The New Fat Scotland 'Thanks for all the Fish' Thread.

Shakethedisease

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

Yeah, that's great. The only type of referendum they can call is an advisory. They still do not have the power to secede, that's not changed.



Really? What's this then?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21148282

I'd like to draw your attention to the date.

I refer you again to Ruth Davidson and numerous other BetterTogether leaflets and public announcements before the vote. If you weren't in Scotland, you wouldn't have been subject to the leaflet carpet bombing and wall to wall/24/7 'a vote Yes is a vote to leave the EU'. I was debating here constantly in the run up and it was absolutely assumed that Scotland would be out of the EU voting Yes, not No. Just telling you how it was. Fellow debaters like string should remember spouting out the same in the run up.

I don't believe it's on its last legs.

Then wake up. The Labour party were the only thing keeping the UK together politically. The SNP dominating in Scotland and the Conservatives dominating in England/Wales is only ever going to lead to one outcome. Brexit has just accelerated matters.

I believe the EU is in dire trouble and is more likely to fall apart. What events will kill off the UK which are a consequence of article 50?

Support for the EU in other countries has risen since Brexit.

The only risk to the UK is Scottish nationalism. Since its resurgence it's been completely poisonous for the UK as a whole. Even Sinn Fein is less poisonous, they keep their issues in Northern Ireland these days instead of spreading it across the UK's mass media unlike the SNP do.

It's a political union, one in which the politics is diverging to the point neither are compatible anymore. Half of Scotland are now 'nationalists', the Scottish Greens are now 'nationalists, and Scottish Labour are now 'federalists'. There is only one party in Scotland now that is keen on staying with the UK in full whatever happens, and it's the Scottish Tories. Not a single party bar the Tories in Scotland wants Trident renewed, and 58 of 59 Scottish MP's voted against it's renewal..and yet it was tonight.

Edit:

Just wanted to pick you up on the quote from the SNP manifesto.

"We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will."

I'd like to draw attention to:

"We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum"

This wasn't sanctioned by Westminster, it's a Scottish parliament manifesto.

The powers to hold the referendum in 2014 had to be temporarily loaned to the Scottish parliament in order for it to happen. You must know this. So whilst they believe they should have the right to hold another independence referendum upon material changes in circumstances since 2014, they still don't have the right and as we've already concluded the absolute best they can do is an advisory referendum without getting the nod from Westminster.

The powers to hold an advisory referendum are not specifically reserved. Salmond was going to hold a referendum whatever happened when the SNP gained a majority in 2011. Nothing has changed. And after the EU referendum, which also wasn't legally binding.. total lolz at anyone claiming that such a wide reaching constitutional referendum has to be legally sanctioned before or after the result. You're going to leave the EU on a 48/52% result on a totally non legal and advisory referendum.

Why don't you just admit that you know it will be a Yes vote next time, and that you're too scared the Scots go for it ? Because if you were confident that Scots residents would vote to stay with the UK, ( EU nationals and 16/17 year olds would get the vote too ) you'd be totally a ok with another referendum in Scotland. You don't want Scotland to leave do you ? Why ?

Tromking

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Why don't you just admit that you know it will be a Yes vote next time, and that you're too scared the Scots go for it ? Because if you were confident that Scots residents would vote to stay with the UK, ( EU nationals and 16/17 year olds would get the vote too ) you'd be totally a ok with another referendum in Scotland. You don't want Scotland to leave do you ? Why ?

Any SNP sponsored referendum that produces a Yes vote will be ignored by the Brexit obsessed UK Government and around half of Scots will agree with that decision. You and Sturgeon I notice don`t talk about them very much, hence the re-emergence of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party I suppose.
I sense with our new UK PM a more adversarial approach to the forces that wish to end the world`s most successful political union, her maiden speech gave a big steer as to her mindset IMO.
'Events' will be key over the next few years and will steer popular opinion. In a week that the EU`s de facto leader Frau Merkel is worrying about her refugee deal with Turkey, yours (for now) and my international trade minister is negotiating furtively with our 'kith and kin' in Australia about a free trade deal. So, one of the many choices for Scots in any future referendum will be closer links with Australia or with Turkey, the Turkey that`s considering the re-adoption of the death penalty BTW. Not as cut and dried as you think is it Shakey?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Tromking wrote: »

Any SNP sponsored referendum that produces a Yes vote will be ignored by the Brexit obsessed UK Government and around half of Scots will agree with that decision.

