communautaire already applies in Scotland and Scots are EU citizens. You would just need some very minor adjustments to add Scotland as an EU member. I am sure that having a 29th EU country with Scotland is much easier than to dissolve a 300 year union between Scotland and England.

It applies to the scots because the are British citizens. If they cease being British citizens the cease being EU citizens. Scotland has to apply to join. Queue the Spanish and French objections.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 09, 2014, 09:24:01 AM
If common sense prevails, Scotland's reintegration into the EU should be quick and pro forma as Scotland clearly wants in and it is in the EU's interest to keep them in.

But the "if" cannot be assumed, and that tricky unanimity requirement can always cause problems.

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 03:40:35 AM

Quote from: viper37 on September 08, 2014, 02:42:48 PM

Scotland, I don't know.  The monarchy decided of the union, the people followed. Don't know enough about Scottish and British history beyond that for that time period.

Scotland did vote, The scottish parliament and the english parliament negotiated the union agreement. There was a dynastic union, but the united kingdom is a union of two parliaments.

Quote from: Martinus on September 09, 2014, 09:26:45 AM

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 03:40:35 AM

Quote from: viper37 on September 08, 2014, 02:42:48 PM

Scotland, I don't know.  The monarchy decided of the union, the people followed. Don't know enough about Scottish and British history beyond that for that time period.

Scotland did vote, The scottish parliament and the english parliament negotiated the union agreement. There was a dynastic union, but the united kingdom is a union of two parliaments.

Well by that logic the UK should never be allowed to leave the EU or repatriate any powers from it.

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 09:27:53 AM

Quote from: Martinus on September 09, 2014, 09:26:45 AM

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 03:40:35 AM

Quote from: viper37 on September 08, 2014, 02:42:48 PM

Scotland, I don't know.  The monarchy decided of the union, the people followed. Don't know enough about Scottish and British history beyond that for that time period.

Scotland did vote, The scottish parliament and the english parliament negotiated the union agreement. There was a dynastic union, but the united kingdom is a union of two parliaments.

Well by that logic the UK should never be allowed to leave the EU or repatriate any powers from it.

eh? How does your conclusion follow?

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 09:31:01 AM
If Scotland remains part of UK, a financial drain, as UK corporations based in Scotland move back to England is to be expected. 

Quote from: Martinus on September 09, 2014, 09:30:39 AM

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 09:27:53 AM

Quote from: Martinus on September 09, 2014, 09:26:45 AM

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 03:40:35 AM

Quote from: viper37 on September 08, 2014, 02:42:48 PM

Scotland, I don't know.  The monarchy decided of the union, the people followed. Don't know enough about Scottish and British history beyond that for that time period.

Scotland did vote, The scottish parliament and the english parliament negotiated the union agreement. There was a dynastic union, but the united kingdom is a union of two parliaments.

Well by that logic the UK should never be allowed to leave the EU or repatriate any powers from it.

eh? How does your conclusion follow?

Isn't that your argument that once a country decided to join a union it can't leave? The fact that the Scottish people voted on something 300 years ago is hardly a reason why they can't vote differently 300 years later

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 09:31:01 AM
If the Canadian example serves, the British will try to punish the Scots any way they can for daring to be different.

Quote from: Martinus on September 09, 2014, 09:33:23 AM

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 09:31:01 AM
If Scotland remains part of UK, a financial drain, as UK corporations based in Scotland move back to England is to be expected. 

Why would that happen? I would think that UK corporations based in Scotland (such as certain banks and pension funds) know better than to do something purely out of spite. I was under an impression that the UK is not Russia, so their corporations do not necessary follow the government's bidding.

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 09:43:12 AM

Quote from: Martinus on September 09, 2014, 09:33:23 AM

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 09:31:01 AM
If Scotland remains part of UK, a financial drain, as UK corporations based in Scotland move back to England is to be expected. 

Why would that happen? I would think that UK corporations based in Scotland (such as certain banks and pension funds) know better than to do something purely out of spite. I was under an impression that the UK is not Russia, so their corporations do not necessary follow the government's bidding.

Scottish banks probably would be English banks after de-union.

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 10:24:31 AM
In the specifics? Most likely not.  But in the larger picture:
A combination of real grievances [...] and hysteria.
most likely.

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 10:57:40 AM
America, in its first years of independance looked like a failed country.  There was economic turmoil and lots of citizens emigrated to Canada - British territory.  Yet, were there any talks of rejoining the British Empire at this time?  Despite the concessions offered by the British during the War of Independance, did Congress ever seriously think of rejoining the Empire to end the war?

Quote from: Berkut on September 09, 2014, 11:02:58 AM
Tell me, if Scotland votes for independence, would you then support some subset of Scotland demanding independence because 51% of the voters in that area don't want to be part of Scotland? And then a subset of that subset voting to rejoin Scotland?

This is all strictly about the will of the people, right? No need to actually evaluate what is happening - as long as 51% of *some* population wants to secede, they should be allowed?

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 12:53:21 PM
just like other countries chose their health care system.

Quote from: Valmy on September 09, 2014, 11:02:13 AM
So every time you disagree with the outcome of an election and have contempt for the way a campaign is being handled it means you want to use force?  Or is that your solution for how to solve Quebec's problems?

Quote
Or is that your solution for how to solve Quebec's problems?

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 09:01:21 AM
Scotland has to apply to join. Queue the Spanish and French objections.

Quote from: Martinus on September 09, 2014, 09:16:25 AM
I think Zanza's point was different - that negotiations should not be hard as Scotland's legal system is already fully integrated with that of the EU so there should be no big issues to resolve before they can (re)join.

I am not sure how true that is though - I know some of the old countries have pretty slipped from EU standards, and of course it is not clear what the Scotland's budgetary discipline will look like.

And on top of that, assuming the UK stays, I don't see why the UK would, for example, want to give up votes in the EU Council to accomodate Scotlands accession - and I am not sure how willing other countries will be to effectively dilute their votes by allowing Scotland to have extra votes etc. So in short I don't think Zanza's optimism is well founded.

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 09:01:21 AM
It applies to the scots because the are British citizens. If they cease being British citizens the cease being EU citizens. Scotland has to apply to join. Queue the Spanish and French objections.

Quote from: Zanza on September 09, 2014, 02:15:58 PM

Quote from: Barrister on September 09, 2014, 11:56:01 AM
I think you'll find precisely zero example where people purposely congregate to form their own local majority in order to effect seccession.

Israel

Quote
Scottish independence: UK party leaders in 'No' vote trip to Scotland

Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour leader Ed Miliband will abandon their weekly Prime Minister's Questions clash and instead fly north on Wednesday.

It came as the Scottish pro-Union party leaders announced their backing for more powers for Scotland.

First Minister Alex Salmond said the campaign to keep the Union was now in "absolute panic".

Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will also be campaigning in Scotland, ahead of the 18 September referendum, although the three leaders will not travel or appear together.
....

Quote from: Zanza on September 09, 2014, 03:27:55 PM
Fine. So Canada was empty and can't serve as an example for the densely populated Eurasian continent and state formation there.

Quote from: Maximus on September 09, 2014, 10:08:13 AM

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 10:00:25 AM
really?  Americans did not feel Americans?  They all felt they were the same people as the soldiers of the Empire who recently disembarked in their lands?  They considered themselves loyal subjects of His Majesty and were ready to accept his rule&judgment just as any other British citizen was expected to?  In the preceding years, there were no feeling at all that they were abandonned by Great Britain, left to fend for themselves against the French & Indians?  No feeling that they should decide of their own war policies during the French&Indian Wars?  No resentment against heavy taxation from a Tyrant oversea, Great Britain's legitimate ruler, in the years to come?  No feeling that they were treated differently than other British subjects?
Many of those things have nothing to do with nationalism.

Most of them are though. Did they feel American? Was there a sense of difference - and will for self-reliance - about Americans than Britain? Those are feelings of American nationalism.

Quote from: Viking on September 09, 2014, 03:47:55 AM
Basically English Patriotism was way-layed by racists and they adopted it's symbols such as the flag. That's why he feels uneasy when he sees his national symbols. There has been a concious effort to re-claim these symbols but for people born before a certain date the flag wil always be associated with soccer hooligans and english neo-nazis.

Quote from: Maximus on September 09, 2014, 04:32:21 PM
I'm not sure what you are saying here, aside from the misquote.

However to address some of viper's questions now that I have some time, the only one that has anything to do with nationalism is the first one:

QuoteThey all felt they were the same people as the soldiers of the Empire who recently disembarked in their lands?

My understanding is yes, they saw themselves as the same people for the most part. The grievances against British soldiers weren't that they were foreigners, but that they perpetrated and enforced what were viewed as unjust practices. The soldiers that were actually viewed as foreigners were the Hessian mercenaries and that was a separate grievance.

Quote
Scottish independence: Monarch 'above politics', Buckingham Palace says

Any suggestion that the Queen would wish to influence the Scottish referendum campaign is "categorically wrong", Buckingham Palace has said.

The statement follows press reports that Her Majesty was concerned about the prospect of Scottish independence.

It also follows comments from First Minister Alex Salmond, who said the Queen "will be proud" to be the monarch of an independent Scotland.

The Palace insisted the referendum was "a matter for the people of Scotland".

A spokesman said: "The sovereign's constitutional impartiality is an established principle of our democracy and one which the Queen has demonstrated throughout her reign.

"As such the monarch is above politics and those in political office have a duty to ensure that this remains the case.

"Any suggestion that the Queen would wish to influence the outcome of the current referendum campaign is categorically wrong.

"Her Majesty is firmly of the view that this is a matter for the people of Scotland."
....

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 09, 2014, 05:02:48 PM
To the extent that Scotland has a sense of grievance it's that the result of the election in Scotland makes no difference to the policies implemented in Scotland on around 90% of their budget and their tax rates etc.

Quote from: Maximus on September 09, 2014, 05:16:12 PMNationalism based on civic or geographic identity? That's a lot more broad definition than I am used to, and seems awfully close to defining any meaning out of the term.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 09, 2014, 05:27:40 PM
No.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 09, 2014, 05:22:14 PM
You could take any equivalent slice of the UK voting population and say the same thing.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 09, 2014, 05:30:13 PM
Okay. But none of them are countries. The Home Counties may grumble but they're English and they're part of England. Scotland has always been its own country that joined with another country voluntarily.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 09, 2014, 05:30:13 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 09, 2014, 05:22:14 PM
You could take any equivalent slice of the UK voting population and say the same thing.

Okay. But none of them are countries.

QuoteAlso you're right and that's arguably precisely the problem with Britain. Why are we still so centralised?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 09, 2014, 05:35:17 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 09, 2014, 05:30:13 PM
Okay. But none of them are countries. The Home Counties may grumble but they're English and they're part of England. Scotland has always been its own country that joined with another country voluntarily.

England has not always been unified.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 09, 2014, 05:41:26 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 09, 2014, 05:35:17 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 09, 2014, 05:30:13 PM
Okay. But none of them are countries. The Home Counties may grumble but they're English and they're part of England. Scotland has always been its own country that joined with another country voluntarily.

England has not always been unified.

No. But Wessex ceased to exist and doesn't now feel significantly different than Mercia.

Scotland never ceased to exist (own legal and education systems, the Kirk, a different history) and has always felt different. They joined a union, they weren't absorbed or 'unified'.

You're right on Wales Minsky. But I've never really been to Wales, but they're definitely a country.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 09, 2014, 05:41:26 PM
No. But Wessex ceased to exist and doesn't now feel significantly different than Mercia.

Scotland never ceased to exist (own legal and education systems, the Kirk, a different history) and has always felt different. They joined a union, they weren't absorbed or 'unified'.

You're right on Wales Minsky. But I've never really been to Wales, but they're definitely a country.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 09, 2014, 05:30:13 PM
Why are we still so centralised? Why are we so unwilling to grant reasonable desires for Home Rule and devolution that we end up forcing the question of independence or union?

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 09, 2014, 05:02:48 PM
Nationalism isn't about grievance, though that's often a motivating factor. It's about a sense of separate identity especially culturally and believing that because of that it needs its own political expression around that geographic, ethnic or civic identity. Did North Americans, especially given the growth in feeling of self-reliance, really feel no separate identity to British soldiers? That seems surprising. But I think it's difficult to compare nationalisms and I think that's especially the case with old and new world.

Quote from: celedhring on September 09, 2014, 06:39:21 PM
I thought that Cameron was pulling a masterstroke when he forced the "increased devolution" option off the ballot. I thought that by taking the "easy way out" option from the Scots, he would force them to vote no. Now he's already offering increased devolution and might end up losing the country.

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 06:29:53 PM

Quote from: mongers on September 09, 2014, 05:21:59 PM
The Queen , so to speak, wades out of the debate:

Quote
Scottish independence: Monarch 'above politics', Buckingham Palace says

Any suggestion that the Queen would wish to influence the Scottish referendum campaign is "categorically wrong", Buckingham Palace has said.

The statement follows press reports that Her Majesty was concerned about the prospect of Scottish independence.

It also follows comments from First Minister Alex Salmond, who said the Queen "will be proud" to be the monarch of an independent Scotland.

The Palace insisted the referendum was "a matter for the people of Scotland".

A spokesman said: "The sovereign's constitutional impartiality is an established principle of our democracy and one which the Queen has demonstrated throughout her reign.

"As such the monarch is above politics and those in political office have a duty to ensure that this remains the case.

"Any suggestion that the Queen would wish to influence the outcome of the current referendum campaign is categorically wrong.

"Her Majesty is firmly of the view that this is a matter for the people of Scotland."
....

Full article here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29136149 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29136149)

Funny.  I don't remember such reservations from 1995.  From the same Queen.  For Canada.  And Quebec.

Quote from: Barrister on September 09, 2014, 06:54:37 PM
A quick google suggests that Liz said precisely nothing on the topic in public in 1995.

Her sum total involvement is when a radio prankster called her up and suggested that the yes said might win, she said that would mean the "referendum might go the wrong way".

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 06:57:35 PM
Grumbler, you should read this:
Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766

There wasn't a massive feeling like in 1776.  Years of grievances to the British Empire added to that.  But that feeling was beginning to be there.

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 06:34:46 PM
I've asked that question twice, got no answer, other than nationalism is evil.

If the union is so important to many British citizens, why did they let it that far before reacting?  One week before the vote and suddenly they wish to grant more autonomy?  Why should the Scots believe it?

Quote from: viper37 on September 09, 2014, 06:57:35 PM
Grumbler, you should read this:
Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766

There wasn't a massive feeling like in 1776.  Years of grievances to the British Empire added to that.  But that feeling was beginning to be there.

Quote from: Valmy on September 09, 2014, 09:39:06 PM
Is there some sort of history of the Scots being lied to you would lie to share?

Quote from: garbon on September 09, 2014, 09:45:05 PM

Quote from: Valmy on September 09, 2014, 09:39:06 PM
Is there some sort of history of the Scots being lied to you would lie to share?

:D

Quote from: Valmy on September 09, 2014, 09:39:06 PM
Is there some sort of history of the Scots being lied to you would lie to share?

Quote from: Valmy on September 09, 2014, 09:41:08 PM
Sure the feeling was that the war was not being managed in a way that satisfied our rights as freeborn British subjects.  Then William Pitt came along and gave into our demands and we thought he was a hero and the British Empire was the embodiment of American liberty and the tyrannical and superstitious French had been vanquished.  It was a good couple years there before the opposition took over and blew all of Pitts good will.

QuoteIf the union is so important to many British citizens, why did they let it that far before reacting?  One week before the vote and suddenly they wish to grant more autonomy?  Why should the Scots believe it?

QuoteWhy I am voting No
333 comments 9 September 2014 16:02Alex Massie 

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn2.spectator.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F11%2Ffiles%2F2014%2F09%2F163209865-620x413.jpg&hash=323f25d4a4ec4c399964cfe1e05f1bbda4589b24)

Once upon a time, a long while ago, I lived in Dublin. It was a time when everything seemed possible and not just because I was younger then. The country was stirring too. When I arrived it was still the case that a visa to work in the United States was just about the most valuable possession any young Irishman or woman could own; within a fistful of years that was no longer the case. Ireland was changing. These were the years in which the Celtic Tiger was born. They were happy years of surprising possibility.

Years later I lived in the United States and my perspective changed. Scottish independence seemed, viewed from there, about as useful or meaningful as independence for Texas. Not impossible or even necessarily undesirable but somehow missing the point nonetheless. But that was later. When I lived in Ireland, Dublin's example seemed, well, exemplary. If the Irish could do it, why couldn't we? More to the point, why shouldn't we?

So, like many other Scots who will vote No next week, I don't think independence a daft notion or some kind of fatuous affectation. I think there is a reasonable case for it (even if this is not the case that, during this long campaign, has often been the case that has actually been made). Could we do it? Why, yes we could. But should we?

