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Indepencence Referendum 2018/2019


Kingsmills

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On 13 March 2017 at 6:30 PM, Kingsmills said:

With the starting pistol having been fired at Bute House this morning, it's probably time to open a new and distinct thread to facilitate discussion.

Given the passionate and strongly held views on both sides of the argument, it's probably also appropriate to post a reminder of the site rules with a view to promoting healthy and robust debate but without resorting to unnecessary and unhelpful personal abuse of those, of whichever side, holding opposing views.

While the Orange Order hold such a strong foot hold in Scotland I doubt any middle aged person will ever see an Independant Scotland in their lifetime 

Dougal

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22 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

Oh, I don't know Dougal.  I would have thought that there were more people persuaded to vote for independence by the antics of those t*ssers than there are supporters of the Orange Order.

Who would have thought it. A post on this thread on which we heartily agree.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Prime Minister has, opportunistically, called a snap general election for 8th June. The SNP will, of course, stand on a clear and unequivocal manifesto to hold a referendum on independence.

Should they win a majority of seats in Scotland, the Westminster government will have absolutely no continuing tenable argument for refusing without blatantly flying in the face of democracy.

Bring it on !

 

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Over 2 million Scots gave the the Scottish and UK Governments a proper mandate in 2014 when in a single issue question they affirmed their wish for Scotland to remain in the UK. It needs a lot more than half of that number voting for the SNP's wider policy manifesto to overturn that emphatic result - a result, don't forget, which the First Minister solemnly pledged to respect when she signed the Westminster Agreement.

But the General Election does provide the SNP with a real opportunity to establish a meaningful mandate. The question is; do they have the guts to go for it? It's simple. They could stand on a single issue. They could simply say that a vote for the SNP is a vote to demand a referendum.

There are 2 reasons why this would be a supportable position to take. The first is that the Prime Minister is clearly calling the election to give her a more meaningful mandate to negotiate the Brexit deal and to get a larger majority to get any deal through Parliament. But as the raison d'etre for the SNP's referendum demand is that Scotland has been taken out of the EU against it's will, then it is an opportunity for the SNP to put their Brexit position to the people. Secondly, if the First Minister gets her way and has a referendum in her timescale, then Scotland would be independent within the term of the next Parliament. Any Scottish MPs would therefore have to vacate their seats at Westminster before the end of the Parliament, so does it matter whether they have stood on a wider platform or not?

Of course, if the SNP took this approach, the vote for their position would need to be meaningful. No doubt the SNP would claim that winning a majority of seats with 30% of the vote in a turnout of 70% represents a mandate. Clearly it would not. That would be nowhere close to the 55% of the vote in an 84.6% turnout which opponents of independence achieved in 2014. But obviously, the bigger the vote the stronger the claim for a mandate would be.

So, will the SNP put their money where their mouth is and campaign for a meaningful mandate or will they continue to bleat about grievances and hide behind their current trumped up mandate claims? They say the Scottish people want a referendum and here they have been presented with a heaven sent opportunity to let the voters actually say whether they want one or not. Are they going to have the guts to let the people have their say on this issue or will they continue to claim that a vote for parliamentary representation is something altogether different?

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This Election is not about Scottish independence from the UK...or even really much to do with Brexit, as far as I can see.

This is an election to sort out the Tory party...not to sort out anything to do with the country. She's having it around the time the CPS is meant to report on who is going to be prosecuted(or not) over the election fraud accusations in at least one by-election and quite a few marginals in the 2015 GE.....because if up to 24 individual elections have to be rerun, she has more chance of losing her majority in England than she will in a full-scale UK General Election after a few weeks of UK wide doom and gloom forecasts for the economy if anybody but Tories get back in to negotiate Brexit.

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46 minutes ago, dougiedanger said:

This only underlines the truth that Scotland's destiny is in the hands of another country with a completely different political culture.

It's appalling.

It is appalling but until a majority of us have the courage to take our destiny into our own hands, it is a sad reality.

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9 hours ago, Oddquine said:

This Election is not about Scottish independence from the UK...or even really much to do with Brexit, as far as I can see.

This is an election to sort out the Tory party...not to sort out anything to do with the country. She's having it around the time the CPS is meant to report on who is going to be prosecuted(or not) over the election fraud accusations in at least one by-election and quite a few marginals in the 2015 GE.....because if up to 24 individual elections have to be rerun, she has more chance of losing her majority in England than she will in a full-scale UK General Election after a few weeks of UK wide doom and gloom forecasts for the economy if anybody but Tories get back in to negotiate Brexit.

Nonsense.  If she was calling it for narrow political advantage I don't think for one moment the other parties would have supported this.  