You and Sturgeon I notice don`t talk about them very much, hence the re-emergence of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party I suppose.

You really do mis-read the Scottish political reality I'm afraid.

I am a life long 'Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party' voter and was one of the more active campaigners to stay in the UK back in 2014.

But unlike in England, only 27% of Conservative voters in Scotland voted to leave the EU, so on this matter Sturgeon is on very firm ground when she claims to represent the democratic will of the Scottish people.

The desire of the English and Welsh to leave the EU is completely at odds with the desire of the Scottish to stay in it.

Significant numbers of people who voted to stay in the UK back in 2014 would now vote to leave if that was the only way to keep or regain EU membership.

We would of course prefer not to - if a deal can be done that keeps Scotland (and Northern Ireland and Gibraltar) in the single market that would probably be enough to hold the UK together - but failing that I have no doubt the mood has changed enough in Scotland that we'd vote to leave the UK.

yours (for now) and my international trade minister is negotiating furtively with our 'kith and kin' in Australia about a free trade deal. ,

Australia is a tiny & barely relevant market of 20m people on the other side of the World that does more trade with Malaysia/Indonesia, etc, than it does with the UK.

The EU is a market of 400m+ and it's our closest neighbour and biggest trading partner.

The absurdity of the Brexiters 'trade deals' is plain to see.

TrickyTree83

Shakethedisease wrote: »

I refer you again to Ruth Davidson and numerous other BetterTogether leaflets and public announcements before the vote. If you weren't in Scotland, you wouldn't have been subject to the leaflet carpet bombing and wall to wall/24/7 'a vote Yes is a vote to leave the EU'. I was debating here constantly in the run up and it was absolutely assumed that Scotland would be out of the EU voting Yes, not No. Just telling you how it was. Fellow debaters like string should remember spouting out the same in the run up.

As you righly point out I wasn't subject to the leafleting so I couldn't comment from personal experience.

(Why have you glossed over the fact that the Scottish people had the opportunity to be aware of the EU in/out referendum promised by the Tories? You seemed convinced that it was after the vote yet I've conclusively proved otherwise.)

If the independence vote was purly about being a member of the EU, which is the only issue this is about now (allegedly!!), then the BetterTogether campaign were absolutely correct in their assertion that the only way to retain membership at the time was to remain in the UK and hope that the Tory referendum didn't result in Brexit. The alternative, an independent Scotland would absolutely have resulted in a loss of EU membership.

The vote to remain a member of the UK was a vote to take decisions that affect Scotland as part of the UK, not as Scotland. That along with the underhanded tactics employed by Nicola Sturgeon trying to convince pro-indy EU leave voters to vote remain questions the validity of a "Remain vote in Scotland" since the very essence of the EU referendum was a UK issue and Scotland voted to be a part of that, not a Scotland simply attached to the rest of the UK. Scotland agreed in 2014 to the current UK status quo that "pulled you out of the EU" and the SNP have been found re-writing the rules after the fact to try to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

But somehow I don't think this is all about EU membership

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Then wake up. The Labour party were the only thing keeping the UK together politically. The SNP dominating in Scotland and the Conservatives dominating in England/Wales is only ever going to lead to one outcome. Brexit has just accelerated matters.

In the last election the SNP has lost ground (thank God). Lets pray that continues over the coming years and it turns out they've been given enough rope to hang themselves by Westminster. Since 1998 you have been goverened by Holyrood more than Westminster, the powers are not unsubstantial. Scots didn't like what Labour were doing, so they got a kicking in elections. Now the SNP are doing just as well as Labour and are also starting to lose ground. I don't concede that the break up of the UK is accelerating, it may have reached a peak, but to me it looks like attitudes that the SNP brand is poisonous are accelerating and that in the coming years they will be reduced to nothing more than an inconvenient voice in Holyrood.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Support for the EU in other countries has risen since Brexit.