Of course the detail matters. It matters even if you accept that the Scottish government's prospectus for life after independence is only one of many possible futures none of which can be decided until independence is achieved. There are many voters – well, perhaps one in five – who would vote for independence even if it promised an impoverished future. Similarly there are many voters – perhaps one in five – who would reject independence even if they believed it offered a more prosperous future.

Still, if we're to vote on independence it should be done on the basis of a moderately honest prospectus. No such prospectus has been offered by the Scottish government. A lot of people are voting on the basis of a deeply cynical and meretricious set of promises that simply cannot, not even when assisted by great dollops of wishful thinking, be delivered. It is not possible to spend more, borrow less and tax the same.

That, however, is what the SNP propose. Lower borrowing rates, 3% annual increases in public spending and no changes to the overall level of taxation. It is incredible. It supposes that voters must be glaikit and easily gulled ninnies who can be persuaded to swallow anything, no matter how fanciful it must be. A nonsense wrapped in a distortion inside a whopping great lie.

It's quite possible that the realities of life in an independent Scotland might push the country's centre-of-political-gravity to the right. Quite possible, then, that an independent Scotland would be more likely to produce more of my kind of politics than some of the politics imagined by the keenest advocates for independence. That still strikes me as a thin and selfish reason to vote for independence.

But, sure, many of the details could be worked out and it's certainly possible that after an initial period of some difficulty Scotland would emerge as a decently prosperous and contented country. It needn't be a disaster and it probably wouldn't be. Nevertheless, the growing pains would be acute and I think it best to recognise this. There will be short and even perhaps medium-term pain but the long-term prize will be worth it.

That's not what's being sold, however. Far from it.

There are other difficulties. The dishonesty of suggesting – or allowing it to be understood – that there's no functional difference between sterlingisation and a monetary union with whatever remains of the UK is, in the end, breathtaking. Yes, Scotland can "use the pound" but how it's used is a question of some importance.

I know politicians can never say they don't know the answer to something but there are times and places when pretending you have all the answers is worse than admitting the obvious truth that you don't. This is one of those times; one of those places.

But, look, in the end this is still process stuff. Very important process stuff but still only process stuff. I happen to think it provides ample reason to vote No but it's not why I'm voting No.

I'm voting No because the campaign has surprised me. It's made me think about my country and, more than that, what it means to be a part of that country. I'll vote No even though I think Scotland would do fine as an independent country.

Because, even more than the economic sleight-of-hand, I've been taken aback by the dishonesty of a campaign that claims you can end the United Kingdom as we know it but retain almost everything about the United Kingdom that actually makes it the United Kingdom.

Like everyone else I've been asked to believe that independence will improve relations between the constituent parts of this kingdom and that, far from ending a kind of Britishness, it will actually enhance your sense of Britishness. The Yes campaign has said you can lose your country and keep it too. I don't believe that.

You know how it is at a funeral: there is a hierarchy of grief and it is unseemly to pretend you're closer to the epicentre of loss than is actually the case. The same is true of difference and "foreigners". No parts of these Atlantic Isles are truly strangers to one another. But there is still a hierarchy of difference. England and Wales are not so foreign as Ireland. Ireland is not so foreign as New Zealand or Australia. Which in turn are less foreign than Canada. And Canada is not as foreign as France or Belgium or Sweden or even bloody Norway.

Independence won't sever all those bonds. Of course it won't. The hierarchy of difference will remain in place. But the gaps between the layers will increase. Scotland and England (and Wales and even Ulster) will drift apart. We will be less close than once we were; we will not become strangers but we will know less about – and be less interested in – each other. Never foreign-foreign but foreign enough for it to count and be noticed.

And I think that would be a sad business. I think Alex Salmond gets something very wrong when he says that England would lose a "surly lodger" after independence and gain a "good neighbour". Because I don't think of Scots as lodgers paying rent in someone else's house, granted a bedroom and the use of the lounge three nights a week. I think we live in our own house. A house we built ourselves. Salmond asks us to move to another, smaller, house and that's fine but he does so while pretending we can continue to live in our old house too. But we can't.

I'm Scottish but I'm British too and I've been surprised by the extent to which that latter layer of identity still matters to me and still has something to say, not just about me, but about all of us. I don't recognise the caricature of England (and it is usually England, not the rest of the UK) offered by Yes supporters. They see a heartless, rapacious, profiteering "neoliberal" dystopia; I see a relaxed, liberal, ambitious, open-minded, multi-racial, modern country.

They see the rise of UKIP and are frightened by it; I see UKIP as a bug not a feature because the feature is the manner in which the UK is open to the world and, actually, quite happy about that thank you very much. A UK in which, despite its difficulties, has managed the transition from a white country to a multi-racial polity with, in general, commendable ease. They see a broken, sclerotic, unreformable Britain; I see a cosmopolitan country that's a desirable destination for millions of people around the world.

Of course there are difficulties. There always are and always will be. Britain can no more solve every problem than could an independent Scotland. Which is why, again, this debate – for me anyway – isn't about policy but instead about something bigger: who we are.

The other day the historian Tom Devine remarked that all the Union has going for it is sentiment, family and history. Like that's not enough? Those aren't wee things, they're the things that make us who we are. The blood and guts, the bone and marrow of our lives. The tissue that connects us to our fellow citizens, the stuff that makes us more than an individual. The things from which you build a society.  You can have that in Scotland, alone and independent, too of course. But we also have it in Britain, right now, and we will lose some of that if we vote Yes. Or some of us will, anyway.

So I think of E Pluribus Unum and I think that's a motto that applies to the United Kingdom too. And so does its opposite: within one, many. There's ample room for many types of Britain. Not just Scots and Welsh and Irish and English but Pakistani-Scots, Jamaican-Welsh and Nigerian-English too. I think it's the tensions and ambiguities inherent in all of this that makes Britain interesting; that makes Scotland interesting too.

Nuance and complexity matter and have some value. They have helped make us what we are. I like that at Waterloo the Scots Greys, part of the Union Brigade, charged into the French lines to the cry of Scotland Forever. I like our ambiguous, sometimes ambivalent, often ironic, past. I like our present too and I have some small hopes for our future as well.

Perhaps this is romantic, sentimental, tosh but that's an inescapable part of national identity. An unavoidable part of the business of constructing a nation. That's true of Scotland just as it's true of Britain too.

Here's the thing: Scotland is different from England but it is not separate from it. Nor from Wales or even Northern Ireland either. I like the fact I have two countries. I like the fact that one includes Jerusalem, Men of Harlech and the Londonderry Air as well as Annie Laurie and the Flowers of the Forest. That one offers Larkin and Thomas and Heaney as well as MacDiarmid. I like that these belong to all of us even if they each belong a little more to some of us than they do to the rest of us.

I see this as a country greater than the sum of its constituent nations. Whatever remains of the United Kingdom after Scottish independence will do just fine. Scotland, likewise, is not doomed. We can, all of us, make a decent fist of things. But it will not be the same and the idea everything must change so things can remain much the same is a con.

If history matters – and I think it does just like sentiment and family matter – then whatever this place's shortcomings and mistakes it's worth recalling that it's also the country of William Wilberforce and Alan Turing as well as Adam Smith and Thomas Paine. That should count for something. We are different but not separate. I think of it as being like the relationship between Boswell and Johnson. They complement one another. You may even think they complete one another. There'd be a smaller Johnson without Boswell but a lesser Boswell without Johnson. They improved each other.

Most of all, I like that when you get the train to Scotland from London or Peterborough or Newcastle north and you cross the border in the gloaming you feel your heart soar and you cry hurrah and yippee because you know you're home now without having been abroad. I like that and think it matters. I don't know if I know why it does or why it suddenly seems so valuable but I know I do. But that's the Britain I know and like; a place in which I'm always Scottish but also, when it suits, British too. A country where you travel to very different places and still always come home without having been abroad.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 09, 2014, 05:38:15 PM
Regional units are too lumpy.  Plus inertia.

QuoteSqueeze won't shut up about the north south divide.

QuoteI thought that Cameron was pulling a masterstroke when he forced the "increased devolution" option off the ballot. I thought that by taking the "easy way out" option from the Scots, he would force them to vote no. Now he's already offering increased devolution and might end up losing the country.

QuoteIs there some sort of history of the Scots being lied to you would lie to share?

QuoteScotland has been promised more autonomy for months.

QuoteNot to mention that I am getting the feeling that most Scottish yes votes are eyeing the hopeful bigger welfare checks out of the grabbed North Sea oil money.

QuoteAnd I am merely referencing the earlier quoted Scottish Labour argument that people should vote yes to drive low taxes and low welfare out and back to England.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 10, 2014, 04:14:06 PM
North-South divide is mostly economic and a century ago was the other way round. That's it.

QuoteThere's other differences but it's not another country :mellow:

Quote from: viper37 on September 10, 2014, 12:13:29 PM
Funny, I don't see things your way.  What I saw were a few Americans and a Hungarian saying the Scots were morons subject to propaganda by the YES side and unable to see for themselves what was good for them, for that, they needed American enlightment, wich holds that patriotism is totally different than nationalism, being a positive force, while nationalism is the root of all evil. According to Valmy, Nationalists are worst than nazis.

Quote from: mongers on September 10, 2014, 05:42:48 PM
Well England and possibly the rest of the UK, is now waking the fact the death-knell could be struck for the country they all live in, in 8 days time.  Kind of odd feeling.  <_<

Quote
Bernard: Although there are many... convincing, some might say conclusive, arguments against it.

Humphrey: Some might indeed, Bernard.

Bernard: Yes. Why?

Humphrey: Because once you create genuinely democratic local communities, it won't stop there.

Bernard: Won't it?

Humphrey: Well, of course it won't. You see, once they get established, they'll insist on more power.  Politicians will be too frightened to withhold them, so you'll get regional government.

Bernard: Would that matter?

Humphrey: Bernard, come and sit down.  What happens at the moment if there is some vacant land in, say, Nottingham and there are rival proposals for its use: hospital, college, airport?

Bernard: We set up an inter-departmental committee: Health, Education, Transport, Environment.  Ask for papers, hold meetings, propose, discuss, revise, report back, re-draft.

Humphrey: Precisely.  Months of fruitful work.  Leading to a mature and responsible conclusion.  But if you have regional government, they decide it all in Nottingham!  Probably in a couple of meetings!  Complete amateurs!

Bernard: It is their city.

Humphrey: And what happens to us?

Bernard: Well, much less work.

Humphrey: Yes, much less work!  So little that ministers might be able to do it on their own, so we'd have much less power!

Bernard: I don't know if I want power.

Humphrey: If the right people don't have power, know what happens?  The wrong people get it!  Politicians, councilors, ordinary voters!

Bernard: But aren't they supposed to in a democracy?

Humphrey: This is a British democracy, Bernard!

Bernard: How do you mean?

Humphrey: British democracy recognises that you need a system to protect the important things of life and keep them out of the hands of the barbarians!  Things like the opera...Radio 3...the countryside... the law...the universities...both of them.

Quote from: Valmy on September 10, 2014, 10:51:21 AM
I did like them explaining how Scotland should not be suckered by the British government like they were by Canada's...because the situations are perfectly analogous for some reason.

Quote from: mongers on September 10, 2014, 05:42:48 PM
Well England and possibly the rest of the UK, is now waking the fact the death-knell could be struck for the country they all live in, in 8 days time.  Kind of odd feeling.  <_<

Quote from: Zoupa on September 10, 2014, 06:25:51 PM

Quote from: Valmy on September 10, 2014, 10:51:21 AM
I did like them explaining how Scotland should not be suckered by the British government like they were by Canada's...because the situations are perfectly analogous for some reason.

You'll see.

Quote from: Zoupa on September 10, 2014, 06:25:51 PM

Quote from: Valmy on September 10, 2014, 10:51:21 AM
I did like them explaining how Scotland should not be suckered by the British government like they were by Canada's...because the situations are perfectly analogous for some reason.

You'll see.

Quote from: garbon on September 10, 2014, 06:37:09 PM

Quote from: mongers on September 10, 2014, 05:42:48 PM
Well England and possibly the rest of the UK, is now waking the fact the death-knell could be struck for the country they all live in, in 8 days time.  Kind of odd feeling.  <_<

Would Scotland lead an armed revolt if the UK refused to honor the results of the referendum?

Quote from: mongers on September 10, 2014, 07:34:51 PM
This is after all, at heart, a divorce; you can't force one partner to stay in the marriage if they longer wish it.

Quote from: Valmy on September 10, 2014, 07:36:31 PM
Even if they only 50.00000001% want it?

Quote from: mongers on September 10, 2014, 07:42:31 PM

Quote from: Valmy on September 10, 2014, 07:36:31 PM
Even if they only 50.00000001% want it?

.0003 of a person difference?  :hmm:

Quote from: viper37 on September 10, 2014, 10:25:41 PM

Quote from: garbon on September 10, 2014, 10:18:36 PM
I mean was Valmy or any American decrying nationalism as an evil? (Though clearly it can be when taken to extremes) I only recall raising an eyebrow that nationalism was a cause of the American Revolution.

See past threads.  We've been discussing that for 14 years, at least.

Quote from: viper37 on September 10, 2014, 10:25:41 PM

Quote from: garbon on September 10, 2014, 10:18:36 PM
I mean was Valmy or any American decrying nationalism as an evil? (Though clearly it can be when taken to extremes) I only recall raising an eyebrow that nationalism was a cause of the American Revolution.

See past threads.  We've been discussing that for 14 years, at least.

Quote from: viper37 on September 10, 2014, 10:14:21 PM

Quote from: Valmy on September 10, 2014, 05:05:29 PM
LOL all I said was that ethnically based states are a bad idea. 

I do remember our previous conversations on the subject.  I was just describing your general feeling, not your textual words.

There's just no difference between nationalism and patriotism, except that patriotims requires a state.

Quote from: Valmy on September 10, 2014, 10:51:21 AM
I did like them explaining how Scotland should not be suckered by the British government like they were by Canada's...because the situations are perfectly analogous for some reason.

QuoteMaybe they are being lied to, and maybe they are naive enough to believe in those lies.  But isn't this democracy?  Politicians can't often tell the truth, the truth doesn't get them elected, and if they aren't elected, they can't make the changes they believe are the better for the country.  Or you could be cynical and say that every politician is in there for the corruption money and/or the fat paycheck in the private sector at the end of their political carreer.

Quote from: Valmy on September 10, 2014, 11:02:16 PM
Well you got me there.  But you could say the same thing about the promises of the SNP.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on September 11, 2014, 04:15:02 AM
No one will be expelled from Flanders if and when we achieve independence. It's rather well known that francophone press is not shy of blatant (and no so blatant) lying when it comes to portraying Flanders. No wonder when you know that they get their queue from francophone politicians.

Quote from: Tamas on September 11, 2014, 04:20:59 AM
Europe is competing with massive continent-spanning entities like US, China, India, Russia, and here everyone is busy breaking up into smaller and smaller states. :bleeding:

Quote
North Korea 'backs Scottish independence'

Exclusive: Kim Jong-un's regime would support an independent Scotland under Alex Salmond and is hoping to trade its natural resources for Scotch whisky, officials tell Telegraph

North Korea is quietly backing the Yes vote in Scotland and would be keen to increase trade with a newly independent Edinburgh, according to officials of the Pyongyang regime.

"I think that independence would be a very positive thing for Scotland," Choe Kwan-il, managing editor of the Choson Sinbo newspaper, told The Telegraph.

Supported by Pyongyang, the Tokyo-based publication provides news to an estimated 200,000 Koreans who live in Japan but swear allegiance – and send vast amounts of financial support – to North Korea.

"We have not reported on the vote in Scotland yet, but we will after it has happened," Choe said.

"I believe that every person has the right to be a member of an independent nation, to have sovereignty, to live in peace and to enjoy equality," he said. "And I believe that a majority of Scots feel the same and will vote for independence."
Related Articles

So Chung-on, director of the International Affairs Bureau of The General Association of Korean Residents of Japan, said he was unaware if the forthcoming vote has been reported to the public in North Korea, but added that it almost certainly will be if Scotland votes "Yes".

"The result will be very important and if the Scots do vote to become independent, then North Korea will be prepared to respond to that," he said.

He said it is unlikely that North Korea will seek to establish an embassy in Edinburgh – due to cost concerns – although he added that he expects Edinburgh to have a diplomatic presence in Pyongyang through the existing British Embassy.

"I believe independence will be positive as it will encourage personal exchanges and provide both countries with business chances," said Choe. "North Korea is rich in natural resources and we like the taste of Scotch whisky, so we can be beneficial to each other."

