Live data from Hacker News

Scotland starts renewed case for independence

gov.scot

451–460 of 745 posts

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#451
post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called the Overton Window. It's typically the case for any system you are within, that the majority will consider the local "norm" to be moderate/centrist/etc. Looking at international politics, or even (perhaps more relevantly) the history of UK politics, modern UK politics is extremely far right. Labour is a very good example (considered by many within the UK to be left). They have been right-wing since the…

Corbyn self-identifies as a socialist.

Yup. Corbyn lives in the UK. Politics is relative.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Brit who voted for Scottish independence last time, against the wishes of many of my family and those around me, if this happens again then I'll vote against the SNP's wishes. They said it was a once in generation vote. I made my case, as did everyone else, we all had the chance to vote on it, and my side lost. Democratic votes need the consent of the loser, not I didn't get my way so let's have another vote . B…

> They said it was a once in generation vote. Or, put another way, you are trying to bind future voters to a promise you agreed to. An arbitrary, ill defined promise at that. What are you telling the younger voters you want to disenfranchise? Perhaps a supermajority was always the better solution to big questions that should have strong consensus.

> What are you telling the younger voters you want to disenfranchise?

Will they not get to vote in future?

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#453
post #209

I don't believe Scotland will (or should) become independent for exactly the same reasons Northern Ireland should be reunified with Ireland: land borders. Scotland shares a land border with England. If Scotland were part of the EU it would have to have a harder border with England. It may exclude itself from the Schengen zone but there's still the EU customs union. Northern Ireland was the real sticking point in Brex…

But Hadrian's wall is already there. We'd just need to fix a few of the holes and throw up some checkpoints and the border would be sorted!

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One huge government ruling the entire world sounds out-of-this-world-super dystopian to me!

World peace sounds dystopian to you?

One planet means world peace? Wasn’t clear from the context.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#455
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’d argue that deporting immigrants to Rwanda has a certain far right timbre.

Was reading recently about how the EU also sent refugees to Rwanda.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#456

Scottish independence is a bad idea for many of the same reasons that Brexit was a bad idea and Brexit has made Scottish independence into a much worse idea. Instead of being like the Czechoslovak break-up it would be more like the issues around the Northern Irish border. Having a huge land border which is an EU/non-EU border with customs controls would be massive economic disruption on both sides of the border. The…

Much more of a disaster for England, which is pretty worrying for that declining nation. Scotland will have the single market as compensation.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Her views on immigration are indistinguishable from those of most people in India or Bangladesh. They’d do the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot. And those are definitely not “far right” countries.

India is definitely becoming a far right country. Once you attack republicanism not to add more democracy but to remove transparency and to add imbalance within the legislative power, you are far right.

In fact, it is easy to distinguish political far right from political far left. Both wants to remove/weaken the institutions. One will push for more personal power(aka: strengthen executive, weaken judicial and legislative power (you can add push media concentration). The other will push towards revocative referendums, random selection for public committee, and overall a weakening of the executive power (refund/divide the police and stuff). As long as with stay within economic center (basically modern capitalism shades).

If you don't think moving toward a less republican government is enough, we can go historically: a marker of far right is treating/talking about the country like a living organism.

I'm talking myself into believing that India is already far right, i should stop arguing :/

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#458
post #17
post #2

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?

For non-UK people: There are four nations in the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland). But England has roughly 90% of the population of the UK. So what England votes for in an all-nations referendum, the rest of the UK gets. England voted for Brexit by a narrow-ish majority. But Scotland voted against Brexit by a huge margin -- 62/38, or approximately 3:2. Ironically, the year before the Brexit referendum…

Thanks for that summary and a slight correction just because you tickled my pedant nerve: Indyref I was in September 2014, so two years before the EU Membership referendum, in June 2016.

I worked for a company based in Edinburgh during the Indyref campaign and I remember the concern about being left out of the EU at the time. All my coleagues (obviously not a representative sample of Scottish society) really thought independence was not a good idea from a bussiness and financial point of view, although I don't reckon any of them were particularly friendly to the Tory government in England.

Edit: thinking of it now, I'm getting the feeling that Scottish people were much more interested in being in the EU than the UK, at the time at least.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me, but literally today is the first day that the government starting flying asylum seekers to Rwanda[1], and yesterday they published legislation with the intention of breaking international law[2]. They've also recently curtailed rights to legal protest[3]. The Prime Minister has a history of law breaking including illegally shutting down our parliament[4]. This government only got their majority when UKIP c…

The refugee crisis is a global issue, and it shouldn’t be left to any single country to shoulder the burden simply because it is the first port of a refugees arrival. Rwanda is a country with a recent successful history of rehabilitating refugees, and the president reached out to offer a home to those who need it. For geography alone, the UK would be a better destination for the flood of Ukrainian refugees coming in,…

> Rwanda is a country with a recent successful history of rehabilitating refugees, and the president reached out to offer a home to those who need it.

Not sure how well there success is measured after recently finding out about this:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Dutch and EU citizen I fully understand their motivation. I also regretted to see England leave the EU.

Will you feel the same way when the EU seeks the end of veto powers (as is currently happening)? https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/european-parliament-a...

It's time they did, I'm sick of seeing my home countries (and other EU nations) government f** over the rest to push some agenda. Make it a 2/3 majority and the EU is forced to find a realistic compromise instead of an unrealistic expectation of unity. Have you ever tried getting 25 persons to agree on something?
Post reply on HN