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Scotland starts renewed case for independence

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Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#591

Post by AshamedCaptain »

brigandish wrote: post #574
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't say that many, including myself, would agree that education plans are on the same level as independence. Perhaps not (your choice), but education plans definitely influence _at least_ a generation -- and they are changed almost on every change of legislative color without either a public vote or otherwise much fanfare. This stuff eventually has a much more profound impact than independence (for starters, ed…

> We had at least 2-3 last decade? Which countries? I note 4 if Ukraine is part of Europe, but that would mean you have to recognise Crimea's referendum as legal and valid. Not a hill I'd die on. Catalunya's and Venice's were not recognised by Spain or Italy, so we're left with Scotland's. Unless there were others?

Nouvelle-Calédonie/Kanak (3 times in the last decade), Scotland, Catalonia are the ones I had in mind, thus the 2-3 . I was not aware of Venice's one, so make that 2-4. I am sure there are others, considering my area of knowledge is limited to western european countries.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#592

Post by throwawaymanbot »

smcl wrote: post #509
dagw wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Spain I understand. But I dunno about France. It's not the Auld Alliance is still a thing, but surely they'd relish an opportunity to give England a black eye.

No post body was provided.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#593

Post by Taywee »

brigandish wrote: post #312
sofixa wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone can claim the situation has changed, every year. Life does not go backwards. I'm still not clear why that means "once in a generation" becomes "as soon as I can get what I want". So for you Brexit, a harder one than what anyone campaigned for ( the hardest one i recall hearing about was "Norway-style"), isn't a change ?

Perhaps I could've been clearer. There will always be changes, hence, anyone who wishes to claim there's been a change can. That doesn't obviate "once in a generation", does it? Perhaps they should've been clearer and said "once in a generation, and if the UK has a referendum on EU membership and we decide to leave, and if…" It would've been more honest, at least. I'll also note, you're right that the vast majority o…

Why does the statement "once in a generation" completely obviate any nuance? It makes sense to evaluate things based on events and changes in situation and context. It makes sense to not bring up things over and over again in an attempt to change something that people don't want changed. It doesn't make sense to use a phrase as the sole justification for avoiding reevaluating a decision made in a different context. I don't think it's rational to read "once in a generation" as "once in a generation, regardless of any and all circumstances, with no room for any reconsideration ever".

Any statement should be considered to be taken in the context that it is given, and constrained by rational, reasonable bounds and circumstances. Assuming anything outside of technical and legal language to mean the most absolute and literal interpretation of the words isn't productive or useful in most cases.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#594

Post by Taywee »

walkhour wrote: post #544
synu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not British or Scottish and have no skin in the game, but what is the harm in revoting if things seem to have changed? Either things didn’t change and everyone votes the same anyway, in which case it was a waste of time but reconfirms the status quo, or things actually are different and then you know and can act on it. Is there a special history or feature in UK democracy where things are only ever voted on one…

The referendum was justified as once in a generation, and this phrase was repeated ad nauseam, and this deal was partly why the referendum happened. It wasn't said "once in a generation unless there's a big change", big changes happen in countries all the time, so by demanding a referendum now the rules are being changed. The next generation will have a chance to vote on this, and if they think independence from the…

If a sizable number of people specifically voted against independence out of desire to remain in the EU, then their votes were undermined. Voting is supposed to represent the will of the people, and I don't think it's fair to treat it like a gamble that this generation just lost because whoops, England changed their circumstances and people said "once in a generation" a bunch of times. Did the voters agree to this "once in a generation" condition, or was it imposed upon them?

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#595

Post by jleyank »

dahfizz wrote: post #582
jleyank wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same world where fascism isn’t associated with the far right. Where jargon is fluid and arbitrary. Was responding to previous post trying to separate fascism/right wing.

> The same world where fascism isn’t associated with the far right. I made no such argument. Fasicm isn't associated with the actual, modern day right wing of politics. This is why "far right" is such a slippery and nefarious term. It allows you to conflate right wing politics and facsism. If you think the Tories are fascist, then make that argument. Don't hide behind this newspeak.

[flagged]

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#596

Post by zwirbl »

inglor_cz wrote: post #508
zwirbl wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I value about current EU is precisely that it cannot just squash dissent by force, even from a single country. And this often means that the EU can't get anything done on an EU wide level

That is, for me, a feature, not a bug. Consent is a great thing. Many people of smaller nations like Czechs, that regained sovereignty after a long period of subjugation to various powers, do not really want to give it up again so that the French-German axis may have their job easier.

