Indyref 2 (2)

[mcguffin]

6 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

My personal preference is that the snp call another scottish election and run on the single issue of indyref2. The scottish ppl will then have the chance to put up or shut up

I agree with this approach.

[stocky]

14 minutes ago, aaid said:

It seems that there's a lot of people who seem to think that all we've had to do over the last 8 years is to have a vote tomorrow, we'd automatically win it and Scotland would be independent.  That is of course nonsense.

This.

I don't think we would win right now.

I think the Yoons should have called Nicolas bluff.

Naw would have won again, I honestly believe that.

The demographic is changing.

Independence is coming.

Just no the noo......

[mcguffin]

2 minutes ago, stocky said:

The demographic is changing.

I'd like to think the demographics are changing in our favour. I really would. But the flight of young people from e.g. the Highlands and Islands (who have little future given the lack of housing and job opportunites in these expensive locations) still seems to be a major problem. I have a horrible feeling that if we don't get Independence soon (and with that introduce policies that help young folk in rural areas make a life for themselves), then I fear a lot of these areas will be changed forever. And not in a way that will lead to Scottish Independence. 😒

[daviebee]

28 minutes ago, mcguffin said:

I agree with this approach.

Me too.  Shame the SNP don't.

[Bzzzz]

5 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Yes it would be based on the single issue of independence. It would effectively become a referendum in itself.

You do realise ppl have died in order to obtain their countries freedom? Voting for a party you dislike is the easiest option anyone has ever had and yet the scots cant seem to do it.

 

But won't be "effectively a referendum" unless there's an absolute course of action in the case of a Yes majority. Nobody is interested in just voting for another bloody mandate if it's going to be broadly washed over like all the others before it. 

[stocky]

1 hour ago, mcguffin said:

I'd like to think the demographics are changing in our favour. I really would. But the flight of young people from e.g. the Highlands and Islands (who have little future given the lack of housing and job opportunites in these expensive locations) still seems to be a major problem. I have a horrible feeling that if we don't get Independence soon (and with that introduce policies that help young folk in rural areas make a life for themselves), then I fear a lot of these areas will be changed forever. And not in a way that will lead to Scottish Independence. 😒

A lot of truth in that , unfortunately.

However I think we are retaining more young than we used too...

At least we don't have emigration of the heights we had up to the 70's

 

My fear is the highlands will just become a retirement home/ playground for Rich folk looking for free elderly care that they can't get in their own part of the UK.

 

[mcguffin]

21 minutes ago, stocky said:

A lot of truth in that , unfortunately.

However I think we are retaining more young than we used too...

At least we don't have emigration of the heights we had up to the 70's

 

My fear is the highlands will just become a retirement home/ playground for Rich folk looking for free elderly care that they can't get in their own part of the UK.

 

Good point about the problems in the 70s. That is a plus at least.
And yes, I share a similar fear about the highlands. (One of the reason I enjoy Lesley Riddoch. One of the few journalists, commentators who truly tries to grapple with the problems of rural Scotland and the islands).

[PapofGlencoe]

if i was a unionist I'd be feeling surprisingly comfortable.  Genuinely thought once the plebiscite election at the next General election was called, the Yes movement would unite behind it.  It's the only path available at this present moment.

the SNP should have had a clear path signed up with all of the Yes movement ready to go following the ruling, not talking about January.  It's already off the news cycle.

they should be agitating in Westminster

less name calling from all sides; the protests were poorly attended and blame rests with SNP on that, they've been sneering at the movement for years

Alba should be getting behind the plan

 

 

to use an old phrase from an old film, "we can't even agree on the colour of sh*te"

 

Edited November 28, 2022 by PapofGlencoe

[mccaughey85]

6 hours ago, daviebee said:

You're not making any sense here.  If the SNP can't do anything then what's the point of them?  Why send 50 of them to WM and give them a majority at Holyrood?  Why aren't they kicking up fck in the HoC and disrupting things in that anachronistic institution every day of the week?  Too busy being good wee parliamentarians and worrying whether they'll get to the subsidised restaurant before the filet mignon runs out?

Every election they say they're getting an indyref and then it just gets kicked further down the road.  "Independence" is now the SNP's equivalent of "the oil is running out".

So you want them to disrupt proceedings in westminster?

Will that bring about another indyref? 

If your wanting them to rebel in a serious manner then its not a political party you are wanting.

