Independence Referendum: Take Ii

[ParisInAKilt]

I can't see us having the systems in place to go from union to independence with our own currency, so while I don't like the idea a currency union initially until we are able to have our own currency would suit me. But the no side will take the exact same stance so yes would need a better argument next time around

[phart]

I'm being unfair to Reekie as he has always said he would consider own currency as a possibility but tactically he would like a currency union. For me it's been obvious for true independence it has to be done with own currency outside the current EU framework.

[Auld_Reekie]

I'm being unfair to Reekie as he has always said he would consider own currency as a possibility but tactically he would like a currency union. For me it's been obvious for true independence it has to be done with own currency outside the current EU framework.

Thanks. But yeah, the currency union was always a tactical choice and I believe that had we went for it with a Scottish Pound, we'd never have got as close as we did. Maybe Im just telling myself that to make me feel better but family members I managed to persuade would probably have been scared off with going for a new currency as well. C'est la vie. We have critical mass now so the playing field is ready for a Scottish currency. I still think it's possible to go with currency union as a staging post (and have it accept by the UK Government is independence secures 65+%), but the whole concept of a Scottish currency needs to be fully tested by the electorate and that means putting it front and centre of the campaign.

I'd argue that leaving the EU should also be front and centre too in order to nullify the argument Scotland would be forced out. We should plan for the worst the No campaign could throw at us, and that's outside the EU with our own currency. There's nowhere else for the No campaign to go with that and if the EU continues at is doing, the playing field will never be better for it.

[Dave78]

Thanks. But yeah, the currency union was always a tactical choice and I believe that had we went for it with a Scottish Pound, we'd never have got as close as we did. Maybe Im just telling myself that to make me feel better but family members I managed to persuade would probably have been scared off with going for a new currency as well. C'est la vie. We have critical mass now so the playing field is ready for a Scottish currency. I still think it's possible to go with currency union as a staging post (and have it accept by the UK Government is independence secures 65+%), but the whole concept of a Scottish currency needs to be fully tested by the electorate and that means putting it front and centre of the campaign.

I'd argue that leaving the EU should also be front and centre too in order to nullify the argument Scotland would be forced out. We should plan for the worst the No campaign could throw at us, and that's outside the EU with our own currency. There's nowhere else for the No campaign to go with that and if the EU continues at is doing, the playing field will never be better for it.

Why don't we put becoming a republic front and centre of the campaign too while we're in the mood for adding 'things-that-will-scare-the-soft-Yes/undecided-vote-and-lose-us-the-referendum'?

[Scunnered]

Why don't we put becoming a republic front and centre of the campaign too while we're in the mood for adding 'things-that-will-scare-the-soft-Yes/undecided-vote-and-lose-us-the-referendum'?

Personally I'd rather go into the referendum with a left wing agenda and be honest with people. If it loses then it's clear that any vision of independence that people would accept isn't for me.

[Orraloon]

Personally I'd rather go into the referendum with a left wing agenda and be honest with people. If it loses then it's clear that any vision of independence that people would accept isn't for me.

NEWSFLASH, NEWSFLASH.

It's not all about you though.

[Scunnered]

NEWSFLASH, NEWSFLASH.

It's not all about you though.

No shit sherlock

[AlfieMoon]

I can't see us having the systems in place to go from union to independence with our own currency, so while I don't like the idea a currency union initially until we are able to have our own currency would suit me. But the no side will take the exact same stance so yes would need a better argument next time around

The 2 most divisive issues are likely to be the currency and the EU.

IMO we (or the SNP as they are leading the charge) need to change currency position to a Scots £ and start talking about this well in advance of even considering any referendum. Otherwise we just find ourselves in the same position as last time around and it's not in our control. In terms of having the systems in place - we already have Scottish banks and can therefore have a Scottish central bank. The good thing of the devolved powers is that we are starting to set up other Scottish systems and institutions - such as Revenue Scotland so we are building our capabilities, experience and infrastructure.