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on September 11, 2014, 02:23:26 PM
So, how about them Scots?  :scots:

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on September 11, 2014, 02:23:26 PM
So, how about them Scots?  :scots:

Quote from: Barrister on September 11, 2014, 02:45:41 PM
As for the :scots: latest opinion polls still show a narrow but consistent lead for "No", 48-42%.

http://www.bbc.com/news/events/scotland-decides/poll-tracker

Quote from: Tyr on September 11, 2014, 03:37:37 PM
Should we give Scotland control over immigration?
it will be funny to see third worlders struggling to learn Gaelic for those extra points... And hey, it will give all 1000 Gaellic speakers out there so many job opportunities!

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 11, 2014, 03:57:56 PM
Heard on NPR that Lloyds and RBS have announced they will move their HQs to England if Scotland becomes independent.

Quote from: garbon on September 11, 2014, 04:12:06 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 11, 2014, 03:57:56 PM
Heard on NPR that Lloyds and RBS have announced they will move their HQs to England if Scotland becomes independent.

I wonder if RBS will discontinue printing its Scottish pound notes.

Quote from: Tyr on September 11, 2014, 04:45:41 PM
So... Who is right on the banks moving front, the nats or BT?
Salmond is claiming it wouldn't matter because it would just be a technicality and since most of their business is in Scotland all the tax would still go there.
This seems unusual to me... Don't several countries such  as Ireland, the caymans,etc... make huge money from companies that are mostly based elsewhere being registered in their country?

Quote from: Barrister on September 11, 2014, 02:45:41 PM
As for the :scots: latest opinion polls still show a narrow but consistent lead for "No", 48-42%.
http://www.bbc.com/news/events/scotland-decides/poll-tracker

Quote from: mongers on September 11, 2014, 07:39:48 PM
Reported to day a record 97% of the Scottish population* have registered to vote in the referendum.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 11, 2014, 07:49:10 PM

Quote from: mongers on September 11, 2014, 07:39:48 PM
Reported to day a record 97% of the Scottish population* have registered to vote in the referendum.

Is any resident qualified to vote?

Quote from: mongers on September 11, 2014, 08:09:19 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 11, 2014, 07:49:10 PM

Quote from: mongers on September 11, 2014, 07:39:48 PM
Reported to day a record 97% of the Scottish population* have registered to vote in the referendum.

Is any resident qualified to vote?

That I don't know.

Quote from: Jacob on September 12, 2014, 12:04:44 AM
Alright, I shovelled out most of the pointless Quebec wankery into its own thread. Let's try not to shit this thread up again?

Quote from: viper37 on September 11, 2014, 06:43:13 PM

Quote from: Barrister on September 11, 2014, 02:45:41 PM
As for the :scots: latest opinion polls still show a narrow but consistent lead for "No", 48-42%.
http://www.bbc.com/news/events/scotland-decides/poll-tracker

I took a close watch at these numbers.  they are crazy!

September 2nd: 48% No, 42% yes
September 5th:  45% No, 47% yes  -weird shift here
September 11th: 50% no, 45% yes - in line with the first one, but not the second, indecisive people splitting about equally toward each option.
All from You-Gov.

Survation has two polls in the last 30 days, both 48% No, 42% Yes.

Quote from: Jacob on September 12, 2014, 12:04:44 AM
Alright, I shovelled out most of the pointless Quebec wankery into its own thread. Let's try not to shit this thread up again?

Quote'The buggers are out to get us': aristocrats on independence fears
Scottish aristocrats tell high-society magazine Tatler from their ancestral castles that they fear a mansion tax


They might not be found on the campaign trail and they wouldn't be caught dead with a placard, but Scotland's reclusive aristocrats have expressed grave fears about the prospect of independence.

In a rare series of interviews from their ancestral castles, a string of Scottish grandees confided in the high-society magazine Tatler about their concerns if Scotland votes yes next week – not least the prospect of a dreaded castle tax.

Quote from: Jacob on September 12, 2014, 12:04:44 AM
Alright, I shovelled out most of the pointless Quebec wankery into its own thread. Let's try not to shit this thread up again?

Quote from: derspiess on September 12, 2014, 09:05:50 AM
Good time to have an impassioned Catalunya debate now.

QuoteNegotiations after a Scottish referendum Yes vote

In just over a week's time, Scottish voters will choose whether Scotland should become an independent country outside the United Kingdom, or remain a devolved part of the UK. It's a big decision, but they should not think that the referendum vote is the end of the matter. In reality, it is only the beginning. The pro-union parties have long made it clear that a No vote will start the process of delivering a form of enhanced devolution; a Yes vote will trigger a process leading to independence, about which there are few other certainties.

Much of the campaign in the last few weeks has been about creating a different sort of politics, and a different approach to social policy, within Scotland. But at least as important for Scotland as an independent state is the nature of its relations with the remaining part of the United Kingdom (rUK) – its much larger southerly neighbour, its main economic and trading partner, with which the Scottish Government aspires to share a currency, 'social union' and much more. All those plans are predicated on a close and amicable relationship with rUK, with Scotland able to enjoy the continuing benefit of a number of services that the UK presently offers to all its citizens.  The question is: can that vision actually be delivered? Even if that model t is the interests of an independent Scotland, why is it in the interests of rUK, if Scotland chooses a future outside it? If it is not, why should rUK comply with independent Scottish wishes – why is it in rUK's interests to do so?  And, given the differences in interest in securing that outcome, how might an independent Scotland make it happen?

If there is a Yes vote, there will be a complex and messy set of negotiations between referendum day and independence day. Before those negotiations can start, and certainly before the Scottish Government can talk to any entity outside the United Kingdom, a paving bill permitting it to do so would need to be passed by Westminster. At the end, following those negotiations, both UK and Scottish Parliaments will need to approve the resulting deal. Not all the issues that need to be resolved between rUK and an independent Scotland (iScotland) will be resolved by independence day. Indeed, if the Czech-Slovak parallels are anything to go by (and that was a much simpler case), they will not be fully resolved for at least two decades. That does not mean Scotland cannot become 'independent', but that independence will indeed be a process not an event, with many issues falling to be resolved only months or years later. However, for an independent Scotland to start functioning as an independent state, some key top-order issues have to be resolved. Prominent among these are:

the currency the new state will use, and who bears the risks associated with that
the borders of the new state – particularly its maritime borders, which will affect oil and gas reserves unless a distinct arrangement is made for these.
the arrangements for movement of persons between rUK and the new state, both at the border and more generally
whether, when and on what terms the new state will be or become a member of the European Union
the division of the UK's current National Debt
the division of other UK assets and liabilities – ranging from defence infrastructure to museum and gallery collections
what happens to the existing UK nuclear bases on the Clyde
if rUK is to continue to administer welfare and pensions payments in Scotland for some transitional period, the basis on which it will do so
the means by which outstanding issues are resolved, and what happens if the parties cannot reach agreement by negotiation.
A good deal could be said (and has been) about the merits of each individual issue, and many others besides. (For example, how will benefits or pensions be paid to Scottish claimants or recipients the month after independence? If, as is proposed, rUK continues to provide that service to Scottish citizens, why should it do so?) But resolving each of them, and the relationship between them, which will shape the overall nature of an independent Scottish state, will largely depend on the negotiations with rUK. That is key to the 'velvet divorce' the Yes side has suggested would be part of independence. However, successful negotiations depend on each side being able to reach agreement, because each has something the other wants. So how likely is an independent Scotland to secure what it wants from those negotiations? What does it have that rUK would be likely to want? And what does an independent Scotland have that rUK wants?

The common response from the Yes side is to talk about a Scottish 'mandate' for independence.  But that is largely irrelevant here, at least on the rUK side. So is referring to Article 30 of the 2012 Edinburgh Agreement which has led to the referendum, and commits the two governments 'to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom.' A mandate authorises the iScottish side to negotiate; Article 30 means holding negotiations about independence in good faith, and ensuring independence happens – not the terms on which it does so.

If the parties get to a negotiating table, the list of what iScotland has that rUK wants is short. One is continued membership of the United Kingdom – but that is lost if there is a Yes vote. The legitimacy of a UK including Scotland is ended, with no way back.  The obligations of the UK Government toward its citizens living in Scotland are not ended immediately, but they are attenuated, and as Scottish voters will no longer elect MPs, there is no political advantage in being helpful to them.  The act of having a mandate to negotiate means one key potential negotiating point is completely exhausted from the outset.  That card cannot be played again.

A second is that rUK would not want iScotland becoming a failed state. A failed state on the northern border would pose an unacceptable level of risk, in security and other terms. But even if an independent Scotland were significantly less prosperous, inclusive or happy than it is within the UK, that is a far cry from being a failed state. Indeed, the threshold of failing in the way that Afghanistan or Somalia failed is so high that it is almost impossible to imagine what would undermine iScotland so gravely as to make it a failed state. That is therefore not a strong negotiating point.

Third, there is Trident, while the UK/rUK remains committed to nuclear weapons. The thinking until now has been that the Clyde bases were crucial to that, and that might be a strong card. But it is a weaker card if there is a realistic prospect of relocating them elsewhere, as Hugh Chalmers and Malcolm Chalmers of RUSI have recently suggested. In any case, the commitment of the SNP and the wider pro-independence coalition to a Scotland free of nuclear weapons means the Scottish Government has little or no scope to make an offer to rUK for nuclear weapons bases – whether by lease, some sort of carve-out to mean they would not strictly speaking be on Scottish soil, or some other means. The pro-independence side has little room for manoeuvre here, given the commitments of its supporters. All that might be for discussion is the length of the 'withdrawal period', suggested in the Scottish Government's independence white paper as four years (by the 2020 Scottish Parliament elections). There have been suggestions that this might be stretched (and Chalmers and Chalmers suggest removal before 2028 would be very difficult technically). However, any lease less than about 50 years is of limited value if rUK wishes to commission a successor to Trident based in Scotland – with a shorter arrangement, the bases would need to be moved mid-term at considerable cost and with operational implications. So that negotiating point is worth little too, even if rUK is determined to remain a top-tier nuclear power (and is worthless if rUK gives up on that aspiration).

As for other issues like a common travel zone, these are much more marginal to rUK – and much more important to iScotland. The desire to have an arrangement that minimises the border and its impact is much stronger for iScotland than rUK.

On the other hand, what does Scotland want or need? Its desire to 'share the pound' has been clearly ruled out by the UK Government. What is important for Scottish voters to realise is that a currency union transfers a disproportionate degree of risk to rUK. It is very hard for rUK politicians to justify taking on those risks for what would be another country. There might be a huge advantage to iScotland from a currency union – but what does it offer rUK? The convenience factor of lower transaction costs is of very limited importance for rUK and its citizens and businesses.  The January announcement means there will be no negotiation about this – but even if there were, what does iScotland have to offer to compensate rUK for the potentially huge risks it would incur?

Similarly, free movement across the border, a 'social union' or access to the BBC may have strong attractions for iScotland, but what do they offer rUK? An open border needs to be structured in such a way that it does not cause any security threat to rUK – which means at least some control over iScotland's immigration policy. A key element to making an open border work would also be the nature of citizenship of UK citizens living in Scotland or with Scottish connections – something on which the white paper is strikingly silent. A further issue, given English concerns about immigration, it would also have to include limits on the rights of people immigrating to Scotland to move to rUK – so it would not be as open as the UK-Irish border is, or the UK is to people from other EU member states. Similarly, why should Scotland get access to the services of the BBC?  If it wishes to have the BBC (and the white paper makes a set of detailed criticisms of it), it will need to pay rUK for doing so – and why should rUK offer the full range of BBC services to Scottish listeners and viewers for less than those in rUK?  And Scottish residents would also have to fund the proposed Scottish Broadcasting Service as well.  Deals may be done, but on what terms?  The question in such cases is what does iScotland have to offer rUK for making a concession which matters a great deal to iScotland but just not very much to rUK?

The problem with all these issues is the asymmetry.  They simply matter much more to iScotland, and its citizens, than they do to rUK.  No amount of wishful thinking can change that.  Something has to be put into the balance to switch the way rUK calculates its benefit and disadvantage from making such concessions to iScotland.  This is aggravated by the way almost all 'default options' will be to rUK's benefit and iScotland's disbenefit.  By seceding from the UK, iScotland has to make a case to change the loss of much of what it presently enjoys through the UK which appeals to more than emotion.

One negotiating point iScotland would not have – or which can only be used at hugely disproportionate cost – is not taking a share of the UK's current National Debt. There is scope for negotiations about the size of that share, how it is calculated and how it is offset against other UK assets. But threatening to repudiate a share of the UK National Debt – as various pro-independence hot-heads, and more recently John Swinney – have threatened is about as counter-productive as one can imagine. If iScotland acts unilaterally, it will make itself an international pariah. If it is able to borrow on the global markets at all, repudiation of debt will mean it incurs a very hefty premium on its interest rates. An ongoing dispute with rUK will impede or completely block negotiations about membership of the European Union, as well as international organisations like NATO. There will be sour, damaging relations with rUK for bilateral matters as well.

By contrast, rUK could be a valuable ally for iScotland in securing membership of such bodies as the EU and NATO. There would be three options for rUK; actively to assist and persuade, to remain impartial and do nothing, or actively to obstruct iScotland. It can be helpful, unhelpful, or sit on its hands.  Each of those positions would have a material impact – active assistance and a 'velvet divorce' would make iScotland's passage to statehood hugely easier, active opposition would make it much harder (but without triggering the real threat to rUK of a failed state).

About the only card left for Scotland is to string out the negotiating process so that rUK makes concessions out of exhaustion and frustration.  But this would mean abandoning the May 2016 target for independence (problematic though that is in any case), souring relations with rUK, and undermining democracy in both rUK and iScotland.  If Scots want to be in a different state, that wish should be implemented as swiftly as practicable – not postponed to suit the convenience of the Scottish Government.

It may be a bitter truth for advocates of independence, but an independent Scotland would remain heavily dependent on rUK in a large number of ways. These ways are important for iScotland, but not particularly for its much larger neighbour. To secure an advantageous ongoing arrangement, it has to be able to make convincing proposals to rUK that deliver things rUK wants or needs – and the list of those, once there has been a Yes vote, is small. The upsides of a velvet divorce for Scotland are huge, and the downsides of the opposite – a grinding-wheel divorce? – even larger. But if a divorce is happening, its nature simply does not matter much to rUK. If there are independence negotiations, iScotland will essentially be a supplicant to rUK, so weak that it largely has to accept what rUK offers.  Scottish voters need to bear that in mind when they head to the poll.

Quote from: Legbiter on September 12, 2014, 09:57:17 AM
How would an independent Catalonia have affected the ACW?  :hmm:

Quote from: Zanza on September 12, 2014, 10:07:17 AM
"rUK"? Wouldn't it make more sense to call that "England"? After all the two constituent kingdoms of the UK are Scotland and England.

Quote from: Jacob on September 12, 2014, 11:37:22 AM
I wonder what would happen to the flag. I've seen some pretty ghastly suggestions.

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 11:33:23 AM
Most countries have names that aren't particularly relevant to the modern country.

Quote from: garbon on September 12, 2014, 11:41:04 AM

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 11:33:23 AM
Most countries have names that aren't particularly relevant to the modern country.

Some examples?

Quote from: garbon on September 12, 2014, 11:40:24 AM

Quote from: Jacob on September 12, 2014, 11:37:22 AM
I wonder what would happen to the flag. I've seen some pretty ghastly suggestions.

If I were a citizen, I'd vote to just keep it as is.

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 12:02:03 PM

Quote from: garbon on September 12, 2014, 11:41:04 AM

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 11:33:23 AM
Most countries have names that aren't particularly relevant to the modern country.

Some examples?

Belgium . There's no celts there.

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 12:02:03 PM

Quote from: garbon on September 12, 2014, 11:41:04 AM

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 11:33:23 AM
Most countries have names that aren't particularly relevant to the modern country.

Some examples?

Belgium . There's no celts there.
China. It's not in the centre of anything.
Bolivia. Bolivar is dead. And was hardly particular to Bolivia.

Quote from: garbon on September 12, 2014, 11:40:24 AM

Quote from: Jacob on September 12, 2014, 11:37:22 AM
I wonder what would happen to the flag. I've seen some pretty ghastly suggestions.

If I were a citizen, I'd vote to just keep it as is.

Quote from: Barrister on September 12, 2014, 12:10:40 PM

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 12:02:03 PM

Quote from: garbon on September 12, 2014, 11:41:04 AM

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 11:33:23 AM
Most countries have names that aren't particularly relevant to the modern country.

Some examples?

Belgium . There's no celts there.
China. It's not in the centre of anything.
Bolivia. Bolivar is dead. And was hardly particular to Bolivia.

Canada - from the Iroquois word for village -kanata.

Quote from: Reuters
Capital flows out of UK before Scots vote on independence, report shows
Fri, Sep 12 14:18 PM BST

By Jamie McGeever

LONDON, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Investors pulled $27 billion out of UK financial assets last month - the biggest capital outflow since the Lehman crisis in 2008 - as concern mounted about the economic and financial consequences if Scotland left the UK, a report showed on Friday.

