Scotland to seek second independence referendum
bbc.com
bbc.com
One can hardly blame them. I was a unionist during the first referendum simply because I thought we were stronger together and felt that the Scottish made the UK as a whole more liberal (which, to be clear, is a GOOD thing).
But after Brexit one cannot blame or criticise them for wanting to leave. I want to leave too! If their choice is being part of a fairly progressive EU or a conservative/paranoid/racist English-Welsh alliance then they're better off leaving and trying to gain EU membership.
My only concern for Scotland is that they wouldn't be able to gain (re-gain?) EU membership then would be left out on their own for many years. So I definitely think the Scottish leadership needs to better plan out EU entry relative to the last referendum.
With or without Scotland, England is a sinking ship, better that other countries don't tie themselves to her mask as she flounders.
Really appreciate the well-wishing on it. I would love for there to still be a very open relationship between the two countries. We've got plenty of space up here and a booming tech scene!
Agreed on clarification with the EU membership but I think this is something that the SNP have been working on and that we can expect to see follow-up announcements.
Interesting times!
Not saying it wouldn't be doable for some businesses. If however your business relies on doing anything new/innovative in a legal sense then that is one reason why London is an attractive to be based. That is a big part of why "The City" is such a force, and legal services are a decent chunk of the UK's service exports.
It's true that there's a lot of advantages to English laws but we see a lot of companies using Scotland anyway for its Scottish Limited Partnerships which have a lot of tax/ownership advantages.
I'm sure there will be considerable debate and potential change to our commercial law if independence goes ahead. To my mind it's a huge commercial opportunity.
Where EU links matter, a newly independent Scotland that might join the EU is a far less attractive destination than many other nations whose EU membership and other trade relationships already exist. Where EU links are less important, London has the considerable advantage of network effect, access to the 55 million remaining Brits under English law and regulations, and by then at least some idea of what its trade policy with the rest of the world might look like. Can't see the SNP wanting to start a corporate-tax cutting race to the bottom either.
Those Scots that (with considerable justification) are very unhappy that the rest of the UK voted them out of the EU with all the uncertainty and damage to trade that entails might want to consider that the same arguments apply to leaving the UK. And Scotland does a lot more business with the rest of the UK than the EU
It is a slow start, but jobs have already started shifting from the UK to other EU member countries (particularly for companies based elsewhere in the EU). We'll also likely see reductions in exports as UK goods cost more for other countries to import than competitors elsewhere, and UK imports from the EU go up in price (due to tariffs) and elsewhere (due to weaker trade agreements).
We also may see "brain drain" as students and highly qualified pros go to countries like Germany, France, Sweden, and Ireland where they can gain/maintain full EU travel/rights/benefits. Gaining citizenship in England & Wales is simply going to be seen as less useful than in e.g. Germany.
Overall we're just on the leading edge of how bad Brexit is going to be, the loss of the GBP's value is the market trying to "build in" projected future weakness. It could take England & Wales thirty years to fully recover from Brexit.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the parent comment about sinking ships. I'm simply pointing out how easy it is to form this type of meaningless rhetoric
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_U...
Challenge your worldview. The status quo is not a conspiracy.
I was simply pointing out that the rhetoric you just spewed is meaningless in this context and contributed nothing of substance to the conversation.
I suppose I am at fault here as well. I shouldn't have given such a useless comment the dignity and value provided by a response.
Enjoy your delusion!
Previously they said that if the UK left the EU, and Scotland left the UK, they could take on the UK's EU membership. This seems to be what they're aiming for with saying they want the referendum before the Brexit process is complete.
That said, it's never been confirmed that would actually be allowed, and with the UK government likely to trigger Article 50 this month, I'm not sure the door is even open for that. And given the EU's fairly strict and slow entry process, as you say, Scotland could be left outside of both unions for many years. I'm not sure if they'd even satisfy the EU's economic requirements on their own.
My guess though is that the EU won't be keen on the UK splitting up and thus won't encourage it by providing Scotland a quick ascension.
This is also a wonderful bargaining chip for the EU to play against Theresa May in negotiating the terms of the UK's exit.
Yup. "You lot can leave, but we'll take Scotland. Your choice."
Maybe Spain would let in Scotland and claim Gibraltar as their own?
Long version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disputed_status_of_Gibraltar
Is just that not the UK neither the people in Gibraltar want that. But yes, Gibraltar could face some problems when the UK leave the UE.
Germans are going to face a large hike in their contributions to the EU in the next few years as the UK leaves, as the EU appears to be utterly incapable of actually spending less (despite now having diminished responsibility). That's just not in its nature.
So then Scotland comes along. The best available data says it's an economic basket case significantly worse than Greece. The UK subsidises it to a great extent for historical and cultural reasons that don't apply to Germany. Meanwhile, 40% of Scotland voted out of the EU as well.
If you're German and already questioning whether you should be subsidising lots of low productivity high debt Mediterranean countries, does the thought of waiving the entry requirements and then paying even more taxes to subsidise a new Greece appeal to you?
There was a brief desire to start an independence movement for London... It might very well happen (starting a group, not independence itself - if that ever happens it'll be decades) if Brexit gets too nasty and Scotland leaves and causes rest-UK to be even more hostile to our concerns.
Much more likely, though, is that everyone argues about it for decades and nothing happens.
- Scotland is likely to go (despite what the polls say right now)
- Northern Ireland is quite likely to join Ireland
- God knows what Wales is going to do
So, I don't think it is as simple as: 'Northern Ireland is quite likely to join Ireland'.
It looks like the Cymraeg [language] loving Welsh-nationalists are likely to press for all schools to become Cymraeg language and demand all businesses to move that way too. That should push taxation to new levels, reduce school achievement further, and retard international businesses from entering/remaining in Wales.
