On the Scottish independence referendum and the post-Westphalian settlement | Hacker News Reader

On the Scottish independence referendum and the post-Westphalian settlement

antipope.org

56 pointscstross95 comments

Abstraction is the napkin with which pundits wipe their sloppy chins. I don't know whether Scotland should secede from the UK or not, but I do know that this article doesn't hold enough substance to contribute to the question. There's simply too much handwaving. "Forget all the short term arguments...about whether we'll be economically better or worse off." Uh, no, I'd say that a substantive and long-term issue. "And to the extent that all of us who aren't in the 0.1% are "working class"—if you have to work to earn a living, you're working class, even if you're a brain surgeon or an accountant—the enemy of all of us?" Oh...kay so brain surgeons are now in the working class and that means nationalism is the enemy of everyone?

Westphalia. Beige dictatorship. Cute. But please don't apply your favorite cookie cutters to a deep and complex issue and tell me they slice it just the way it needs to be sliced.

I think the point is that any calculation about whether we will be economically better off is inherently a short-term forecast. Nobody knows beyond that.

I think the point about the ideal size of a state being closer to Scotland's population than to the UK's is a reasonable, fundamental contribution to the debate. It's not a 'cookie-cutter' argument. People are right to think in fundamental, philosophical terms.

As the referendum draws closer I find myself paying less and less attention to short-term issues (which are mostly just quibbles over SNP policies, which really don't have much to do with independence - we could get independence then elect a different party) and thinking more along fundamental lines. One thing I'm sad not to have seen much discussion on is the constitution for an independent Scottish state. That to me is vitally important from a historical perspective.

The debate about a constitution is both short term and vital, it is the most worrying of the SNP's policies. They both want a unicameral chamber and keep bandying around terms like "Sovreign will of the Scottish people" - which has worrying populist tones and a distinct lack of accountability. Seeing what they get up to in the Scottish Parliament with a majority on the committees that are supposed to hold the Executive to account makes me worry about what sort of government an independent Scotland would be starting with - and that is very hard to change, especially to introduce checks and balances.

I don't know where the Scottish equivalent of the Bill of Rights would come from.

An independent Scotland would supposedly join the EU which would give it the basics in terms of a bill of rights. Until the EU the UK as a whole never had a written bill of rights so it would be no worse off.

In terms of the SNP, what happens to them in an independent Scotland might be the most interesting thing. They'd undoubtedly do well in a first election but after the glow has worn off and without their current USP (independence, the only party which is just about Scotland) it'll be interesting to see how they define themselves - after all, politically it's not impossible to view them as to the right of the Labour party (they're not the Tories but they're certainly not socialists), and in another few years time they're going to be very much part of the establishment.

It's hard to say whether Scotland's support of the Labour party stems more from dislike of conservative economics or from dislike of Conservative MPs (aristocratic English families).

Don't Spain and Belgium vehemently oppose Scotland acceding to the EU?

As far as I can tell they're currently opposing it somewhat indirectly but they absolutely don't want the precedent of a country separating and being allowed into Europe.

Neither of them are quite European heavyweights but ultimately , unless there is some sort of fudge (not impossible but unlikely), every existing EU nation will have to vote to accept an independent Scotland. For that to happen it would appear that something will have to be done to placate those with similar potential domestic issues themselves if it's too happen. Whether of not such a something realistically exists or not I don't know.

I'd agree that the "ideal size of a state" is pretty fundamental to the debate but don't see much of an argument for independence improving matters in the original post

I'd argue that where is Scotland's economic power base going to come from, and what sort of economic freedom will they actually get[1] is a much more fundamental, long term issue than the present set of Westminster politicians being uninspiring careerist with a lack of radical ideas, which this article discusses at great length. For better or worse a similarly sized and distributed UK electorate produced much more conviction politics and polarisation in the 70s and 80s. As for the consensus politics, the only guaranteed outcome of the referendum is that 40-49% of the electorate is going to be bitterly disappointed.

Even the arcane philosophical question of the present level of devolution waters down the allegedly-obsolete Westphalian system whereas a fully independent Scotland freed from any Westminster tinkering reestablishes it[2] is open for debate.

[1]The only problem I have with the debate about whether Scotland will be economically better off is that neither side is willing to openly admit the most likely outcome of post-independence negotiations (Holyrood ceding rather a lot of oil revenue and fiscal handcuffs for formal currency union in the form of token representation on the Bank of England's committees)

[2]The actual Westphalian treaty, amongst other things, established the formal independence of the Netherlands and Switzerland from larger empires

> There's simply too much handwaving.

Welcome to the Scottish independence debate.