People in Scotland will vote in a referendum on independence on Sept 18, and the decision is on a knife edge after the pro-independence campaign overcame a 20-point deficit in the polls since the start of August. The most recent ICM/Gaurdian poll released on Friday put the gap at just 51 percent intending to vote "No" to 49 percent in favour of "Yes".

Data compiled by London-based consultancy CrossBorder Capital said financial outflows from the UK totaled $27 billion in August, compared with inflows of $8.9 billion the same month last year.

That's the biggest monthly outflow since the white heat of the financial crisis in 2008, when giant U.S. bank Lehman Brothers went bust. It exceeded the selling of UK assets seen around the 2010 general election, when an inconclusive result led to several days of uncertainty.

"Sterling outflows have been an issue since the end of June, but they really gathered pace in August and now look like intensifying again with the possibility of Scottish independence coming to the front of investors' minds,", said Michael Howell, the managing director of CrossBorder Capital, which compiles the index.

The UK outflow was more than double the combined outflow from Germany and Australia. France, the United States, Canada and Japan all attracted net inflows.

Also on Friday, Morgan Stanley said daily equity flow data pointed to "some of the largest UK equity selling on record, demonstrating investor concerns ahead of the Scottish referendum next week."

Concern over the financial, economic and political effects if the UK breaks up has also weighed on sterling, triggering a surge in exchange rate volatility to its highest since the 2010 general election. In addition, selling pressure has mounted as speculation grew that the Bank of England would soon raise interest rates.

Volatility also swept through global markets this summer, a result of the deepening Russia-Ukraine crisis. According to CrossBorder Capital data, some $26 billion flowed out of UK financial assets in July.

CrossBorder Capital analyses published data on equity, bond and banking flows from a range of sources, including the Bank for International Settlements, exchange traded funds and national current account records. Foreign direct investment flows are excluded.

It uses the data to compile its "Global Liquidity Index". The UK component of this index fell to 28.6 in August from 33.8 a month earlier and an annual high of 62.3 in February. A reading above 50 denotes expansion, a reading below 50 a contraction.

"The sterling index has effectively collapsed and the UK is second only to Japan in terms of financial market outflows," Howell said.

So far this year, there has been a net $206 billion outflow from the UK. Last year, there was a net annual inflow of $63 billion, Howell said. (Reporting by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Larry King)

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 11, 2014, 03:57:56 PM
Heard on NPR that Lloyds and RBS have announced they will move their HQs to England if Scotland becomes independent.

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 12:02:03 PM
Belgium . There's no celts there.
China. It's not in the centre of anything.
Bolivia. Bolivar is dead. And was hardly particular to Bolivia.

Quote from: Martinus on September 12, 2014, 02:34:20 PM
Tyr as always shows himself to be silly. The United Kingdom is not a geographical or a historical name - it is a name specifically relevant to the political structure of the state. If the United Kingdom uses the name after Scotland leaves, it would be like modern Poland using the name of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania.

Quote from: Martinus on September 12, 2014, 02:34:20 PM
Tyr as always shows himself to be silly. The United Kingdom is not a geographical or a historical name - it is a name specifically relevant to the political structure of the state. If the United Kingdom uses the name after Scotland leaves, it would be like modern Poland using the name of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania.

Quote from: garbon on September 12, 2014, 02:38:15 PM
The official name is United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I don't see why it couldn't be "United Kingdom of England and Northern Ireland" and still go by United Kingdom as a commonly used name.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 12, 2014, 02:53:53 PM

Quote from: garbon on September 12, 2014, 02:38:15 PM
The official name is United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I don't see why it couldn't be "United Kingdom of England and Northern Ireland" and still go by United Kingdom as a commonly used name.

Because the kingdoms united in the United Kingdom are England and Scotland.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 12, 2014, 03:16:49 PM
The problem I'm having with that is that Ireland hadn't been a kingdom for some time when it was annexed, no?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 12, 2014, 03:16:49 PM
The problem I'm having with that is that Ireland hadn't been a kingdom for some time when it was annexed, no?

Quote from: Berkut on September 12, 2014, 03:27:56 PM
So if this fails, and I think at this point only the insane hope otherwise, hopefully if nothing else the exercise will have shown why the entire idea is so terrible, and nobody will revisit it again.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on September 12, 2014, 06:22:24 PM

Quote from: Berkut on September 12, 2014, 03:27:56 PM
So if this fails, and I think at this point only the insane hope otherwise, hopefully if nothing else the exercise will have shown why the entire idea is so terrible, and nobody will revisit it again.

I think that the overwhelming majority of UK citizens would like their government to be less centralised. Sheilbh mentioned way back in this thread how bin collections were being interfered with by a cabinet minister, utterly ridiculous but also typical of the current arrangements.

Hopefully there will be a NO vote and subsequent improvements to the way the whole of the UK is governed.

Quote from: Martinus on September 12, 2014, 02:34:20 PM
Tyr as always shows himself to be silly. The United Kingdom is not a geographical or a historical name - it is a name specifically relevant to the political structure of the state. If the United Kingdom uses the name after Scotland leaves, it would be like modern Poland using the name of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania.

Quote from: Berkut on September 12, 2014, 06:26:19 PM
Yeah, I could certainly see that. And that would be a good thing - the tendency towards any federal government to take on power and more control to itself is well known.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 12, 2014, 03:16:49 PM
The problem I'm having with that is that Ireland hadn't been a kingdom for some time when it was annexed, no?

Quote from: grumbler on September 12, 2014, 02:32:19 PM

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 12:02:03 PM
Belgium . There's no celts there.
China. It's not in the centre of anything.
Bolivia. Bolivar is dead. And was hardly particular to Bolivia.

China is named after the Chin dynasty.  Why is that suddenly not relevant?

Why can countries only be named for living people?  What sense does that make?

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 07:50:25 PM
It makes a bit more sense to name a country after it's current leader than a long dead figure.

Quote from: garbon on September 12, 2014, 08:38:26 PM
So a country should be constantly renaming itself?

Quote from: derspiess on September 12, 2014, 03:08:01 PM
You guys gotta do more to convince Yi.

Quote from: Barrister on September 12, 2014, 02:37:21 PM

Quote from: Martinus on September 12, 2014, 02:34:20 PM
Tyr as always shows himself to be silly. The United Kingdom is not a geographical or a historical name - it is a name specifically relevant to the political structure of the state. If the United Kingdom uses the name after Scotland leaves, it would be like modern Poland using the name of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania.

Well, not quite.

The full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

They could just as easily keep that same name, or could change to the United Kingdom of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

QuoteScottish independence
UK RIP?

Ditching the union would be a mistake for Scotland and a tragedy for the country it leaves behind

Sep 13th 2014 | From the print edition

SCHOOLCHILDREN once imagined their place in the world, with its complex networks and allegiances, by writing elaborate postal addresses. British youngsters began with their street and town (London or Manchester, Edinburgh or Cardiff), followed by England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland; then came the United Kingdom (and after that Europe, the World, the Universe...). They understood that the UK, and all its collective trials and achievements—the industrial revolution, the Empire, victory over the Nazis, the welfare state—were as much a part of their patrimony as the Scottish Highlands or English cricket. They knew, instinctively, that these concentric rings of identity were complementary, not opposed.

At least, they used to. After the referendum on Scottish independence on September 18th, one of those layers—the UK—may cease to exist, at least in the form recognisable since the Act of Union three centuries ago. As the vote nears, Scotland's nationalists have caught up with the unionist No camp in the opinion polls, and even edged ahead (see article). More and more Scots are deciding that the UK, which their soldiers, statesmen, philosophers and businessmen have done so much to build and ornament, does not cradle their Scottishness but smothers it. This great multinational state could be undone in a single day, by a poll in which just 7% of its citizens will participate. That outcome, once unthinkable, would be bad for Scotland and tragic for what remained of the UK.

The damage a split would do

The rump of Britain would be diminished in every international forum: why should anyone heed a country whose own people shun it? Since Britain broadly stands for free trade and the maintenance of international order, this would be bad for the world. Its status as a nuclear power would be doubtful: the country's nuclear submarines are based in a Scottish loch and could not be moved quickly. Britain would also be more likely to leave the European Union, since Scots are better disposed to Europe than are the English (and are less likely to vote for the Conservatives, who are promising a Euro-referendum if they win next year's general election). The prospect of a British exit from the EU would scare investors much more than a possible Scottish exit from Britain (see article).

The people of Scotland alone will decide the future of Britain, and they are not obliged to worry about what becomes of the state they would leave. But—perhaps not surprisingly, given the endurance and success of the union, imperilled though it is—Scots' own interests, and the rest of Britain's, coincide.

At the heart of the nationalist campaign is the claim that Scotland would be a more prosperous and more equal country if it went solo. It is rich in oil and inherently decent, say the nationalists, but impoverished by a government in Westminster that has also imposed callous policies. They blame successive British governments for almost every ill that has befallen Scotland, from the decline of manufacturing industry to ill-health to the high price of sending parcels in the Highlands. Alex Salmond, Scotland's nationalist leader, is broad in his recrimination: Labour and the Tories are of a piece, he suggests, in their disregard for Scotland.

But Scotland's relative economic decline is the result not of southern neglect but of the shift of manufacturing and shipping to Asia. If Westminster has not reversed all the deleterious effects of globalisation and technology, that is because to do so is impossible. The nationalists know this, which is why, sotto voce, they would continue many of Westminster's policies. Instead they make much of minor adjustments, such as abolishing the "bedroom tax", a recent measure designed to nudge people out of too-large social housing. To break up a country over such small, recent annoyances would be nuts.

The nationalists' economics are also flawed. Scotland would not, in fact, be richer alone. The taxes that would flow to it from the North Sea would roughly compensate for the extra cost of its lavish state, which would no longer be funded by Westminster (last year spending was some £1,300 per person higher in Scotland than elsewhere in Britain). But oil revenues are erratic. They would have earned Scotland £11.5 billion in 2008-09 but only £5.5 billion in 2012-13. If an independent state were to smooth these fluctuations by setting up an oil fund, it would have less cash to spend now. In any case, the oil is gradually running out. In order to maintain state spending after it is gone, taxes would have to rise. And a crunch might come much sooner. Foreign investors and big businesses that mostly serve English customers could well move south.

Westminster has ruled out a currency union (see article)—correctly, given that the nationalists propose a deficit-widening fiscal splurge and that the assets of Scottish banks are an alarming 12 times the country's GDP. It might relent, but only if Scotland agrees to such strict oversight that independence ends up meaning little. The nationalists say that kinks over currency and the like could be worked out amicably—that it would not be in Britain's interests to antagonise its new northern neighbour, particularly since (they hint darkly) Scotland could refuse to take on its share of the national debt. They are far too sanguine. If Scotland goes, the rest of Britain will be furious, both at the Scots and at their own leaders, who will be impelled to drive a hard bargain.

Mr Salmond is on stronger ground when he argues that if Scotland does not leave Britain it might be dragged out of the EU against its will. This is indeed a danger, but in going independent Scotland would swap the possibility of an EU exit for a certain future as a small, vulnerable country. Its best hope of remaining influential is to stay put, and fight the Eurosceptics.

A lot to lose

In the end the referendum will turn not on calculations of taxes and oil revenue, but on identity and power. The idea that Scots can shape their own destiny, both at the referendum and afterwards, is exhilarating. Yet Scotland already controls many of its own affairs (even if Mr Salmond's Scottish National Party, which runs the devolved government and is driving the Yes campaign, has not done much with its powers so far). Moreover, as Westminster politicians of all stripes have hastily made clear, if Scotland votes No, the devolved administration will soon get so much clout that the practical difference between staying in the union and leaving it will narrow. That would also lead to the distribution of power away from Westminster and to other bits of Britain, which should have happened long ago.

So by staying in, Scots will not just save the union but enhance it, as they have for 300 years. For the UK, with all its triumphs and eccentricities, belongs to Scots as much as it does to the English—even if increasing numbers of them seem ready to disown that glorious, hard-earned heritage, and to simplify their identities by stripping out one of those concentric rings. That goes against both the spirit of this fluid century—in which most people have multiple identities, whether of place, ethnicity or religion—and the evidence of the preceding three. For all its tensions and rivalries, and sometimes because of them, the history of the union shows that the Scots, Welsh, English and Northern Irish are stronger, more tolerant and more imaginative together than they would be apart.


From the print edition: Leaders

Quote from: garbon on September 12, 2014, 08:38:26 PM

Quote from: Tyr on September 12, 2014, 07:50:25 PM
It makes a bit more sense to name a country after it's current leader than a long dead figure.

So a country should be constantly renaming itself?

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on September 12, 2014, 02:15:14 PM

Quote from: Reuters
Capital flows out of UK before Scots vote on independence, report shows
Fri, Sep 12 14:18 PM BST

By Jamie McGeever

LONDON, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Investors pulled $27 billion out of UK financial assets last month - the biggest capital outflow since the Lehman crisis in 2008 - as concern mounted about the economic and financial consequences if Scotland left the UK, a report showed on Friday.

People in Scotland will vote in a referendum on independence on Sept 18, and the decision is on a knife edge after the pro-independence campaign overcame a 20-point deficit in the polls since the start of August. The most recent ICM/Gaurdian poll released on Friday put the gap at just 51 percent intending to vote "No" to 49 percent in favour of "Yes".

Data compiled by London-based consultancy CrossBorder Capital said financial outflows from the UK totaled $27 billion in August, compared with inflows of $8.9 billion the same month last year.

That's the biggest monthly outflow since the white heat of the financial crisis in 2008, when giant U.S. bank Lehman Brothers went bust. It exceeded the selling of UK assets seen around the 2010 general election, when an inconclusive result led to several days of uncertainty.

"Sterling outflows have been an issue since the end of June, but they really gathered pace in August and now look like intensifying again with the possibility of Scottish independence coming to the front of investors' minds,", said Michael Howell, the managing director of CrossBorder Capital, which compiles the index.

The UK outflow was more than double the combined outflow from Germany and Australia. France, the United States, Canada and Japan all attracted net inflows.

Also on Friday, Morgan Stanley said daily equity flow data pointed to "some of the largest UK equity selling on record, demonstrating investor concerns ahead of the Scottish referendum next week."

Concern over the financial, economic and political effects if the UK breaks up has also weighed on sterling, triggering a surge in exchange rate volatility to its highest since the 2010 general election. In addition, selling pressure has mounted as speculation grew that the Bank of England would soon raise interest rates.

Volatility also swept through global markets this summer, a result of the deepening Russia-Ukraine crisis. According to CrossBorder Capital data, some $26 billion flowed out of UK financial assets in July.

CrossBorder Capital analyses published data on equity, bond and banking flows from a range of sources, including the Bank for International Settlements, exchange traded funds and national current account records. Foreign direct investment flows are excluded.

It uses the data to compile its "Global Liquidity Index". The UK component of this index fell to 28.6 in August from 33.8 a month earlier and an annual high of 62.3 in February. A reading above 50 denotes expansion, a reading below 50 a contraction.

"The sterling index has effectively collapsed and the UK is second only to Japan in terms of financial market outflows," Howell said.

So far this year, there has been a net $206 billion outflow from the UK. Last year, there was a net annual inflow of $63 billion, Howell said. (Reporting by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Larry King)

I don't see why Scotland voting yes would be a huge problem for UK equities, so maybe it's just general political uncertainty selling.

QuoteDid losing an English girl's love turn Salmond into a raging Nat? QUENTIN LETTS delves into the mind of the man who wants to destroy the UK

Quote from: Tyr on September 14, 2014, 05:39:34 PM
A serious thought I had today: I wonder how the vote will impact on suicides.
Thinking about it, either way it strikes me there will be some very unhappy people.
If yes wins in particular....well even I would feel pretty messed up, I'd have pretty much lost the country I know, and I'm not even Scottish.

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on September 14, 2014, 05:50:33 PM
The country you've been avoiding the past 10 years?  :hmm:

Quote from: Syt on September 15, 2014, 02:11:19 PM
If the Scots vote for independence on Thursday, I guess the rest of the UK will walk away Scot free.

Quote from: Martinus on September 15, 2014, 02:34:01 PM

Quote from: Syt on September 15, 2014, 02:11:19 PM
If the Scots vote for independence on Thursday, I guess the rest of the UK will walk away Scot free.

I guess the UK will fall prey to the No True Scottsman fallacy.

Quote from: Razgovory on September 15, 2014, 01:18:08 PM
The whole thing seems absurd to me.

Quote from: derspiess on September 15, 2014, 03:04:25 PM
Yeah, but at this point my thinking is if a majority want to split away, fine.  Let them learn from their mistake.

QuoteWon't happen, though.  The "No" vote will win by a fairly healthy margin.