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5 hours ago, dougiedanger said:

This also underlines the fact that Scottish votes count for absolutely nothing; in their own words Scotland is a 'problem' to be resolved, a voice to be silenced.

The general view in the UK is that what with a proportionately higher number of MPs and a devolved parliament with significant powers,Scottish votes count for rather more than those in other parts of the country.  As for our destiny, we have the power  to choose that for ourselves and did so in 2014 when over 2 million voted to remain in the UK.  

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Scotland is seen as a 'problem' (their term), or else we are the 'saboteurs' not wanting to succumb to their vision of an insular, isolated nation state.

 WTF ever happened to better together?

Scotland has zero control over its own destiny--the very fact we have to beg the tory government to let us have a say in our post-Brexit future tells you everything about where the power lies, and how impotent the entire Scottish nation is.

Edited by dougiedanger
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The problem is that a minority in Scotland are not prepared to accept the democratic will of the majority.  It is a problem that our democratically elected Government in Scotland has broken the Westminster agreement and is focussing all it's efforts in trying to undermine the will of it's own people.  Let's not forget that twice as many Scots voted to stay in the EU as voted for the SNP in last year's elections.

WTF ever happened to better together?  The Scottish Government refused to accept that that is what the people want.  That's WTF happened to that.

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A democratic referendum showed that Scots wished to stay in the EU, an opinion that has seen us dubbed a 'problem' and 'saboteurs' , and led to an opportunistic power grab by a Tory party with a long history of utter contempt for our country.

Our votes count for less than nothing; they are used against us to further ensure we have no say in the future of either Scotland or the so called 'UK'.

It is an appalling situation and a chilling prospect for future generations.

 

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15 hours ago, dougiedanger said:

A democratic referendum showed that Scots wished to stay in the EU, an opinion that has seen us dubbed a 'problem' and 'saboteurs' , and led to an opportunistic power grab by a Tory party with a long history of utter contempt for our country.

Our votes count for less than nothing; they are used against us to further ensure we have no say in the future of either Scotland or the so called 'UK'.

It is an appalling situation and a chilling prospect for future generations.

 

I can't accept that analysis.  A democratic referendum showed that Scots wished to stay in the UK, an opinion which has never been accepted by the Government of Scotland despite having signed an agreement to respect the result.  Additionally, in their proposition document to the people, the SNP Government specifically identified the risk of being taken out of the EU against our will if we rejected independence and made it clear that if that happened, we would have to accept it because there would be no 2nd referendum.  The fact that we might be taken out of the EU against our will was a risk that Scots were prepared to take in order to stay in the UK.  It is a problem that the Scottish Government has broken it's word on this.

Hundreds of thousands of Scots voted, like me, to stay in both unions.  But our votes count for nothing because the SNP Government is using our votes to stay in the EU as justification for them to break their word and as proxy votes for a call for a 2nd independence referendum.

By voting to stay in the UK, Scots voted to accept the outcomes of UK votes.  The result of the EU referendum was that the UK voted to leave.  Having only recently affirmed our wish to stay in the UK we simply have to accept the result of the UK referendum.  We have a Scottish Government, therefore, that is refusing to respect the results of not one, but two referendums.  It is an appalling situation when a government displays such contempt for the views of the people.  

By the way, Nationalists repeatedly make unsubstantiated claims, as you have done here, of the Tories showing contempt for Scotland.  The reality is very different.  Scotland gets around £1500 per head more in public spending than the UK as a whole and as a result, over the last few years has had stronger growth than any other part of the UK except London and the South East of England.  That would not be the case if the Tories treated us with "utter contempt".

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Would that be the majority who thought that, by voting NO, they would be guaranteed to remain in the EU, as opposed to being refused membership of it by the other EU countries if we voted YES, as continually stated as fact by the Better Together crew and sundry unionist politicians? .    That majority?    :rolleyes:

Another independence referendum will let us see exactly how big that majority is now, won't it?

Edited by Oddquine
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Just because Nationalists keep repeating this argument does not make it true.  Let's stick to the facts.

It was the SNP Government who called the referendum and put their independence proposition to the people.  In that, as I stated above, they specifically addressed the prospect of an UK wide EU referendum resulting in us being taken out of the EU against our will.  Part of their formal case for independence was that independence was the best way of ensuring we stayed in the EU.

They also suggested that following independence, Scotland's entry to the EU would be little more than a formality.  It was this that the Better Together Campaign particularly latched onto.  They pointed out, quite correctly, that Scotland's entry was not a formality, was not necessarily assured and almost certainly would not be achieved until some time after Scotland became independent.  In saying that voting NO was the only way to ensure we were in the EU after the referendum, they were correct in the sense that we did vote NO and we are still in the EU.

