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Scotland starts renewed case for independence

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Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#721

Post by brigandish »

smcl wrote: post #713
brigandish wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as a Scot living in the EU, believe me it is not simply an "excuse" Your living situation does not obviate the SNP's pledge. > Yes it really is seismic, My living situation is to live in a region with actual earthquakes, big ones at times too. A change of a trade deal is not in the same universe, let alone world, of effect upon people's daily lives or political events as that. You need to calm yourself down and get…

Ok if you're going to be overly literal then substitute "seismic" for "very, very big and disruptive for many people". I think if we're at the point where you're picking away at my choice of adjective we might be done with this discussion :-/

What I'm doing is comparing the literal with the figurative, as that is how the figurative comes to be. It's not seismic, your passport will change colour and some immigration rules changed. You, as someone living in Europe will have a more bothersome time than before but you're still there, right?

What you are experiencing is nothing compared to what non-EU citizens (who are largely non-white) had to go through when coming to the UK - why were we favouring Romanians and Hungarians over Indians and Singaporians? I've no idea.

Still, it was a change in a trade pact.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#722

Post by brigandish »

ncmncm wrote: post #697
brigandish wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's none of your business why they want to call a referendum The intentions of politicians are not my business and that is "absolutely elementary civics". That isn't credible. As to the rest, obvious and irrelevant. When did I make any comment on someone else's right or reasons to vote? I didn't, thank for noticing enough that you refrain from attempting to use it to obscure the issue at hand - your claim about wh…

Politicians are expected to do what voters are demanding. They can guess reasons why they think voters want it, and some voters may suggest reasons they think will be persuasive. The pols might offer reasons, too, but they don't really know, so you won't really know either. And, it doesn't matter. You will vote for, against, or abstain, regardless. People can try to persuade you, but they are not obliged to tell you…

I obviously won't believe the SNP from now on, not that I did. You can keep that bridge, perhaps find some less principled pro-independence voters to sell it to.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#723

Post by brigandish »

justin66 wrote: post #709
brigandish wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've failed to communicate the why? of this. Because I'm against lying, and because their own statement contained the logic that it's bad to continually vote on this issue - I'm using their ostensibly given logic because, if we take their actual words as truthful, they are correct. Most people agreed at the time and it was one of the reasons they convinced the public to go along with a referendum. Usually I can't…

The idiom about cutting off your nose to spite your face comes to mind.

That would only make sense for SNP supporters willing to look past their political leaders' lies. The rest of us will do fine if we can punish corrupt and lying politicians. I wish we could do that more often, I always envy those who get by-elections and are able to vote against whichever party has been behaving poorly.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#724

Post by scott_w »

brigandish wrote: post #720
scott_w wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did I say it was wrong?

I said it was wrong for the SNP, so it would have been wrong for Farage. Are you going to state what is so obvious, because I can't be sure I or anyone else knows what you've alluded to?

Politics and rhetoric. It’s really that simple.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#725

Post by Gordonjcp »

themoose8 wrote: post #224
Gordonjcp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you think having referenda is comparable, then let's have them every 5 years too, on both Scottish independence or rejoining the the Union, and on Brexit or rejoining the EU. Yes, absolutely. Once Scotland is independent we absolutely should keep checking to see if everyone thinks it's a good idea. If the majority votes to rejoin the rest of the UK politically, we should do that.

It's not a revolving door decision. You can't vote-force your way into joining a separate country or political institution, e.g. Ukraine can't simply gain a majority vote to be part of the EU and it happens. This is why it's seen as a once-in-a-generation vote. The impacts are so huge, revolutionary and so long-term, that it's not a conversation you want to have every 4-5 years until one year you chance your way to t…

But we should still check that things are going the way people expect them to, right?

Of course the point is moot - can you point to any former part of the English Empire that has ever expressed a desire to get back to being ruled by them?

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#726

Post by mcv »

nazka wrote: post #623
smcl wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Being French I can tell you we really discourage it because we don’t have just one region but several! You have Corsica who wants to be independent, Alsace who wants to be independent or linked to Germany and sometimes Basque linked with the Basque region of Spain. But all that was at its apex years ago now it’s more stable.