Quote from: Barrister on September 15, 2014, 04:00:48 PM
If you demand a clear majority for independence, then surely you need a clear majority for the status quo as well.

Quote from: Barrister on September 15, 2014, 04:00:48 PM

If you demand a clear majority for independence, then surely you need a clear majority for the status quo as well.

Quote from: Malthus on September 15, 2014, 04:04:46 PM

Quote from: Barrister on September 15, 2014, 04:00:48 PM

If you demand a clear majority for independence, then surely you need a clear majority for the status quo as well.

What happens if there isn't a clear majority for either?  ;)

Quote from: Barrister on September 15, 2014, 04:00:48 PM
The advantage to having a 50%+1 threshold, is that 49.9% then is not good enough.

If you demand a clear majority for independence, then surely you need a clear majority for the status quo as well.

Quote from: Barrister on September 15, 2014, 04:00:48 PM
The advantage to having a 50%+1 threshold, is that 49.9% then is not good enough.

If you demand a clear majority for independence, then surely you need a clear majority for the status quo as well.

Quote from: Malthus on September 15, 2014, 02:58:41 PM

Quote from: Martinus on September 15, 2014, 02:34:01 PM

Quote from: Syt on September 15, 2014, 02:11:19 PM
If the Scots vote for independence on Thursday, I guess the rest of the UK will walk away Scot free.

I guess the UK will fall prey to the No True Scottsman fallacy.

Can one be a true Scotsman and vote "No"?  ;)

Quote from: Malthus on September 15, 2014, 04:04:46 PM

Quote from: Barrister on September 15, 2014, 04:00:48 PM

If you demand a clear majority for independence, then surely you need a clear majority for the status quo as well.

What happens if there isn't a clear majority for either?  ;)

Quote from: Valmy on September 15, 2014, 03:55:41 PM
I don't know man.  I would prefer to see super majorities for a Constitutional shift of this magnitude.  I mean we require it simply to change the Constitution.  If there is indeed a justifiable reason for independence a 67% majority should be pretty easy to obtain.  If the colonies had voted 7-6 for Independence in 1776 instead of being unanimous I don't think we would have gone forward with it.  Besides this is not the sort of mistake one 'learns' from.  This is a once in a century unreversable political decision....if they vote yes anyway.

Quote from: Barrister on September 15, 2014, 04:00:48 PM
The advantage to having a 50%+1 threshold, is that 49.9% then is not good enough.

If you demand a clear majority for independence, then surely you need a clear majority for the status quo as well.

Quote from: Malthus on September 15, 2014, 04:13:26 PM
England should use history as its guide - and, if the Scots vote "yes", get them interested in a new Darien project.  :ph34r:

Quote from: grumbler on September 15, 2014, 04:08:35 PM

Quote from: Malthus on September 15, 2014, 02:58:41 PM

Quote from: Martinus on September 15, 2014, 02:34:01 PM

Quote from: Syt on September 15, 2014, 02:11:19 PM
If the Scots vote for independence on Thursday, I guess the rest of the UK will walk away Scot free.

I guess the UK will fall prey to the No True Scottsman fallacy.

Can one be a true Scotsman and vote "No"?  ;)

No true Scotsman would vote "no."

Quote from: Jacob on September 15, 2014, 01:36:27 PM
Hey Brits - how seriously should "if Scotland goes, the Orkneys might try to stay in the UK" be taken?

Elsewhere I've seen it treated as "that would be negotiating in bad faith, and the foundation of the referendum is an agreement to negotiate in good faith, so it's basically off the table."

Does that sound right to you?

QuoteIf you demand a clear majority for independence, then surely you need a clear majority for the status quo as well.

QuoteOk so if we decide to adopt an amendment to the Constitution but get only 55% of Congress to approve it we should...destroy the Constitution and start over?

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 15, 2014, 04:34:22 PM

Quote from: Jacob on September 15, 2014, 01:36:27 PM
Hey Brits - how seriously should "if Scotland goes, the Orkneys might try to stay in the UK" be taken?

Elsewhere I've seen it treated as "that would be negotiating in bad faith, and the foundation of the referendum is an agreement to negotiate in good faith, so it's basically off the table."

Does that sound right to you?

It's mad. Unless the Northern Isles were to negotiate with Norway (which they and Caithness certainly could based on their history).

We know what Scotland is, if they decide to leave then the borders are pretty well settled.

Quote from: Barrister on September 15, 2014, 04:37:42 PM
Why?  Self-determination has little to do with history - it has to do with the desires of the population.  If Orcadians wish to remain as part of the UK, why shouldn't they?

Quote from: Tyr on September 15, 2014, 04:38:59 PM
There isnt much serious talk about the northern isles leaving (though there is some) but....the numbers for them breaking off and declaring independence make a lot more sense than for Scotland as a whole. And it would be sweet.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 15, 2014, 04:46:55 PM
How did the Orkneys become part of Scotland?

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 15, 2014, 04:45:01 PM

Quote from: Barrister on September 15, 2014, 04:37:42 PM
Why?  Self-determination has little to do with history - it has to do with the desires of the population.  If Orcadians wish to remain as part of the UK, why shouldn't they?

National independence has a lot to do with history - as does the argument for Union.

It's a part of Scotland - and has been for about 600 years - which is the entity voting on independence. We can't start nibbling at that and pointing out borough councils that are less keen on independence any more than the Scots can start suggesting Berwick may like to join. This isn't an ethnic self-determination - like you'd perhaps get in Eastern Europe - but one of a historical nation choosing to withdraw from a union she entered with another.

As Jacob says it'd be in bad faith. If Scotland leave we want them to do well because Great Britain is too small for a zero sum game. There's no need to create a poisonous atmosphere that'll need to be extensively maintained.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 15, 2014, 04:46:55 PM
How did the Orkneys become part of Scotland?

Quote from: Barrister on September 15, 2014, 04:50:18 PM
History plays into it because history influences people's sense of self-identity, there is no reason that Scotland's borders are any less negotiable than the UK's are.

QuoteWould it get messy?  Yes of course it would.  But that is always going to be the problem when breaking up a nation.  You can't ignore the democratic wishes of easily distinguishable geographic regions just because it is inconvenient.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 15, 2014, 04:46:55 PM
How did the Orkneys become part of Scotland?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 15, 2014, 06:34:16 PM
Only vaguely related to the topic, is Sassenach (sp?) the Gaelic pronounciation of Saxon, or does it come from a different root?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 15, 2014, 06:34:16 PM
Only vaguely related to the topic, is Sassenach (sp?) the Gaelic pronounciation of Saxon, or does it come from a different root?

Quote from: Razgovory on September 15, 2014, 08:10:51 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 15, 2014, 06:34:16 PM
Only vaguely related to the topic, is Sassenach (sp?) the Gaelic pronounciation of Saxon, or does it come from a different root?

I think it's ultimately derived from what ever the Saxons called themselves.  But those things are always complex.  Like the word "YorK" which probably came originally from some gaelic word and was then modified for Latin, then Old English, then Norse, then old English again, then Norman, and finally Modern English.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 15, 2014, 04:46:55 PM
How did the Orkneys become part of Scotland?

QuoteIn 1468 Orkney was pledged by Christian I, in his capacity as king of Norway, as security against the payment of the dowry of his daughter Margaret, betrothed to James III of Scotland. As the money was never paid, the connection with the crown of Scotland has become perpetual.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on September 16, 2014, 04:09:17 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on September 15, 2014, 08:10:51 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 15, 2014, 06:34:16 PM
Only vaguely related to the topic, is Sassenach (sp?) the Gaelic pronounciation of Saxon, or does it come from a different root?

I think it's ultimately derived from what ever the Saxons called themselves.  But those things are always complex.  Like the word "YorK" which probably came originally from some gaelic word and was then modified for Latin, then Old English, then Norse, then old English again, then Norman, and finally Modern English.

iirc, the Latinised name fro York is Eburacum.
Aand again iirc (it's been a while since I studied Gallo-Roman settlements) placenames ending on "acum" are usually adapted from celtic and refer to a trading place or market place.
(a few others are Cortoriacum or Kortrijk/Courtrai, Bagacum Nerviorum or Beuken/Bavay, Camaracum or Kamerijk/Cambrai)
Assuming that the information isn't outdated completely of course

Quote from: mongers on September 16, 2014, 07:16:02 AM
48 hours to save the Union.  :cry:

Quote from: KRonn on September 16, 2014, 07:42:28 AM

Quote from: mongers on September 16, 2014, 07:16:02 AM
48 hours to save the Union.  :cry:

Indeed, this is getting kind of scary, eh? The breakup of the UK?  :(

Quote from: PJL on September 16, 2014, 07:57:35 AM
I think whatever happens, the UK will never be the same again. At the very least Scotland will get significant new devolved powers, which could cause resentment in England & Wales, and calls for more powers towards the regions and localities.

Quote from: mongers on September 15, 2014, 07:06:04 PM
Scotland divided.

Earlier Channel 4 news interviewed the clan chief of MacLaren, one of the oldest clans, he's pro-independence, his wife is adamantly No and they preceded to argue quite strongly on camera.
Of their five children (judging by the surnames from two marriages), two are voting no and three yes, the held similarly strong opinions on the issue.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 15, 2014, 04:48:16 PM

Quote from: Tyr on September 15, 2014, 04:38:59 PM
There isnt much serious talk about the northern isles leaving (though there is some) but....the numbers for them breaking off and declaring independence make a lot more sense than for Scotland as a whole. And it would be sweet.

They get so much money from the centre and from the EU :lol:

I half-hope they embrace their Viking heritage more fully* and try and join Norway :lol:

* They're already pretty keen:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scotland.orets%2F2361%2Fup_helly_aa_%2822%29__gallery.jpg&hash=54d8e7bedf4e900b004aed16c8a66a7977aa38e5)

Quote from: Berkut on September 16, 2014, 10:32:59 AM
Prediction: This fails, and it isn't even that close.

I think there is a significant portion of people who answer "Yes" to the question in a poll, but realize that it is actually a pretty idea and vote "No" when it comes right down to it...

Quote from: Berkut on September 16, 2014, 10:32:59 AM
Prediction: This fails, and it isn't even that close.

I think there is a significant portion of people who answer "Yes" to the question in a poll, but realize that it is actually a pretty idea and vote "No" when it comes right down to it...

Quote from: mongers on September 16, 2014, 12:28:40 PM

Quote from: Berkut on September 16, 2014, 10:32:59 AM
Prediction: This fails, and it isn't even that close.

I think there is a significant portion of people who answer "Yes" to the question in a poll, but realize that it is actually a pretty idea and vote "No" when it comes right down to it...

Quoted for posterity.

Quote from: Berkut on September 16, 2014, 12:31:43 PM

Quote from: mongers on September 16, 2014, 12:28:40 PM

Quote from: Berkut on September 16, 2014, 10:32:59 AM
Prediction: This fails, and it isn't even that close.

I think there is a significant portion of people who answer "Yes" to the question in a poll, but realize that it is actually a pretty idea and vote "No" when it comes right down to it...

Quoted for posterity.

Fair enough. I've been wrong once or twice before...:P

Quote from: Barrister on September 16, 2014, 04:51:41 PM
According to the latest Scottish poll of Poles the race is a dead heat. :)

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-poll-of-poles-a-dead-heat-1-3542705

Quote from: Martim Silva on September 16, 2014, 06:31:51 PM
That said, all resent London late meddling in the affair, and think it only made things worse, creating a divide in Scottish society that will take a long time to heal.

Quote from: Valmy on September 16, 2014, 09:07:55 PM

Quote from: Martim Silva on September 16, 2014, 06:31:51 PM
That said, all resent London late meddling in the affair, and think it only made things worse, creating a divide in Scottish society that will take a long time to heal.

London's actions in this last couple days created a divided Scotland that will take a long time to heal?  What the hell did they do?

Quote from: Warspite on September 17, 2014, 08:14:37 AM
Once up on a time, nationalist movements demanded sacrifice. It is interesting that Salmondonian nationalism promises a unique blend of the comfort of the status quo and the sunlit uplands of independence.

Having overpromised, the SNP and the Yes crowd are going to be in for a rude shock when they find that they have precisely the leverage their share of the UK's population suggests: less than 1:9. How Salmond thinks he is going to dictate terms to the rUK, NATO and the EU, as he does, is going to spectacularly unravel.

Quote from: Valmy on September 16, 2014, 09:07:55 PM

Quote from: Martim Silva on September 16, 2014, 06:31:51 PM
That said, all resent London late meddling in the affair, and think it only made things worse, creating a divide in Scottish society that will take a long time to heal.

London's actions in this last couple days created a divided Scotland that will take a long time to heal?  What the hell did they do?

Quote from: Grey Fox on September 17, 2014, 08:20:45 AM

Quote from: Warspite on September 17, 2014, 08:14:37 AM
Once up on a time, nationalist movements demanded sacrifice. It is interesting that Salmondonian nationalism promises a unique blend of the comfort of the status quo and the sunlit uplands of independence.

Having overpromised, the SNP and the Yes crowd are going to be in for a rude shock when they find that they have precisely the leverage their share of the UK's population suggests: less than 1:9. How Salmond thinks he is going to dictate terms to the rUK, NATO and the EU, as he does, is going to spectacularly unravel.

Because he has something that they want/need.

Quote from: The Brain on September 15, 2014, 04:52:28 PM
How many Gaelic mediums does a country need?

Quote from: Gups on September 17, 2014, 03:04:05 AM

Quote from: Valmy on September 16, 2014, 09:07:55 PM

Quote from: Martim Silva on September 16, 2014, 06:31:51 PM
That said, all resent London late meddling in the affair, and think it only made things worse, creating a divide in Scottish society that will take a long time to heal.

London's actions in this last couple days created a divided Scotland that will take a long time to heal?  What the hell did they do?

London (Clegg, Sheffield; Milliband, Doncaster, Cameron, Cotswolds) had the temerity to campaign for the Union. IN fact, the divide in Scottish society is created by vociferous and unplesant campaigning by the Scots. They needed no help from outsiders.

Quote from: Barrister on September 16, 2014, 04:51:41 PM
According to the latest Scottish poll of Poles the race is a dead heat. :)

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-poll-of-poles-a-dead-heat-1-3542705

Quote from: Warspite on September 17, 2014, 08:35:33 AM

Quote from: Grey Fox on September 17, 2014, 08:20:45 AM

Quote from: Warspite on September 17, 2014, 08:14:37 AM
Once up on a time, nationalist movements demanded sacrifice. It is interesting that Salmondonian nationalism promises a unique blend of the comfort of the status quo and the sunlit uplands of independence.

Having overpromised, the SNP and the Yes crowd are going to be in for a rude shock when they find that they have precisely the leverage their share of the UK's population suggests: less than 1:9. How Salmond thinks he is going to dictate terms to the rUK, NATO and the EU, as he does, is going to spectacularly unravel.

Because he has something that they want/need.

Which would be?

Quote from: Grey Fox on September 17, 2014, 08:20:45 AM

Quote from: Warspite on September 17, 2014, 08:14:37 AM
Once up on a time, nationalist movements demanded sacrifice. It is interesting that Salmondonian nationalism promises a unique blend of the comfort of the status quo and the sunlit uplands of independence.

Having overpromised, the SNP and the Yes crowd are going to be in for a rude shock when they find that they have precisely the leverage their share of the UK's population suggests: less than 1:9. How Salmond thinks he is going to dictate terms to the rUK, NATO and the EU, as he does, is going to spectacularly unravel.

Because he has something that they want/need.

Quote from: Valmy on September 16, 2014, 09:07:55 PM
London's actions in this last couple days created a divided Scotland that will take a long time to heal?  What the hell did they do?

Quote from: Martim Silva on September 17, 2014, 09:43:37 AM
I can only pass on what the expats said, but they mentioned that the top London politicians seemed happy to let Darling handle the issue until there was a poll that put the 'Yes' in the lead; THEN they all seemed to 'awake' and believe the issue was *very important* and needed their personal interventions, not to mention making many promises and concessions to the Scots.

To them, the promisses not only seem hollow, but above all, they give a vibe that "oh, NOW that there is a slight chance that you may lose, you start caring about it", implicating that they always saw Scotland as a backwater.

Quote from: Grey Fox on September 17, 2014, 08:56:04 AM
Space to put nuclear weapons/subs & Oil.

Quote from: grumbler on September 17, 2014, 10:15:02 AM

Quote from: Grey Fox on September 17, 2014, 08:56:04 AM
Space to put nuclear weapons/subs & Oil.

I don't think either of those are actually on the table.  The UK isn't going to want to base boomers in a foreign country, and the oil won't be negotiated, it will be split according to the existing standards on establishing EEZs.  Salmond can refuse to accept international standards on the EEZ split, in which case he throws out Scotland's chance to join the EU, or he can accede to those standards, in which case there isn't much negotiations at all (and what there is he will lose out on because the status quo is perfectly acceptable to his negotiating partners).