I think what you really want/need is a scottish republican army rather than a political party. Armed struggle is not the snps(or any political partys) responsibility. The mps are not there to physically fight battles. They are effectively like political lawyers there to put forth the publics views and interests and implement change in how the country is run and our case break away from the uk. I dont know why you think they are there to physically fight your battles or rebel and disrupt things.

As i asked before whats your solution here?

Do we vote in alba?

Would they have a better chance of getting indyref2 and would they 'kick off' and rebel if they dont get indyref2?

You and the anti snp brigade need to start asking yourself these questions if you are serious about indy. You also have to ask yourself what you are willing to do in terms of civil disobedience or minor rebellion. If the scottish ppl wont rebel then expecting a bunch of politicians to do it for you is delusional to say the least.

For me i really dont want to spend my life in prison so i wont sit and expect sturgeon or any other politicians to do something i am not willing to do myself. 

[mccaughey85]

5 hours ago, Bzzzz said:

But won't be "effectively a referendum" unless there's an absolute course of action in the case of a Yes majority. Nobody is interested in just voting for another bloody mandate if it's going to be broadly washed over like all the others before it. 

Well the course of action would be to formally apply for another referendum with westminster with the argument that we have a majority wanting independence.

What mandates have been washed over before? You do realise only 31 percent of the scottish electorate voted for nationalist parties in the 2021 scottish election and we barely have 50 percent in the polls wanting indy. You need a reality check, the numbers dont add up. Why should westminster grant a referendum when the ppl of scotland have clearly shown they dont want independence.

Westminster granted an indy ref in 2014 and we rejected independence, why should the ppl of scotland just be handed another when we wont vote on mass for it.

If you feel that plan is a waste of time then whats your alternative solution?

[hampden_loon2878]

11 hours ago, Malcolm said:

how does that work then?  If the snp call a Scottish parliament election and campaign on one issue, do they not pass any legislation at all in the forthcoming parliament assuming they are elected.  If they promise that, I could be tempted to vote snp on the one issue.  What I couldnt have is them campaigning on independence only and then bring in other legislation, eg gender reform, wealth tax, etc, as they would not have been elected on that basis?

 

that is the worry, it needs to be a single policy manifesto, 

[exile]

I feel there is a missing link to the UN and/or international opinion/ international law.

We need a clearer view of what is likely to satisfy international opinion, on what would represent an expression of the will for self-determination. I mean, people are discussing all sorts of plebiscites (on seats and votes and how to count them) but which would have most confidence in being recognised?

I know the UN is not necessariy a panacea when you think of it stacked ful of nation states not necessarily willing to grant a secession free-for-all. But we need something more than just different politicans and factions floating ideas/flying kites.

And I do think it needs certainty that if people vote yes [however defined] then indy will happen. Indyref 1 and EU referenda both had that certainty. That brought people out the woodwork to actually vote. As they knew their voted would count. Hence high turnouts.  I don't think we can go into a plebiscite on the vague idea it would strengthen a mandate for a section 30 or anything like that. We need some sort of tacit agreement as far as possible that we know, and the UK govt would know, that a given result would mean a mandate for independence with international recognition.

Is any political party working on this?

Edited November 28, 2022 by exile

[exile]

On 11/27/2022 at 10:38 AM, exile said:

Has anyone seen, anywhere, any unionist commentator reflect on the fact that the Supreme Court verdict seems to confirm the UK as a unitary state and not a voluntary partner in a Union of nations?

I found (just) one - apparently by a 'soft No/ don't know'

Is the Union still a voluntary one?

If there are more of these in the woodwork, these are the kind of people needing convinced to cross over

[weekevie04]

Glad I stopped watching political shows in the UK. 

Politics Live it's 3 against 1 (Plaid Cyrmu MP) about who should decide on an independence referendum.

Now the political football question "support us cos we support you" yet every single English person who says that says it in a patronising/oh didn't you Taffs/Micks/Jocks do well.

Edited November 29, 2022 by weekevie04

[hampden_loon2878]

This ferries keeps rumbling on,, surely they can’t play on this for much longer, sick fed up hearing about them,, it is a total fuck up tbf 

[aaid]

14 minutes ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

This ferries keeps rumbling on,, surely they can’t play on this for much longer, sick fed up hearing about them,, it is a total fuck up tbf 

And yet you're the one who's mentioning it.

[Hertsscot]

Watching Dan Snow on TV just now. He was one of the celebs who wrote an open letter and urged Scots to stay in the Union (I taught two of the others!). I would still love a journalist to go round and ask them now whether they think Scotland was better off voting against independence.

[hampden_loon2878]

2 hours ago, aaid said:

And yet you're the one who's mentioning it.

sorry i didnt realise the oracle disapproved, you want me to check with you prior to posting?