Given the North-South divide in Wales (even amongst Cymraeg speakers) I'd expect the massive demographic differences to push it back to the pre-annexation days where Gwynedd in the North was the central power (due to Irish/Viking immigrants after the Roman exit AFAICT!). Cymraeg speakers in the low-population North will break away and enter an economy propped up by tourism. The South-East is 90% English speaking, has three-quarters of the population and relies on the M4 corridor for a lot of its economy it's staying close to England one way or another.
In short Wales is already starting to pull itself apart. The low-income Welsh people who benefited a lot from EU schemes [eg in The Valleys (S.E.)] voted to Leave though, I don't think they'd try to follow Scotland back to the EU. However there's still an undercurrent of "we were conquered by the English and will hate them forever".
An oft-overlooked factor that interests me is the Crown - what have they got to say about it all. I assume they're keeping their beaks out to ensure they keep Crown money and property but along with all of this it strikes me if they aren't going to retain a political union of "their" lands then there's no longer a regent in even the hands-off sense we have in the UK today.
Why you'd throw off rule of the Queen's government and choose to stay being Her subject is beyond me.
I sort of wish that were the case. The reality is likely to be a lot more problematic than "quite likely", and has every danger of becoming quite violent, to boot.
But any kind of devolution for London that makes much difference will end up increasing divisions, and increase the odds the UK fractures further. I have a hard time picturing a UK 30 years from now without imagining a Westminster that has devolved away most of its powers.
Even then, I suspect Scotland will still leave sooner or later, and possibly Northern Ireland too.
What a fucking mess of a total fucking disaster. None of this needed to happen and it's a total nightmare for me and my family.
If this goes through the UK is gone totally and both countries could sink.
I have no idea whether I'd get Scottish Nationality without moving there. Similarly, I assume the same goes for my children.
While the future back in the EU looks like it could be good (eventually) for Scotland there is no guarantee that Scotland will match the criteria in the short term and there may be no EU in the long term if Marine le Pen gets her way.
Do I move to go with them? Do I stay here and wait until its too late? Presumably if I qualify to be Scottish so does half of England. What happens then?
As for the economics—they are super-scary—worse than the economics of Brexit as Scotland not only proportionally trades more with rUK than UK does with the EU there is the little matter of £9bn subsidy UK gives Scotland plus other costs that Scotland will have to take on that look like being a £15bn a year shortfall. Imagine what devastation those kind of cuts will wreak on a small country of 5-6m people?
I'm terrified that once the dust settles and Scotland is free of the UK and having to slash services to meet EU entry requirements the whole mood of jolly, liberal, civic nationalism could come crashing down to normal nasty nationalism and people like me and my family who are reasonably well-off with english-sounding accents could soon see bricks crashing through the windows. Similarly, once the IMF and European banks start to dictate spending policy, European immigrants my be less welcome there than they are now. These are fears not predictions but I think they are plausible scenarios—Hungary seems a case in point here.
On the upside, weirdly, we may see a united Ireland come out of this fiasco.
That's short-hand of course for the "UK people's democratically expressed will".
FWIW I don't vote conservative, nor support Brexit; but we can't solely blame the elite cabals - as this sort of phrasing tends to do - the demos are complicit.
they even shipped Obama over
This may be an indication of the problem. To my view your opener should be "I'm a child of British parents, born in Britain and grew up in Britain. I have British children. I, and my children, live in Britain. Some of us live elsewhere in the EU."
Somewhere we've hung on to the the idea that we're a [loose] amalgam of separate nations to which we really owe our loyalty [if any is owed]. Whilst that doesn't seem to be the case in other parts of the world [corrections?]. Which other sub-divisions of single countries compete internationally in sports for example?
Even worse for me, I'm an internationalist and I felt very proud to be part of the EU for many of the same reasons I felt proud to be part of the UK: civic nationalism. The UK was the worlds most successful civic nation built on mutualism between a number of ethnic countries. To break up on ethnic borders and return to tribalism is heartbreaking.
Was it?
I mean, that's how it's taught in schools, but how well does that reflect the actual history? Certainly it doesn't represent the UK's history with Ireland, which really isn't taught in schools. That's how people like Melanie "wrong about everything all of the time" Phillips can write national newspaper articles in which Ireland has a "tenuous claim to nationhood".
This is kind of the problem, we have all this national mythos that runs up to about 1966 and then stops. And it doesn't bear scrutiny in the modern age. The last attempt at building a national narrative that worked for everyone was the Blair era "cool Britannia", and half a million dead Iraqis took the shine off that a bit.
Not to mention the inward focus of Unionism. Everyone looks towards London, but London doesn't look outwards. Occasionally it dispatches a foreign correspondent to Manchester to report on conditions. The average English person thinks of Scotland little and NI not at all.
How it's taught in schools in UK/England perhaps. In Ireland the history class is all about how England is a horrible oppressor of Ireland. ;)
"Ethnic countries" - if the states primarily contains one nation of people - ethnically (ie mainly culturally), is commonly referred to as a national state.
National states became a popular concept in the 19th century, possibly because the kings, emperors and other rulers were starting to loose power and had to build their states around some concept. Before that, the kings and the rulers did not give the nationality of their subjects much of a thought I suppose.
Some (many?) Americans would describe themselves as hailing from a specific state or city, not the nation.
Personally, when traveling abroad, if asked where I'm from, I generally say "Washington DC", not "the US".
Yeah, I've met people like you. The problem is, this asks from your interlocutor of awareness for internal USA geography knowledge. On the other hand, many of those "from San Francisco" or from somewhere alike expect you to be just "from Europe" instead of "Germany" (or any other national state with its own cultural identity and external policy, for that matter).
P.S.: Try "Franconia" or "Thuringia" instead of "Germany" and see how many bells that rings! Mind you, these are broad regions, not merely cities.
I often say "London". I don't like saying "England", I consider the whole UK to by my country, but "United Kingdom" or even "Britain" are often not understood, and in any case, "which city?" is almost always the next question.
There are exceptions. If I'm introducing myself to someone with very limited English, like a young child in a developing country, I'll say England.