On the issue of the EU - we need to offer the public an EU referendum vote upon winning an Indyref #2 before we choose our path.

[Orraloon]

No shit sherlock

It was fairly elementary for me to work it out, but I thought you might need a bit of a reminder.

[Scunnered]

It was fairly elementary for me to work it out, but I thought you might need a bit of a reminder.

Look... I'm not putting you on the list

[scotlad]

The 2 most divisive issues are likely to be the currency and the EU.

IMO we (or the SNP as they are leading the charge) need to change currency position to a Scots £ and start talking about this well in advance of even considering any referendum. Otherwise we just find ourselves in the same position as last time around and it's not in our control. In terms of having the systems in place - we already have Scottish banks and can therefore have a Scottish central bank. The good thing of the devolved powers is that we are starting to set up other Scottish systems and institutions - such as Revenue Scotland so we are building our capabilities, experience and infrastructure.

On the issue of the EU - we need to offer the public an EU referendum vote upon winning an Indyref #2 before we choose our path.

One of the reasons I wanted FFA at this stage (although I accept that there were potential downsides) was so we could have almost all infrastructure and institutions set up before any future referendum (another was that Holyrood would have dodged the bullet of the Tory welfare 'reforms'). If we had gone from a standing start last September, i.e. we hadn't had Holyrood for 15 years, then it's doubtful Yes would have got as high as 45%. The fact that it has been shown that Scots are capable of managing often important aspects of public life, helped.

I completely agree with you on the EU. I don't know why the SNP didn't propose this at the time - they would have closed off a major avenue of attack and circumvented all that nonsense about legal advice and being the UK's successor state. It would have left Better Together in the position of explaining why Scotland wouldn't be admitted to the EU, which, given some of the countries who have been admitted in recent years, would have damaged their credibility. The opportunity to vote in a straight should we/shouldn't we referendum might even have calmed a few nerves amongst Scotland's EU migrant community (it's more than the UK are allowing them to do).

Currency was the biggest and trickiest issue to handle. I favoured, and still do, an independent Scottish currency. I don't believe you can be fully independent if you have no control over your central bank. But how do you sell that concept to people whose main concerns are their pensions, their savings and their wages Their concerns might seem self-centred but a lot of people are, sometimes with a degree of justification. A petrochemicals backed currency is a more attractive 'sell' but since the oil price has nosedived we're on shoogly ground there now.

Another area that needs to be better addressed is pensions. Everyone and their granny knows that their granny always votes. It is unforgivable that Yes allowed Better Together to get the better of them on pensions. The UK state pension is crap - the worst in western Europe - and this should have been trumpeted far and wide. How pensions actually operate and how they are funded needs to be properly explained explained next time.

[Scunnered]

I just remembered why you're on the list...

[scotlad]

I just remembered why you're on the list...

Is it because I have Croatian granny?

[OLAS]

Is it because I have Croatian granny?

[killiefaetheferry]

nah we're the greeks, considering we're diametrically opposed to the politics of the Troika, unlike the SNP.

Nae offence, like. Was thinking of a kind of wise, benevolent triumverate-type thingy.

[Freeedom]

The Yes campaign failed on several fronts and I was very critical of the way that the campaign was conducted in several ways.

1) The yes campaign didn't manage to seperate SNP policies from the issue of independence.

It was not made clear enough that in an independent Scotland people did not need to vote for the SNP, if they didn't agree with the partys policies that was fine, people were free to vote for whatever party they wanted in an independent Scotland. The yes campaign/SNP didn't explain that the beauty and whole point of independence was that Scotland would get whatever democratically elected government that it wanted. A lot of people truely did not understand that having an independent country was nothing to do with any political party, that it was instead about their country and the principle of democracy.

2) (along the lines of point one) The currency issue was a complete farce.