[aaid]

12 minutes ago, hampden_loon2878 said:

sorry i didnt realise the oracle disapproved, you want me to check with you prior to posting?

There’s an inquiry going on, the opposition and media are going to be highlighting anything that paints the Scottish Government badly, regardless of whether or not it’s true or not - and you’re repeating it for them. 

This latest point seems to be that Jim McColl made the SG an offer, the SG turned it down because it was against EU competition rules.  He’s claiming that’s not true, the SG are yet to respond.   That’s the point with inquiries, people give their version of events from their own perspectives and experience and it’s up to the person chairing the inquiry to work out what is right and what is wrong.  

[Caledonian Craig]

It seems to me now there are two questions yoon cannot answer about Scottish independence.

First up the long-standing favourite of, if Scotland is such a basket case heavily subsidised by Westminsterthen why are they so desperate to keep us in the union.

The new unanswerable is how does Scotland go about ending this union given that we are not allowed to vote on it unless Westminster says so.

[mcguffin]

19 hours ago, Hertsscot said:

Watching Dan Snow on TV just now. He was one of the celebs who wrote an open letter and urged Scots to stay in the Union (I taught two of the others!). I would still love a journalist to go round and ask them now whether they think Scotland was better off voting against independence.

I remember that letter, just looked it up again: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/07/celebrities-open-letter-scotland-independence-full-text

I remember at the time wondering "who wrote the text? was it a PR firm? an anonymous journalist". It comes across as so 'crafted'.
So many names on that list are of people who I greatly admire. Of course, people are still free to hold whatever opinions they like, and express them in anyway they like, but I still to this day feel uneasy about celebrities, mostly based in one country sticking their noses into the affairs of another. They've slightly tarnished their reputations in my eyes.

And Hertsscot, I don't expect you to 'give names' of course. But I'm totally intrigued as to who the 2 public figures are who you taught (and what you taught? My guess is that it's not bagpipe lessons?  ) Anyway, it makes you a 'proxy celebrity' in my view 😉

[Och Aye]

Think we need the section 30 agreed on. Personally I'd try and get it agreed for around 2028/2030 that way today's Westminster Government would probably agree to it as it won't be their problem by then. The polls are too close now, as has been repeatedly said on here, we cannot afford to lose another vote. It's an awful thought be stuck in this 'union' for another 5 or 7 years but can't see another realistic alternative. 

[Alibi]

Using a UK election as a plebiscite is daft - leaving aside that the whole thing would be swamped in the media by the Labour/Tory battle in England, excluding 16/17 year olds and EU citizens makes a fairly small but potentially significant difference to the Yes vote.  using the constituency vote in a Scottish election makes more sense, and the list vote would allow for a more proportional distribution of seats so that the parties would get something like the proportional numbers of seats as happens normally.  The current playing down of the plebiscite result - suggesting that we need 50+% of the vote just to be allowed to ask for an S30 which would of course be refused, and even some folk (possibly unionists but not certain of that) suggesting that it has to be 50+% of the entire electorate (shades of 1979, and a ridiculously high bar) - gives me little confidence that the SNP are going flat out for indy.  You would think that they would do whatever it takes but it looks more like at every turn they are doing whatever makes the bar as high as possible.

[aaid]

3 hours ago, Alibi said:

Using a UK election as a plebiscite is daft - leaving aside that the whole thing would be swamped in the media by the Labour/Tory battle in England, excluding 16/17 year olds and EU citizens makes a fairly small but potentially significant difference to the Yes vote.  using the constituency vote in a Scottish election makes more sense, and the list vote would allow for a more proportional distribution of seats so that the parties would get something like the proportional numbers of seats as happens normally.  The current playing down of the plebiscite result - suggesting that we need 50+% of the vote just to be allowed to ask for an S30 which would of course be refused, and even some folk (possibly unionists but not certain of that) suggesting that it has to be 50+% of the entire electorate (shades of 1979, and a ridiculously high bar) - gives me little confidence that the SNP are going flat out for indy.  You would think that they would do whatever it takes but it looks more like at every turn they are doing whatever makes the bar as high as possible.

I couldn’t disagree more with this.

The only plus point I can see for this is that it possibly makes the franchise slightly more pro-Indy.   

