231–240 of 745 posts
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Nothing says "British far right" like a Cabinet full of ethnic minorities.
Our Home Secretary has just instituted an illegal policy of deporting African and Asian refugees to Rwanda. Irrespective of the colour of her skin, her actions are those of the far right.
As an English guy living in Scotland, I've followed the debate closely - there is not support to hold a referendum within the current term, despite election pledges. Everyone I know votes SNP but doesn't really want to deal with a ref right now. Are vaguely disappointed with quality of SNP governance, but overall prefer to vote for a party which is primarily scottish focused and (slightly) to the left of rUK. Current…
As a Brit that didn’t want Scotland to be independent last time around: good luck to them. Brexit has shown very clearly that Scotland wants to chart a different path to England and IMO they should be allowed to do it. …just be generous to English folks seeking asylum from Tory rule, yeah?
> Brexit has shown very clearly that Scotland wants to chart a different path to England and IMO they should be allowed to do it. i don't get this. to me, in 2022, all the countries of the UK are exactly the same. even Ireland in some aspects. same language, same history, more or less same laws. what's so special about Scotland, and what's their "different path" as compared to, let's say, Wales?
Scotland has sufficient tax base and legal structures to go it alone, whilst Wales arguably doesn't.
In your list, you exclude politics.
I still can't really see the case for Scottish independence except nationalism. Scotland has been part of the UK for more than 300 years. It is so tightly integrated into its society and market that a hard border would be rather painful. We have an example of the successor states of Austria-Hungary once the empire collapsed at the end of WWI. The economic situation of businesses that suddenly faced high tariffs acces…
The integration is part of the problem. Scotland ends up paying for things like HS2 and other London centric. English regions have same issue arguably, but Scotland alone has some hope to rectify.
i find it hard to believe Scottish people don't travel outside of Scotland.
With hard headed view, I struggle to see that an independent Scotland will be economically able to deal with large cuts to public sector spending that would almost certainly be required. Per capita spending is already higher in Scotland than in the rest of the UK. Scottish companies have debts denominated in pounds. There would almost certainly be capital flight to rUK. Large businesses may relocate. There is no plan…
> large cuts to public sector spending that would almost certainly be required Why do you think that? We already raise more in taxes than we spend, and right now Scotland is heavily subsidising England.
When the SNP set up the Sustainable Growth Commission before the last independence vote it advised that public sector cuts would be necessary to reduce the country's deficit to sustainable levels. [2]
You can't just make things up because you wish it was so. It is not sensible.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/18/scotland-soa...
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> …just be generous to English folks seeking asylum from Tory rule, yeah? As you know, UK asylum policy is horrific at the moment. The UK is sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, copying Australia's repugnant offshore policy. I hope we (Scotland) do better. In 2014, the independence white paper had a points based immigration policy. I want a much more open immigration policy this time round. Scotland is enriched by migra…
There is a big difference between people legally arriving under a points system and people rowing themselves over to live illegally.
People risking everything on the dangerous migration paths out of Africa don't do that out of fun, they do it because they have literally no other option left. The chickens are coming home to roost, one might say.
Besides: the hurdles that "point systems" place are, similarly to many social security/unemployment insurance systems, set up in a way that allows deceptive politicians to claim "but we have a system!!!" while fully knowing that the hurdles allow only a tiny amount of people to actually use it.
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I’d say post-Brexit England has drifted away from the far right. The whole EDL/Britain First/UKIP sentiment has only waned massively since then. The ruling government has not come close to far right at any point.
To lump UKIP in with the other two is absurd.
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That's silly. I have no dog in this fight, but people are allowed to change their opinion, especially as circumstances change. If what your choice was based on changed, then it's perfectly logical for your choice to change in response. Holding up to "once in a generation" promises is stupid, though so was making such a claim to start with.
The reason for the "once in a generation" promise is that it is widely recognised that holding regular referenda on non-reversible decisions biases in favour of the non-reversible option. Let's imagine for example that genuinely 55% of the population want to remain part of the UK, and so remaining should win given a completely fair and accurate measure of the population's mood. However, every measurement varies for a…
One quite important issue is the border. English and Scottish people will almost certainly never tolerate any kind of friction at that border. We've been moving across it seamlessly for centuries, families are mixed, businesses straddle the border, etc. If the Northern Ireland debacle has shown us anything, it's if Scotland were to leave and then join the EU that border would become an absolute political nightmare. T…
Another way to look at the Northern Ireland precedent, is that a compromise was found. People could argue that the same text can be reused.
i hope scotland gets their independence. they might help us when our time comes. fingers crossed