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

Shakethedisease

elantan wrote: »

The rumour mill has it May is popping up tomorow to give us a new wee vow ... exciting stuff

Yes it's time for 'I can't believe it's not Brexit !'.

First we find out that the PMO issues a warning to the ScotParl not to have the section 30 vote at Holyrood.

Then we get the news that Whitehall are setting aside specially earmarked efforts to "protect the union"


Then Theresa May comes out saying that the Brexit deal will be so good that there won't need to be an IndyRef.


And now she's going to offer Holyrood a package of temporary powers as a last minute stopgap measure to foil the referendum vote.

May's definitely on the defensive for some reason. Wonder what she's heard on the EU grapevine or if there's been some internal polling ? We hear loads of polls asking 'should Scotland be an independent country'. I'd love one or two to start following it up over the next few months by asking '...and 'how would you vote if Brexit seems to be going really badly' ?

Shakethedisease

.string. wrote: »

A little bit of Fake News there Shakey? Please give a link to the origin of it (not the newspaper). I did find this Blog , by Brendan O'Leary, an Irish American living in America (he has the two passports).

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/06/27/de-toxifying-the-uks-eu-exit-process-a-multi-national-compromise-is-possible/

What is the original report he refers to --- is it this one?

Brexit and the European Union: General Institutional and Legal Considerations
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=IPOL_STU(2017)571404

The latter is an interesting report but I didn't find anything there to confirm O'Leary's speculations. Maybe I missed it. No doubt you can enlighten me with another link.

You'll have to take up your fake news accusation with the Daily Record/Sunday Mail and the Sunday Herald string. It's those two newspapers that have picked this story up.

However, the European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee published research saying there was enough "constitutional flexibility" for Scotland and Northern Ireland to remain in the EU ahead of independence referendums being held.

The papers and research were published by the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee. So I guess it depends on how much stock you put in them really.

Tromking

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Scotland's as much a part of the UK as anywhere else when it comes to Brexit.. but a completely separate country altogether when it comes to the SNP and Scotland's current economy.

Make up your mind. You can't have it both ways.

What am I having both ways Shakey?

Shakethedisease

Tromking wrote: »

What am I having both ways Shakey?

Not just you.

The usual deluded fools talking about Scotland as if it's a country in its own right when it patently isn't.

It suits a lot of folks to run the 'but Scotland is a part of the UK and votes are equal' etc when it comes to something like the Brexit vote. And then will turn round in the next post talking about how the SNP has caused a 15bn deficit as if they run, and Scotland is, a completely different country.

It muddies the waters for everyone. I can see from your post that you consider that Scotland isn't a country in it's own right and therefore can in no way be held responsible for running up a deficit of 15bn with only a fixed block grant to work with. So any hypothetical deficit has come about on Westminsters ( UK as a whole ) watch. So that's fine with me.

beecher2

.string. wrote: »

A little bit of Fake News there Shakey? Please give a link to the origin of it (not the newspaper). I did find this Blog , by Brendan O'Leary, an Irish American living in America (he has the two passports).

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/06/27/de-toxifying-the-uks-eu-exit-process-a-multi-national-compromise-is-possible/

What is the original report he refers to --- is it this one?

Brexit and the European Union: General Institutional and Legal Considerations
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=IPOL_STU(2017)571404

The latter is an interesting report but I didn't find anything there to confirm O'Leary's speculations. Maybe I missed it. No doubt you can enlighten me with another link.

String, I think this is the report referred to.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2017/583116/IPOL_BRI(2017)583116_EN.pdf

This is the report which the Daily Record cites as highlighting Brendan O'Leary's report, which is reference 17 here:

An exponent of constitutional flexibility17 argues that given the status of these dependencies,
separate arrangements can also be made for other parts of the UK when England and Wales
leave the EU. Northern Ireland and Scotland could remain within the EU, at least pending the
resolution of their UK status via a border poll (Northern Ireland) or an independence
referendum (Scotland). Their current status as parts of the UK union have been altered by
the decision to leave the EU - a decision rejected by both countries - and as such it would be
unfair to forcibly remove them from another union, i.e. the European one. This view may hold
merit but has no traction with the Westminster government.

I suppose it shows that it might theoretically be possible, but that politically it is not. Shame that newspapers never give us the full story

Tromking

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Not just you.
It suits a lot of folks to run the 'but Scotland is a part of the UK and votes are equal' etc when it comes to something like the Brexit vote. And then will turn round in the next post talking about how the SNP has caused a 15bn deficit as if they run, and Scotland is, a completely different country.

