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Scotland starts renewed case for independence

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Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#541

Post by martindevans »

capableweb wrote: post #132
martindevans wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't think "One huge government" was claimed. The claim was "one planet", which I think more means people should be unified more than we currently are. One could imagine lots of ways to have a unified planet without one centralized government. The EU is certainly one model you can achieve unification at large without "one huge government" as it consists of many smaller governments coming together.

Perhaps I did misunderstand, I was certainly interpreting it as a desire for concrete change in the political structures of how the world is run rather than a shift in attitudes amongst the people of the world. I'm definitely not opposed to less conflict in the world!

Personally I don't really agree with your assessment of the EU as a form of that though. In this context I would include something like the EU when talking about larger governments (maybe that's not strictly correct, but it is what I had in mind with my original comment). There are of course lower levels in the EU (i.e. the individual countries) but that's also true for many countries with a central government and smaller regional authorities (e.g. London & Edinburgh).

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#542

Post by Emma_Goldman »

mvc wrote: post #511
Emma_Goldman wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scotland's deficit is persistent. Between 2014-15 and 2019-20 it averaged 9.2%, compared to 3.2% for the UK as a whole. [1] Infamously, the SNP's envisioned post-independence budget was based on their forecast for annual oil and gas revenues: £10bn. In reality they have averaged an order of magnitude less: £1bn. Oil and gas are volatile commodities so there will be year-to-year fluctuations but the secular trend is c…

> the secular trend is clearly downwards Some might see this as an argument for ditching the folks who've overseen this downward trend.

Reserves have fallen severalfold since the basin was opened in the 1970s. Oil and gas cannot be produced on the same scale for the same returns as in the past. Most of the best wells have dried up.

The UK and Scottish governments are both committed to net zero, which means the managed decline of the North sea oil and gas industry. Sturgeon has publicly taken a harder position on this than Johnson since COP26.

If Scotland became independent nothing would change. Unless you think the SNP will confect new reserves out of nothing and abandon their climate pledges?

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#543

Post by DocTomoe »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #450
DocTomoe wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we have learned the US to be an unreliable partner and a source for most of our problems, several times now. It's time to stand on our own feet.

The US subsidizing defense spending has allowed the EU to vastly expand social welfare spending on healthcare and education. Those $100B in arms Germany is about to purchase will be that much less spending on social programs.

Germany is essentially the 'why not both' girl [1]. No worries, those 100B Euros will come right out of additional taxes.

I want to point out that if we wouldn't get involved in foreign wars, we would not need that either. Last time we had a massive uptick of taxes for military spending (in the 1910s), we built a fleet to battle the British Navy (and we're still paying those taxes today).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgk-lA12FBk

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#544

Post by walkhour »

synu wrote: post #58
brigandish wrote: post #29

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…

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 EU is a big deal, they can vote accordingly.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#545

Post by madeofpalk »

Cederfjard wrote: post #379
madeofpalk wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I have always joked that Sydney should just succeed and become it's own city-state...

You probably mean secede, but it’s nice of you to wish them well!

Thank you! I did try googling and I thought i got it right (against my better judgement), but obviously not.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#546

Post by VBprogrammer »

Zenst wrote: post #459
true_religion wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Israel also had a similar arrangement which collapsed after it was found to break Israeli law. Apparently some journalists tried to track down the refugees involved in that scheme some years later and found barely a handful had remained in the country.

My suspicion is this is just a short term attempt to boost the PMs popularity among the segment of his support base who think mistreatment of refugees and immigrants is a good thing. It's not a serious attempt to change substantive policy.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#547

Post by sofixa »

refurb wrote: post #353
sofixa wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the amount of dirty Russian money ( Londongrad), the fact that Russian spies tried to assasinate a former Russian spy, murdering British civilians by accident, and Russian support for Brexit... It's not a boogeyman, it's part of the reality.

None of those things actually infer Russian interference. At least not any more than say Chinese, or French.

Dirty money in the tens/hundreds of billions doesn't infer interference? Including sizeable donations to the Conservative party?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/world/europe/russian-mone...