That city has been part of the American "brand" for decades; from hippies, free love, Vietnam protesters and gay rights, to the dot-com boom and more recent startups. Add some destructive earthquakes, plenty of American films and music, and the international press whenever a startup does something bad.
I wouldn't have the same expectation of somebody from Asia. Not only is language a possible problem, but there are a TON of large cities in China (and other parts of Asia) I know nothing about.
As for the economics I am not too worried. A 15bn shortfall sounds exaggerated but hey given the worse case Trident is a 205bn cost that dissapears and it is not the only one. rUK doesnt fund Scotland out of some kind heartedness, Scotland has a solid industry and a government that has shown to use its income to prioritise social services and an independent Scotland within the EU immediately becomes an extremely attractive place for all those international companies looking for a nice place to base their EU trace (a lot of which may just need to drive up a few hours from England)
How would the borders go in case of separation? Seems Scotland has only one refinery, and it's half owned by a Chinese company.
The difference after independence would be that the export would occur at Carlisle rather than Felixstowe.
Most of the "Thatcherism effect" of the 19080s can be directly attributed to North Sea oil. If you remove that money from the economy Thatcherism was a contraction until the banks boomed (though that was mostly post-Thatcher).
And now it's even more disputable with Brexit: what farm subsidies will Scotland recieve, for example? What's the future cuts scenario for the UK? What happens if the rUK starts mass deportation of EU nationals? Parts of England are a few Daily Mail stories away from burning down Polish or Pakistani corner shops.
The UK had its opportunity to choose inclusivity and openness, and instead England voted for reactionary panic. I think it's hard to underestimate how much work the SNP have done in declaring ethno-nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment unacceptable, and pushing those sentiments to the margins in Scotland despite the media.
(English-born Edinburgh resident SNP member here, btw)
The UK is not "a few Daily Mail stories" away from burning down Pakistani corner shops, Pakistani immigration having nothing to do with Brexit whatsoever of course. That's the kind of ridiculously over the top drama that lost the referendum, and it boils down to a form of racism itself: a belief that white English people are just horrible and ignorant, in defiance of all the facts (the UK is one of the most racially diverse countries in Europe).
Finally, I don't know what kind of independence campaign you remember, but the SNP I know practically defines itself through racist hatred of the English. Their entire argument for an independent Scotland seems to boil down to "we hate the awful Tory voting English".
This is in direct contradiction of my experience of being English (RP accent and all) at Indyref events and the SNP conference itself. There's maybe one or two fringe old guys who are actually anti-English and everyone else finds it embarrasing and is genuinely friendly.
Everyone does hate the Tories though.
The GERS figures are produced by Scottish Government statisticians. Why would they massage the out of Scotland's favour?
Also the English-Welsh alliance. The counties that we call Wales have been annexed to the lands of the English Crown, as were Yorkshire or Cornwall (say), for a millennium or so. It saddens me that this has to be thought of as an alliance - by a unionist - when in fact they're simply arbitrary groups of counties in a single kingdom.
Segregationists, nationalist, protectionists, or whatever, appear to be winning the battle in pitching each of us against the others rather than us [humankind] uniting as people towards mutual good.
That said I agree with your sentiment, why would those Brits in Scotland sit on the sinking ship when offered a place back on dry-land with their fellow Europeans.
I don't think that's interesting in the context of this discussion, it's shorter that "I'm British but not from Scotland".
The interesting thing to me is that it's only we English who feel the pressure to identify as 'British', say 'UK', et al. - Scots say so, Unionist or not.
It's a funny outcome after centuries of 'England' being used to refer to the whole union (and even the Empire, I believe) - but it changed some time in the last century or so, and now "you must get it right or you'll offend Scots!" is instilled into us in schools such that we even err on the side of UK.
Why? How?
Scotland would easily fulfill the requirements to join pretty much right away and the EU needs good news and would be able to sell that as something positive, so they have clear incentives to make it happen ASAP. Scotland also would be a net contributing country.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/27/scottish-in...
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2017/03/11/la-gota-que-co...
"The argument upon which Spain bases it opposition to Catalan and Basque self-determination is a clause in the Spanish constitution which forbids them to have independence referendums. There is no such clause in the British constitution forbidding Scotland from holding an independence referendum. When Scottish independence come about, it will be legal, it will be constitutional, and it will be negotiated with and recognised by Westminster.
Spain doesn’t recognise the independence of Kosovo from Serbia because Kosovo declared independence unilaterally, an independence which isn’t recognised by Serbia and which Serbia claims is contrary to the Serbian constitution. But Spain does recognise the independence of Montenegro from its union with Serbia because Montenegrin independence was permitted by the constitution and is recognised by Serbia. Unionists only ever cite Kosovo, never Montenegro.
Nowadays the context is on independent Scotland applying to join as a non-EU member, which no one has made any objections to.
England is still one of the most important economies in the world. Better not hope she goes down, or everyone gets poorer.
'Home Office figures show that the number of EU nationals in Britain who had their applications processed for UK residence documents to secure their individual status more than doubled from 92,289 in 2015 to 201,287 in 2016. More than 140,000 were successful.'
'Work continues to prove the main driver for near-record levels of immigration, particularly from within the EU, whose citizens accounted for 180,000 of the 294,000 who came to Britain to work in the year to September'
..so overall, far from a conclusive rebuttal of my points.
The surveys in question were compiled by Markit.
> we can choose what low skilled workers we let in
You seem to have missed the point: they don't want in, they are already leaving:
The June 23 referendum vote to leave the EU has already affected Gorton’s business: About 10 of his Eastern European employees have gone home.
“They were coming to us the next day and saying, ‘Crikey, this is not good for us, we’re not wanted in the U.K.,”’ he said. “Within a week of the vote, we saw people leave and go back to Poland and Lithuania. Ever since then, it’s become a lot harder to find the people we need.”
> your third source contains only predictions about the return of Polish citizens
Based on trends already observed.