On one level it's been extraordinary - pretty much everyone has an opinion and the turnout rate is likely to be 80%+. On a more depressing level the quality of the debate and information made available has largely been extraordinarily poor.

Non-speculation is not necessarily any better than speculation. The wisdom of crowds requires people to think for themselves[1] rather than subscribing to the status quo; only a democracy of independent thinkers avoids groupthink.

In this case, we don't have any choice. People are voting, they're voting about changes, and they're voting about changes now, so it's good to see that people are coming up with original thoughts, because this aggregation of opinions is the only solution available to human society -- nobody, not Alfred Wohlstetter, not Noam Chomsky, not even Ludwig Wittgenstein -- knows what the world will look like in 200 years, and really, there isn't any[2] scientific knowledge on how borders ought to be drawn.

"If you don't know how to vote, vote for nothing" -- this impulse will be the death of democracy. Simple ideas are better than no ideas; intuition is worse than reason but still better than nothing.

The opinion I am espousing in this post stands in direct contrast to many previous arguments where I called for rigor and caution. This is because I think elections are a fundamentally different process than top-down policies: an election needs to incorporate the information possessed by every individual in the society, if I'm working for the NSA and -- even if I have a family to support, or ideological opposition to pulling a Snowden -- if I know what we're doing is wrong I can vote against it, because the sanctity of the voting booth is the cornerstone of [every] democracy[3].

So it's also interesting to wonder if the Internet -- all this connectedness -- might lead us into social biases that would never have previously affected us. The ideas which become popular these days are the ones that you can learn about in five minutes.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd#Problems

[2] it's not rigorous

[3] http://www.tv.com/m/shows/the-wire/margin-of-error-898885/tr...

I like the Swiss 'canton' concept, where each canton is fairly autonomous, with its own constitution and courts. These cantons were previously completely separate states, ironically formed as part of the Treaty of Westphalia:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantons_of_Switzerland

I'd like to hear any Swiss opinions on this system, since they have to live in it, but as an outsider I've always considered this local governance, with limited national state powers to be attractive. However, I'm not sure whether this kind of model is applicable everywhere. I'm guessing there are some historical, geographical, cultural and/or economic reasons for its success in Switzerland compared to other countries.

One need look no further than the US to see the folly of a weak federal system.

IMO, the federal government is much too strong in the US and consistently gaining strength, especially in the last eighty to ninety years. Why do you say it's a weak federal system? I can't think of anything a national government should (and shouldn't) do that it does not have the power to do.

> Why do you say it's a weak federal system?

The US can show the problems of a weak federal system without the current US government being a weak federal system: the system under the Articles of Confederation was a very weak federal system; the system under the Constitution prior to the Civil War was a weak federal system. Both the issues that the former produced that resulted in the Constitutional Convention and the latter system's end in the Civil War can be viewed as illustrating problems of a weak federal system.

Yup. Also, the system set up by the Confederate States during their brief existence was a weak federal system too. (Jefferson Davis spent the whole war trying desperately to convince the Confederate Congress to strengthen it, because he quickly realized that it was too weak to successfully conduct a full-scale modern war. He never succeeded, though.)

I would disagree that Civil War represents the example of why weak federal system is unworkable. The question of slavery, which ultimately led to secession and the war, was arguably impossible to resolve within the unified state politically, as the sides were disagreeing on the most basic questions, such as whether half of the population of the state can be deemed subhumans and excluded from the human rights system altogether. Absent such fundamental difference weak federal system may very well be workable.

> I would disagree that Civil War represents the example of why weak federal system is unworkable.

I understand why one might (or disagree that the failure of the AoC is a good illustration of the same point) -- my point was simply to illustrate that the "no need to look farther than the US" proposition does not require the current US government to be a weak federal system. Whether particularl issues that occurred under the past weak federal systems in the USA (including that of the CSA) each really illustrate problems inherent to weak federal systems or whether each is simply an example of problems that happened to a country with a weak federal system that aren't inherently related to having such a system is a whole series of other arguments.

In addition, the federal government was controlled by the Southern pro-slavery majority until about 1850. They would have tried to use any strong federal power to suppress the antislavery movement and prevent the question of slavery from ever arising.

I'm not sure if this would have prevented the Civil War. The Gilded Age robber barons would eventually have amassed enough economic power to challenge the southern planters. If they avoided the slavery question, the Union might have held together until mechanized farming made slavery obsolete, perhaps during the 1940's. Northern industrialization would likely have involved more turmoil. The U.S. might also have taken over various Caribbean and Central American nations. I doubt this situation is an improvement over the real historical one.

There are a lot of people who would say that the biggest problems the US face are because the Federal Government is too strong and more power should be given to the states.

There are also a lot of people that believe in angels and think we should switch to you-keep-what-you-kill libertarianism, both questionable viewpoints.