There is a mountain of evidence against this.

- The Visegrad group hating the proposals in the 5 Presidents report and seriously questioning the direction of the EU, and yet again the EU do not listen.

- The anti-EU Front National gaining ground in France who now have an EU referendum as part of their manifesto.

- The anti-EU Five Star Movement in Italy which has its strength in northern Italy recently won the mayoral election for Rome. That's like UKIP winning the mayoral vote in London. With 67% of the citizens of Rome voting for her.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/19/rome-set-to-elect-first-female-mayor/

- The anti-EU Party for Freedom (PVV) led by Geert Wilders in the Netherlands is top of the polls.



The EU project is in dire trouble around the EU, and there is nothing Scottish will and sentiment can do to change that. If it came to pass that all of this anti-EU sentiment results in those countries leaving you'll be one of the richest countries in the EU, even with that £15bn structural deficit.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

It's a political union, one in which the politics is merging to the point neither are compatible anymore. Half of Scotland are now 'nationalists', the Scottish Greens are now 'nationalists, and Scottish Labour are now 'federalists'. There is only one party in Scotland now that is keen on staying with the UK in full whatever happens, and it's the Scottish Tories. Not a single party bar the Tories in Scotland wants Trident renewed, and 58 of 59 Scottish MP's voted against it's renewal..and yet it was tonight.

http://labourlist.org/2016/06/kezia-dugale-labour-will-not-support-another-independence-referendum/

Half of Scotland?

The SNP and like minded people would have around 2 million in support according to the eligible vote in Scotland if what you say is true. If you actually look at the support the SNP had over the last 3 votes their support doesn't really break 1.5 million votes. A particularly damning statistic is that the SNP 'landslide' in the Scottish parliament elections is based on achieving 46% of 55% of the eligible vote. Therefore if the eligible vote is about 4 million that means they're governing on just slightly over 25% of the eligible vote (1,012,000 votes).

They're on the way out because they are divisive and inept, anglophobic for no particular reason.

I don't for one second believe that a vote to remain in the EU is a vote for Scottish independence. There will be plenty of Scots who understand that Scotland voted to remain a part of the UK and all that entails in 2014 and took a decision on the EU in conjunction with the rest of the UK and that in this respect Scotland's results should not be taken in isolation. Particularly when during the 2014 vote Scottish voters could/should have been aware that an EU referendum vote was on the cards, they still voted to remain in the UK, and that Nicola Sturgeon employed dirty tactics to try to force another independence referendum using the EU referendum as a reason for people who were pro-Indy but anti-EU to vote to remain.

If you take it all into account (I know you hate doing this).

Scotland voted to stay in the UK and take part in a UK referendum on EU membership.

Both the UK and Scottish governments promised to abide by the result of the 2014 referendum.

A vote to remain in the EU in the EU referendum does not automatically translate into support for independence. The remain vote quite plausibly will contain people who want to remain in the UK and also will contain people who wanted to leave the EU but wanted another crack at the independence vote. The opposite could also be said for those in Scotland who voted to leave the EU (not an insignificant number of people). So using the EU referendum result as a pretext for a second Scottish independence referendum seems misleading, which is what I've been saying about the SNP for some time.

Scottish nationalists claiming that the 2014 vote was a vote to remain in the EU and thus the 2014 is somehow voided is an outright lie, one of many they peddle and the gullable are gobbling it up.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

The powers to hold an advisory referendum are not specifically reserved. Salmond was going to hold a referendum whatever happened when the SNP gained a majority in 2011. Nothing has changed. And after the EU referendum, which also wasn't legally binding.. total lolz at anyone claiming that such a wide reaching constitutional referendum has to be legally sanctioned before or after the result. You're going to leave the EU on a 48/52% result on a totally non legal and advisory referendum.

We keep going over this point. Lets keep it short for the purpose of clarity:

The SNP do not have the power to hold a legally binding referendum.

