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Scotland starts renewed case for independence

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Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#391

Post by cjrp »

Ntrails wrote: post #381
cjrp wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> protecting borders from illegal immigration Asylum-seeking is not illegal immigration.

> Asylum-seeking is not illegal immigration Economic migration under the guise of asylum seeking is though. And pretending that all the people who make the attempt to gain Asylum in the UK are legitimate non-economic migrants is absurd.

> Economic migration under the guise of asylum seeking is though.

Correct. As is murder, theft, etc. I don't think anything in my comment suggested they're not?

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#392

Post by Veen »

dubeye wrote: post #247
aftergibson wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope this isn’t too off topic but I’ve been living in the year for 12 years and never seen the acronym rUK, it’s been mentioned several times in this thread, what does the r in rUK stand for? (Forgive my ignorance of this is really obvious!).

Rest of UK excluding Scotland.

Or, less politely, Rump UK.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#393

Post by dubeye »

zarzavat wrote: post #375
dubeye wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They need to be answered at some point, but not necessarily before the referendum. Not saying it's a best way to do it, but it's the most likely way. Brexit for example, was a referendum on a very broad question, the specifics were worked out afterwards. But most likely there will be a transition period, where monetary sovereignty is sacrificed in the short term, to allow central bank to be set up and votes held on v…

The aftermath of the Brexit referendum was horrendous precisely because there were several groups campaigning for mutually contradictory visions of Brexit. A referendum whereby the nature of the thing being voted on is only explained afterwards is not democratic, it is merely an illusion of democracy.

Yes and the scottish aftermath will also be horrendous as many contradictory visions exist of indy too. But how else to do it?

You can't agree prior to the vote how indy will look exactly, for the very same reason.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#394

Post by scott_w »

rayiner wrote: post #324
scott_w wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truss is moving to break a treaty to appease the far right nutters in her party. Javid, as Home Secretary, stripped a teenager of her British citizenship, leaving her stateless and stranded somewhere in Iraq or Syria.

If I’m thinking of the same person, she’s ethnically Bangladeshi. But Bangladesh wouldn’t let her back in the country even though it has a right of return for people of Bangladeshi ethnicity: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/bangladesh-will-not-ac... Bangladesh is an officially socialist country. You’re just defining “far right” to include everyone who disagrees with a narrow view of immigration. Regarding your…

I never said Javid was a racist, I said the policy to deport black and brown refugees to Rwanda, while not treating Ukrainian refugees the same way was racist. This should be self-evident by just looking at the facts.

You’re making another false equivalence with Bangladesh when Begum was born and raised in the U.K. and had never been to Bangladesh. And then trying to use that in bad faith to insinuate things I never said.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#395

Post by Xylakant »

easytiger wrote: post #327
WJW wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but also Dutch. Yes I would definitely like the EU to abolish veto powers and move to a majority rule. Europeans are too divided and need to band together to form a realistic opposition to the US and China. Veto rule is no way to govern a large group, since you only have to bribe a single member to cripple the whole. This has been known since at least the ancient Greek citystate era.

I think this is concerning and a misunderstanding of human and geopolitical behaviour. Once some of the EUs more insane policies are forced on countries the desire to leave will spread. > Veto rule is no way to govern a large group, since you only have to bribe a single member to cripple the whole. Are you saying there is a corruption issue right now? With majority rule (size TBD) a handful of countries will ride rou…

> With majority rule (size TBD) a handful of countries will ride roughshod over others. Enjoy centrally set tax rates

The currently discussed quorum is 55% of the EU countries representing at least 65% of the EU population. There's a neat voting calculator here https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting-system/... where you can figure out how majorities could work or be blocked. It's a pretty reasonable voting mechanism where small countries can block the vote if they group up, but also larger countries with substantial share of the population can as well.

Fact remains that larger countries with larger populations carry a larger weight - but individual countries can't hold the EU hostage any longer (Even Germany with the largest population share can't block a vote alone)

Also, the EU doesn't set taxes. It requires some minimum on specific taxes to prevent a race to the bottom (corporate taxes), but pretty much all taxes are set by the states.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#396

Post by petesergeant »

ruune wrote: post #214
chillydawg wrote: post #42

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…

The border problem in Ireland was originally settled by a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK (until the UK found it didn't like what it agreed to anymore). I'm really not an expert on anything in that field, but a border between Scotland and the EU similar to the Northern Irish one should resolve that problem, making Scotland able to join the EU with an open border to the UK, no?