The federalist experiment in the U.S. ended in 1865. While technically state and local powers have control over certain domains, it is nothing like what the OP argues for. My understanding of Swiss politics is that there is a similar situation there, albeit to a lesser degree.

The Westphalian system exposed it's massive flaw not in 1914 but at the turn of the 19th century. The Westphalian states could not stop a rampaging Napoleon from conquering vast swathes of territory until marched 500,000 men without proper supplies into a Russian winter.

Ukraine is an excellent example of the flaws of NATO - the system of small countries has to be plausible in their desire to stand up for each other. And the Baltic states have just cause to be very nervous these days - it is American backing that secures them, not the smaller NATO members who don't even meet their 2% of GDP spending pledge.

The problem of the Scottish debate regarding international relations is that it is so focused on 2003 Iraq. It forgets the many good international engagements the UK has been a part of, and the potential future ones it could. Only powerful countries get to make mistakes on the magnitude of Iraq. An independent Scotland would not be able to look at something like Bosnia, Kosovo or Sierra Leone and be able to intervene if it wanted to.

Alternatively see a certain Team America speech about various bits of the anatomy...

Another Scot here (and a 'no' voter). Totally agree on almost everything except the 'short-term implications'. They have the potential to be both devastating and medium- to long-term. The currency issue, for example, is decidedly less trivial than either side have said. Specifics will depend on a lot of fights between Westminster and Holyrood that we won't get to see until after we've decided.

Agreed, after watching the last debate I was stunned by the extent to which Salmond tried to handwave this.

The independence campaign has to hand-wave the issue, and can't outright declare that Scotland would almost certainly have a currency-union with the UK, because it's ultimately contingent on the UK government.

If they did, the unionists/UK government could attempt to call their bluff by having UK politicians declare that a currency-union would never happen. It's doesn't cost the unionist politicians very much credibility and it undermines the independence campaign on that key issue, whether or not a currency union is a strong likelihood in the case of independence.

The truth is the UK government would be shooting themselves in the foot if they didn't enter a currency union - unless they thought the Scottish economy was a real threat to the stability of the rest of the UK, or that having Salmond's cronies on the board at the Bank of England was politically unviable.

The thing is though that in a currency union there's only so far the two economies can diverge before they have to adopt different currencies to maintain stability (Greece and the Euro is a fine example of the bad end of this stick) - which kind of defeats the purpose of being independent, to an extent.

It feels to me (in the interests of transparency, I'm another no voter) that there needs to be a second referendum if it is a yes vote where we get to vote on exactly the settlement which is agreed.

"No, seriously: 95% of the discussion in the referendum debates and on the street has been about short term issues that can be resolved one way or the other in the coming days and months (occasionally, months or single-digit years)."

Talk about handwaving-I'd say that the currency system and EU membership are very big issues that deserve essays in and of themselves. I get he's a libertarian who doesn't like the Westphalian system (though why is it that conservatives and libertarians are seemingly the only people who give a rats ass about 17th century politics) but the actual issues of Scottish independence are more of an afterthought.

I don't think he's a libertarian. See, for instance, his take on Bitcoin.

I assumed since he was writing on PopeHat. My bad for making that assumption.

I think you're confusing popehat.com with antipope.org. Charles Stross is a self-described socialist.

Being a libertarian myself, I must admit I rather tend to agree with the socialist guy here. Smaller governments are better especially if they'd be socialist. If the government in the place where I live decides to build socialism, I'd like to be able to move before the toilet paper shortages start (I don't know what is special about toilet paper but socialists tend to have worst of luck with it [1]) and smaller is the government smaller is the distance I would have to move to regain access to this under-appreciated commodity. So besides all political reasons the most practical reason of minimizing the risk and the transaction costs if the worst does happen, smaller governments are better for me.

[1] http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-09-27/venezuela-i...

Bitcoin is not libertarian. Libertarians obsess over bitcoin, yes, but that seems to be historical accident. There is much about bitcoin a libertarian shouldn't like (e.g. lack of privacy).

See, for instance, his take on Bitcoin. Perhaps grep it for "libertarian".

Yes, I read your comment before replying. I was responding to his take on Bitcoin, which isn't very accurate.

I don't think you'd find very many people who would support breaking up the United States -- at least in the United States. There might be support for breaking some of the states in the US into smaller entities, particularly on the West Coast.

But we have a pretty strong national culture, despite our local differences and our shared and troubled history.

Culturally there is actually a great similarity between Scotland and much of England. One of the weaknesses of the No campaign in my view is that they've failed to draw on the massive similarities between Scotland the the industrial north of England.

The differences between London and Scotland are significant, but the same differences exist between London and much of the North of England.