The SNP can only hold an advisory referendum.

The UK government would have to recognise the result for Scotland to be able to secede.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Why don't you just admit that you know it will be a Yes vote next time, and that you're too scared the Scots go for it ? Because if you were confident that Scots residents would vote to stay with the UK, ( EU nationals and 16/17 year olds would get the vote too ) you'd be totally a ok with another referendum in Scotland. You don't want Scotland to leave do you ? Why ?

I don't think it will be a Yes vote next time because I think the truth that the SNP want to hide will come out. That regardless of the EU, Scotland gets a good deal out of the UK at the moment, and there's many metrics to measure that by.

I don't want Scotland to leave the Union purely from an emotional perspective, I consider my country of residence to be the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. I consider myself to be British, the demos (group of people) that I idenitfy with when I close my eyes and think "we" is the British people, and that we all get a say together, like we did on the EU referendum on the direction of the UK as a whole. As I said earlier, it's Scottish nationalism that is poisonous, there's no English nationalist movement with any degree of support. The closest was the English Democrats back in 2002 who at their peak had something like 0.08% of the vote.

I also feel sorry for the people in Scotland who have to listen to the nationalist bile day after day. Bombarded by arguments that do not stand up to scruitiny and now being told that supplanting Westminster with Brussels is good for Scotland and all her people, yet Westminster gives Scotland a greater voice than they could ever hope to have within the EU, the 2nd largest voice in the UK as opposed to one voice in twenty-eight and very low down the pecking order in Brussels. Being told by Nicola Sturgeon to vote against their conscience in the EU referendum to achieve another independence referendum, not to genuinely remain in the EU.

What kind of country has it become now that the SNP and their supporters (25% - 38% of the people) are encouraging everyone in Scotland to commit political and economic seppuku.

Shakethedisease

Tromking wrote: »

Any SNP sponsored referendum that produces a Yes vote will be ignored by the Brexit obsessed UK Government and around half of Scots will agree with that decision. You and Sturgeon I notice don`t talk about them very much, hence the re-emergence of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party I suppose.
I sense with our new UK PM a more adversarial approach to the forces that wish to end the world`s most successful political union, her maiden speech gave a big steer as to her mindset IMO.
'Events' will be key over the next few years and will steer popular opinion. In a week that the EU`s de facto leader Frau Merkel is worrying about her refugee deal with Turkey, yours (for now) and my international trade minister is negotiating furtively with our 'kith and kin' in Australia about a free trade deal. So, one of the many choices for Scots in any future referendum will be closer links with Australia or with Turkey, the Turkey that`s considering the re-adoption of the death penalty BTW. Not as cut and dried as you think is it Shakey?

Whether it is next year or five years from now, the SNP dominating politics in Scotland, and the Conservatives in Westminster will only ever end up with Scottish independence.

There won't be any slide backwards towards ( whats left of ) unionist Labour support in Scotland unless a left leaning Corbyn-esque Labour party looks like winning the next General Election. Support for the political day to day running of the union via Westminster is waning very badly in Scotland. England/Wales couldn't care less in the main these days if Scotland left either.

Turkey has little to do with it. Westminster might try and ignore a Scottish referendum which results in a Yes vote. But other countries both and outwith the EU won't. I rather suspect England and Wales are a little frightened of their Brexit result, and the idea that both Scotland and NI will leave the UK off the back of it isn't a nice thought. Would like some hand holding jumping off that cliff.

Tromking

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

You really do mis-read the Scottish political reality I'm afraid.

I am a life long 'Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party' voter and was one of the more active campaigners to stay in the UK back in 2014.

But unlike in England, only 27% of Conservative voters in Scotland voted to leave the EU, so on this matter Sturgeon is on very firm ground when she claims to represent the democratic will of the Scottish people.

The desire of the English and Welsh to leave the EU is completely at odds with the desire of the Scottish to stay in it.

Significant numbers of people who voted to stay in the UK back in 2014 would now vote to leave if that was the only way to keep or regain EU membership.