If there was one point that the unionists were correct about it was that Scotland would not be a proper independent currency whilst still in a currency union. We only need to look at what the people of Greece are going through to see that. Yes the relative GDP of England and Scotland are quite similar, but isn't one of the main arguments for independence that we would have to see our economy grow stronger as an independent country. We could have a very strong currency as an independent country and the Greens were for it but their voice was drowned out by the SNP.

3) The yes campaign isolated Tory voters for no reason.

over 400'000 people voted for the Tories in 2010 and we told them that an independent Scotland would not welcome them, in the end we lost the referendum by about that number of votes. Why did we tell these people they were not welcome in Scotland ? We should have been telling them that an independent Scotland could be whatever country that we wanted it to be, that there was room for a number of different voices and that they would be more clearly heard amongst 5 million scots as opposed to 60 million Brits. Independence was for everyone, not just those to the left.

4) The yes campaign isolated Middle class voters.

We were frequently told that independence was "for the working class", as a strong yes supporter who is certainly middle class but whose family has come from a working class background i resented this argument because I always felt that independence was for me too. Nothing would ever have made me vote no, but i could easily see why someone from my background would be swayed towards voting no with all this rubbish about a yes vote being for the working class. Once again I feel that independence is for everyone in Scotland and the yes campaign did a bang up job of isolating nearly half the country.

5) The EU

Although I don't think it cost too many votes in the referendum I think it is highly hypocritical of the SNP to have not potentially offered the people of Scotland a say on the issue of the EU. It is very presumptious of them to assume that the people of Scotland want to be a part of the EU despite what the polls say. Further more, I take the view that we are not a truely independent country as a member of the EU

Edited July 17, 2015 by Freeedom

[Orraloon]

If you believe that Greece is not an independent country then it could be argued that no country in the world is "truly independent". Apart from North Korea, mibee?

[killiefaetheferry]

Greece is in many ways an unfair comparison when talking about our potential to be independent and the possible financial and economic consequences. Greece is badly fecked up in terms of corruption, nepotism, and tax evasion.

Myself and the Mrs have been visiting Greece for about 20 years, as often as possible, sometimes 3 times a year, and we got engaged and then married in Greece. Our Greek friends are very open withus about the reasons for their problems. The government and it's various branches have been corrupt for decades, as far back as the military rule in the 1970's. Nepotism has been a way of life for centuries, due to family being so important to Greeks. An example of both at the same time would be the hospital in Athens which employed 45 gardeners but did not actually have a garden. My Greek friend Ilias says that if tax evasion was an Olympic sport then Greece would win Gold every year. The culture says that if you don't participate then you are a fool.

i read something recently suggesting that for a modern functioning democracy to function properly, it needed to have institutions run properly on modern guidelines of governance etc, and that Greece does not have this structure. Lies were told and accepted even though it was obvious they were lies, to get Greece into the EU, and then euros flooded into the country. Everybody had more money and lots of people got lots of flash German cars and other consumer goods, but the tax wasn't being paid to the government to invest in infrastructure and the whole swindle continued to it's inevitable conclusion this year.

Feck knows what happens now, but I fear a Grexit has only been delayed to give Deutsche Bank officials time to do a Broons style 'Moonlicht Flit' to Argentina.

[giblet]

The Yes campaign failed on several fronts and I was very critical of the way that the campaign was conducted in several ways.

1) The yes campaign didn't manage to seperate SNP policies from the issue of independence.

It was not made clear enough that in an independent Scotland people did not need to vote for the SNP, if they didn't agree with the partys policies that was fine, people were free to vote for whatever party they wanted in an independent Scotland. The yes campaign/SNP didn't explain that the beauty and whole point of independence was that Scotland would get whatever democratically elected government that it wanted. A lot of people truely did not understand that having an independent country was nothing to do with any political party, that it was instead about their country and the principle of democracy.

2) (along the lines of point one) The currency issue was a complete farce.

