Not much for the next 5 years at least. Best they can hope for now is seeing the next term of Tory governance boost their support and mandate for independence and hope the government from 2024, whoever they are, offer them another go at it.
Nicola Sturgeon and Scottish Independence
- Thread starter altodevil
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I think it's a possibility again, regarding another referendum. Having gained a number of seats up on the last election, the results show how clearly the country has voted and while not everyone who has voted SNP will agree with another referendum, Nicola Sturgeon believes she has enough to say to Boris that the results show the country should have the choice. It's up to the Conservatives now to either dispel the idea out of hand (in my opinion, the most likely outcome) or to allow another referendum at some point in the next 12 months.
Best of luck to them. Sturgeon's campaign should be pretty cheap and effective. Just borrow every Brexit advert and argument ever and replace The EU with United Kingdom
I think it's a possibility but not for a while at least. As I've said in the election thread, there is a lot of anger up here today.
The SNP should just use the same Tory slogans for Brexit against them - sovereignty, the people’s will etc. They have the mandate for it.
If the Scots get independence Im moving up there!
Definitely on but I don't see a vote happening during the next phase of Brexit like the SNP seem to want. Any vote will happen when Brexit is complete which could be 2-3 years away. Scottish people should vote knowing the full picture of the relationship with UK and the EU and whether to break it up.
I support their right to vote again after Brexit.
I support their right to vote again after Brexit.
A lot of talk that Johnson won't allow a referendum, but I don't see what is to stop Scotland arranging it's own. I get Westminster would declare it to have no legal meaning, but it would be a strong statement nonetheless, and we saw how powerful such a statement can be last night. When it comes to it I reckon Johnson would have a better chance of getting the result he wanted in a referendum that he was in control of rather than one he was not.
Yep, I've heard talk of the SNP taking it to the Supreme Court, but I'm not sure if they would have any legal leg to stand on to force a referendum. Perhaps @owlo knows a bit more.
What happens to the SNP if they lose another referendum though? Do they become redundant or do they just carry on and start asking for a 3rd Referendum?
I don't buy for one second that they even want a referendum now. I think it would be quite easy to run a campaign to defeat it. I think the SNP would rather let Bojo's motley crew rule over them for a while whilst cranking up the anti-Westminster rhetoric.
I am all in favour of a non tory deep fried anything loving country!I'll join you
They were very careful in 2017 to campaign on a message of 'we will ask for a referendum when the time is ready', ie when they thought they could win one, as it appeared very touch and go at that time. Since then the message of Scotland being forced to leave the EU against it's will has grown stronger and stronger, they believe it would swing a referendum to Independence.
Personally I think it's up to the Scots, whatever they decide is fine by me.
Would you be surprised if the Tories decided to let Scotland go? It’s got no value to them politically and devolution has already given them less control over legislation and finances. Boris is only interested in the south east of England, the rest is an unwanted distraction to him.
I don't think the Tories would actively want to lose Scotland, that would be against their tradition. It won't do them any harm electorally if it happens, but that's a separate issue. Also Johnson will want to go down well in history, and the PM that lost Scotland will be on a par historically with the king that lost America. No, worse actually.
Let them go. Imagine being stuck with us and having Tory govenrnments imposed on you time after time.
It's almost like the No side didn't strongly campaign on EU membership by stating the only way to remain in the EU was to vote No. That was a huge issue for people at the time, because as has since been proven, Scotland wants to be in the EU. It's impossible to tell how many people would've voted No based on that pledge but it'll be sizeable. Since then England has taken us out of the EU anyway despite us voting to overwhelmingly stay. It would be disingenuous to act like that isn't grounds for dismissing the once in a generation soundbite.
Who was that again......
George the third. Though he had health problems to be fair. Elizabeth technically lost Calais, but she took the blame for Mary, and after a bit we realised they were bleeding French anyway.
Who would actually run the campaign against it though? Tories are still chronically unpopular up here and there biggest names now are no marks. Labour are basically dead in the water.
From an English point of view, the status quo is clearly unfair on Scotland but, if they secede, then it’s basically permanent Tory government here.
Ruth Davidson, Gordon Brown, these types of people I would expect.
How would Scotland pay for their deficit? Wasn't there calculations on $100 barrel oil and what with climate changes issues would that still be possible? I'm all in favour of self determination although i do have to bite my lip when i think of all the Brexit worries the SNP have but non for losing their biggest market. Also the EU issue was true then and would probably be true if they tried to enter, Do you not worry the Spanish would block entry as it would threaten their position with Catalonia?