> your fourth source reflects a mixed picture
Because it covers the period in the year to September, i.e. only 3 months after the referendum vs 9 preceding it. The trend break is quite visible in the chart:
https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/feb/2017-02-23T1...
The surveys in question were compiled by Markit.
>> Sure, and I'll bet it's possible to find statistics that prove the opposite if you look hard enough. Not to mention the fact that as things change, so the country will adapt.
> we can choose what low skilled workers we let in
You seem to have missed the point: they don't want in, they are already leaving:
The June 23 referendum vote to leave the EU has already affected Gorton’s business: About 10 of his Eastern European employees have gone home.
“They were coming to us the next day and saying, ‘Crikey, this is not good for us, we’re not wanted in the U.K.,”’ he said. “Within a week of the vote, we saw people leave and go back to Poland and Lithuania. Ever since then, it’s become a lot harder to find the people we need.”
>> So then we have to pay a little more for our fruit and veg. I'd be more than happy to do this if it means we are not sending billions in CAP money towards preserving the bucolic complacency of rural France.
> your third source contains only predictions about the return of Polish citizens
Based on trends already observed.
>> Oh no, the Poles are going! Well I suppose that means indigenous Brits will be able to see their doctor in a timely manner, and the first language in our school classes might revert to English again, etc.
> your fourth source reflects a mixed picture
Because it covers the period in the year to September, i.e. only 3 months after the referendum vs 9 preceding it. The trend break is quite visible in the chart:
https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/feb/2017-02-23T1....
>> I wouldn't put my mortgage on it: 'Note: 2016 data is provisional'
Actually, a poll yesterday suggested 56% do not want a referendum at this stage.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/13/half-scots-do-not...
It does feel like they were entirely hoodwinked on that particular point.
Alienation of our nearest neighbours and the likely dissolution of the Union.
It's also looking likely that Brexit will cause problems for the Northern Ireland peace arrangement.
> "For the first time in my life, the prospect of a united Ireland is not only credible but inevitable"
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/northern-ireland-stormon...
It'll be interesting to see how often Conservative ministers promise that there will be no border between UK and ROI but there will be a hard border between England and Scotland, despite none of this making any sense.
All of the countries in the union have seats in Westminster, dedicate ministers and committees, as well as their own devolved parliaments. I'd say things are much worse for counties in the North of England, than for the other countries in the UK.
The nature of democracy means the majority rules, which will always be problematic for minority communities. The only solutions I can see are to be more cohesive and unified in opinion, divorce completely, or accept differences as the cost of peace and stability and continue working to improve the balance.
There is no doubt in my mind that the loser in all of this is the north of England. They are repeatedly denied a voice, publicly scorned, and they see all their talent move south or abroad. England is a lopsided country and I don't know how to fix it.
Well, they had their voice, they cast their lot, they were the deciding vote for Brexit. Now they can lie in the bed they made for themselves. No pity lost from anyone up beyond the Wall or down in the South.
People throwing the towel in and blaming others for everything that is wrong is how we've ended up in this political mess. No leaders. No vision. Just pity and blame.
The North of England has consistently been stripped of its talent for the last fifty years. To blame them for wanting change and not being attracted to the same campaign you were is idiotic.
Universal Basic Income is the very definition of welfare state, and the purpose of which is to counter the effect special interests coercion. To abolish it would be to empower the lobbyists and too-big-to-fail corporates
This is arguably the big problem of the 20th and 21st centuries: not all questions are sensibly amenable to majority rule, and minorities must have rights and protections against discriminatory politics. This tends to grate a bit with the majority, which is tolerable in OK economic times but can be vulnerable to demagogues.
Protection of minorities is baked into the Good Friday agreement. It's also differently baked into the Human Rights Act, which seems to be part of why the HRA is so unpopular in some quarters.
As an aside, I think that most people don't understand these concepts because the word 'democracy' is used so much in political rhetoric and in the media that people have taken it to mean a representational system of government. For example the US is not a democracy... it is a republic, while the UK is indeed a democracy (which causes the problems that you mention). Both are still representational systems of government.
To give an extreme example say you have 3 foxes and 1 sheep at a table and all 4 of them represent a country. In a democracy the majority rules, and it would be perfectly legal for the 3 foxes to vote and eat the sheep.
However in a republic, legal limits are placed on the government (think constitution), which has implications for all citizens--but especially minorities. In a republic with a constitution that states that all citizens have the right to life and liberty, those 3 foxes could vote to eat the 1 sheep but that sheep is protected by the constitution. Therefore in that example, the vote would be illegal.
It is no coincidence that the founding fathers of the United States set America up to be a republic and why constitutional matters are so important even today.
Now having said all this I am aware that many believe that the UK has an "unwritten" or uncodified constitution. While I don't outrightly reject this concept, I believe it doesn't give a country a strong ethical or moral foundation because it does not offer clarity or consistency when ethics or morality are legally challenged. Ideally ethics and morality are codified in law so that all citizens know where they stand with regards to the power of their government.
Coming back to the issue of Scottish independence, it could be rooted in the very real problem that most people are nescient--or worse, selectively ignorant--about these issues. Unfortunately in the UK we seem to be perpetually locked in a 'treat the symptoms rather than the disease' scenario.
England?
UK citizens were never given a vote on their 'citizenship' rights in the EU.
UK citizens only voted to join the EEC - not the EU. They voted to join what was essentially a 'trade block'. Not a supra-federal state. (UK citizens were not given a vote on the treaty of Rome.)
The French voted against the treaty of Rome - and guess what? Their Parliament enacted it! How's that for consensus?
Same thing in the Netherlands.
In Ireland, they were forced to 'keep voting until it passed'.
Most other countries did not get a referendum on joining the EU.
There was never any 'popular consensus' on the EU as we know it - it likely may never have existed if it were put to referendum.
I would argue that a 'strong consensus' would be needed to have Scottish, Catalonian or Quebec separation - those are parts of nations.