It muddies the waters for everyone. I can see from your post that you consider that Scotland isn't a country in it's own right and therefore can in no way be held responsible for running up a deficit of 15bn with only a fixed block grant to work with. So any hypothetical deficit has come about on Westminsters ( UK as a whole ) watch. So that's fine with me.

Jeez, how weak *ss is that reply.
The £15bn deficit riposte is almost exclusively cited whenever a Scottish Nationalist tries and fails to make the economic case for an independent Scotland. In my view the Scottish deficit problem is exacerbated by a SNP administration rather than being caused by it.
There are quite a few areas of our UK that benefit from the pooling and sharing of resources, although you could argue that Scotland is disproportionately advantaged thanks to Barnett.
If Scotland was a nation or even a nation-in-waiting its SNP administration would wean itself off the extra Westminster money and make independence inevitable, but inexplicably it won't, why is that?

cogito

Tromking wrote: »

Jeez, how weak *ss is that reply.
The £15bn deficit riposte is almost exclusively cited whenever a Scottish Nationalist tries and fails to make the economic case for an independent Scotland. In my view the Scottish deficit problem is exacerbated by a SNP administration rather than being caused by it.
There are quite a few areas of our UK that benefit from the pooling and sharing of resources, although you could argue that Scotland is disproportionately advantaged thanks to Barnett.
If Scotland was a nation or even a nation-in-waiting its SNP administration would wean itself off the extra Westminster money and make independence inevitable, but inexplicably it won't, why is that?

That's an excellent point and we all know the answer. The SNP could, if it wanted to, adopt policies of financial responsibility where it could prove to the Scottish people that it could run an independent Scotland. It could say to the UK that we don't need your money.

But it won't and it isn't hard to imagine a situation where it wins indyref2 but says to rUK that we still want you to give us money for a few years until we stand on our own two feet. Of course, there is only one possible answer to that but it would enable the SNP to continue to blame Westminster for all their (self inflicted) problems.

.string.

beecher2 wrote: »

String, I think this is the report referred to.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2017/583116/IPOL_BRI(2017)583116_EN.pdf

This is the report which the Daily Record cites as highlighting Brendan O'Leary's report, which is reference 17 here:



I suppose it shows that it might theoretically be possible, but that politically it is not. Shame that newspapers never give us the full story

Thank you for that, I was nearly there but you beat me to it. It was good to get a response.

It is indeed a pity that the newspaper did not give a fuller explanation.

It seems to be that key words are
"An exponent of constitutional flexibility17 argues that given the status of these dependencies, separate arrangements can also be made for other parts of the UK when England and Wales leave the UK".

What I mean by that is that such a view is an argument by such an "exponent", but not a position taken by the EU.

I agree with you that the political question attitudes are very important.

It would seem to me therefore that the conclusion made by O'Leary is not based on conclusions drawn by the EU but on opinions by others, maybe including his own, maybe not.

So the impression given by that Newspaper article is at best unclear or as you say incomplete, at worse misleading.

The matter of free movement of Irish/N.Irish people can easily be solved I think, with maybe Ireland assisting border checks into the mainland of the UK, although it should probably be more subtle than that to avoid ruptions with NI unionists (as is mentioned on the report). It is the trade within the Island that is more problematic and I haven't myself yet seen a solution proposed for that.

A lot will depend on the EU<>UK trade deal reached after Brexit, as will a lot of what we are discussing here.


But having said that, the NI situation is indeed complex, EU partipation in the Good Friday agreement making it a bit unique.

Thrugelmir

Shakethedisease wrote: »

May's definitely on the defensive for some reason.

Nicola must have rattled. With her blitzkrieg approach totally wrong footing the opposition. What's the next salvo. Will it be the killer blow. The suspense is getting unbearable. With the tension mounting every day. Perhaps Mrs May will simply throw in the towel under the rentless bombardment of pointless spin. About as good as Comic Relief on Friday. Enough to make anyone switch off.....

.string.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

You'll have to take up your fake news accusation with the Daily Record/Sunday Mail and the Sunday Herald string. It's those two newspapers that have picked this story up.

The papers and research were published by the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee. So I guess it depends on how much stock you put in them really.

Please see my post (above) to Beecher2.