Question Time Tonight

[Bzzzz]

19 hours ago, aaid said:

If you were a lawyer then you would know that the specific UN resolution that you are referring to is to do with countries that have been colonised.   The problem being that Scotland entered into a voluntary Union and was not colonised and it would be next to impossible to state a case otherwise.

 

I would suggest that that is open to challenge due to access to the voluntary aspect being an entirely different process in a modern society. Legal and voluntary at the time (sadly), I'd argue that that cannot apply to eternity given the differences in the constitution in the modern and supposed democratic set up of the "UK". Legally there MUST be a way to challenge that. They cannot argue that a voluntary "union" is legally unchallengeable by the people of one part of it. 

[Alibi]

Ok, so this is not a voluntary union.  It's a prison.  What an absolutely useless leader Sturgeon has turned out to be.  Absolutely hibsed it at every opportunity.

I see polling figures are pretty awful today.  Ok, it's Yougov and I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw the stone of destiny, but maybe it will be a wake up call confirming that Yousaf being shoehorned in as leader has been a horrendous error.  No way he is going to get the SNP back on track.  If people are currently considering voting for a pro brexit anti indy anti freedom of movement anti immigration party, clearly they are thick as mince and deserve everything they will get.  I just hope when the next election campaign starts, people realise what Labour are offering and come to their senses.

[ParisInAKilt]

If it wasn’t voluntary to start with, it’s been voluntary since 2014 … 

[TDYER63]

30 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

If it wasn’t voluntary to start with, it’s been voluntary since 2014 … 

Its never voluntary when you need permission to change your mind. At any time. 

[aaid]

1 hour ago, Bzzzz said:

I would suggest that that is open to challenge due to access to the voluntary aspect being an entirely different process in a modern society. Legal and voluntary at the time (sadly), I'd argue that that cannot apply to eternity given the differences in the constitution in the modern and supposed democratic set up of the "UK". Legally there MUST be a way to challenge that. They cannot argue that a voluntary "union" is legally unchallengeable by the people of one part of it. 

People need to realise that this is a political problem, not a legal one.  Once the people of Scotland come to the conclusion that the Union should be dissolved and when that will cannot be denied legitimately then independence will follow.

That will can only be demonstrated when there is a significant and consistent support for independence.  I’m not going to put any numbers on that, but clearly we’re not currently there and arguably have never been.

Maybe Alex Salmond was right when he said that 2014 was a once in a generation event.  We’ve spent 9 years largely arguing about process, might take the same length of time to get the numbers up.

[aaid]

1 hour ago, Alibi said:

 

I see polling figures are pretty awful today.  Ok, it's Yougov and I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw the stone of destiny, but maybe it will be a wake up call confirming that Yousaf being shoehorned in as leader has been a horrendous error.  

I’m just looking at the data for that poll and it’s very interesting.   They haven’t done a headline VI number, nor broken it down by age, demographics, region, etc and haven’t provided the actual polling data.

What they have done is to show a breakdown of projected vote share in each constituency, which is very useful.

What there isn’t though is any idea of how they actually got to those numbers.  They say that there were 3500 people in the survey- which is large for a Scotland only survey - however that only equates to on average 58 people per constituency and you can be certain that the actual respondents per constituency will vary considerably.

That’s a statistically irrelevant number to draw any conclusions from.

I also looked at a few of the individual constituencies that the SNP are predicted to lose to Labour and you are looking at swings of the scale that the SNP had in 2015.

I’m not sure about anyone else but while the SNP undoubtedly don’t have their troubles to seek, it just doesn’t seem like that sort of changing of the guard event at the moment.

I’d treat this poll with a big pinch of salt.

just to add, the only way that you can get reliable polling on a constituency by constituency basis is to do what Lord Ashcroft did in 2015 and to poll ~1000 people in each constituency.  That was the point when Labour knew they were well and truly fucked. 

Edited May 24, 2023 by aaid

[Alibi]

2 hours ago, ParisInAKilt said:

If it wasn’t voluntary to start with, it’s been voluntary since 2014 … 

I get your point; however that change in view is only because of a referendum.  You can't then ban referendums and remove the mechanism for monitoring ongoing opinion.  It's the refusal to allow another referendum that makes it a prison.

If the SNP don't make the next election (and every election after that) a referendum on indy, they can expect to be nearly wiped out.  What point is there in voting for a party that won't do everything possible to achieve its stated aim, its raison d'etre?  Fed up with mandates being squandered, kicking the can down the road, acceding to the diktats of an English court. fed up with our MPs warming the benches at Westminster and being good little parliamentarians.  If they're going to be there, they should be disrupting the place on a daily basis. As noisily as possible.  Make it unworkable.  But no - they go on about trying to get more powers if Labour get in.  What's the point?  That's Stockholm syndrome writ large.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Alibi

[Dave78]

10 hours ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Nonsense.

As I have pointed out multiple rimes there is no way 'to move things forward'. The only route is through a Section 30 which was asked for multiple times and replied with multiple no's. She took it to court and got a no. She put across defacto referendum and was not to the liking of too many..

Nobody, political or otherwise has a way to make Scottish independence barring revolution.

