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Scotland starts renewed case for independence

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Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#481

Post by orwin »

chrisseaton wrote: post #172
ggm wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jimmy Maxton is dead as well: Red Clydeside long gone. There were scots Trotskyists, the rock climber Dougal Haston's family notably (he's dead too. I don't think he was political btw) The point being made here is Scotland has a socialist history and has had explicitly socialist candidates elected to parliament in recent history. Like.. 2003-2007. I'd hesitate to call it dead just yet.

> explicitly socialist candidates elected to parliament I think it’s pretty unreasonable to call these people ‘far left’. I don’t think they’re planning to take up arms like the IRA for example.

Did they tried to change how institutions work to add stuff like random nominations, split/defund the police, self determination for smaller bodies (decentralization towards cities basically)?

Or did they try to subvert capitalism by forcing half+1 workers representative on every company boards?

There is not a lot of far left ideas left to implement. Societally, there is basically nothing left since women are allowed to vote and segregation ended. Socially, it is impossible to advance without political or economic far leftism. So this only leave political far left and economic far left.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#482

Post by synu »

true_religion wrote: post #439
synu wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that seems quite silly. You'd think you'd want a majority for a big, hard to reverse decision like that, otherwise it will oscillate back and forth.

Well not really. You do want to bias for dissolving a union. If half the population is against it, it doesn’t matter if it’s 51% or 49%, it’s unpopular enough that it is tearing your nation in two. Imagine the US civil war came down to a vote: “Sorry, 50.1% are in favor of slavery so we’re just going to keep practicing it in all of America”. Would the 49.9% be happy to live within that union? How about vice versa? Th…

If each 50% happens to be more or less perfectly geographically distributed, sure, but if not then you've just recreated the same problem twice (now something approaching 50% of each new division wants to immediately undo what you've just done).

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#483

Post by bennysomething »

atoav wrote: post #386
bennysomething wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of being misled, we were pretty much promised by the Scottish nationalists that this was a once in a generation choice. Seems we voted wrong the last time so here we are again with all the uncertainty to go with it. Though right now I want the second referendum as it's probably the best way to end the uncertainty that SNP causing

I am an outsider on the topic, but wouldn't such a stark change of the political landscape as Brexit be a really valid reason to ask the question again? After all, independence before would have meant exiting the EU, while it now could mean re-entering it. Independence is ultimately the question about how a region wants to see itself in the world, and the alliances you are in are a big factor in that qestion.

In my opinion no it's not.

The changes from brexit are minimal compared to what Scottish independence would be. Trade with UK dwarfs trade with EU. The Snp government basically buried their own economic report on the economic case for independence because there isn't one (let's see what's in the next one). Last referendum they couldn't even give a clear answer on currency as many nationalist don't want the euro (or EU for that matter).

Next up is defence, we would need to fund an army and navy etc. Given what's going with Ukraine and that russian jets regularly test our air response capability (jets scrambled from cooper airbase regularly I believe). Would we join NATO? Given what sweden and Finland are looking at I really hope so. Oh and the Snp government firmly want rid of nuclear weapons in Scotland (I'm not pro nuclear now hardly seems to be the time to disarm in northern European countries). Break up of the UK would be a huge win for Putin and loss for the west. Oh and have a read of our defence spoke persons bio:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_McDonald_(politician...

It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#484

Post by dagw »

jpkeisala wrote: post #443
curiousgal wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will/Would the EU accept Scotland's membership though? What about the currency? It all seems so complicated

It would be very popular move for every EU politician to fast track Scotland to EU. But yes, it would be complicated to separate from UK and become independent. Becoming EU member would not be that complicated.

Spain and France aren't super keen on encouraging the general idea that regions of a country can easily split off and become independent EU member countries.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#485

Post by rayiner »

scott_w wrote: post #394
rayiner wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In a sibling comment you said he was “appealing to racists” by blocking Begum’s return. My question is whether Bangladeshis are racists for the same reason?