The EU is not quite the same thing.
Cameron also helped Saudi Arabia [3] become the head of UN's human rights council, and who knows what other kind of corrupt deals he made with China. Cameron was really "looking up" to the leaders in China and how they're doing things there, so to me it didn't come as a surprise that he would try to turn UK into West's China (from a surveillance/censorship point of view).
[1] http://europe.newsweek.com/ip-bill-most-extreme-surveillance...
[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/01/26/porn-blocki...
[3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uk-and-saudi-arabia-ma...
One could argue that the root political problem is the EU itself.
Nationalist movements are on the rise across Europe: The Dutch are about to give their top choice a pretty hard core 'anti Muslim' guy. The French will have a runoff between Le Pen and probably Macron. The Sweden Democrats are polling at 22%. True Finns have incredible influence. Austrian nationalists lost the presidency by a tiny margin. Brexit. Poland. Danish nationalists form government. Admittedly, Catalonia and Scotland are a different strain.
And a massive division between periphery, core and Eastern Europe on 'existential' issues.
For most of these issue, failure of EU leadership, and hostility and intransigence towards the will of the plebes led to this. It could have been avoided.
'For or Against' - the EU as we know it is dead - it didn't want to adapt - so Europe is adapting underneath it.
I don't think it will break up, but nothing will ever be the same in EU-land.
46.21 % to 53.79 % is NOT a tiny margin.
I would argue it's the politicians. No matter what way you voted it's clear that the campaigns around the referendum were incredibly dishonest. Politicians were largely playing games to further their careers and were willing to say what they had to to succeed. We need to do something to ensure referendums deal only in fact because a large portion of voters have no interest in doing their own research and will vote on lies and propaganda.
Cameron only offered the Brexit referendum because he was afraid of the more far-right Tories going UKIP.
It's very, very sad. She seems like a nice lady, but she has (apparently) been extremely ineffectual.
Like I noted, maybe someday we'll discover that she's actually been extremely involved, preventing one disaster after another, and that Britain's fall would have been much worse without her expert guidance. I don't expect that's the case, but maybe it'll happen.
(I'm also reminded of the line from the Australian constitutional crisis, "God save the Queen, for nothing shall save the Govenor-General!")
This is the first time I've felt a border poll in Northern Ireland is a possibility. The recent election resulted in a huge swing in power and a hard border with the south would be devastating for a lot of people regardless of political persuasion. It'll be interesting to see how each part of the UK ends up in 5-10 years time.
NI could ally with Scotland and remain a United Kingdom in the EU. Then it would be England and Wales leaving the Union.
I must admit this is more of a board game fantasy than an actual possibility given the time and I/NI politics, but is amusing to consider.
And that's the key thing. They would be changing masters, probably for the worst.
As a former Euro supporter and now Euro sceptic I would recommend them to keep their lead in their own hand.
Their best option is have their own currency.
It's my believe now that my country just give away a very important part of their sovereignty (maybe the most important) to entities that have not our best interest in mind. I would not be against the Euro if I though that the people in charge is on my side.
As an example (even if I'm not greek), we have seen the ECB just closing the Greece bank system when they are supposed to protect it.
For anyone interested, there are some discussion now about the legality of that movement: https://diem25.org/thegreekfiles/
I've always heard the argument that things are more expensive in the Euro. I know people in countries where they switched to the Euro and salaries remained the same while prices of goods went up. I'm not sure why this happens (or even if it's true) but it's a reason a lot of people are against losing the pound.
Adopting it often makes central bank policy more challenging. An outright "Euro makes goods more expensive" statement is an oversimplification though, don't take it at face value and always ask for objective inflation data relating to the particular country in question.
Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden are the members of the EU which have not joined the Euro because they don't meet the convergence criteria.
(My personal preference is to ditch the silly "shared" pound idea but define a Scottish Pound pegged to the GBP and using the existing notes as a transitional currency. Much as Ireland did.)
The scottish government would likley be forced to strongly discourage the use of the UK pound to maintain fiscal control.
Do you mean "monetary control"? What do you mean by "strongly discourage"? Forced by whom, or by circumstances?
Forced by currency speculators. New currencies are always strained, and given an independent Scotland would be close to bankruptcy anyway, a fully-pegged currency would be (how do I say this) difficult.
"strongly discourage" is as easy as not accepting payment tax in pounds.
Sticking with Sterling wouldn't even allow the option of crashing out of the monetary peg if needs be. I think you'd see an exodus of financial institutions' head offices down to London. An independent Scotland simply couldn't afford to bail out a large institution in Sterling, or even if it let banks fail couldn't afford the economic hit because its debts would be denominated in Sterling. Iceland was able to devalue by 60%, Greece wasn't able to.
The point of the currency debate is that it has consequences with whichever choice is taken. Separately applying to join the EU saying "yes I know I have to join the Euro, but I'm not actually going to do that" isn't the best strategy in the book. France may get to pull that kind of thing, but they're already in the tent.
I'd expect Scotland to parallel Ireland's history of using the pound and pound-equivalent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_pound
See also https://qz.com/260980/meet-the-countries-that-dont-use-their...
Oddly - European nations that don't use the Euro are generally much better off: Norway (though not EU), Denmark, Sweden, UK.
In hindsight, the UK's decision to not join the Euro is widely accepted as smart.
The Euro is effectively a 'hard Germany currency' that has entrapped the periphery of Europe into a monetary system that massively favours the Germans. Maybe it could have worked out - but from 2000-ish to 2008 - world bankers assumed the Euro meant 'collective risk pooling' so the periphery countries loaded up on cheap debt. But when the crash happened - we discovered there were going to be no bailouts - leaving the periphery with a massive balance sheet problem, and the total inability to manage monetary policy - or rather - they're stuck on a 'strict currency' which favours Germany who already had several advantages.
But I agree, if Scotland does go indy, then it may very well introduce a pegged currency, which makes sense as something temporary.