There's also French Catalunya, of course.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#727

Post by mcv »

Wildgoose wrote: post #495
cstross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You missed out the part that Wales also voted for Brexit, (52.5% to 47.5%) and that England actually voted strongly for Brexit (53.6% to 46.4%) only to have that result diluted by Scotland and Northern Ireland. It was a UK-wide vote, not an individual nation vote.

But the fact remains that Scotland very strongly wants to remain in the EU, and only a year before voted to remain part of the UK in order to stay in the EU.

That was absolutely an ugly bait-and-switch, and I'd be incredibly upset about it if I was Scottish. I'm frankly surprised there hasn't been a massive independence movement directly following the Brexit referendum.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#728

Post by mcv »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #129
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.

Why does the EU need to form a realistic opposition to the U.S.?

The EU has been far too dependent on the US. Just after WW2, and arguably during the Cold War, this was unavoidable, but things have changed. The EU is a lot stronger now, whereas the US is becoming less reliable as an ally; 20 years ago, they suckered the world into two long, harmful wars, there's been a movement towards extreme nationalism, away from international cooperation, and even away from democracy in recent years.

On top of that, there are a lot of principles on civil and human rights that are core the EU that the US doesn't subscribe too; they're still not member of the ICC, they rarely prosecute their own war criminals, use torture, extralegal assassination, and have a tendency to strong-arm other nations, including European allies, into doing what the US security apparatus wants.

Make no mistake, when tensions with totalitarian dictatorships like China or Russia rise, the EU will always jump into bed with the US, because the flawed humanitarian values of the US are still better than none at all, and we're still allies. But the US is not the beacon of human rights and democracy that it once was, or was presented as. The EU should be more independent and champion this values independently from the US. And that should include criticism when the US fails to live up to those values.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#729

Post by Wildgoose »

mcv wrote: post #727
Wildgoose wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed out the part that Wales also voted for Brexit, (52.5% to 47.5%) and that England actually voted strongly for Brexit (53.6% to 46.4%) only to have that result diluted by Scotland and Northern Ireland. It was a UK-wide vote, not an individual nation vote.

But the fact remains that Scotland very strongly wants to remain in the EU, and only a year before voted to remain part of the UK in order to stay in the EU . That was absolutely an ugly bait-and-switch, and I'd be incredibly upset about it if I was Scottish. I'm frankly surprised there hasn't been a massive independence movement directly following the Brexit referendum.

You can't make the statement that Scotland only voted to remain part of the UK in order to remain in the EU. That was just one of many factors.

More to the point is that EU citizens resident in Scotland were given a vote on the matter and apparently they overwhelmingly voted Remain because it was in their direct interests to do so.

And in no way can it be described as "an ugly bait-and-switch" when the Establishment had no desire to leave the EU, they were just as surprised at the Brexit result as everybody else.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#730

Post by mcv »

Wildgoose wrote: post #729
mcv wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the fact remains that Scotland very strongly wants to remain in the EU, and only a year before voted to remain part of the UK in order to stay in the EU . That was absolutely an ugly bait-and-switch, and I'd be incredibly upset about it if I was Scottish. I'm frankly surprised there hasn't been a massive independence movement directly following the Brexit referendum.

You can't make the statement that Scotland only voted to remain part of the UK in order to remain in the EU. That was just one of many factors. More to the point is that EU citizens resident in Scotland were given a vote on the matter and apparently they overwhelmingly voted Remain because it was in their direct interests to do so. And in no way can it be described as "an ugly bait-and-switch" when the Establishment…

It was one of many factors, but the independence referendum voted to stay in the UK by a fairly thin margin. Had this not been a factor, had the people who cared about EU membership voted for independence instead, the independence vote would have won.

They voted to remain in the UK because they thought at the time it was in their best interest to do so. They had no idea at the time that their country would leave the EU. In retrospect, it would have been in their best interest to leave and rejoin the EU.

It can absolutely be described as a bait and switch. Maybe it wasn't explicitly planned as such at the time, but it definitely turned out that way.

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