If you assume an election in 2023, then there were 113,471 births registered in Scotland in 2006/7 - people who would be 16/17 in 2023.   Some of those will no longer be in Scotland but let’s just assume for the argument that there’s been an net inflow and that’s the number.   That demographic group generally polls well for Indy, it’s not actually the strongest, that’s people in there 20s/30s.  If you assume they vote 70/30 in favour and that they actually vote at 85% - bother of those I think are optimistic - the votes either side are (rounded) 67500 for Yes and 29000 for No.  So the benefit of having their votes for Yes would be 38,500 votes.   That might be enough to make the but it’s less than 1% of the electorate.

Then there’s to other, larger group who would be excluded from the franchise in a WM election, the “foreign voters”.   The truth is we know very little about this group, we don’t even know how many there are and won’t do until the Census is data released next year.  We don’t know what their views are on the constitution as they’re never polled as a group.   There seems to be a received wisdom that they *must* be pro-Indy because of Brexit.  However, the reality is that for EU citizens in Scotland while they may feel more “loved” and may have more affinity to an independent Scotland, their status in Scotland - post-Brexit - will not be impacted by a pro-Indy vote, which was a big difference to what they were told in 2014.  The best you can say about this grouping is that you just need to consider them as having the same profile as the rest of the electorate.

The other thing that everyone who is pushing a Holyrood election over a WM one - and bringing that forwards by collapsing the government - seems to just blithely ignore is that everyone - or at least all the Pro Indy, soft nos and don’t knows - will be absolutely fine with that.   People need to remember that voters tend to get annoyed with governments which call elections “for no good reason” and they make their feelings known at the ballot box.  To get away with this, you’d need to first have the support for Indy to be demonstrably in the high 50s or 60s to bolster against that backlash.

The main reasons I’d put forwards for going with a WM election is that the problem lies with WM, not Holyrood.  It is WM that is not respecting the democratic will of Holyrood, so you take the fight to them and you fight them on their own ground.  It also upsets how the Tories, Labour and media see type next election playing out as it throws a large constitutional hand grenade into their favoured two-horse race. 

[stocky]

9 minutes ago, aaid said:

I couldn’t disagree more with this.

The only plus point I can see for this is that it possibly makes the franchise slightly more pro-Indy.   

If you assume an election in 2023, then there were 113,471 births registered in Scotland in 2006/7 - people who would be 16/17 in 2023.   Some of those will no longer be in Scotland but let’s just assume for the argument that there’s been an net inflow and that’s the number.   That demographic group generally polls well for Indy, it’s not actually the strongest, that’s people in there 20s/30s.  If you assume they vote 70/30 in favour and that they actually vote at 85% - bother of those I think are optimistic - the votes either side are (rounded) 67500 for Yes and 29000 for No.  So the benefit of having their votes for Yes would be 38,500 votes.   That might be enough to make the but it’s less than 1% of the electorate.

Then there’s to other, larger group who would be excluded from the franchise in a WM election, the “foreign voters”.   The truth is we know very little about this group, we don’t even know how many there are and won’t do until the Census is data released next year.  We don’t know what their views are on the constitution as they’re never polled as a group.   There seems to be a received wisdom that they *must* be pro-Indy because of Brexit.  However, the reality is that for EU citizens in Scotland while they may feel more “loved” and may have more affinity to an independent Scotland, their status in Scotland - post-Brexit - will not be impacted by a pro-Indy vote, which was a big difference to what they were told in 2014.  The best you can say about this grouping is that you just need to consider them as having the same profile as the rest of the electorate.

The other thing that everyone who is pushing a Holyrood election over a WM one - and bringing that forwards by collapsing the government - seems to just blithely ignore is that everyone - or at least all the Pro Indy, soft nos and don’t knows - will be absolutely fine with that.   People need to remember that voters tend to get annoyed with governments which call elections “for no good reason” and they make their feelings known at the ballot box.  To get away with this, you’d need to first have the support for Indy to be demonstrably in the high 50s or 60s to bolster against that backlash.

The main reasons I’d put forwards for going with a WM election is that the problem lies with WM, not Holyrood.  It is WM that is not respecting the democratic will of Holyrood, so you take the fight to them and you fight them on their own ground.  It also upsets how the Tories, Labour and media see type next election playing out as it throws a large constitutional hand grenade into their favoured two-horse race. 

Last paragraph makes sense.

I do think the eu citz voted overwhelming NO last time, I believe this would be reversed. 

Don't know how many voters there are tho.300000, is a number I've seen quoted

So 200000 NO last time, (30/70)would be 200000 YES this time (70/30)

A net + of 100000 for the good guys

I'm swithering on which election would be best.

You do make a strong case for Westminster tho.

Edited November 30, 2022 by stocky