The problems you mentioned (and some non-Euro countries being better off) are caused by structural problems in those countries, which are only tangentially related to the common currency. From an economic point of view those countries probably shouldn't have adopted the Euro so quickly in the first place but were allowed to do so nonetheless for political reasons.
Whoever thinks the Euro is a success has not been paying attention and probably don't understand how monetary policies (and money) works.
The Euro-area countries has been forced to follow procyclical policies, in a time when govern spending was necessary.
And the countries you listed are not the only ones in the Euro, think about how Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are faring with the Euro! It's worse than a war!
The Danish Krone is pegged to the Euro, within a very tight margin.
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=DKK&to=EUR&view=5Y
And you've missed Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Romania and Bulgaria; these countries don't use the Euro, but aren't usually considered much better off.
But they are definitely different - they were closed economies, way behind, and there's advantages to their having the Euro (should they get it). Which is different from Greece/Spain.
Moreover, they want to be in the Euro :) the Swedes, Danes, English etc. chose to not use it.
So is it that countries that took the euro were hurt by it, or that countries with already strong currencies chose not to take the euro?
Anyway, it's not so difficult to see why to have the flexibility of adjusting your currency, independently of the rest of the system, to suit your current situation is a good thing.
micro-services anyone?
Monte Negro is using euro, and is not even part of EU yet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegro_and_the_euro
Pegging your currency to another when you don't have the fundamentals to match it tends to be of interest to George Soros, especially when you don't have much in the way of foreign currency reserves to defend it.
Can you imagine a future where the independent Scottish government could arrange a similar deal with another financial institution, to cover them until ECB took on the role?
> Pegging your currency to another when you don't have the fundamentals to match it tends to be of interest to George Soros
When was Black Wednesday for Montenegro?
The much more likely alternative is that the Bank of Scotland and Royal Bank move their HQ to London. Standard Life (and therefore Aberdeen Asset Management) probably as well. Not all their staff will move, but their profits will and some highly paid staff will go. That will in turn have an impact on the nascent FinTech sector.
I do think they'd buy independent Scottish treasury bonds & then the independent Scottish government can use the proceeds for emergency lending. Isn't this how the German banks are covered?
Pounds Sterling.
Stirling is a city in Scotland.
the joke is they'd also have to be changed from that
* The EU and ECB aren't particularly happy that Montenegro is using the Euro without being a member anyway...(see your wiki link)
Politely, you might want to check your assumptions: I submit that if Norway can run a currency, or Ireland (which joined the Euro after running its own free-floating currency for multiple decades) then Scotland should be able to.
On the other side graphs of the Pound dropping in value after the referendum results is also quite powerful especially if the SNP frame it as leaving a sinking ship.
Polling for almost a year (see Wikipedia) indicates that it will not succeed - there's only one of more than a dozen or so polls that puts independence ahead - and then only by one point. 'Remain' are ahead by 10 points in the rest.
The easy trump card to play is the fact that Spain and others (Belgium) will not allow Scotland to join the EU, even if they do - it will take years.
An 'independent Scotland from an independent UK' is a huge pile of risk for people to stomach.
With the UK faring economically well since Brexit (I know A50 has not been triggered, but investors have already priced in what they know, and A50 is a sure thing) - this is not the 'Brexit horror' story the indyreffers wanted.
I would also point out that these things can fatigue on people, and that after a while, even soft Nationalists see the tactics of separatists.
The SNP said the last referendum was a "once in a lifetime" event - and that was 4 years ago. 'The situation has changed' - surely - but nevertheless, it makes them look rather without credibility on the surface of it.
It will be very interesting though.
Spain is desperately afraid of Catalonia departing - and the nuance of 'we left the EU before we joined' won't matter to the voters. Scottish separation and ascension to the EU would carve a crystal clear path for Catalonian separatists, and give massive wind to their sales.
To the above commenters point - no gov will likely ever come out and say it, but there's no reason for Spain to support Scottish ascension, and every reason to be against it.
It's very likely that Scotland won't remain a EU member (as a successor of a EU member), but no government has said they would veto Scotland's application. The media mentions about this topic are vaguely-worded, to make it sound like it's about Scotland ever becoming an EU member (which it's extremely likely to achieve) versus avoiding having to apply (which is probably not going to happen).
That argument played a lot better before the Brexit vote. The choice is now between "definitely out of Europe, possibly on bad terms" versus "hopefully rejoining Europe, possibly with interim deal".
Personally I expect Spain to accept an independent Scotland as leverage against Brexit Britain - note that this way Spain would retain the right to fish in Scottish waters. But all of these are "forward-looking statements".
Also the BBC asked a Spanish EPP representative directly if they would veto and he said no: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-3923...
> UK faring economically well since Brexit
If a Labour government had lost 20% of the value of the £ along with threatening to expel financial services from London the news coverage would be rather different. I don't think it has all been priced in yet, because we don't know exactly how bad it's going to be.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/14/ftse-100-falt...
(Also, note that polls are from before campaigning starts! I'd expect campaigning to move the needle somewhat, otherwise what's the point?)
The EU is threatening to legally force people to move to Europe from the UK if they want to continue selling services there. Neither the UK nor the financial services industry wants that, for obvious reasons. If it happens, it'll be the EU doing it, not a British government.
"Starting a chain of events which will likely lead to financial services having to move out of London", then.
I think we'll need to wait and see on this one. A collapse in currency value has masked some of the longer-term issues that leaving the single market will raise.
but nevertheless, it makes them look rather without credibility on the surface of it.
I can't agree with this. The current Scottish government was elected with a manifesto indicating that a second referendum would held if Scotland was removed the EU.
I think its going to kill a lot of people when they see 'Brexit horror' not materializing. The UK has a powerful economy (number 5 in the world) and as such can certainly work out beneficial trade deals alone. Its not a Greece-like mess that benefits from the Euro and the Euro's backers. Without the shared currency and having a land border with other EU nations, its questionable if the benefits are worth it. At least, they come with liabilities.