Ruth Davidson's taken a massive step back from politics and Gordon Brown's a bit of an irrelevance at this point. That's to mention if he'd even want to since he's been away from politics for a decade. I think they can bring back one or two former big names from time to time but you need current names fighting for the unionist side, otherwise it becomes hard to convince people to stay in a system when they've not got any prominent names to actually lead the campaign to convince Scots to do so.
Independence is economically challenging but I was looking at it from a political point of view - they are being dragged out of the EU by an English nationalist party with no regard for their views. As for re-joining the EU, I don’t know how Spain would react but the circumstances are different to 2014 in terms of Scotland’s reasons for wanting to leave the Union.
The other point to note is that by the popular vote, most people did not vote for the SNP in Scotland. The polls up to the election have shown a slight preference to remain in the UK as well (that could change a bit now admittedly). I'm sure you could put together a team to that would be able to reach out to a lot of people up there.
Polls have also shown that around half of Labour members support independence - while some SNP voters would be No supporters, I imagine the figure either way probably wasn't far off the 50% mark.
I struggle to see the SNP mounting consistent poll leads for indy - I suspect we'll see a brief bounce before it settles at the 45-50 mark again.
But I think where the SNP could be boosted would be a campaign. I just struggle to see an even remotely successful unionist campaign if it's led by people who aren't active in politics. Ruth Davidson won't be able to mount a successful argument for the union when there isn't a single party in Westminster now that chimes with her beliefs. I also don't think the Scottish Tories would allow her to lead the campaign at this point - they've moved on and as they go in a more pro-Brexit direction, getting someone back in who opposes that won't be ideal for them.
Similarly, Scottish Labour are led by a leftist - whether he'll stay or not is another matter, but for now Richard Leonard won't want Gordon Brown stepping in over him to lead any unionist campaign.
I don't mind if Scotland leaves.
Leaving won't keep Scotland in the EU.
The first referendum ran in the knowledge that there would also be an EU referendum and we all got one vote each.
England and Wales voted to leave not just England.
If we are to have a second Scottish independence referendum then the deal for separation should be arrived at before that referendum is held so every voter knows exactly what leaving means. Lets at least learn that one lesson from the EU referendum.
Scottish Conservatives got 25% of the Scottish vote - You can't call them an English nationalist party. The Scots chose to stay in the UK and the UK had a referendum. Two million Scots also voted to brexit, more than double who actually voted for the SNP in the election, I think it is really disingenuous to lump all scots together as this block of Independence seeking Europhiles, they are not.
I think the two main problems that you have with a referendum would be these:
1. Political chaos fatigue - after years of divisive referendums and messy divorce proceedings another divisive referendum and messy divorce proceeding could cause big resentment among those not naturally inclined to independence.
2. Extra knowledge of the complications of leaving a long established political union - through Brexit the Scottish electorate have seen first hand the chaos that such a disentanglement will entail. The SNP will want Independence 'a la carte' but they won't be able to have it. The parallels to Brexit and the inherent lack of economic sense that Independence fundamentally is will be all the more obvious. The level of debate will be much more informed than 2014 and the SNPs case for Independence falls apart unless the Scottish people are willing to suck up some significant economic harm in the short - medium term. Are enough of the Scottish electorate up for that right now, do you want to risk bodging it again?
No they didn't, it was just over 1m.
Sorry, my mistake, still a sizable amount to disregard and around the same as people who voted for the SNP who seem to think they can speak for every Scot.
The SNP should use the next few years to collect as much data as they possibly can so that when they are granted another referendum 5 years from now (this would be the best guess estimate) they can be almost certain of winning. In all likelihood, even a campaign run with the slogan “well, it cannae get any worse so why no just go fir it” would be successful. For your average Scottish person, the Boris Johnson tenure will be pretty hard hitting. As a nation, we aren’t littered with genius IQ’s or even a moderate grasp on how politics work, but the one thing everybody in the working class has been able to analyze is that they are going to be worse off for a while now.
What the country needs to do is compete negate the need for people to vote based on religion and the football team they support. Just this week, sir Rod Stewart has been told he’s unwelcome at Celtic park because he congratulated Boris Johnson in a tweet. And you’d be hard pressed to find many life long die hard rangers fans who voted to leave in the previous referendum. The bitterness between the two forms such a divide that it can absolutely impact a vote on whether or not to separate from the union.
So much of Scotland leans to the left at the moment but I’m confident that if you ask 100 people what the left represents, a large Portion couldn’t explain it to you. So many SNP supporters spend their time focusing on why the Tories are so bad for the country, but I don’t think it’s necessary anymore, people get it. The danger over the next 5 years is that Scotland gets Left behind, deemed of no importance by the Tory government, and the SNP won’t get their referendum if all they do is complain. They need to be quiet for now, work diligently in the background and analyze it to the extent that at least 75% of the country can see there are no benefits whatsoever to renaming as part of the uk.