The movement of people isn't really a big deal due to the Common Travel Area (which you've got to assume an independent Scotland would be in). But movement of goods would be a huge problem, as Northern Ireland is showing right now.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#397

Post by mvc »

brigandish wrote: post #79
dale_glass wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> people are allowed to change their opinion Since I've changed mine I think that is called teaching granny to suck eggs . > If what your choice was based on changed, then it's perfectly logical for your choice to change in response. I was told it was a once in a generation vote - has that changed? What constitutes a big enough change to bring a new vote? How often should these type of referenda be held? > Holding up…

> Yes, you must forgive me for thinking that principles and promises are worth sticking to. I should be as cynical as politicians and simply go by what is convenient, right?

So principled that you are happy to stick with a leader who when asked about parties that went on in his house, confidently stated that no parties had taken place.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#398

Post by vladharbuz »

londons_explore wrote: post #338

With any country splitting, who is it who should be voting to split the country? Just those in the smaller part that is 'leaving'? Or the whole country? If just the smaller part, does that mean any tiny town can 'vote to be independent'?

The former. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination

A tiny town is unlikely to be able to maintain itself as an independent state. A province can definitely vote to be independent, which has often happened, and has often been blocked by the parent country, peacefully or otherwise.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#399

Post by stoneman24 »

swarnie wrote: post #259
dubeye wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much doubt many scottish voters will pay too much attention to the economics. Are constitutional referendums ever really about economics? Brexit certainly wasn't

Some really basic questions will need to be answered. 1) What currecny are you using? 2) Where is your central bank? 3) What debt will you be departing with? 4) What cuts will be required when you can no longer take 32bn a year via the Barnett formula? Just simple, fundamental things really.

Additional difficult questions that need to determined before a final vote. 5) exact geographic boundaries for oil/gas fields 6) exact rights on fishing areas 7) how to split the financial assets of the UK 8) how trade deals continue / stop

Scotland has approx 10% of the UK population, should that be used as the criteria for the separation ? Should we get 10% of the assets held by the Bank of England

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#400

Post by atlasunshrugged »

modo_mario wrote: post #365
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the EU has been happy to use America's defense guarantee to subsidize their own defense for a few decades that doesn't exactly ring true. That said, I do understand the need for EU strategic autonomy, especially since the U.S. has been pushing for it since at least the Obama administration but I just found it odd that the U.S. would be lumped in with China. One's influence I'd say is clearly malign, the ot…

Subsidise their own defence? Defence from what? The only time NATO called the arms was when the US invoked article 5. Additionally this article is from 2007. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/16/iraq.iraqtimel... We are as of today still helping out in Iraq. >but I just found it odd that the U.S. would be lumped in with China When SWIFT was transacting with Iran after our negotiations you forced our hand to…

I mean, has the war in Ukraine not shown that having a strong defense is necessary, even in Europe? If you're trying to point out that there hasn't been a war in the EU while it's been under America's security cordon, point well made.

Point taken on Iran, I understand that was annoying from the EU perspective and potentially an overplay of America's hand; but I guess I just think that if the EU and the U.S. aren't tightly aligned it will open up more potential activities from China who has shown themselves over and over to be significantly worse "partners" than America.

I don't think blaming the refugee wave on the U.S. is fair, there were a lot more factors at play than just countries unable to achieve a dollar peg, besides wasn't a huge amount of the turmoil (at least politically) from the Syrian refugee crisis, not N. Africa?

> All in all I do think there's countless opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation and alignment between the US and EU but hell don't act like the US is some saint who never acts in it's own interest. At least with China nobody pretends.

Of course the U.S. isn't a saint, but it is a country that does actually try to have some values in its engagements. Does it fail constantly or make deals that I think are awful and work with terrible people? Absolutely, such is geopolitics (although we do often have unforced errors there). But it's such a funny way to equivocate-- America does some bad things but is hypocritical but China is just absolutely terrible and has no qualms about it so both are bad? That makes no sense to me.

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