I certainly see the various pro EU political argument at work here and many have validity, but the economic one is fairly weak sauce. If anything, the UK has a stronger negotiation position as its own entity, assuming they play their cards right. If Scotland wants to go independent then fine, but using brexit as an excuse is very questionable.
>even soft Nationalists see the tactics of separatists.
I wonder how many separatists are being honeydicked by Russia. Russia has been funding separatists and far-right political parties in the West for its own gain for quite some time now. Perhaps people are starting to see through their ultra-tailored Facbook newsfeed, hysterical yellow journalism, legitimately fake news, and other biased media. I suspect the Trump win the US is showing people that yes, an electorate can go crazy with outsiders and extremist policies, but that doesn't mean that's actually good for the electorate.
Ignoring Spain's own separatist fears, the EU members probably are fairly wary of any separatist talk right now, especially after seeing what happened in Crimea, and don't want to encourage it and certainly don't want to signal that separatism is a quick way to EU membership. Not to mention NATO membership, are the Scots ready to invest 2% of their GDP into defense (nearby $4bn)? We've probably moved towards an anti-separatist attitude in the West for the foreseeable future due to recent events. According to the guardian, the yes/no spread is the same was it was in 2014, so the idea that Scotland has become more separatist is questionable:
Between August and December last year we polled over 3,000 Scottish adults and found yes to Scottish independence on 46% and no on 54% – just a fraction different from the result two years earlier.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/27/shift-...
Not 5th any more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4056296/India-overta...
(yes the mail is unreliable but I thought I'd pick the most Brexity source)
UK GDP growth fits in at almost 2% which is where the USA sits at as well and typical of later-stage capitalist countries. EU darling and once economic powerhouse France is at .3%. Spain is only recently getting out of negative growth, for comparison.
I think you're dismissing how powerful inertia is in the financial sector and how the EU needs the UK and as such will work out agreements to keep things going. London wealth and banking is most likely very safe. Remember, London as the premier financial center of Europe predates the EU by a few hundred years. It is not an outgrowth of EU membership.
Is Spain now willing to allow them into the EU or will they veto their membership application because of their issues with Catalonia?
Still seems like racist SNP are still in denial
Politically, the case for independence is on the downside; both Theresa May and Ruth Davidson have higher net satisfaction rates than Sturgeon in Scotland, and the likelihood of a general election before EU exit is getting higher every day, but for other reasons. Peak Sturgeon has come 2 years too soon.
In Scotland? I'm extremely skeptical.
From mid-september 2016. Couldn't find a more recent poll.
As I understand it, the poll which they based that article on didn't even ask the same question for each of the leaders, so the final results can't be seriously compared.
And of course "doing well in her job" doesn't matter much if 38% of Scots vote SNP vs 16% Tory voters (from the Yougov survey).
I've not heard much, if anything positive about May, but Davidson is generally highly regarded, even if very few actually vote for the Tories in Scotland.
[1] I avoid the BBC comments like the plague, for the same reason I avoid the Daily Mail.
[2] I was born and grew up in England; I've lived in Scotland for the past 22 years.
The Labour party have traditionally been very strong in Scotland - the Labour party was a party for life, and many people only every voted Labour. However, this has all changed over the past year, as they have effectively self-imploded to the point of uselessness. I cannot overstate how much of a breakdown there has been within the Labour party, and people who had previously only ever voted Labour are now voting differently.
I'd argue that much of the Conservative party's gains have come from people who will simply no longer vote for Labour, rather than a move towards the Conservatives themselves.
The clue is the quiet dropping of demands for Full Fiscal Autonomy over the past few years. There isn't close enough savings to made from things like Trident to enable even a credible deficit to be run. The level of spending cuts / tax rises required will be of the level that only an IMF intervention normally brings - far, far beyond anything Osborne did over many years.
I'm an ardent supporter of independence, but I don't doubt for a second that it will be difficult to build a strong economic case – in no small part because of the level of uncertainty we are currently dealing with. But I'm quietly confident that the independence movement will have learned a lot from the previous campaign and will avoid making mistakes it perhaps made in 2014.
It's funny that Scotland lost its (semi-)independence by trying their own hand at colonialism[1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_list_of_Non-Sel... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme
The English are very angry about this and are touting Sturgeon as a crying "remoaner". They believe that they had a referrendum recently and therefore it's just "keep trying until you get the result you wanted".
If you're a person with that in mind I have a few things to say:
1) the UK being a member of the EU was something sorely needed, but people consider it a trade union deal and not anything else. Therefore they use the argument that the EU has changed enough to warrant leaving.
2) Scotland largely voted remain last time because it was immediately evident that the EU would not allow Scotland to join- since Spain and the remaining UK was in strong favour of vetoing entry. This has fundamentally changed.
3) Now Scotland will not remain in the EU despite voting overwhelmingly to remain. Leaving the EU now would be the antithesis of "the will of the people".. so you can't say that "they voted, get over it".
I'm rather sour on the whole experience regarding Brexit, there has been a _lot_ of smug mudslinging from the leave side, and they've already tried to scapegoat the remain campaign as being "not with the program" and subsequently sabotaging the leave campaign.
That has obviously changed somewhat.
This is why these kinds of decisions are not plebiscites!
You might not even have to charge people who lived in London income tax, for example, due to the large number of companies based here.
;-)
"Why have the polls not shown a shift towards Scottish independence?"
The First Minister needs a big swing in the polls to Yes somewhere in the 6X% to get this to pass.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/13/scottish-in...
If the terms are unfavourable to Scotland, they will likely leave the union.
> Speaking at her official Bute House residence in Edinburgh, Ms Sturgeon said the people of Scotland must be offered a choice between a "hard Brexit" and becoming an independent country.
Autumn 2018 - Spring 2019 also fits the two year negotiation timeline.