Although the number of people involved is relatively low, there are some loud voices in various parts of the US that would like to secede.

Hawaii - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_sovereignty_movement

Texas - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_secession_movements

Alaska - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Independence_Party

There's a movement where I'm from that wants the Pacific Northwest states plus British Columbia to split off into a country called Cascadia. Barring some terrible disaster, I highly doubt that's ever going to happen in the near future.

Maybe in some distant future where things are very different, but it's not realistic right now.

"The population of the American Colonies in 1790 is estimated at roughly 2.7 million; the United States today has over 300 million inhabitants. In 1780 England and Wales had around 7.5 million inhabitants"

I didn't know that ratio between the England and Wales population versus the American colonies was that small at that time. I would have thought it would have been bigger.

Perhaps a more useful metric would have been urban v rural populations - but even then Watts engine had only been around for fifteen years (1776 ironically).

Not sure where they got that.

The 1790 census says 3.893 million, with 694,000 being slaves.

(Jefferson and Washington both believed the true figure to be higher)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_Census

> the kind of nationalism that brought us the Great European War (...) is pretty much dead.

Not sure which rock the author is living under... Has he ever heard of e.g. Golden Dawn? Seems like this kind of nationalism is still very much alive.

If I were a Scot, I don't know how I would be able to decide which way to vote. The impulse toward autonomy collides with the value of "economies of scale". A small autonomous entity has to provide its needs for itself, or wind up negotiating with numerous other entities to assure having necessary resources, not likely a stable or reassuring situation to be in.

It appears parallel to the episodic waves of industrial consolidation and fragmentation. Innovations start off as small local efforts which begin to "catch on", and the idea spreads. Over time small autonomous enterprises begin to merge because of efficiency pressure, until only a few giants remain. Eventually, innovations challenge the giants' dominance and the cycle renews.

Political entities rise and fall, empires grow and decompose. It's not a static process, and it is very evident that some small nations survive and some large ones have not.

For regions and nations the key must be finding the best dynamic balance between autonomy and the benefits of larger pools to provide for common interests. It is a very tough goal to accomplish.

To take the USA as example, there are problems with state-to-state differences as it is. Health care is a currently prominent example. Arguably, my health needs don't change if I move to a different state, is it logical that health care should vary greatly one state to another? Should there be less or more autonomy in this regard? There are advocates on both sides, in any case, a delicate federal vs. state balance exists that's risky to disrupt.

Large-system uniformity and efficiency are beneficial when it works, and miserable when it does not. Perhaps the best we'll do is, where possible, keep working to improve inter- and intra-regional communication, respect and cooperation.

I know, that's hardly an answer to the question, but I don't think there is really any answer at all.

From the comments to the article:

>"My broader point stands: there is a precedent for a constituent nation peacefully leaving the UK within the past century." //

Has he forgotten that the EU started about 30 years after this? That seems the main reason that this situation is completely different - the geopolitical landscape has changed entirely, ignoring that seems rather strange.

Currently we enjoy the CTA, so no obvious border controls with Eire. But UK + Eire are not in the Schengen area. EU have decided that all new countries will be in the Schengen area, Scotland thus will not be able to be in the CTA without the rUK (and Eire) effectively accepting the Schengen Agreement. Now I may have misjudged the current political temperature but with the rise of UKIP I can't see the rUK voting to relax immigration policy.

If Scotland don't get in to Europe presumably rUK will be required to maintain border controls whether we acceded to the Schengen Agreement or not.

Peacefully?

He does at least mention the 2 year war of independence, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_War_of_Independence. There was a lot of violence besides, I'm sure the PLA/INLA/[provisional] IRA and the likes haven't been forgotten but those considerations probably aren't relevant _what with all the differences between the situations_.

The lesson to learn from Eire is probably that if a unified region vote No then don't try and keep them as part of the Union. But that doesn't really work, if there's a land border it makes sense (Borders or D&G). Also for the islands, if Orkney and Shetland voted No, then there's far less chance that rest-of-Scotland will form a navy and start attacking them as their first action? The geography is different, the age is different, the politics are different, the modes of government are different, we're 100 years further away from feudalism for starters.

It's worth making the comparison but concluding the situations are the same seems disingenuous at best.

The EU may make an exception to Schengen as Scotland is in a unique position - it will claim (with some justification) that it is already in the EU (and outside Schengen) and the starting point for it should be the UK's current position.

More interesting on the CTA is that it would involve signing up to many of the immigration policies rUK and Ireland have agreed to as part of that deal - that contradicts the more open immigration policy the SNP are selling as part of their pitch (which also includes the CTA).

Do you think the other member states of the EU, Spain say, want to set an easy precedent for regions of countries to become autonomous states and be accepted in to the EU?