What the country needs to do is compete negate the need for people to vote based on religion and the football team they support. Just this week, sir Rod Stewart has been told he’s unwelcome at Celtic park because he congratulated Boris Johnson in a tweet. And you’d be hard pressed to find many life long die hard rangers fans who voted to leave in the previous referendum. The bitterness between the two forms such a divide that it can absolutely impact a vote on whether or not to separate from the union.
So much of Scotland leans to the left at the moment but I’m confident that if you ask 100 people what the left represents, a large Portion couldn’t explain it to you. So many SNP supporters spend their time focusing on why the Tories are so bad for the country, but I don’t think it’s necessary anymore, people get it. The danger over the next 5 years is that Scotland gets Left behind, deemed of no importance by the Tory government, and the SNP won’t get their referendum if all they do is complain. They need to be quiet for now, work diligently in the background and analyze it to the extent that at least 75% of the country can see there are no benefits whatsoever to renaming as part of the uk.
I suspect not too far under the surface of the conservative and unionist party is that if you had an independent Scotland the electoral maths for what's left of the UK (and certainly for england) would have a huge conservative majority
I wouldn't be surprised to see Johnson (not so reluctantly) agree to an independence referendum and I wouldn't be too surprised if he and the UK government largely stayed out of it hoping for an independence victory (without ever saying that outright)
Probably wants to get a free trade agreement for the while of the UK first with the EU rather than trying to negotiate both seperations at once... But when he has one I expect an indy ref soon after (that said the free trade agreement with the EU may actually take years longer than he currently says)
I wouldn't be surprised to see Johnson (not so reluctantly) agree to an independence referendum and I wouldn't be too surprised if he and the UK government largely stayed out of it hoping for an independence victory (without ever saying that outright)
Probably wants to get a free trade agreement for the while of the UK first with the EU rather than trying to negotiate both seperations at once... But when he has one I expect an indy ref soon after (that said the free trade agreement with the EU may actually take years longer than he currently says)
Don't forget the wafers mate! I love that Tunnoch's is my town's claim to fame
Uddingston? It’s a small world!
If the UK leaves the EU in about six weeks time, as now seems likely, Scotland will leave the EU as well.
Which, as I understand it, means that an independent Scotland would then need to reapply for EU membership and, until accepted, would need to survive on its own without hand-outs from London and from Brussels for anything up to ten years or so while Brussels makes up its mind about Turkey, The Balkan States, etc, before they get round to accepting Scotland's request to join.
And add on the costs if the Rest of UK insist on a Divorce Settlerment a la Brexit but for 300 years of marriage and not 50 years of marriage.
And then how much of the UK's £ 1.3 trillion debt transfers from London to Edinburgh after 300 years ?? Got to be some of it.....
It's going to be difficult for the heart to beat the head in a cost benefit analysis, I think, but never underestimate the size of the chip on someone's shoulder
Which, as I understand it, means that an independent Scotland would then need to reapply for EU membership and, until accepted, would need to survive on its own without hand-outs from London and from Brussels for anything up to ten years or so while Brussels makes up its mind about Turkey, The Balkan States, etc, before they get round to accepting Scotland's request to join.
And add on the costs if the Rest of UK insist on a Divorce Settlerment a la Brexit but for 300 years of marriage and not 50 years of marriage.
And then how much of the UK's £ 1.3 trillion debt transfers from London to Edinburgh after 300 years ?? Got to be some of it.....
It's going to be difficult for the heart to beat the head in a cost benefit analysis, I think, but never underestimate the size of the chip on someone's shoulder
Is it true that Spain could veto Scotland’s application anyway?
What would party politics look like in Scotland after independence? Would the Conservatives/Labour stick around with their own new leaders or would you see entire new prominent parties pop up.
I think you’ll have essentially the same parties, but obviously with no longer any connection to their Westminster counterparts. So you’ll essentially have your archetypal left/centre-left Labour Party, and centre-right/right Conservative party, as you’d expect from any western democracy.
I‘d be more interested to see how the SNP would align themselves in an independent Scotland. Do they just carry on as a centre-left progressive party and risk competition from a fresh Labour Party, or would they just attempt to integrate them or merge into a larger left-wing party. And would the Lib Dem remnants even bother setting up a liberal party or do they just give up and individually try to find a new political home amongst any of the other parties.