🇪🇺
I don't even know who they might get to do the No campaign who has any credibility in Scotland. The most sensible option is probably Ruth Davidson, so the most likely choice is someone like Blair McDougall. Labour will probably have to spend all their time trying to avoid letting Jeremy Corbyn say anything on the subject.
Cameron and Corbyn standing together and saying "this is dangerous and stupid" would have sent a very powerful message.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/01/kezia-dugdale-i-c...
The last referendum -- the Scots voted to stay in partially to guarantee EU membership. This referendum will be fundamentally different as it means choosing between the EU and UK something the UK forced on Scotland.
My understanding, based on a whole minute or two of Googling, is that the relationship between the parts of the UK, such as Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland is similar to the relationship between the states in the United States: if you are a citizen of the union, you are automatically a citizen of whichever part you live in.
I wonder, then, if between the time of the vote and the time that independence actually happens if Scottish independence would trigger a lot of movement (1) to England of Scots who do not want independence from the UK or who do not want to try to join the EU, and (2) to Scotland of English who want a shot at staying in the EU?
Around 800,000 people born in Scotland live elsewhere in the UK. Millions more presumably have a parent born in Scotland, but weren't themselves.
I was born in England. I emigrated from the UK in 2015, and briefly considered registering as resident in Scotland (rather than England) just before I left, on the off-chance that Brexit went ahead without Scotland. However, the likelihood seemed remote, so I didn't consider it seriously.
This is demonstrably false: roughly half of the top ten countries ranked by standard of living and quality of life are small European nations about the same size as Scotland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...
Larger/richer countries still tend to have more control over their own destinies but that doesn't necessarily translate to quality of living standards.
Examples would include Pakistan-Bangladesh; Czech Republic-Slovakia; and Sudan-South Sudan.
It all smacks of opportunism and reminds me of all the other EU-related votes that keep happening until voters pick the right answer.
I suspect that there will be the arguments about currency and EU membership which the UK government will lobby to make life difficult for Scotland, but as the pound is doing poorly and we're leaving the EU anyway, there isn't much to lose.
I hope everyone who voted leave understood that it was the dissolution of the union they voted for, and not some backtracking into a pre-EU britain.
>Jacqueline Minor, the European commission’s head of representation in the UK, said Scotland would need to formally apply after leaving the UK, although it could be fast-tracked because it already complies with EU rules and regulations.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/10/independent...
Spain are concerned that it might a set a precedent for Catalonia to get independence but if the Scottish independence came about because of the UK leaving the EU Spain will be conformable in allowing Scotland to join.
There's no small irony to the fact that scaremongering around Europe was such a big focus of the Better Together campaign in the run up to the first referendum.
Which ones? Generally the EU wants more stable democracies to hold up the others.
The context now is that independent Scotland would have to apply, as it will be a successor state of a non-EU member. I think Spain et al. are fine with this since the precedence it sets will be hard for Basque nationalists to follow.
'Brexit: Spain and France oppose Scotland EU talks' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-3665...
Also, I imagine that Spain will do what they're encouraged to do by thE EC considering the budgetary reliance.
Not at all wanting a flame-war etc but if I'm wrong then I'd really like to know! :)
The correct year to consider it fully a region of Spain would be 1714, when the Spanish army defeated the catalans and removed most of its state structures/institutions, etc. This article's intro might help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Catalonia
I don't want to bore you with a history lesson that I myself might not know accurately, but I feel the need to say that different namings for the same levels of independence of state structures should be taken into consideration. So saying "Catalonia has always been a region of Spain" is far from the truth or at least it skips a lot of history.
I didn't mean any offence by my statement, I understand that of course Catalan's case for independence is no less valid! I suppose it's really just legal wrangling :)
England doesn't 'sign off' for whether Scotland is in union or not as that is Scotland's choice, not England's. England acknowledge this and would never say otherwise.
Which is not to say it's impossible (as some have, [2]); the EU has turned a blind eye when convenient before and I'm sure will do again. But many in the EU might be reluctant to go that route again after the way Greece turned out.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability_and_Growth_Pact
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/08/25/scotland...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Scotti...
Given that the approach used to achieve the Brexit vote has been documented in great detail I wonder how we'll see them applied in this new referendum?
Unfortunately in international politics, winning a vote at home doesn't translate to a winning move internationally.
The huge disconnect between how Brexiters think the world works and how the world really works isn't subject to a popular vote or to media spin. It is going to cause the UK - well, England - catastrophic problems over the coming decade.
Anyone with objections to a slim majority making such a sweeping decision is met with, "leave one, get over it."
They're definitely not bluffing. Clue's in the name.
I certainly think there is a sense that to get a poll on a timeline they want, they need to start pushing now, because they know they can expect resistance.
I can't imagine anything that would increase support for independence more than any hint that we wouldn't be allowed to have another referendum.
[OK - apart from BoJo being PM].
At the same time, note Nicola Sturgeon's statements about how this isn't up to Westminster. Legally, of course, it currently is. But she's setting Theresa May up to use a refusal as a "look how undemocratic Westminster is" if it's refused. Look for attempts to bypass Westminster if it's slapped down - which may be serious, or may also be designed out of expectation they'll cause unfavourable reaction to another Westminster slap-down.
Their massive majority of Scottish MPs also mean they will be able to paint any Westminster refusal as England dictating Scottish issues.
It's very much a lose-lose for Theresa May in any case. If a vote is accepted, then it will be a constant distraction during the Brexit negotiations, for example, where any whiff of results negative to Scotland will be exploited for what it's worth...
If anyone's bluffing in this environment, it has to be Theresa May; the Brexit plan is far less coherent than the plan for an independent Scotland, it's not clear what cards she might hold that have any value, and her ministers are briefing against her in the Times.
The outcome of the vote could fall either way, but it's certainly not a bluff. Current support for independence is Scotland is around 45-50%; there was a clear indication in the current government's manifesto that a referendum would be held if the UK exited the EU.