Why did they join the EU in the first place then? Was it for the money and having some entity to blame for domestic policy failures? The last point is what politicians here in Austria like to do

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#597

Post by camjw »

scott_w wrote: post #578
camjw wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay but we can agree that your point about there being no Act of Parliament is not relevant then. It being a matter for debate whether Rwanda is safe is, I think, not something the SC is going to rule on. It violating the Human Rights Act seems to be the only real issue for the SC then? Again, I just wonder whether this policy is likely to be illegal under that Act given that the relevant clause says "No one shall b…

What is your legal basis for your assessment?

That many other (EU) countries who have implemented the EUHR directive deport asylum seekers to other countries, and those countries SC equivalents have not found it to be illegal.

I guess my legal basis is precedent.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#598

Post by eyko »

smcl wrote: post #441
eyko wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalism in the context of SNP (and as a concept in general) simply refers to the desire/belief that the state and nation should be synonymous. The problem is that not everyone's interpretation of national identity is the same, so the in the end all you get is populism used to push a belief. The answer to the question "What is Scotland, anyway?" is not as clear as politicians would like it to be.

Ok but in real-world usage "nationalist = far right = nazis = bad". So I was clarifying that while that is not untrue, nobody is saying the Scottish independence movement or the SNP are that .

It might be regional or very US/UK specific. In many parts of the world nationalism is also associated with left wing separatist movements. For example, in Spain we have ETA[1], and in Turkey the PKK[2].

I've never specifically associated it with neither left nor right because in my country we have both right and left wing nationalist movements. Yes, far right nationalism is often fascism, nazism, jingoism, etc. but this isn't the only type of nationalism, and we don't use nationalism as a synonym for nazism/fascism, except when speaking specifically in the context of right wing nationalist groups.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA_(separatist_group) 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers%27_Party

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#599

Post by Emma_Goldman »

smcl wrote: post #579
Emma_Goldman wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"In the few exceptions where England voted Tory but got Labour because of Scottish votes, how was that fair on England?" You can always say that if one region that voted for the winning party in a close election hadn't, the outcome would have been different. I don't understand how that's unfair, it's inherent in the arithmetic of majoritarian democracy. You could say the same thing about London or the northwest, whi…

You're very carefully dodging the main point made by DonaldFisk: that it rarely matters how Scotland votes. Whoever England votes for, Scotland gets. We could've sent 59 Scottish Labour MPs to Westminster in each of the last three elections and it wouldn't have changed a thing, because England wanted a Conservative government.

>Whoever England votes for, Scotland gets. We could've sent 59 Scottish Labour MPs to Westminster in each of the last three elections and it wouldn't have changed a thing, because England wanted a Conservative government.

In 2017, if Scotland didn't elect 13 Conservatives to Westminster then Theresa May would not have been able to form a government with the DUP. If it also didn't elect 4 Liberal Democrats then Theresa May would not have been able to form a government even if she somehow managed to establish a three-way power-sharing agreement with the DUP and the Liberal Democrats. In that event May probably wouldn't have been able to form a government, and there would have been new elections. And remember, May was in abysmal straits at the time.

> You're very carefully dodging the main point

Well, the 'point' wasn't a response to the existing conversation. It was a random interpolation, and I didn't find it very remarkable. In a Parliament of 650 seats no randomly selected bloc of 59 constituencies is likely to play a deciding role in the outcome. It will happen sometimes, but not often. But why would it be otherwise? Of course, if you start off with the belief that Scotland is an independent entity that merits complete self-determination, then that will be a problem. But that begs the question, again.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#600

Post by MagnumOpus »

eyko wrote: post #88
cstross wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point. UKIP and BXP disintegrated because their more competent members colonized the Conservative Party, which is now much more radical and far-right than it was under Cameron. The only surviving cabinet minister from Cameron's era (2010-2016) is Michael Gove. The rest are all new faces with far right credentials and a commitment to the hardest of hard Brexits.

> new faces with far right credentials I'm not sure what your definition of far right is but that statement is quite far from the truth.

That statement is very much the truth. I don't know whether you follow politics outside the UK, or whether you remember the UK from 10 years ago? In both cases the policies of the current government -- from hard Brexit to unilaterally renouncing the GFA to interning asylum seekers in Rwanda to deporting pension-aged Windrush people to the Caribbean to the "hostile environment" for legal immigrants and foreign students etc etc -- are far more to the right than the derided far-right parties espouse in France or Germany, and far more to the right than the UKIP or BNP ever asked for...
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