The UK is in the EU - a new country is being formed, that country is not in the EU.

The Yes proponents appear to be answering all the tricky questions with "{smiling and waving hands} we're sure it'll work out in our favour".

I'm waiting for HM the Queen to dissolve her Scottish parliament and put Salmond in the Tower! That'd spice things up a bit.

Obviously not - Spain in particular (but not exclusively - there are plenty of other counties in the EU who face similar issues) won't want a precedent which could apply to, say, Catalonia.

But that's a separate issue about Scotland joining full stop, rather than the terms on which they'd join. I suspect if Catalonia declared independence then the most sensible starting point for their EU membership is what covers them already (that is Spain's position). No-one really benefits from a position where unnecessary change and uncertainty is pushed onto newly formed countries.

I agree that the yes campaign's approach to difficult issues seems to be essentially "don't worry your pretty little heads about it, it'll all be fine, we've got the oil".

Short version: if it's a yes vote, it's going to be a big ol' mess for a while.

Plus Ireland "was plagued by poverty and emigration until the mid-1990s." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_Republi...

I have plenty of graduate Irish friends, almost all of whom live and work in the UK or America, they care about independence in spite of the costs. A massive majority of Scots don't, because Scotland's place in the UK is not one of conquered subject nation and thus her constitutional arrangement is much better.

I dislike small countries, I felt claustrophobic back when Sweden wasn't a member of the EU and a move abroad would need to be planned many months in advance with reams of paperwork. Problems were smaller scale back when we had those itsy-bitsy countries that Stross is so romantic about. Small countries today only breeds parochialism (not in my backyard!) and cultural backwardness.

And EU isn't an escape valve from that. Multiply the number of countries in the EU by three and watch it grind to a halt.

I wouldn't mind a nordic union swallowing all the nordic states and move away from the romantic idea of a state for every nation.

New Zealand, Hong Kong (pre 1997), and Singapore, aren't really what I'd call culturally backwards. They may not be on the cutting edge culturally, but they're not backwards.

And on the flip side, there are plenty of large countries that are narrow minded and backwards in every respect. I'd argue most countries in the world today are either slightly or extremely backwards and mostly tend to their own sphere of matters. There are perhaps a mere three dozen countries for which such isn't true.

India and China have 2.4 billion people, I'd argue about 2/3 of those people live culturally backwards (what a cultural snob from NY, Paris, London etc might define as such anyway) and narrowly focused lives. Most of those people have very little real knowledge or awareness of the greater international world. Their problems, knowledge, experiences and lives in general are all extremely local.

I struggle to see that parochialism and cultural backwardness is in any way particular to size.

If you slice and dice say the UK into smaller pieces, do you think London are gonna help Tyneside when the latter is hit by economic trouble? That's the parochialism that results from small countries, an endless accounting of small favors granted just because a border is put up and some people are defined as strangers.

>the romantic idea of a state for every nation

Yes, why should a nation have control over its own borders and resources? Taxation should not imply representation.

You don't have to base the government structure on it's people having a common language and heritage, forming a nation, as in most of Europe. You could make bigger units than that.

Smaller nations sounds nice but in the intermediate term reality Scotland would become a minor province of the EU nation. It'd be trading Britain for something much bigger.

We've already got that something (the EU). It's relatively benign. (Meanwhile, we've got an extra tier of government that insists on spending tax revenue raised in Scotland on stuff the Scottish people really don't want.)

The EU is an ongoing and succeeding effort to replicate the United States Federal government in Europe. Scotland will eventually wind up having as much say as New Hampshire does in very important matters, such as control of its borders and agriculture policy.

That's an interesting choice of example state given New Hampshire's significant role in primary elections.

The tendency of a few states (including a handful of very small ones) to get disproportionate attention at the federal level (and sometimes accompanying pork-barrel policies) is a bug rather than a feature of the US system.

There's nothing inherent in the American election system that requires New Hampshire and Iowa to get the attention they do. That's strictly an artifact of how the parties have chosen to schedule their primary calendars; New Hampshire and Iowa happened to be put first in the schedule, and people started paying more attention to them on the theory that winning these early primaries could start a snowball effect of support in the later ones.

Either party could choose any time it wants to reshuffle their primary calendar and move some other states before NH and IA, or to hold all their primaries at once on the same day. There's just not much pressure on them to do so, so inertia keeps them where they are.

The state parties set the dates. Of course the national parties can influence that, but there is no cohesive group mandating the dates.

A not very talked about aspect of U.S. politics is how much influence peddling is possible at that level.

But they still can't make treaties with foreign nations, raise a military, mint coins, or any of several other things generally associated with sovereign nations.