I don't expect Salmond to survive long enough to take a meaningful part in the negotiations, though.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 17, 2014, 10:10:54 AM

Quote from: Martim Silva on September 17, 2014, 09:43:37 AM
I can only pass on what the expats said, but they mentioned that the top London politicians seemed happy to let Darling handle the issue until there was a poll that put the 'Yes' in the lead; THEN they all seemed to 'awake' and believe the issue was *very important* and needed their personal interventions, not to mention making many promises and concessions to the Scots.

To them, the promisses not only seem hollow, but above all, they give a vibe that "oh, NOW that there is a slight chance that you may lose, you start caring about it", implicating that they always saw Scotland as a backwater.

I don't see how you get from this to "creating a divided Scotland."

Quote from: grumbler on September 17, 2014, 10:15:02 AM

Quote from: Grey Fox on September 17, 2014, 08:56:04 AM
Space to put nuclear weapons/subs & Oil.

The UK isn't going to want to base boomers in a foreign country,

Quote from: Gups on September 17, 2014, 10:34:11 AM
The relocation of Trident will be very difficult and expensive. But it's not really a negotaiting counter for Salmond since he has made an absolute commitment that the subs would have to leave by 2020.

QuoteDavid Cameron To Scottish People: 'I'll Kill Myself If You Leave'
News in Brief • World • world leaders • united kingdom • News • ISSUE 50•37 • Sep 17, 2014
   
LONDON—In an emotional public address this morning ahead of Thursday's national referendum in Scotland, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron pleaded with the Scottish people to stay and vowed that he would take his own life if the territory votes in favor of independence. "Scotland, the second you leave I will kill myself—I swear I'll do it," said a visibly disheveled Cameron, who spoke with a shaking voice and appeared at several points during the speech as if he was on the verge of breaking down in tears. "How can I go on living if you're gone? If you vote yes to independence, that's it—you can say goodbye to me right now, because I'll be dead the next time you see me. Just look at what you're doing to me!" At press time, Cameron was seen sobbing softly and climbing up the stairs to the top of Parliament's Elizabeth Tower.

Quote from: Barrister on September 17, 2014, 10:36:08 AM

Quote from: Gups on September 17, 2014, 10:34:11 AM
The relocation of Trident will be very difficult and expensive. But it's not really a negotaiting counter for Salmond since he has made an absolute commitment that the subs would have to leave by 2020.

I believe that Salmond has made a lot of commitments he's going to wind up backtracking from.

Quote from: Warspite on September 17, 2014, 08:14:37 AM
Once up on a time, nationalist movements demanded sacrifice. It is interesting that Salmondonian nationalism promises a unique blend of the comfort of the status quo and the sunlit uplands of independence.

Quote from: Gups on September 17, 2014, 10:45:08 AM
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/11/alex-salmond-scottish-independence-referendum-david-cameron

Quote from: Valmy on September 16, 2014, 09:07:55 PM

Quote from: Martim Silva on September 16, 2014, 06:31:51 PM
That said, all resent London late meddling in the affair, and think it only made things worse, creating a divide in Scottish society that will take a long time to heal.

London's actions in this last couple days created a divided Scotland that will take a long time to heal?  What the hell did they do?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 17, 2014, 10:10:54 AM
I don't see how you get from this to "creating a divided Scotland."

Quote from: Martim Silva on September 17, 2014, 11:54:35 AM
*I* don't get it from anywhere, it's what they said, not my opinion.

If you don't like it, I listed their names and jobs; their contacts can be found on the net. Phone them and ask them yourself why they think that.

Geez.

QuoteA Scottish woman says her picture of a peculiar shaped cloud might be an omen for the Scottish independence result.

Gillian Degnan captured a photo of a cloud that looks like the United Kingdom - minus Scotland.

Ms Degnan, 44, who comes from North Ayrshire but now lives in Nottingham, took the picture on holiday in Sardinia.

"I was on my sun lounger when I spotted it in the sky. I thought it was a bit weird," she said.

"The referendum is the talking point between everyone at the moment and I started to wonder whether it was an omen about how the vote is going to go."

With the referendum vote just days away, her photograph has attracted a lot of attention, even making the front page of the Scottish Sun.

Some called the ominous-shaped cloud a heavenly intervention, while others dismissed it as merely a cloud.

Ms Degnan said that she was actually a supporter of the 'No' campaign, explaining: "I think Scotland would be too small on its own."

Quote from: Jacob on September 17, 2014, 12:11:29 PM
I think that just clouds the issue.

QuoteScottish independence: Man finds piece of KFC chicken that could be shape of new UK

With the referendum on Scottish independence just days away, it could be an omen of political change that will forever reshape the face of Britain... or it could just be a piece of fried chicken.

Either way, when fast food fan Terry O'Neil ordered a KFC fillet feast he was stunned to see one of the pieces looked just like the UK - minus Scotland.

The 55-year-old ended up with the geographical after ordering a family bucket while on holiday with wife Jo, 39, and their three children.

He plucked out a fresh fillet piece and said: "This looks like Britain - but where's Scotland gone?"

He said: "I picked this one piece out and I thought it looked like the map of Britain, but then I realised Scotland was missing ."

Terry, who lives on the Isle of Wight, was on holiday in Eastbourne, East Sussex, with Jo and sons Ryan, 13, Jamie, eight, and 20-month-old Tyler when they popped into KFC.

The pub entertainer said: "I didn't notice it at first, but the closer I looked the more it just looked like the UK - well, England and Wales - but with no Scotland.

"I don't know whether it's an omen for the outcome of the Scottish referendum, but I wouldn't be surprised if Scotland vote Yes.

"I'll be very sad if they do because it will mean we will probably never have another Labour government again.

"I think people in general are very disillusioned with politics and with Westminster in particular.

"I'll understand if Scotland vote for independence."

Quote from: Jacob on September 17, 2014, 12:19:56 PM
I think they're chickening out.

QuoteBjörk shows support for Scottish yes vote with Declare Independence post
Icelandic pioneer posts the lyrics to 2008 track onto her Facebook ahead of the forthcoming referendum

Bowie, Boyle, Bragg, Belle and Sebastian; music's most revered names have all voiced their views on the forthcoming referendum in Scotland. Perhaps one of the boldest figures in culture has waited until the last day of campaigning to contribute her argument to the debate, with Björk using her lyrics to Declare Independence as her own very unique input.

With some not-so veiled adaptations at the start, the singer posted the following lyrics onto her Facebook account:

Quotes c o t l a n d !

s c o t l a n d !

s c o t l a n d !

declare independence!

don't let them do that to you!

declare independence!

don't let them do that to you!

declare independence!

don't let them do that to you!

declare independence!

don't let them do that to you!

start your own currency!

make your own stamp

protect your language

declare independence

don't let them do that to you

declare independence

don't let them do that to you

make your own flag!

raise your flag!

declare independence!

don't let them do that to you!

declare independence!

don't let them do that to you!

damn colonists

ignore their patronizing

tear off their blindfolds

open their eyes

declare independence!

don't let them do that to you!

declare independence!

don't let them do that to you!

with a flag and a trumpet

go to the top of your highest mountain!

raise your flag!

declare independence!

don't let them do that to you!

declare independence!

don't let them do that to you!

raise the flag!

It's not the first time Björk has applied her militaristic song to pressing global causes. The political motivation behind Declare Independence was originally applied to Greenland and the Faroe Islands, with the Michel Gondry directed video for the song showing Björk in clothing bearing their flags, and throughout live performances of the song, her dedication of the 2008 track has caused controversy in places such as Shanghai and Tokyo.

Bjork is not the only Icelandic artist to share their opinion on the forthcoming referendum either - Sigur Ros showed their support of the National Collective at a recent Glasgow gig.

Quote from: Viking on September 17, 2014, 01:07:08 PM
björk is batshit

Quote from: Viking on September 17, 2014, 01:07:08 PM
björkIcelanders isare batshit

Quote from: Martinus on September 17, 2014, 01:21:57 PM

Quote from: Viking on September 17, 2014, 01:07:08 PM
björkIcelanders isare batshit

FYPFY

Quote from: Jacob on September 17, 2014, 12:24:47 PM
No need to get worked into a lather over that kind of cheese.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 17, 2014, 11:59:37 AM
Fair enough. 

Do you agree that your friends are a little silly?

Quote from: Martinus
It is odd they let foreign residents vote on this

Quote from: Mo Moulton in the Harvard Crimson
The sense that this vote is about the political and economic future of a state, not the apotheosis of a people, is reflected in the voting rules, too: Everyone aged sixteen or older living in Scotland may vote, regardless of national or ethnic identity, while Scottish-born or Scottish-identified people living elsewhere may not vote.

An independent Scotland has the potential to reimagine what a new nation's priorities should be. It will inevitably be an example for other regions of Europe considering a similar move, such as Catalonia in Spain. Independent Scotland could set a precedent for the 21st century, whereby new states come into existence on the basis not only of historical traditional but also through the desire for a new social contract. This is a profound shift in focus, from the nation as the expression of personal identity to the nation as the structure for a better community.

Quote from: Martim Silva on September 17, 2014, 02:47:37 PM
If this is right, it would seem that they want to make the purpose of modern states to be the running of economic issues for a group of people that happens to live in a certain patch of land.

As in, if you go live for a year or two in the Czech Republic, you stop having anything to do with Poland and can't vote on Polish issues. If a 16-year-old Chinese comes to Warsaw to finish highschool, he has full rights to vote on major issues in Poland [namely which money goes where, as those as the only issues worth considering], as he will be part of 'the community', while you are not.

Quote from: Martim Silva on September 17, 2014, 02:47:37 PM

If this is right, it would seem that they want to make the purpose of modern states to be the running of economic issues for a group of people that happens to live in a certain patch of land.

As in, if you go live for a year or two in the Czech Republic, you stop having anything to do with Poland and can't vote on Polish issues. If a 16-year-old Chinese comes to Warsaw to finish highschool, he has full rights to vote on major issues in Poland [namely which money goes where, as those as the only issues worth considering], as he will be part of 'the community', while you are not.

Quote
(Reuters) - Scots vote on whether to declare independence from the United Kingdom in a referendum on Thursday. Following are details on how and when the results are due.


THE VOTE

The ballot paper will ask: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" Voters will be asked to put a cross in either a Yes or No box.

Polling stations open at 0600 GMT and close at 2100 GMT.

Nearly 800,000 people registered for postal votes, which must arrive by 2100 GMT on Thursday.


EXIT POLLS

Reuters knows of no exit polls planned for after polling stations close at 2100 GMT.

The latest aggregate poll of opinion polls puts the anti-independence camp on 51 percent, the secessionists on 49.


RESULTS

The result will only be formally announced when all the results from 32 local counts are in. The chief counting officer will announce each local result as it comes in.

However, either side only needs 50 percent plus one vote of the total turnout so the result should be clear before every ballot paper has been counted.

Results are likely to start coming through from around 0100 GMT on Sept 19. However, Scotland's biggest cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen may not report results until after 0400 GMT.

A national result will be known "around breakfast time" on Friday, according to a media release prepared by the counting office.
.....

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 17, 2014, 06:39:39 PM
As an American one thing I find interesting is how spectacularly weak the Union is. It feels there is very little real attachment to it, and I get the sense that if "No" wins it is most likely out of various forms of self interest and not any real allegiance to the United Kingdom as a country. Arguably (well, I think indisputably) Scotland is better off in the Union because they actually have outsize power and receive outsize money relate to their size, and as this incident shows the powers that be in London are willing to bend a lot to keep them in the fold--if Scotland was its own independent country the British PM would have reason to compromise on areas that made sense for the UK to compromise on--which would actually be dramatically fewer than they are now, since right now London/England compromise on a lot with the Scots in ways that are nonsensical.

In America I don't think there's been a moment of serious secessionism since the ACW, and I think if you held an election in the most pro-secession State today it'd win less than 5% of the vote in that State.

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 17, 2014, 06:39:39 PM
In America I don't think there's been a moment of serious secessionism since the ACW, and I think if you held an election in the most pro-secession State today it'd win less than 5% of the vote in that State.

Quote from: mongers on September 17, 2014, 07:11:31 PM
I can appreciate your view point and yes in some senses the Union can be seen as weak, but I'd argue the counterpart to that is the identify and history of being British, a Brit if you will, is very strong.

Quote from: mongers on September 17, 2014, 07:11:31 PM
Just because a minority of adult people in Scotland vote tomorrow to 'end' the union, doesn't have any real impact on Britishness and those of us who are a 'true Brits'.

Quote from: Caliga
In general I think it's weird for anyone around here to display SOUTHERN PRAHD since Kentucky didn't actually secede, most Kentuckians that served fought for the Union, and the South repeatedly attacked Kentucky.

Quote from: garbon on September 17, 2014, 08:24:36 PM
MSil is now going to try to teach Cal about the ACW? :hmm:

Quote from: Caliga on September 17, 2014, 07:18:42 PM
Agree.  Southerners may love the south but they love being AMURIKKKAN just as much. :)

On a related topic, I actually saw a dude at Burger King today wearing a baseball cap with a Confederate flag on it.  He got in line right behind a big black dude with dreds.  I was hoping for some fireworks but the black guy either didn't notice or didn't care. :(

In general it's really rare to see people openly display that flag around here, but you see it occasionally on bumper stickers and shit.

Quote from: Caliga on September 17, 2014, 08:48:42 PM
Oh I know, Sav.  I've been in rural northern Florida cracker country. :)

http://youtu.be/76cEnbrgHkY (http://youtu.be/76cEnbrgHkY)

Quote from: Capetan Mihali on September 17, 2014, 08:49:05 PMNeoliberalism (cue the guffaws) has simply deprived too many people of a vision of the future that includes them, left too many people alienated and aimless, and in such a time, "nationalism" is as good an ideological counterattack as any (though I'm not convinced this is a nationalist movement per se). 

Quote from: Capetan Mihali on September 17, 2014, 09:41:23 PM
The uses and non-uses of technology are inherently political.

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 17, 2014, 06:39:39 PM
As an American one thing I find interesting is how spectacularly weak the Union is. It feels there is very little real attachment to it, and I get the sense that if "No" wins it is most likely out of various forms of self interest and not any real allegiance to the United Kingdom as a country. Arguably (well, I think indisputably) Scotland is better off in the Union because they actually have outsize power and receive outsize money relate to their size, and as this incident shows the powers that be in London are willing to bend a lot to keep them in the fold--if Scotland was its own independent country the British PM would have reason to compromise on areas that made sense for the UK to compromise on--which would actually be dramatically fewer than they are now, since right now London/England compromise on a lot with the Scots in ways that are nonsensical.

In America I don't think there's been a moment of serious secessionism since the ACW, and I think if you held an election in the most pro-secession State today it'd win less than 5% of the vote in that State.

Quote from: Valmy on September 17, 2014, 09:25:26 PM

Quote from: Capetan Mihali on September 17, 2014, 08:49:05 PMNeoliberalism (cue the guffaws) has simply deprived too many people of a vision of the future that includes them, left too many people alienated and aimless, and in such a time, "nationalism" is as good an ideological counterattack as any (though I'm not convinced this is a nationalist movement per se). 

I am intrigued you think this is a political ideological phenomenon and not one of rapidly changing technology and its impacts.  People are alienated and aimless because the ways of life and assurances of the past are being swept away.  In this new world the people who own stuff are prospering because the need and value of human labor is decreasing.  Besides this is Britain with its big welfare state and cheap education and NHS.  Interesting that even with those things people are still feeling deprived of their future and aimless.  Doesn't that clue you in that perhaps ideology is not the issue here?

Quote from: Maladict on September 18, 2014, 02:15:11 AM
Not sure how I'd vote myself, but I find myself kind of rooting for the yes side.
Just to see what would happen, and not even out of schadenfreude.

Quote from: Martinus on September 18, 2014, 02:26:20 AM

You just want to see the world burn.

Quote from: Maladict on September 18, 2014, 02:38:12 AM

Quote from: Martinus on September 18, 2014, 02:26:20 AM

You just want to see the world burn.

Something wrong with your reading comprehension?

Quote from: Martinus on September 18, 2014, 03:55:01 AM

Quote from: Maladict on September 18, 2014, 02:38:12 AM

Quote from: Martinus on September 18, 2014, 02:26:20 AM

You just want to see the world burn.

Something wrong with your reading comprehension?

:huh:

Quote from: Maladict on September 18, 2014, 04:29:02 AM
Ah, my bad.  Not sure what I was doing posting in a political thread anyway. :)

Quote from: Caliga on September 17, 2014, 08:48:42 PM
Oh I know, Sav.  I've been in rural northern Florida cracker country. :)

http://youtu.be/76cEnbrgHkY (http://youtu.be/76cEnbrgHkY)

QuoteIf I were that bloody English wanker, Darling, I wouldn't dare to show my face in Scotland.