We would of course prefer not to - if a deal can be done that keeps Scotland (and Northern Ireland and Gibraltar) in the single market that would probably be enough to hold the UK together - but failing that I have no doubt the mood has changed enough in Scotland that we'd vote to leave the UK.

The conjecture of one single Scottish Tory voter doth not a iScotland make.
The choice again will be a stark one for Scots in any future indyref and even with the 'carrot' of remaining or rejoining the EU, the result will be same. You and they will not vote for instant penury.
You`re bluffing Hamish.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Australia is a tiny & barely relevant market of 20m people on the other side of the World that does more trade with Malaysia/Indonesia, etc, than it does with the UK.

The EU is a market of 400m+ and it's our closest neighbour and biggest trading partner.

The absurdity of the Brexiters 'trade deals' is plain to see.

Australia is one of sixteen countries keen to talk about free trade with the UK apparently. No doubt Scotland turning its back on those potential deals will be one of the issues in any future indyref.
Just as an aside, who is Scotland's biggest trading partner at present?

TrickyTree83

Tromking wrote: »

Just as an aside, who is Scotland's biggest trading partner at present?

The rest of the UK, at 64% of Scottish national exports. Sourced from Scottish government papers.

So according to Scottish nationalists Scotland therefore thinks that voting to leave the EU and try to retain some single market access where 44% of UK exports go is a good enough reason to vote to leave another union (UK) where 64% of Scotlands exports go to favour a single market into which less than 46% of their exports go, because outside the UK the USA is Scotlands biggest trading partner as far as nation states go!

Sound logic there, very sound.

TrickyTree83

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Whether it is next year or five years from now, the SNP dominating politics in Scotland, and the Conservatives in Westminster will only ever end up with Scottish independence.

In the last Scottish parliament elections the SNP returned a minority government whereas previously there was a majority. Or did the real world imagine that?

CLAPTON

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Westminster might try and ignore a Scottish referendum which results in a Yes vote. But other countries both and outwith the EU won't. I rather suspect England and Wales are a little frightened of their Brexit result, and the idea that both Scotland and NI will leave the UK off the back of it isn't a nice thought. Would like some hand holding jumping off that cliff.

as much s I think it likely that the majority of the scots will eventually want to leave the massive english subsidies and their biggest market, it is almost inconceivable that, barring Putin's Russia, a single country in the world would support an illegal unilateral exit by Scotland. That makes the SNP plan of exiting without accepting a share of the debts a doubtful strategy.

Shakethedisease

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

As you righly point out I wasn't subject to the leafleting so I couldn't comment from personal experience.

(Why have you glossed over the fact that the Scottish people had the opportunity to be aware of the EU in/out referendum promised by the Tories? You seemed convinced that it was after the vote yet I've conclusively proved otherwise.)

If the independence vote was purly about being a member of the EU, which is the only issue this is about now (allegedly!!), then the BetterTogether campaign were absolutely correct in their assertion that the only way to retain membership at the time was to remain in the UK and hope that the Tory referendum didn't result in Brexit. The alternative, an independent Scotland would absolutely have resulted in a loss of EU membership.

No you've got the wrong end of the stick. It was pro-indy supporters such as myself, and even the SNP White paper that kept pointing out and insisting that there was a possible EU/Brexit vote coming up, and Scotland could potentially be out of the EU anyway.

I was told I was living in fantasy land every time I brought it up here. In fact any pro-indy person who brought the Conservative promise of an EU referendum up, anywhere I saw online and elsewhere was told exactly the same. Labour were leading in the polls at the time. The Conservative manifesto didn't come out until April 2015.

The vote to remain a member of the UK was a vote to take decisions that affect Scotland as part of the UK, not as Scotland. That along with the underhanded tactics employed by Nicola Sturgeon trying to convince pro-indy EU leave voters to vote remain questions the validity of a "Remain vote in Scotland" since the very essence of the EU referendum was a UK issue and Scotland voted to be a part of that, not a Scotland simply attached to the rest of the UK. Scotland agreed in 2014 to the current UK status quo that "pulled you out of the EU" and the SNP have been found re-writing the rules after the fact to try to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

But somehow I don't think this is all about EU membership

It's part of a wider fracturing of UK politics that's been going on slowly but surely in Scotland since the Conservatives took power in 1979. Scotland is part of the UK on the basis of a political union. I think the Brexit vote is perhaps a step too far just to suck up, especially with the Trident vote on top of it yesterday.

