Not judging, I'm honestly curious why you didn't want them to be independent and thought that, "as a Brit" it was your position to have an opinion on Scotland's independence other than "whatever they want"?
Me, Australian living in England.
1. Because I enjoy living in a country that has the Scots in it - without Scotland the country would be diminished, less interesting and more insular.
2. Generally, I think fracturing is a bad thing. I wanted to stay in the EU for similar reasons.
This isn't to say that I don't think that Scots should have self determination, just that I would be sad if they went.
I imagine some Australians would feel the sanme if - say - New South Wales decided to become an independent country
Edit: just to clarify, that was meant as a good-natured ribbing. We’d definitely miss Queensland. Mostly Noosa.
> it was your position to have an opinion
I suppose I could have pretended that I didn’t have an opinion on it, but I did. The important part is that I didn’t have a vote so my opinion wasn’t anything other than my opinion.
Spain parliament is against unilateral declarations of independence.
For background, it's because the Spanish government is afraid that recognizing independence movements legitimizes the Catalonian independence movement in their own country.
Very convenient of them isn’t it?
I am undecided on independence, but clearly part of the calculus is how it effects matters of concern to the rest of the UK. Consider what is to me, the following con and pro:
(1) Scotland is more left-wing than the rest of the UK and its secession would condemn the rest of the union to indefinite right-wing government.
(2) The UK's nuclear subs would have to be restationed, but there isn't a suitable harbour anywhere in the rest of the UK, creating an opportunity for it to be scrapped.
Scotland's voters cannot influence the vote in England, under any circumstances.
If you want rid of the Tories, you have to teach England not to vote for the Tories.
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 for, Scotland gets, even when voters in Scotland vote differently.
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.
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.
That's not what we were talking about, which is that Scotland consistently votes to the left. And there is no way we can get a left-wing government, because England votes to the right. And it kind of doesn't matter that we seem to have picked the SNP, because even if we chose Labour it'd still not make a difference because England votes Tory and likely will do for the forseeable.
> In a Parliament of 650 seats no randomly selected bloc of 59 constituencies
This isn't a randomly selected bloc. This is very well defined and distinct territory - which is the topic of this ENTIRE article we're discussing might I add - so I don't know why you'd play daft and pretend otherwise.
> But that's contradicting the original point
You have said there's a contradiction, but have not said what it is. I have no idea what you think it is.
> Scotland consistently votes to the left. And there is no way we can get a left-wing government, because England votes to the right.
It is obviously possible for the UK to elect a left-wing government. I don't know why you think otherwise.
> This isn't a randomly selected bloc
My point is that there is no reason to expect a bloc of 59 constituencies to consistently decide the outcome of general elections. That is not in and of itself necessarily a problem. You need further, independent arguments to show why it is a problem for Scotland.
So you said Scotland moves the UK left. We said Scotland can't move the UK left, England is too Tory and too big. You said, but wait Scotland giving 13/59 seats to the Tories seats helped deliver Theresa May to victory. Wat.
> It is obviously possible for the UK to elect a left-wing government. I don't know why you think otherwise.
Again, that is entirely up to England and their best hope is Labour who don't seem particularly interested in either winning or shifting left. Hence our frustration.
> My point is that there is no reason to expect a bloc of 59 constituencies to consistently decide the outcome of general elections ... You need further, independent arguments to show why it is a problem for Scotland.
It would be weird if we "consistently decided" the outcome of elections, but I didn't say that. And please don't make me list all the reasons why Scotland isn't simply 59 constituencies, or even a region like Yorkshire. Absolutely no shade towards Yorkshire, it is a lovely place but I think we both know the difference.
I honestly think you might just be getting a kick out of winding up a Scot. If you were then, well I hope you had fun :) If not then I'm sorry I'm really not trying to be a dick. This might be something that's more based on what you identify your nationality as. If you consider yourself as "British" first, and "English" second (or, as is common British which equals English) then what I am saying will obviously not resonate at all. For me my nationality is "Scottish" - "British" is just an entry in my passport, it's not a thing I feel I particularly identify with. I get the impression you're a leftie overall, so whatever happens re indyref2 I think we're on the same side.
That hasn't happened. The UK gets the government England votes for.
But it’s always been a separate country, and people are sovereign over history so it’s their choice.
Would be nice if there was a Common Travel Area with the UK afterwards, though.
Note that it's an open question if the Scots economy would remain worse per capita, not disagreeing there is/was pain ahead in transition.
The best thing is that Slovaks had to stand on their own feet and their nationalists slowly had stop blaming everything on Prague. This kind of whiny nationalism embodied by then-prime minister of Slovakia Vladimir Meciar is somewhat disgusting and I can see its softer version in Scotland right now.
The worst thing is that yes, our international weight has gone down significantly.
But there was customs union between CZ and SK even after the split. I cannot imagine the economic pain if the former federation was suddenly divided by a hard border, as Scotland and England would be.
It doesn't have to be, even if Scotland was part of EU and not England.
UK and Spain/EU negociated maintaining some of the Schengen rules for the Gibraltar/Spain border despite its status still being disputed by Spain and a bumpy history. There is no reason Scotland and rest of UK cannot have a treaty allowing soft border.
"Remain" is doing a lot of work here. Scotland runs a sizeable deficit with the rest of the union and with the decline of North Sea oil revenues that will only increase. Of course that might not "remain", but leaving the UK and then joining the EU is going to create a 5-10 year period of turbulence as well.
Still, there's more important things than GDP.
Smaller vs larger has arguments on either side. I think when you’re talking about major world powers there’s an appeal to not downsizing.