Of course, the UK is now leaving and had we voted YES, then an independent Scotland would, in all probability now be joining the EU, so if people were looking at what some Better Together campaigners were saying, and thinking that applied to the long term, then they may have felt they were being misled.  But if so, then they really only had themselves to blame because, putting election rhetoric aside, the facts were there for all to see.

As identified in the SNP's case, at the time of the referendum the Tory Party were promising a referendum on EU membership and the polls were showing it was too close to call.  In fact, in the 3 months prior to the 2014 referendum there were no less than 9 polls on EU membership with an average of 39% for staying, 41% for leaving and 20% undecided.  With those facts clearly in the public domain, the UK's continuing membership of the EU had to be in some considerable doubt.

On the other hand, in Scotland, the Government were strongly supportive of the EU and the polls were showing strong support for the EU.  Whilst there may have been some hurdles to cross, it was unlikely that the EU would not admit an independent Scotland in due course.  If EU membership was your main consideration when voting, then these facts make it pretty clear that voting for independence was the best option.

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It is true that nationalism is a great danger: the rabid, insular kind that is sweeping England and dragging the rest of the 'UK' into a dangerous state of isolation, and which stands in marked contrast to the inclusive, outward-looking movement in Scotland that is seen as a 'problem' by the UK government.

The political cultures of both countries could scarcely be any different, and yet we have no choice but to go along with this regressive, xenophobic government that will do everything it can to ensure that Scotland's voice is silenced.

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19 hours ago, Oddquine said:

Would that be the majority who thought that, by voting NO, they would be guaranteed to remain in the EU, as opposed to being refused membership of it by the other EU countries if we voted YES, as continually stated as fact by the Better Together crew and sundry unionist politicians? .    That majority?    :rolleyes:

Another independence referendum will let us see exactly how big that majority is now, won't it?

....and If the Prime Minister was at all confident that there would now be a majority for remaining in the union after a properly and democratically run referendum where both sides are given a fair opportunity to  present their cases on the circumstances and facts now prevailing, a very different political landscape to that in 2014, does anyone seriously think that she would be chanting repeatedly ' now is not the time' ?

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3 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

....and If the Prime Minister was at all confident that there would now be a majority for remaining in the union after a properly and democratically run referendum where both sides are given a fair opportunity to  present their cases on the circumstances and facts now prevailing, a very different political landscape to that in 2014, does anyone seriously think that she would be chanting repeatedly ' now is not the time' ?

The much more pertinent question is why on earth does anybody think she should say anything other than "now is not the time". There are a number of reasons why now is not the time.

  1. She has already said the matter is settled.  There was an agreement signed between the Holyrood and Westminster Governments and it is surely reasonable for her to honour that agreement and to expect the Scottish Government to do so too.
  2. The scenario which has been used by the Scottish Government to request a referendum is precisely the scenario that the Scottish Government, in their case for independence, told us we would have to accept if it happened.  Again, it is surely reasonable for the Prime Minister to expect the Scottish Government to accept what they told us we must accept.
  3. The Prime Minister currently has a duty to honour the instructions of the UK electorate and lead the process of the UK leaving the EU.  Clearly, regardless of the outcome, it would be highly disruptive to the negotiations to have an independence referendum on going at the same time.  That would be in nobodies interests.  Even without the first 2 points, May would be right to say her prime duty is to see the Brexit negotiations through before considering a 2nd independence referendum.
  4. Any referendum should be on an informed basis.  At the very least that has to mean that Brexit negotiations are done and dusted.  And that might be well beyond the nominal 2 years.

If there is to be a 2nd referendum, then does anybody disagree that it should be on an informed basis?  If not, why the rush?  It seems to me that the only reason there is such a push for independence now is that the SNP are desperate to exploit a period of maximum uncertainty as the best hope of achieving their goal.

If the SNP truly believed that independence was in the best interests of the country rather than simply political idealism, they would play a longer game.  They could seek to negotiate a separation deal with the UK and the UK's agreement to seek to negotiate a package for entry to the EU.  In that way, the electorate could have some certainty of what they were voting for.  In the interim they could use the powers devolved to Holyrood to demonstrate that having more say in our own affairs actually does make a positive difference.  

If the case for independence is sound, then the Scottish Government has everything to gain and nothing to lose from such an approach.  So why are they so determined to demand something they know will be knocked back.  Why are they so afraid of a constructive, co-operative and informed way forward?  Note that May has not said "no" or "never".  She has said that "now is not the time".  And quite self evidently it isn't.  But if the Scottish Government had a bit more respect for the 2 million people who voted for Scotland to stay in the Union and took a less confrontational and more constructive approach, then there could be some meaningful dialogue once Brexit is done and dusted.

 

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