In the last election the SNP has lost ground (thank God).

Then you obviously don't know how the Holyrood voting system works.

Lets pray that continues over the coming years and it turns out they've been given enough rope to hang themselves by Westminster. Since 1998 you have been goverened by Holyrood more than Westminster, the powers are not unsubstantial. Scots didn't like what Labour were doing, so they got a kicking in elections. Now the SNP are doing just as well as Labour and are also starting to lose ground. I don't concede that the break up of the UK is accelerating, it may have reached a peak, but to me it looks like attitudes that the SNP brand is poisonous are accelerating and that in the coming years they will be reduced to nothing more than an inconvenient voice in Holyrood.

Wishful thinking.

There is a mountain of evidence against this.

- The Visegrad group hating the proposals in the 5 Presidents report and seriously questioning the direction of the EU, and yet again the EU do not listen.

- The anti-EU Front National gaining ground in France who now have an EU referendum as part of their manifesto.

- The anti-EU Five Star Movement in Italy which has its strength in northern Italy recently won the mayoral election for Rome. That's like UKIP winning the mayoral vote in London. With 67% of the citizens of Rome voting for her.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/19/rome-set-to-elect-first-female-mayor/

- The anti-EU Party for Freedom (PVV) led by Geert Wilders in the Netherlands is top of the polls.



The EU project is in dire trouble around the EU, and there is nothing Scottish will and sentiment can do to change that. If it came to pass that all of this anti-EU sentiment results in those countries leaving you'll be one of the richest countries in the EU, even with that £15bn structural deficit.

Really...

With Britain in post-referendum crisis, more people polled in six EU nations by researchers IFOP said it was better to be in the bloc than they did two years ago."Citzens are reacting to both the perceived impact of Brexit on the European project and on the economy of their own country, but also in terms of their own relationship to the EU," IFOP said.
In France 67 percent of people agreed, up 19 percent on 2014, in Germany 81 percent (up 18 percent), Italy 59 percent (up four), Spain 81 percent (up nine) and Belgium 75 percent (up 10).
In Poland 89 percent said it was better to be in the EU, but there was no previous poll in that country.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2016/07/15/Brexit-sparks-surge-in-European-support-for-EU

Half of Scotland?

The SNP and like minded people would have around 2 million in support according to the eligible vote in Scotland if what you say is true. If you actually look at the support the SNP had over the last 3 votes their support doesn't really break 1.5 million votes. A particularly damning statistic is that the SNP 'landslide' in the Scottish parliament elections is based on achieving 46% of 55% of the eligible vote. Therefore if the eligible vote is about 4 million that means they're governing on just slightly over 25% of the eligible vote (1,012,000 votes).

They're on the way out because they are divisive and inept, anglophobic for no particular reason.

Survation/Scottish Daily Mail 1,055 47% 41% 12% 6% 25–26 Jun 2016
Panelbase/Sunday Times 626 47% 44% 8% 3% 25 Jun 2016
Survation/Daily Record 1,002 48% 41% 9% 7% 24–28 Jun

Yes, Half of Scotland are now 'nationalist' according to those bold figures above. You're making this about the SNP. But are forgetting the Greens and those unaffiliated with any political party. EU nationals who voted No last time round will vote Yes next time.

I don't for one second believe that a vote to remain in the EU is a vote for Scottish independence.

Neither do I.

There will be plenty of Scots who understand that Scotland voted to remain a part of the UK and all that entails in 2014 and took a decision on the EU in conjunction with the rest of the UK and that in this respect Scotland's results should not be taken in isolation.

However those people are now in the minority.