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#548

Post by smcl »

inglor_cz wrote: post #513
dubeye wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will encourage residents of poorer regions to travel to London, thus would likely disincentive economic investment in poorer regions. It would be better for the poorer regions to invest the HS2 money in local infrastructure and services.

In the Czech Republic, the most disadvantaged regions tend to be those where connections to Prague / Brno suck. It is not a 100 per cent correlation, but pretty strong. People leave them regardless and tend to come back less. Maybe Scotland is different, but around me, I haven't seen any region that was depopulated by having good rail infrastructure.

I don't think it is actually about population drain or anything like that. I'll try to relate this to ČR but the metaphor isn't perfect, so bear with me. The regions with the lowest GDP per capita are apparently Karlovy Vary, Ústí nad Labem and Olomouc[0]. It's not too bad to get to either Prague or Brno from those regions' major population centres there currently, but let's say there's a plan to revitalize the republic with a new trans-country high-speed rail link[1] including a few connections to Karlovy Vary, Ústí and Olomouc. It's expensive but it's deemed to be worth it because everyone will benefit from the improved rail network. Over time some of the planned connections are cut, and eventually the project is stripped down to a nice high-speed line which takes you from Vienna through Brno to Prague in 45 minutes and onward to Berlin. That's fabulous for residents of Brno and Prague (and I guess Pardubice or wherever it stops off on the way), but where does that leave the guys in Karlovy Vary, Ústi and Olomouc? One of the main benefits was that they'd get direct improvements to their network, and that's gone. It's nice that after they get to Prague they could hop on a Šinkansén[2] to Brno or Berlin and get there quickly, but it's not quite the same.

There's an additional point with HS2 - one of it's main benefits was to alleviate pressure on the main north/south routes, opening them up to more regional services and an additional "northern powerhouse rail" to link some of the cities in Northern England. But the HS2 project is slowly being eroded and chipped away at to the point that it is becoming solely a "get to London faster" project without some of the improvements that alleviate the pressure on these important rail corridors. Additionally the Northern Powerhouse rail (plus things like the Leeds Tram/Light Rail) looks like it's for the chop too. So the North of England is kinda getting shafted here and I feel for them.

Going a bit further north, the benefits to Scotland probably weren't huge to begin with. Going from Edinburgh-London quicker is nice for the people who do that and shaving a 45 minutes off is cool but if it was actually extended to Scotland that would've been a much bigger deal, or maybe an entirely separate high-speed corridor for the very well trafficked Glasgow-Edinburgh route.

[0] - just grabbed it from wikipedia, https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraje_v_%C4%8Cesku

[1] - there technically is! https://www.spravazeleznic.cz/vrt/praha-brno-ostrava-a-brno-...

[2] - sorry

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#549

Post by brnt »

gghhzzgghhzz wrote: post #356
afavour wrote: 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?

As a Welsh secessionist, I can't for the life of me square the idea of wanting to leave union that for all its massive faults is at least something you can understand and engage with, to replace that by joining a union that is distant, more artificial and certainly more vague and impenetrable to the common person. Why would you leave economic and political dominance by Westminster with no control over the economics o…

Despite the image that British media have carefully crafted, Brussels (and Frankfurt?) are far more democratic and competent governments than Westminster. It is only vague because British government has had a deliberate policy of keeping that so (you should read some memoirs of other-EU diplomats on the issue). Convolution of governing is such a British tradition, that unfortunately you believe it is both everywhere and the particular strain present in Westminster is the least worst of all.

Re: Scotland starts renewed case for independence

#550

Post by Emma_Goldman »

DonaldFisk wrote: post #430
Emma_Goldman wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what you are talking about. In the UK general election citizens of all realms of the UK vote, meaning that Scotland being more left-wing has led to comparatively more left-wing UK governments than would be the case in its absence. So 'if you want rid of the Tories', Scotland is a great asset.

The union worked well as long as voters in Scotland and England voted similarly, but that hasn't been the case since the 1970s. Scottish voters only rarely influence the outcome of elections to the Westminster parliament, because even thought they vote differently, they only make up about 10% of the GB population (Northern Ireland has different political parties). Almost always, whatever the English electorate votes…

>"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, which both err leftwards. Unless you're starting off with the idea that Scotland and England are fundamentally different units? Which begs the question.

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