"control of its borders"

I'm pleased to say that we don't seem to have quite the same obsession in Scotland with keeping immigrants out as a lot of people in the UK. In fact the SNP is rather keen on encouraging immigration.

I'd far rather have the right to live and work anywhere in the EU than be trapped in the UK with Boris Johnson as PM running second hand UKIP policies.

Control of borders is practically the definition of a nation. If you don't have a say in who comes in, you aren't a nation.

Control of borders is practically the definition of a nation in the sense of Westphalian Sovereignty, but arguing against that is Stross' whole point.

He never really makes a coherent point about how his smaller states will handle borders. Bringing up Westphalia in this particular context is silly because it's an eternal truth. If your people don't control access to the land, you will lose control of the land. This was true ten thousand years ago and it's true of Tibetans now.

An "eternal truth"? It's called Westphalian Sovereignty because it's the result of the eponymous historical event, prior to which extranational forces played a huge role in the internal politics of states.

What point are you making? A chimp can understand this need to control land access. Saying "westphalia" over and over sheds no light. Control over immigration and land use was not invented by 17th century european diplomats if that's what you think. To the extent nations failed to control their borders in the past they were simply unfortunately weak nations.

I think I'm making exactly the point I just made in the comment that you responded to: that prior to the Peace of Westphalia, extranational forces played a part in local policy. Today, states and national borders dominate policy, but in pre-Westphalian society, borders were fluid, and the church often played as great a role as local governments. One day Aquitaine was English, the next French, &c.

Perhaps what Stross is intimating is that we'd be better off if Wales was Wales, Normandy Normany, &c, and that instead of the church, we devise some more sensible extranational force to implement the social contract across all those small nations.

Borders were not fluid and influenced by outside powers for real nations. Nobody moved China's or Rome's or Assyria's borders until they lost battles. Or Prussia's for that matter. Westphalia was an agreement within a closely related ethnic and cultural zone (the crusader pals) for superpowers to not to push around the weaker nations quite so much. It's a temporal european footnote that attached some semantics to the specifically european concept of "the state" (not "nation"). In the broader reality of human history, a nation is a related group of people who can drive people off their land and keep them out, or at least subjugate others to dhimmitude. If you can't do that you will inevitably be conquered. Consider texas for a recent example. No magical international bureaucracy can prevent that in the long run.

Restricting freedom of movement and labour is morally unconscionable. I’m certain we will look back to that in a few centuries with horror.

At least the EU was able to reduce that somewhat in some places. Sure, the outer border of the EU is horrific, but inside it’s at least somewhat ok. A world with borders is an evil and oppressive world. We should always work towards removing them all for everyone.

(Yes, I know about Schengen and the differences between Schengen and the EU. However, be assured that Schengen would not exist without the EU. It’s just that achieving consensus is hard, so some want out of some things and some want it. That’s why it’s always so complicated and hard. EU is a convenient shorthand, because I don’t just mean visa free travel, I also mean being able to live and work in other places.)

That might work if all countries had similar culture, values, standards of living and agreements over things like how healthcare should be paid for. In reality, if a first world country opens it's borders to the rest of the world , even if the agreement is reciprocal then most of the traffic is going one way as people try and converge on the source of wealth. We already have this problem within the UK when trying to cram so many people into London.

It also raises questions like, if I can live and work wherever I want why should I only be able to vote in one fixed arbitrary place?

Yes, and abolishing slavery was also hard … (I do explicitly not want to compare the severity and impact of borders to the severity and impact of slavery or even racism today. It’s an analogy.)

I know there are practical issues in the way that prevent abolishing borders. I know this won’t happen quickly, probably not during my lifetime, probably not in a couple centuries, but working towards a world where this is possible seems like a worthwhile goal to me. Why should people be arbitrarily bound to the place they were born? It’s insanity and highly unethical.

I look forward to hearing your tune when 2,000 illiterate indians show up in your neighborhood and start publicly defecating all over the place. http://www.poo2loo.com/

> Restricting freedom of movement and labour is morally unconscionable.

Why? I'm in favor of more open borders than most nations have, but I don't see a moral imperative to let outsiders in.

Control of borders doesn't imply "everyone keep out." It just means that the government reserves the right to keep people out.

Kinda like a trademark, actually. One has to "defend" a trademark in order to keep it, which can either take the form of an overeager legal department, or you can just find all the people who are using your trademark and give them explicit permission to do so with the caveat that you may rescind that permission at your discretion (like Hormel did with the word Spam).

'Control of borders doesn't imply "everyone keep out."'

You should have a read of the Daily Mail.

>I'd far rather have the right to live and work anywhere in the EU //

https://www.gov.uk/working-abroad, "You have the right to work in any country in the European Economic Area (EEA) without a work permit if you’re a UK citizen."