Particularly when during the 2014 vote Scottish voters could/should have been aware that an EU referendum vote was on the cards,

They were, but were told they were living in fantasy land that a Brexit would ever happen, questioning that a referendum would ever be held.

they still voted to remain in the UK, and that Nicola Sturgeon employed dirty tactics to try to force another independence referendum using the EU referendum as a reason for people who were pro-Indy but anti-EU to vote to remain.

Representing the wishes of 62% of your electorate isn't what I would call dirty tactics. It's good politics.

If you take it all into account (I know you hate doing this).

Scotland voted to stay in the UK and take part in a UK referendum on EU membership.

Both the UK and Scottish governments promised to abide by the result of the 2014 referendum.

A vote to remain in the EU in the EU referendum does not automatically translate into support for independence. The remain vote quite plausibly will contain people who want to remain in the UK and also will contain people who wanted to leave the EU but wanted another crack at the independence vote. The opposite could also be said for those in Scotland who voted to leave the EU (not an insignificant number of people). So using the EU referendum result as a pretext for a second Scottish independence referendum seems misleading, which is what I've been saying about the SNP for some time.

Scottish nationalists claiming that the 2014 vote was a vote to remain in the EU and thus the 2014 is somehow voided is an outright lie, one of many they peddle and the gullable are gobbling it up.



We keep going over this point. Lets keep it short for the purpose of clarity:

The SNP do not have the power to hold a legally binding referendum.

The SNP can only hold an advisory referendum.

The UK government would have to recognise the result for Scotland to be able to secede.

More wishful thinking.

I don't think it will be a Yes vote next time because I think the truth that the SNP want to hide will come out. That regardless of the EU, Scotland gets a good deal out of the UK at the moment, and there's many metrics to measure that by.

I don't want Scotland to leave the Union purely from an emotional perspective, I consider my country of residence to be the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. I consider myself to be British, the demos (group of people) that I idenitfy with when I close my eyes and think "we" is the British people, and that we all get a say together, like we did on the EU referendum on the direction of the UK as a whole. As I said earlier, it's Scottish nationalism that is poisonous, there's no English nationalist movement with any degree of support. The closest was the English Democrats back in 2002 who at their peak had something like 0.08% of the vote.

UKIP does a pretty good English 'nationalist' job to be honest. But immigration control is their topic of choice. I'm thankful the SNP aren't in any way, shape or form like them.

I also feel sorry for the people in Scotland who have to listen to the nationalist bile day after day. Bombarded by arguments that do not stand up to scruitiny and now being told that supplanting Westminster with Brussels is good for Scotland and all her people, yet Westminster gives Scotland a greater voice than they could ever hope to have within the EU, the 2nd largest voice in the UK as opposed to one voice in twenty-eight and very low down the pecking order in Brussels. Being told by Nicola Sturgeon to vote against their conscience in the EU referendum to achieve another independence referendum, not to genuinely remain in the EU.

What kind of country has it become now that the SNP and their supporters (25% - 38% of the people) are encouraging everyone in Scotland to commit political and economic seppuku.

And the above is so woefully uninformed I don't know where to start.

A majority of people in major European economies, including Germany and France, would support an independent Scotland joining the European Union, according to a YouGov poll published on Monday.

The German arm of YouGov asked more than 8,400 people in six European countries – and one non-EU country – whether they would endorse or reject Scotland joining the EU if it separated from the rest of Britain.
The positive response was strongest in Germany, with 71 per cent of Germans agreeing with the statement, while 61 per cent of French citizens questioned also expressed support.
The YouGov poll also highlighted expectations among Britons that Scotland would likely vote for independence in a second referendum.
Three out of four Britons surveyed by the polling company – 1,820 in total – said they thought it was “somewhat” or “very likely” that Scotland would back independence in the event of a second referendum.

https://next.ft.com/content/87505402-ab69-3937-b4d2-4825cb607ef3


As I've said before in the post above. I think you're a little scared of the prospect of being 'England and Wales' in isolation in the world hence the 'don't leave and the sneery 'no-one will ever want Scotland anyway' narratives. It's a little sad.