And it’s not a false equivalence. Bangladesh has special rules for return of children of people of Bangladeshi origin. My brother was born in Virginia but could travel back to Bangladesh without meeting the usual immigration conditions by showing proof of our parent’s birth in Bangladesh. Begum was in the same position. But Bangladesh isn’t as sympathetic to terrorists as some folks in the UK.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#486

Post by tialaramex »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #237
brigandish wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To lump UKIP in with the other two is absurd.

Not really. https://images.app.goo.gl/HnsR6uZ436wRQxhf6

UKIP when it was actually popular was first and foremost an iteration of the Nigel Farage vehicle.

Now, UKIP had existed before Farage, and it existed after Farage, but as with a typical far right party it's full of nutters who don't know which part of the message you can say out loud, so it's unelectable. Indeed, in actual UK parliamentary elections even Farage was unelectable, which is why he got into the whole "Brexit" thing because EU elections are seen as less important yet they're also multi-member PR so you can get 20% of the vote in a four seat region and expect to come away with a seat even though the vast majority of people in that region hated you.

Mostly though, for Farage this is and always was a scam. So the subsequent parties unlike UKIP were founded from the outset as scam operations e.g. "The Brexit Party" was a private company, owned by Farage and co., profits for the owners not members (indeed for ages you couldn't "join" that party), and paid for by the candidates who Farage then promptly sold out because it was convenient for him personally. You should see all that family of parties as just "The Nigel Farage Party" much more so than e.g. Republicanism is "The Donald Trump Party" because while you're not going to see Republican leadership actually say Trump is a piece of shit any time soon, they'll be here in ten years and he won't whereas the Farage parties without Farage just wither away and die.

Anyway, my point is, the popular UKIP was just the Farage Party, it's primarily about putting your money in Farage's wallet and the bigotry is a side show, without Farage that's the main event.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#487

Post by mensetmanusman »

jfk13 wrote: post #302
synu wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it’s a close vote and circumstances are changing rapidly, I’d say pretty often. Maybe every two or three years until some kind of consensus emerges? It seems like an important topic you wouldn’t want to suppress except for once every sixty years or whatever, and might force some negotiation to get to a better place whether through independence or reconciliation. This is assuming the role of the government here i…

> When it’s a close vote and circumstances are changing rapidly, I’d say pretty often And if you hold the vote every 2-3 years, and the result alternates between Yes and No, at what point will you say "stop, this is a final decision"?

This is the democracy version of p-hacking.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#488

Post by rayiner »

triceratops wrote: post #423
rayiner wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's plenty who think India has drifted to the far-right in the past decade.

What’s happening in India is merely the westernized elite losing their grip on culture: https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial.... But the desire of Indians to have their country without other people in it goes back to independence from Britain.

Calling it “nativism” would be inappropriate because that would make it seem like a thing that needs a label. To the contrary, that’s just how most societies are. What we need a label for are the small minority of folks who feel the opposite way.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#489

Post by carlmr »

dagw wrote: post #484
jpkeisala wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be very popular move for every EU politician to fast track Scotland to EU. But yes, it would be complicated to separate from UK and become independent. Becoming EU member would not be that complicated.

Spain and France aren't super keen on encouraging the general idea that regions of a country can easily split off and become independent EU member countries.

But Scotland is already a country.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#490

Post by chrisseaton »

orwin wrote: post #481
chrisseaton wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> explicitly socialist candidates elected to parliament I think it’s pretty unreasonable to call these people ‘far left’. I don’t think they’re planning to take up arms like the IRA for example.

Did they tried to change how institutions work to add stuff like random nominations, split/defund the police, self determination for smaller bodies (decentralization towards cities basically)? Or did they try to subvert capitalism by forcing half+1 workers representative on every company boards? There is not a lot of far left ideas left to implement. Societally, there is basically nothing left since women are allowed…

I think 'far left' implies terrorism or other armed insurrection or revolution? The things you're talking about are acting peacefully within the existing establishment. That's not 'far left'.
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