I think you're being way too kind to her CC.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the moves she made, but i do with the timing of them. For example, the delay in bringing the indyref2 bill rather than taking advantage of the disarray in the British government in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit result. When the bill was brought, she didn't force Westminster to strike it down and voluntarily went to the supreme court AFTER brexit was 'done' and fading from voter's minds. She didn't countenance a deal with May to give her her preferred Brexit deal in exchange for indyref2, and instead focused on stopping brexit (which was always unrealistic at best and deluded at worst).

She allowed the unionists too much time and space to regroup.

She was great at winning elections for the SNP, but in terms of securing indyref2/independence, she got the timing backwards and didn't make any progress.

 

 

 

 

[aaid]

13 minutes ago, Dave78 said:

I think you're being way too kind to her CC.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the moves she made, but i do with the timing of them. For example, the delay in bringing the indyref2 bill rather than taking advantage of the disarray in the British government in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit result. When the bill was brought, she didn't force Westminster to strike it down and voluntarily went to the supreme court AFTER brexit was 'done' and fading from voter's minds. She didn't countenance a deal with May to give her her preferred Brexit deal in exchange for indyref2, and instead focused on stopping brexit (which was always unrealistic at best and deluded at worst).

She allowed the unionists too much time and space to regroup.

She was great at winning elections for the SNP, but in terms of securing indyref2/independence, she got the timing backwards and didn't make any progress.

 

 

 

 

Massive amount of revisionism and 20-20 hindsight being applied there.

Lets just ignore it was the 2017 general election where the SNP had an electorate message from the people of Scotland and where Theresa May lost her majority which is where May would have needed support from another party - they settled for the DUP.

[Dave78]

11 minutes ago, aaid said:

Massive amount of revisionism and 20-20 hindsight being applied there.

Lets just ignore it was the 2017 general election where the SNP had an electorate message from the people of Scotland and where Theresa May lost her majority which is where May would have needed support from another party - they settled for the DUP.

Certainly hindsight, although if the old thread still existed i'd dig out my posts from years ago questioning the delays.

As for the 'revisionism' of doing a deal with May, i'm not referring to a post-election deal. I mean during the 'meaningful votes' on the type of Brexit the UK would pursue. May may have been open to a deal on indyref2. To my knowledge Sturgeon didn't even explore that.

[ParisInAKilt]

2 hours ago, Alibi said:

I get your point; however that change in view is only because of a referendum.  You can't then ban referendums and remove the mechanism for monitoring ongoing opinion.  It's the refusal to allow another referendum that makes it a prison.

If the SNP don't make the next election (and every election after that) a referendum on indy, they can expect to be nearly wiped out.  What point is there in voting for a party that won't do everything possible to achieve its stated aim, its raison d'etre?  Fed up with mandates being squandered, kicking the can down the road, acceding to the diktats of an English court. fed up with our MPs warming the benches at Westminster and being good little parliamentarians.  If they're going to be there, they should be disrupting the place on a daily basis. As noisily as possible.  Make it unworkable.  But no - they go on about trying to get more powers if Labour get in.  What's the point?  That's Stockholm syndrome writ large.

Don’t disagree with any of that.

The SNP are a waste of time anymore, unless you’re after competent don’t ruffle any feathers devolution government then fill your boots. 

Unless something within Scottish politics changes dramatically then independence is never going to happen. 

[aaid]

10 minutes ago, Dave78 said:

Certainly hindsight, although if the old thread still existed i'd dig out my posts from years ago questioning the delays.

As for the 'revisionism' of doing a deal with May, i'm not referring to a post-election deal. I mean during the 'meaningful votes' on the type of Brexit the UK would pursue. May may have been open to a deal on indyref2. To my knowledge Sturgeon didn't even explore that.

If there’s one thing where I think they got the tactics wrong - and this is all with the benefit of hindsight as I don’t think you could’ve seen this at the time - it’s that they and Labour should’ve acted to bring down the government in 2018 before Johnson became PM.  I think an election in 2018, with May as PM, could’ve seen a minority Labour administration backed up by the SNP with a commitment to a referendum.

[PapofGlencoe]

I don't think its been as simple as folks would make it seem to call a referendum since 2014.

However the idea of taking it to the supreme court and then not backing it up with decisive action has been a disgraceful folly.

[aaid]

11 minutes ago, PapofGlencoe said:

I don't think its been as simple as folks would make it seem to call a referendum since 2014.

However the idea of taking it to the supreme court and then not backing it up with decisive action has been a disgraceful folly.

What decisive action do you think they should’ve taken?

[PapofGlencoe]

16 minutes ago, aaid said:

What decisive action do you think they should’ve taken?

An agreed response

to use an election

as a defacto referendum. 

 

A version of which Nicola put forward but had those on her own side briefing against in public immediately.  So not agreed.  We didn't have briefings against white papers before.  Unity of common purpose used to be evident and tactics agreed.

If they were going to the court, they needed to know what they were going to do when the inevitable came.

Nicola's was a strategy but as a collective unit, the SNP failed to keep the heid, back it and carry it through.  All we got were snipes from the sidelines and a subsequent weak leadership unable to see the pragmatism they thought they were following was a trap.

If they just wanted to build the case towards a majority in favour...a legitimate position, they should never have gone to the supreme court.  They should have waited to do so when they were prepared to act.  Not before.  Now in a weaker position for this decision.