So presumably you'd vote No to maintain this right and stay in the EU? I'm confused as that seemed contrary to the rest of your comment.

Parts of the UK could easily be overwhelmed by open borders with the rest of the Schengen Area. Perhaps Scotland will fair better, maybe it's less attractive to migrants. What is certain though is, with a Yes vote, that unless the rUK vote to become part of the Schengen agreement there will need to be border controls between Scotland and the Common Travel Area (CTA).

> Parts of the UK could easily be overwhelmed by open borders with the rest of the Schengen Area.

This is nonsensical scaremongering. The UK's refusal to join Schengen keeps out a handful of illegal migrants, most of whom would be caught and deported anyway. If the far greater number of French[1] and Eastern European migrants who live and work here courtesy of the EU's "free movement of labour" clauses haven't "overwhelmed" anybody,[2] then a few extra illegals are hardly going to tip the balance.

[1] - Oddly, nobody ever complains about the huge numbers of French migrants to the UK. It's almost as though there's an element of racial discrimination somewhere...

[2] - Boston, Lincs. is often cited as being overwhelmed by Eastern migrants. But even the BNP can only find an uptick in driving offences to complain about: http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/regional/stop-press-boston-crime-...

"In fact the SNP is rather keen on encouraging immigration. I'd far rather have the right to live and work anywhere in the EU than be trapped in the UK with Boris Johnson as PM running second hand UKIP policies."

The SNP proposed plan is to encourage skilled workers (from outside the EU) using a controlled points-based system. That's quite a different policy position to the EU where EU citizens can freely live and work in any EU country. I doubt many people in the UK would object to the skilled immigration policy the SNP proposes. But, of course, we need workers of all skill levels. I agree that the rhetoric from the UKIP and Conservative party on this subject (and the toxic British Press) is often alarmist and inflammatory.

Note however that EU != Schengen zone. (Though there's more to control of borders than simply crossing borders without immigration checks.) In fact, UK border checks are relatively strict even for other EU citizens.

The strictest UK border check I've gone through in a few years was putting my (EU) passport into an automated passport reader and looking into a camera for 5 seconds.

The UK has a government that spends tax revenues raised in the UK on stuff people in [some parts of] the UK don't want.

A new country called Scotland will it seems have a government that spends tax revenues raised in Scotland on stuff people in [some parts of] Scotland don't want. If you lived in a tax raising city state then your city would do the same thing.

If you didn't want an extra tier of government then why vote for one? We could have saved £414 million in one swoop on that.

The main problem is, revenue and spending are rarely done by the same people.

The UK can blame the Scottish Parliament on reckless spending, and be forced to raise taxes. A local government can recklessly spend (or neglect infrastructure), and force the Scottish to bail them out. Should a state government fight to create jobs (even if it annoys special interest groups), or just rely on welfare from the federal government?

If there's a government that is in charge of major infrastructure, health, education, social welfare, and taxes, then there's far less buck passing.

States spend the big bucks, so states should be responsible for raising the big bucks.

The other problem is that people only care about the highest level of government. Probably because it's more efficient for news organisations to only report on the Federal level (since the story will be more widely read).

Look at the US. It seems that virtually everything gets blamed on Obama or the House, despite the fact that the real decisions are generally done at the state level, with far less scrutiny, because it's cheaper for the newspapers to just send a single correspondent to Washington, and report on what's going on there.

I don't even know the current Premier (governor, in US terms) of my state. Not since a "memory lapse" in front of a corruption inquiry forced the last one out a few months ago, after the previous party lost a string of premiers also due to corruption - I just can't keep up.

So there's two problems - no-one cares about anything other than the top level of politics (since the papers are all national now, and it's more efficient to just look at what happens at the Federal level), and there's too much buck passing between the level of government that has the money, and the level of government that spends it.

One could argue that the smaller the government is and the more local the taxes are, less is the percentage spent on the things inhabitants of this locality do not want. Example: if you raise taxes on city level, then spending decisions are influenced only by people living in your city, and the chance it would be spent on building an airport in the next county that nobody flies from, to suit some politician, are much less. OTOH, if all the taxes are collected by a huge central government, the chances that you will disagree with a lot of its spending are much higher.

Of course, the hybrid model is possible - with only taxes that are needed specifically for big things - like national defense - collected on hight level, and taxes needed for local things - like police, roads, schools, etc. - collected on the lower levels. That's how the federalism works.

As opposed to being part of the UK, which is part of the EU nation?

Not for long.

As a continental European, I'd be quite surprised if the UK voted to stay in the EU in the 2017 referendum. There is just so much hatred for the EU coming out of the UK that by now, its leaving almost seems a forgone conclusion.