QuoteI am a bit surprised they let foreign residents to vote on this.

QuoteI don't see how you get from this to "creating a divided Scotland."

QuoteThe criticism is justified as far as the offer of further devolution is concerned. A huge mistake not to include it on the ballot paper and to focus on it so late in the campaign. It really does look desperate.

QuoteBy 'adult people', you also mean the 16 and 17-year-olds that will vote?  :hmm:

QuoteI just had the premonition, while washing a glass, that Scotland is actually going to vote Yes.  Neoliberalism (cue the guffaws) has simply deprived too many people of a vision of the future that includes them, left too many people alienated and aimless, and in such a time, "nationalism" is as good an ideological counterattack as any (though I'm not convinced this is a nationalist movement per se). 

QuoteWill Scotland Go Independent?
Jonathan Freedland MARCH 20, 2014 ISSUE
Scotland's Future: Your Guide to an Independent Scotland
by the Scottish Government
649 pp., available at scotreferendum.com
The Road to Independence?: Scotland in the Balance
by Murray Pittock, with a foreword by Alex Salmond

1.

On September 18, Scots will be asked to say yes or no to the following question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" It is a beguilingly simple query, a model of clarity compared to, say, the 106-word essay put to the people of Quebec in a 1980 referendum that asked if they wished to break away from Canada, phrased in so convoluted a manner that many barely understood the question.

Much will hang on the Scots' answer. Other states have recently broken up—the former Yugoslavia through war and Czechoslovakia by amicable divorce—but for Scotland to leave the United Kingdom would mark the dissolution of a state that has endured for more than three centuries, that is one of the world's oldest democracies, and whose imperial rule once covered a quarter of the planet's surface. At a stroke, the land of Shakespeare and Burns, Locke and Hume would lose nearly 10 percent of its people—there are 5.3 million Scots in a UK population of 63 million—and one third of its landmass. At stake is the future of Scotland and Britain, both uncertain how they would fare in the event of a yes vote, the former going it alone, the latter reduced to its three remaining constituent parts: England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. But something else could be decided too, namely the changing shape and meaning of nationhood in the twenty-first century.

It's worth noting what the referendum campaign is not. It is not a blood-and-soil clash over identity and ethnicity. The Braveheart notion of Scottish nationalism—spear-carriers, faces painted in woad, crying freedom against the English oppressor—has been extinct, even as myth, for several decades. These days you will see few kilts at the annual conference of the Scottish National Party (SNP), whose landslide victory in 2011 gave it an overall majority in the Scottish parliament and, with it, the power to call a referendum on the idea that forms the party's historic mission: independence.

Today's SNP is avowedly of the civic nationalist variety, its focus on questions of democracy and governance. The "Nats" boast of their inclusiveness to ethnic minorities (there is a group called Scots Asians for Independence), are keen to see more, not less, immigration, and are in no hurry to be identified with their onetime sister parties in Europe, those assorted separatists and nationalists whom the SNP would now regard as insular if not xenophobic.

The difference lies chiefly in the history. The union of the Scottish and English crowns came in 1603 and could fairly be described as the initiative of a Scot, King James. The British Empire was a joint venture of the two nations, serving together as, if not exactly equals, then at least partners. Recall that the first British colonies of the New World were Jamestown, named for the Scottish monarch, and Virginia, established to honor the Virgin Queen of England. Scots were willing and enthusiastic imperialists, enlisting in disproportionate numbers to fight Britannia's enemies and filling high posts in the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, and the like.

As a result of that experience of empire, and of fighting two world wars alongside each other, the two nations have long been intertwined. Beyond the formal Act of Union that paired them in 1707, the leader of the SNP and Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, speaks of the "social union" that connects Scots and the English, the countless ties that come with friends, family, and careers that span the border. Thanks to the usual tides of marriage and the search for work, some 800,000 Scots now live in other parts of the UK, while 400,000 people from elsewhere in Britain—most of them English—live in Scotland. (The first group, incidentally, will have no vote in the referendum while those in the later category will.)

Accordingly, today's demand for independence presents itself as shorn of even the faintest hint of anti-Englishness, once an all-too-common feature of the nationalist landscape. (A long-ago leader of the SNP, Arthur Donaldson, loathed the English sufficiently to see a potential Nazi victory as an opportunity for Scottish nationalism, a view that brought him a six-week spell in Barlinnie jail in 1940—though he was, at least, allowed to wear his kilt.) The tension is historic now, fit chiefly for commemoration as it will be again in this summer's celebrations of the seven-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, when Robert the Bruce led the Scots to victory over King Edward II of England, which the referendum, whose date was chosen by Salmond, is rather conveniently timed to follow. Attacks on English residents of Scotland for being English still happen, but they are rare and declined by 17 percent in 2011–2012. The friction between Scots and English lives on now chiefly in the former's self-deprecating loathing of the latter's national soccer team, which hasn't won a major tournament since its never-forgotten triumph in the World Cup of 1966. An ad campaign for a distinctly Scottish soda captures the sentiment well: "I had an Irn-Bru in '66, but I don't go on about it."

The reality of the social union and the gentleness of the relationship mean the usual traits of secessionist campaigns are missing. The case for Yes is presented in mild, technocratic terms. Its core argument is that the Scottish parliament that the SNP now dominates—created in 1999 as part of Tony Blair's program of "devolution," in which areas of the UK previously governed from Westminster were given varying degrees of autonomy over their own affairs—lacks sufficient powers to govern Scotland properly. In his foreword to an updated edition of The Road to Independence? by Murray Pittock, a solidly nationalist account of Scottish politics since 1945, Salmond speaks of the "democratic deficit" that still afflicts the country. "A simple glance at how policies affecting Scotland are imposed against the will of this nation's elected representatives shows how deeply that democratic deficit still runs," he writes.

The key text, however, is Scotland's Future, the white paper issued by the SNP government that over 649 pages spells out the mechanics of independence. It is short on the rhetoric of self-determination, long on the quotidian details of self-government. In a "Q & A" section, the third question—after "Why should Scotland be independent?" and "Can Scotland afford to be independent?"—is "What will happen to my pension?" There are few rousing calls to Scottish pride or the spirit of Bannockburn, their place taken by information on postal services and the administration of drivers' licenses.

The answers Scotland's Future supplies reflect the core goal of the Yes campaign, widely referred to by skeptics as "project reassurance." The pro-independence campaign knows that Scots value much about their relationship with the rest of Britain and therefore seeks to soothe them that even if they vote yes, they will be able to keep everything they like, jettisoning only that which palls. So—in statements, several of which were immediately challenged—the document tells them that the Queen will remain head of state, the pound will remain the currency, Scotland will still be in Nato and the European Union, and Scots will still call be able to call on the National Health Service. They won't lose their access to much-loved BBC radio and TV shows. Lest there be any doubt, the white paper says, "Current programming like EastEnders, Doctor Who, and Strictly Come Dancing...will still be available in Scotland." These are the institutions that, for many, define Britain and Britishness—monarchy, the pound, the NHS, the BBC—and the Yes campaign tells Scots that they can keep the lot.

The opposition mocks this as doubletalk, the nationalists promising Scots a dual approach to cake, one in which Scots can both have it and eat it. "Everything will change and nothing will change," says Alistair Darling, leader of the No campaign that unites the Conservative, Liberal Democrat, and Labour parties and calls itself Better Together. Darling was chancellor of the exchequer in the last Labour government of the UK, but has now been drafted back to Edinburgh—home of his parliamentary district—charged with no less a task than saving the union.

The Nats retort that Darling leads "Project Fear," a phrase that, damagingly, was reported to be in use in the headquarters of the No campaign itself. Nationalists say, with some justification, that the No argument boils down to, as Scots might put it, "Ye cannae do i'." So a long-running spat centers on Salmond's insistence that a newly independent Scotland would effortlessly take its place as the twenty-ninth member state in the European Union. Not so, says Darling: the other twenty-eight would have to agree and there's every reason to suspect that at least some would say no. (Spain is the obvious potential naysayer, reluctant to set a precedent that would be seized upon by separatists in Catalonia, which aims to have a plebiscite of its own in November.) The No camp gained a star witness in mid-February when the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the EU.

Alistair Darling can offer a dozen examples in a similar vein, all aimed at questioning the viability of a stand-alone Scotland. Edinburgh's large financial sector won't want to remain in a country foreign to the 80 percent of its customers who live in England: it will migrate south on September 19. Don't assume, warns Darling, that the remaining UK will keep paying for its naval vessels to be built in Glasgow's Clydeside shipyard: if Scotland says yes, the UK will say no. Meanwhile, from London, the UK government issues repeated alarms in a similar register. One official paper cautions that a new Scottish state will no longer be privy to the intelligence secrets seen today. Referring to the "Five-Eyes" intelligence-sharing arrangement that links the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, the document insists that "There would be no automatic right of entry to the 'Five-Eyes' community for an independent Scottish state," adding tersely, "Entry is by invitation only." It's not only international isolation and economic ruin that loom. In February, a UK government minister warned that if Scots break away, the cost of a postage stamp will go up.

At the end of January these two projects, fear and reassurance, clashed in revealing fashion on the turf that matters most: money. The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney—who is Canadian—made a rare journey to Edinburgh to deliver a speech on the plan outlined in the SNP's white paper Scotland's Future, in which an independent Scotland would keep the pound sterling as its currency. In the language of neutrality demanded of a central banker, Carney nevertheless explained that things weren't that simple. The lesson of the eurozone crisis was that sharing a currency was fraught with risk. It could only work if the parties were bound together in a monetary and banking union. The governor's most-quoted line was: "In short, a durable, successful currency union requires some ceding of national sovereignty."

For the No campaign, that was the cue to say that the rest of the UK would never agree to a plan that required English, Welsh, and Northern Irish taxpayers to bail out Scottish banks if they failed (not a wholly hypothetical possibility, given the central part played by the Royal Bank of Scotland in the 2008 financial crisis). The point was underlined in mid-February when the chief financial spokesmen for the three main UK parties closed ranks to deliver the collective message that, "If Scotland walks away from the UK, it walks away from the UK pound," as the current chancellor, the Conservative George Osborne, put it. Even if somehow Scotland's neighbors could be persuaded to become partners once again, then a nominally independent Scotland would rapidly find itself bound into a new version of the very fiscal and political union with Britain it had just worked so hard to escape. This, then, was the No message in microcosm: you can't do it and even if you could, it wouldn't be worth it.

Yet the Nationalists strove to interpret Carney's words as reassuring. The day after independence, they suggested, negotiations would begin to construct fiscal arrangements that would be comfortingly familiar. On the most sensitive of all questions, the economy, a message of continuity was, from the SNP's perspective, no disaster.

To outsiders, this can be among the hardest aspects of the independence debate to grasp. The London media certainly took the No campaign's view of Carney's intervention, reading his declaration that the new Scotland would have to cede some national sovereignty as a mortal blow to the independence cause. But that might be to misread the kind of nationalism that has arisen in Scotland.

I visited the playwright David Greig at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, where he is working on a kind of traveling salon, the Imagine Scotland café, touring the country to stage town hall meetings on independence—with not a politician present. He plans to vote yes, but not for the old nationalist reasons:
To me, "nationalism" refers to a nineteenth-century nation-state with hard borders, an army, two houses of parliament, and a big fortress in the center of the capital city. In the 1930s we may have imagined that's what Scottish independence would mean. The Scotland we're willing to be born is a new kind of country, not that nineteenth-century kind of state.

Greig hopes Scotland will become a model for Catalonia and others, a state that embraces the pooling of sovereignty, as committed to interdependence as to independence.

This has defenders of the union scratching their heads. Why separate only to join together straight afterward? Besides, the United Kingdom has always been a pretty loose arrangement, especially for the Scots. Through the three centuries of union, Scotland has retained a separate legal system, separate education system, and separate churches—both Protestant and Catholic. Scotland fields its own national soccer team. Only at the Olympic Games is it subsumed into Great Britain. Given that since 1999 Scotland has had political autonomy to match that distinct legal, cultural, and sporting identity, why go to the bother of breaking away from a union that has achieved so much, especially if that break will be far from complete?

2.

The answer is less constitutional than political, even ideological. The clue comes in the second sentence of Alex Salmond's preface to Scotland's Future. "Our national story has been shaped down the generations by values of compassion, equality, an unrivalled commitment to the empowerment of education," he writes. It is on this ground—"compassion, equality"—that the Nationalists argue for what they believe is the Scottish difference. No one suggests it is a genetic or racial characteristic of the Scots, but rather that Scotland has developed a different political culture—different, that is, from the rest of the UK and specifically England.

For the Nationalists, Scotland has become a land of social democratic consensus, one that believes it has more in common with the high-tax, high-spend northern neighbors of Scandinavia than it does with the turbo-capitalism of the City of London. "There is a strong sense that the UK is evolving towards the US model, where you can never give enough to the top one percent," Blair Jenkins, formerly of the BBC and now chief executive of the Yes campaign, told me when we met at the Yes headquarters in Glasgow. "A more collective sense of society, of looking out for one another, is a strong part of Scottish life." Surrounding him as we talk is the usual campaign merchandise, mugs, hats, T-shirts—and a poster declaring "Tak," Polish for yes.

The No campaign dismisses such talk as essentialism, an upscale cousin of the Scottish chauvinism of the past. "The idea that people who live in the south of England are less high-minded than us, almost inferior to us—it's the height of arrogance," Darling told me. Nevertheless, the notion that a different political landscape has developed in Scotland is hard to dispute.

For one thing, the Conservative Party—the senior partner in the coalition that rules the UK—has all but vanished as a political force in Scotland. In the 1955 election, the Tories won more votes in Scotland than any other party, but decades of decline followed, culminating in the wipeout of 1997 from which they have never recovered. Even now, of the fifty-nine members of Parliament Scotland sends to Westminster, just one is a Conservative.

The two-word explanation is Margaret Thatcher. Her program of privatization of state industries and her battles with the trade unions antagonized the strongly laborist tradition of Scotland, but she grated on middle-class Scots too. She conveyed both a tin ear and callous disregard for the country, famously testing the widely loathed "poll tax" out on the Scots a year before imposing it in the rest of the kingdom. Ever since, to be a Tory north of the border is to carry a toxic brand.

Today's Scottish Tories have done their best to reinvent themselves—their current leader, Ruth Davidson, is just thirty-five and the first open lesbian to head a UK political party—but still they make no dent. The result is that the British prime minister, David Cameron, dares not play too visible a role in a campaign that could change the shape of the state he governs: he knows that were he to turn up in Edinburgh and challenge Salmond, the Eton-educated southern aristocrat lecturing the Scots, the Yes camp would gain votes by the crateload. Tellingly, when Cameron did make an intervention in the independence debate—telling Scots in early February "We want you to stay"—he did so in a speech delivered in London.

But this goes deeper than the absence of a functioning party of the right. Scotland has only a few private schools. Its National Health Service remains a monolith in state hands, while in England the involvement of private companies in the provision of medical treatment has long been underway. (The last major private hospital to be built in Scotland was nationalized in 2004.) Euroskeptic and anti-immigration sentiments register in Scottish polls in similar numbers to those recorded down south, but they find no political outlet or traction in Scotland. While the UK government first imposed and then increased tuition fees for college, in Scotland a university education remains free for the student, funded wholly by the state. Prescription drugs are also free in Scotland, as is personal care for the elderly.

The contrast is with a UK politics increasingly dominated by London and the southeast of England—whose marginal seats, swing districts in US parlance, can have a disproportionate effect on the outcome of nationwide elections. According to the political commentator Iain Macwhirter, "In the last 30 years, London and the southeast has carved itself off from the rest of Britain and devised a post-industrial economy based on financial services and neoliberal tax policies." Those in turn have fed a widening inequality that appalls many Scots but that, they suspect, England tolerates.

That reference to "30 years" is significant. Some in Scotland may well have assumed the drift rightward would end with Blair's landslide victory in 1997. But in these matters—privatization and inequality—the trend continued uninterrupted. Labour added further to Scotland's alienation with Blair's support of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a move deeply unpopular among Scots. Many in Scotland drew a glum conclusion: if even a strong Labour government in Westminster—one headed by two Scottish-born prime ministers, first Blair and then Gordon Brown—does not make a difference, then maybe we really do need to go it alone.

Viewed like this, it is, paradoxically, Scotland that has been clinging to an idea of Britain, one that has been abandoned by the rest of the UK—at least if that idea is defined in part as the collectivist spirit of 1945. As Macwhirter writes, "Scots have arguably been more committed to the idea of Britain than the English over the last 200 years. What Scotland didn't buy into was the abandonment of what used to be called the post-war consensus: universalism and the welfare state."