As a Brit (English, living in Scotland), I'd say that there is a way to go before that and would make two points:

1) there is only one party promising that referendum and they're behind in the polls

2) current polls say that we'd vote to stay (http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/06/17/eu-referendum-record-lea...), even before any renegotiation. There are other polls which have said otherwise but YouGov provide an on-going tracker which I think shows that, while the level of support has changed, broadly we still support EU membership.

Obviously all very uncertain (and until a couple of weeks ago polls were sure Scotland would stay in the UK) but I'd say that you shouldn't confuse the volume of some of the negative views on Europe with them being a consensus - most people are quietly happy with the status quo.

> Smaller nations sounds nice but in the intermediate term reality Scotland would become a minor province of the EU nation.

If it's admitted at all, which is far from certain.

> If it's admitted (to the EU) at all, which is far from certain.

I don't see why it would not be admitted. The EU is not in the habit of turning down that kind of country: wealthy, peaceful, of Christian heritage and adjoining several EU countries.

And if you want to play that game, it's not certain that England will remain in the EU. An independent Scotland could well end up the only part of Britain left in the EU. Yes that would be a crashingly stupid thing for Britain to collectively do. But it's not impossible.

> I don't see why it would not be admitted.

Inability to come to mutually agreeable terms -- Scotlands wants (1) essentially automatic admission without the normal new state process, and (2) to keep the UK's special exemption for using the sterling, and (3) to get part of the UK's rebates.

AFAICT, much of the rest of the EU is opposed to all three of those. Spain is particularly opposed to the first (and possibly to Scottish admission at all), because an independent Scotland getting into the EU, especially on fast-track process, is seen as encouraging Catalonian independence.

> The EU is not in the habit of turning down that kind of country: wealthy, peaceful, of Christian heritage and adjoining several EU countries.

First, I think you are considering the wrong category: the category of interest is "states having recently broken away from existing EU member-states", particularly as the UK isn't the only EU member with regions that have some pro-independence sentiments, and admitting such a breakaway state is something that states that have their own aspiring breakaway regions are likely to see as providing encouragement to those breakaway regions.

Also, an independent Scotland would be adjoining exactly one other country (the UK), and one of the reasons that seems to keep being cited for it leaving is that, even with Scotland still in the UK and exerting pro-EU pressure, the future of the UK in the EU is locally considered less than certain, so I'm not sure where you get that "adjoining several EU countries" is a fair description.

> And if you want to play that game, it's not certain that England will remain in the EU.

Of course its not; I don't dispute that at all.

> Also, an independent Scotland would be adjoining exactly one other country (the UK)

For certain values of adjoining. They have been making common cause with the nearby Nordic countries. I was going to add Ireland but only the UK part of it is actually visible from Scotland. Carndonagh, Republic of Ireland to Port Ellen, Islay is only 50 miles as the crow flies. There's EU to be found to due East, West and South of Scotland; you can't say that it's not in-amongst the EU.

The "no fast track" argument is I think one of those "will be settled in a few years anyway" arguments that cstross dismisses; there is a plan b to the fast track and it is the regular track.

The argument about the dangers of breakaways regions to other EU states is something that bears watching; it remains to be seen how strong it is in Brussels.

It is not as clear as that what Spain would do. García-Margallo later said Spain would have “nothing to say” if Scotland got independence.

It's not about whether it gets turned down - it is what all the constituent countries get out of the negotiations - because each one has a veto.

Spain for instance would I'm sure be very interested in the fisheries policies in Scottish waters, something to buy off the Catalans. Belgium (another country with worries about secession movements) might have something to say about Anglo-Saxon capitalism, France certainly will. Germany will want to be strict about budget deficits.

Other countries have agendas that don't perfectly align to Scotland's. They have what we want, and Scotland would have a deadline, that isn't the best position in the world to negotiate from.

If you care about independence at (almost) any price then it shouldn't matter, but it is clear the SNP don't believe a majority of voters do.

This guy dresses up his reasons in pseudo-intellectual guff. If we follow his reasoning reductio ad absurdum what would be the size of the smallest state he'd like? One with 15 million people? One with 5 million? One with one person?

In reality he just doesn't like the English, specifically English conservatives. The Scots claim they don't like being ruled by people they didn't vote for. But they were happy to vote for Labor for 15 years before this Tory government. Part of a mature society is that you understand that around half of the time you don't get who you vote for.

I'm no great fan of Paul Krugman but he correctly points out that the new Socialist State of Scotland would be set adrift in a world of capital flows it cannot hope to control. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/opinion/paul-krugman-scots...

David Cameron should never have let it go this far. A federal system would have made far more sense, and not divided Scotland's people and broken a successful union.

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