Which is why the Yes campaign's offer, set out in Scotland's Future, consists as much of social policy as constitutional change. The document contains few abstractions about democracy, but promises instead "a transformational change in childcare," the scrapping of London-imposed changes to welfare benefits, and, in the move most likely to attract international attention, the removal of the UK's Trident nuclear weapon system from Scotland. "We're half an hour away from the biggest collection of weapons of mass destruction in western Europe," Jenkins told me. "There's no version of devolution that allows us to get rid of that." In other words, only independence allows Scotland to fully realize the distinct political culture that has arisen there.

Some on the left of the No campaign warn that it will be a cruel irony if, by breaking away, Scotland ensures the isolation of its more social democratic ethos. For once Scotland no longer sends fifty-nine MPs to Westminster, many of whom represent safe Labour seats, then Labour's chances of forming a UK government diminish sharply. If independence happens in 2016, then an England-dominated UK could be the land that is forever Tory. Some electoral analysts dispute that arithmetic; nevertheless it will be this country to which an independent, left-leaning Scotland might be bound in monetary, fiscal, and political union, with the UK Treasury and Bank of England together making major decisions affecting Scotland's economy. Scottish social democracy could discover it was able to flourish more easily inside Britain than out.

It will be a greater irony still if the ultimate consequence of the program pursued by the great patriot and would-be latter-day Britannia, Margaret Thatcher, was to be the unraveling of the United Kingdom. Yet her shredding of the 1945 settlement may well be seen as a principal cause. I talked to the journalist Allan Little, who is covering the referendum campaign for the BBC. "When I grew up in Galloway," he told me,
it was the days of British Coal and British Steel. The British state probably built your home, warmed your front room and put in your phone. It rolled the steel, it employed everyone around. Now all that's gone. Communities like that were the bedrock of British identity in Scotland and now, like the empire, they're fading into the middle distance of the collective memory.

The British state is a smaller presence in Scottish lives now. Perhaps it was no coincidence that Thatcher's program was known as denationalization.

3.

Until recently these questions have barely pressed in on Britain outside Scotland. The media and political classes in London have been lethargic, mainly because polls throughout 2013 showed the cause of independence likely to be soundly defeated. But that complacency might be ill-judged. An ICM survey at the end of January showed the gap between the two sides down to just eight points, with No leading Yes by 54 percent to 46 percent.

What's more, the pro-independence side has some serious advantages. Salmond has a claim to being the most gifted politician in Britain, let alone Scotland: a former oil economist, he is a wily strategist and an outstanding platform speaker with charisma to spare. He is backed by an able deputy, Nicola Sturgeon. Darling is solid, trusted, and with great experience—but no one would accuse him of runaway charisma. He made his reputation putting out fires rather than igniting them. His problem is that while the SNP can call on its A-team, Scottish Labour's biggest talents, Darling included, made their careers by leaving for London long ago.

Accordingly, the SNP has the sharpest, most effective political machine in Scotland, with campaign teams in every corner of the country. Pro-independence meetings are going on somewhere every night of the week, while as The Spectator has observed, "Alistair Darling's 'Better Together' campaign seems quieter than a Stornoway playground on the Sabbath."

That lead in the ground game reflects an enthusiasm gap. "'I'm passionately committed to the status quo' is not an obvious rallying cry," observes the investment fund manager and philanthropist Alan Macfarlane, a donor to Better Together. It is obviously self-serving for Salmond to declare, as he does in his foreword to The Road to Independence?, that "the momentum and direction of the people of Scotland is unmistakable." Nevertheless, it is striking that most of Scotland's artists, writers, and musicians are either Yes voters or leaning that way. The same is true of the young, which is relevant since the franchise for September 18 has been expanded to include those over the age of sixteen. "It's just not very cool to be No," says Greig.

It's tempting to describe this as a battle of head versus heart, with the Yes campaign promising romance and pride against the pedantic legalism of No. But plenty on the Yes side see it as the other way around, with the rational arguments weighing in their favor while No tries to tug at the enduring sentiments of Britishness. Meanwhile, both sides accuse the other of intimidation, claiming that both the London and Edinburgh governments are hinting darkly to recipients of their largesse that their public statements had better be helpful—or else.

The sheer length of the campaign, which began when Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were duking it out in Iowa, is thought to help the Yes side. The more a once-outlandish idea like independence is talked about, the more normal it becomes. But the No side clings to the precedent of referendums past: as polling day looms, support for the status quo tends to rise.

Privately, well-placed Nationalists reckon a narrow defeat is probable—and they insist that will be no disaster. If the Yes side gets more than 40 percent then, they say, a new process will begin—negotiations with London over greater powers for Edinburgh, for the enhanced devolution known as "devo max," which most believe would have comfortably gained 70 percent support had it been on the ballot. Scots themselves might groan at that prospect, bracing themselves for the "neverendum" endured by the people of Quebec.

Yet such a negotiation would not be a Scots-only affair. What has begun in Scotland is a rebellion against the highly centralized Westminster state, which still hands Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the English regions a "block grant" of cash rather than letting them raise and spend their own funds as they see fit. David Greig argues that this "nineteenth century system of imperial governance is at the end of its natural life. We're just the first to say it." Whatever happens on September 18, they are unlikely to be the last.

—February 20, 2014

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 18, 2014, 05:05:39 AM
I don't think that's been caused by London though - all the London leaders, and Brown - have impressed me over the last week or two. Admittedly I've thought they should've been doing this for months but, better late than never.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on September 18, 2014, 05:17:05 AMEven Nigel Farrage? ;)

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29003017 (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29003017)
Kind of tongue in cheek, but I do not recall seeing in mentioned here. Was he worse than Cameron for the No? And how?

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 18, 2014, 05:05:39 AM

QuoteI am a bit surprised they let foreign residents to vote on this.

Why wouldn't they? I think it's entirely sensible that people who live in Scotland should decide the future of Scotland and people who don't, regardless of how tartan their blood, shouldn't.

Quote from: Warspite on September 18, 2014, 05:51:20 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 18, 2014, 05:05:39 AM

QuoteI am a bit surprised they let foreign residents to vote on this.

Why wouldn't they? I think it's entirely sensible that people who live in Scotland should decide the future of Scotland and people who don't, regardless of how tartan their blood, shouldn't.

I'm not so sure about this.

This is a huge decision for Scotland: one of its outcomes is likely to be - realistically - irreversible.

To allow temporary residents of Scotland - who may be foreign students passing through a four year degree at Edinburgh, or migrant workers building up some savings for a better life back home in a few years - a say in such a major decision is, in my view, rather problematic. Unlike a local election, this does not create a political reality that can be changed in four or five year's time. This vote is it.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on September 18, 2014, 06:27:32 AM

Quote from: Warspite on September 18, 2014, 05:51:20 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 18, 2014, 05:05:39 AM

QuoteI am a bit surprised they let foreign residents to vote on this.

Why wouldn't they? I think it's entirely sensible that people who live in Scotland should decide the future of Scotland and people who don't, regardless of how tartan their blood, shouldn't.

I'm not so sure about this.

This is a huge decision for Scotland: one of its outcomes is likely to be - realistically - irreversible.

To allow temporary residents of Scotland - who may be foreign students passing through a four year degree at Edinburgh, or migrant workers building up some savings for a better life back home in a few years - a say in such a major decision is, in my view, rather problematic. Unlike a local election, this does not create a political reality that can be changed in four or five year's time. This vote is it.

Most of these temporary residents probably aren't interested in locals politics though so they won't vote, but I understand your concern. How hard was for the Scots "exiled" in England to keep a separate if slighty phoney address to vote in Scotland?

QuoteShetland may reconsider its place in Scotland after yes vote, says minister
Scotland secretary says if islands were to vote no but national vote was yes, it could become self-governing like Isle of Man


Oil-rich Shetland may consider becoming a self-governing territory like the Isle of Man rather than stay part of an independent Scotland in the event of a yes vote, the Scotland secretary, Alistair Carmichael, has said.

In an interview with the Guardian, Carmichael said if Shetland were to vote strongly against independence but the Scottish national vote was narrowly in favour, then a "conversation about Shetland's position and the options that might be open to it" would begin.

The Liberal Democrat MP, who represents Orkney and Shetland in Westminster and has been secretary of state for Scotland in the coalition government since last October, said those options might include the islands modelling themselves on the Isle of Man, which is a self-governing crown dependency that is not part of the UK, or on their neighbours the Faroe Isles, which are an autonomous country within the Danish realm.

Asked if he was suggesting Alex Salmond should not take for granted that oilfields off Shetland will belong to Scotland in the event of a yes vote, he said: "That would be one of the things that we would want to discuss. I wouldn't like to predict at this stage where the discussions would go."

Responding to Carmichael's comments, a Yes Scotland spokesman said: "Scotland's island communities will have greater control over their local economies, natural environment and be represented at the heart of government in an independent Scotland.

"A yes vote is about empowering people and communities throughout Scotland, including our island communities. That is one reason why the Shetland News has chosen to chosen to back yes."

But Carmichael's comments were echoed by Tavish Scott, Shetland's MSP, who when asked whether Shetland would have to obey the will of Scotland in the event of a yes vote, said: "Will it now? We'll have to look at our options. We're not going to be told what to do by Alex Salmond."

Speaking as he canvassed in the capital Lerwick's town centre on the final day of campaigning before the vote, Scott said the option of becoming a crown dependency was "something we will look at", though he said he ruled out full independence for the islands.

A petition of more than 1,000 signatures raised by islanders from Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles calling for a separate referendum on whether they could themselves become independent was rejected last month by the Scottish government, which said it had promised new powers to the three island groups.

The Shetland archipelago, more than 100 miles north of mainland Scotland, has traditionally voted strongly against Scottish independence, in part because of its distinctive history – until the 15th century it was part of Norway and is closer to its west coast than the Scottish capital – in part because the oil industry has made it rich without particular assistance from Edinburgh.

Sullom Voe oil and gas terminal, in the north-west of the island group, is one of the largest in Europe, and a levy on oil processed through the islands since 1976 has poured into a multimillion pound charitable trust, which funds services, community projects and the arts for the islands' 23,000 population. Shetland's landscape and much of its architecture is unsparing, but roads and services are excellent, shops prosperous and hotels full of foreign business travellers.

If the extent of Scotland's oil reserves has been hotly debated across the nation as a whole, the topic is even more pressing in Lerwick, where the main harbour is dominated by six cruise ships providing accommodation for 1,700 workers from Total's gas plant, next to Sullom Voe.

Few expect Thursday's no vote to approach the emphatic 73% vote against independence in the 1979 referendum, however. In the bustling Yes Shetland shop on Lerwick's Harbour Street, which opened last month thanks to crowd-funded donations, campaigners yesterday rattled off detailed figures for the amount of oil remaining in the oilfields west of Scotland, and repeated the widely held claim among independence supporters that its true extent has been concealed by Westminster. A YouGov poll last week found 42% of voters in Scotland believe it is "probably true" that a bonanza find on the Clair oilfield is being concealed by BP until after polls close.

"Of course they have downplayed the amount of oil we have left," said Angela Sutherland, who had popped in for a cup of tea with fellow campaigners. It was "our oil", she said, and if independence is rejected "we're not going to get a penny of it, it's going to underwrite [Westminster's] debt".

A lifelong Liberal, Sutherland said she joined the SNP four months ago "because I felt the press coverage wasn't supporting yes, so I wanted to give them my support".

For Sue Wailoo, independence offered "an opportunity to build a country that's a fair society. We are a nation that is a small enough unit, and there are enough people with great ideas, that we should be able to govern ourselves."

But many on Shetland remain cautious, and for Gillian Ramsay, owner of the Shetland Art Company, a craft shop on Lerwick's narrow, twisting Commercial Street, there were too many unknowns for her to support yes. "I have a business, and I wonder how a yes vote would affect me. Will we be in the European Union? Will England be a foreign country? Will I have to pay more to bring in my materials? They can't tell me. This is the problem. They have been unable to satisfy me that it would be better if we were independent."

Those were all points being stressed by no campaigners a little further along the street outside the Bank of Scotland where, in a rare display of political unity, representatives from the Lib Dems, Labour and Conservatives were campaigning side by side. "We're Shetlanders and we've always lived peacefully in Shetland," explained Theo Nicolson in the strong Lerwick accent that still echoes its Scandinavian origins.

Nicolson, the local Lib Dem chairman, described himself as "Shetlander, and then British". And Scottish? A long pause. Only because his mother was Scottish, he said. "We're so different here in Shetland. Our history; we were part of Norway of course and we've always had a strong Norse background. We don't have the tartan culture here." His strong sense of Britishness comes from his father and grandfather who fought in the two wars, something that is important to many older islanders, he said.

Before retiring, Nicolson worked at Sullom Voe as a marine engineer. What was his perspective on the oil question? "Nobody knows how much oil is there. There's a vast amount of difference between different experts. And as you push out the frontiers, it gets more and more difficult to recover and more and more expensive to recover. It depends on global oil prices whether it will ever be viable, and that's something that no man knows."

Quote from: Tamas on September 18, 2014, 06:48:13 AM
You know what... This whole idea is a travesty.

A state is supposed to protect its citizens... If Yes wins by, say, 51%, it means that 49% of the population in Scotland will be British citizens who have a desire to remain as such, but in fact will find themselves shortly outside of British borders, because of their own state willingly "giving" them away.

We keep debating yes and no consequences, but I think the mere fact that such a momentous decision so decisively affecting the lives of many of its citizens for generations to come could be put up to a simple 50% vote of present residents of Scotland is a shame for the UK as a whole.

Quote from: Tamas on September 18, 2014, 06:48:13 AM
A state is supposed to protect its citizens... If Yes wins by, say, 51%, it means that 49% of the population in Scotland will be British citizens who have a desire to remain as such, but in fact will find themselves shortly outside of British borders, because of their own state willingly "giving" them away.

Quote from: Warspite on September 18, 2014, 05:51:20 AMI'm not so sure about this.

This is a huge decision for Scotland: one of its outcomes is likely to be - realistically - irreversible.

To allow temporary residents of Scotland - who may be foreign students passing through a four year degree at Edinburgh, or migrant workers building up some savings for a better life back home in a few years - a say in such a major decision is, in my view, rather problematic. Unlike a local election, this does not create a political reality that can be changed in four or five year's time. This vote is it.

It's also irked a lot of Scots who live south of the border but still consider themselves very Scottish and directly attached to their homeland (and often intend to move back). They have no voice in this vital decision over their country's future. (Anecdotally, this has especially pissed off a few of my friends and colleagues here in London who work here because they simply cannot do this job anywhere but the capital, e.g. civil service, military, central government.)

QuoteThe problem is, however, I cannot see a better way that doesn't introduce a whole set of other problems. But I think it is nonetheless important to recognise this system has disenfranchised a lot of Scots and empowered a lot of people who won't have to live with the consequences in the same way.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 18, 2014, 07:03:21 AM

Quote from: Tamas on September 18, 2014, 06:48:13 AM
A state is supposed to protect its citizens... If Yes wins by, say, 51%, it means that 49% of the population in Scotland will be British citizens who have a desire to remain as such, but in fact will find themselves shortly outside of British borders, because of their own state willingly "giving" them away.

But it's okay for the state to force the 51% of people who no longer want to be part of the country to remain?

A state is supposed to protect its citizens, but it's also supposed to respect the democratic process.

Quote from: Viking on September 18, 2014, 07:10:04 AM
51% means it is a highly contested issue, not an expression of a national consensus. If the referendum comes down to "whoever can get the vote out better" then no, it's not really a manifestation of a national will in the case of an issue which when accomplished will be irreversible.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 18, 2014, 07:03:21 AM

Quote from: Tamas on September 18, 2014, 06:48:13 AM
A state is supposed to protect its citizens... If Yes wins by, say, 51%, it means that 49% of the population in Scotland will be British citizens who have a desire to remain as such, but in fact will find themselves shortly outside of British borders, because of their own state willingly "giving" them away.

But it's okay for the state to force the 51% of people who no longer want to be part of the country to remain?

A state is supposed to protect its citizens, but it's also supposed to respect the democratic process.

Quote from: DGuller on September 18, 2014, 07:18:45 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 18, 2014, 07:03:21 AM

Quote from: Tamas on September 18, 2014, 06:48:13 AM
A state is supposed to protect its citizens... If Yes wins by, say, 51%, it means that 49% of the population in Scotland will be British citizens who have a desire to remain as such, but in fact will find themselves shortly outside of British borders, because of their own state willingly "giving" them away.

But it's okay for the state to force the 51% of people who no longer want to be part of the country to remain?

A state is supposed to protect its citizens, but it's also supposed to respect the democratic process.

I think it's acceptable for there to be a bias like that, for reasons of stability if nothing else.  Tamas's point is a good one.