If there was one point that the unionists were correct about it was that Scotland would not be a proper independent currency whilst still in a currency union. We only need to look at what the people of Greece are going through to see that. Yes the relative GDP of England and Scotland are quite similar, but isn't one of the main arguments for independence that we would have to see our economy grow stronger as an independent country. We could have a very strong currency as an independent country and the Greens were for it but their voice was drowned out by the SNP.

3) The yes campaign isolated Tory voters for no reason.

over 400'000 people voted for the Tories in 2010 and we told them that an independent Scotland would not welcome them, in the end we lost the referendum by about that number of votes. Why did we tell these people they were not welcome in Scotland ? We should have been telling them that an independent Scotland could be whatever country that we wanted it to be, that there was room for a number of different voices and that they would be more clearly heard amongst 5 million scots as opposed to 60 million Brits. Independence was for everyone, not just those to the left.

4) The yes campaign isolated Middle class voters.

We were frequently told that independence was "for the working class", as a strong yes supporter who is certainly middle class but whose family has come from a working class background i resented this argument because I always felt that independence was for me too. Nothing would ever have made me vote no, but i could easily see why someone from my background would be swayed towards voting no with all this rubbish about a yes vote being for the working class. Once again I feel that independence is for everyone in Scotland and the yes campaign did a bang up job of isolating nearly half the country.

5) The EU

Although I don't think it cost too many votes in the referendum I think it is highly hypocritical of the SNP to have not potentially offered the people of Scotland a say on the issue of the EU. It is very presumptious of them to assume that the people of Scotland want to be a part of the EU despite what the polls say. Further more, I take the view that we are not a truely independent country as a member of the EU

Agree on a number of your points. One other point that was huge in Edinburgh area was the threat of the big companies removing themselves if the vote went to Yes.

Theres an argument next time around that a lot of these threats will now be empty and they wont have the same impact if made again. There will be plenty of examples where companies still made job cuts after the No vote. The issue specifically around Standard Life and RBS though will still be there. Both are dominant here and are part of the fabric of Edinburgh. A number of my friends who voted No who work these companies were voting for what they perceived to be threats to their own jobs. Cant blame them.

[Orraloon]

.

Feck knows what happens now, but I fear a Grexit has only been delayed to give Deutsche Bank officials time to do a Broons style 'Moonlicht Flit' to Argentina.

So that's where Gordon went. Haven't seen him for a while. I suppose he must have taken his vow with him.

[Scunnered]

4) The yes campaign isolated Middle class voters.

We were frequently told that independence was "for the working class", as a strong yes supporter who is certainly middle class but whose family has come from a working class background i resented this argument because I always felt that independence was for me too. Nothing would ever have made me vote no, but i could easily see why someone from my background would be swayed towards voting no with all this rubbish about a yes vote being for the working class. Once again I feel that independence is for everyone in Scotland and the yes campaign did a bang up job of isolating nearly half the country.

Oooft! Seems there was a bigger problem than I realised. The mainstream Yes campaign and the SNP white paper was very much for the Middle classes. It was left to the RIC to target the working class vote and assure people that the day after a Yes vote was delivered the campaign to remove the SNP would begin. I done much of my campaigning in the schemes of Glasgow speaking with people who felt the independence campaign wasn't tailored for them and I agree.

So if we have the working class being isolated, and the Middle classes being isolated... Then we really have a problem

[adamntg]

3) The yes campaign isolated Tory voters for no reason.

over 400'000 people voted for the Tories in 2010 and we told them that an independent Scotland would not welcome them, in the end we lost the referendum by about that number of votes. Why did we tell these people they were not welcome in Scotland ? We should have been telling them that an independent Scotland could be whatever country that we wanted it to be, that there was room for a number of different voices and that they would be more clearly heard amongst 5 million scots as opposed to 60 million Brits. Independence was for everyone, not just those to the left.

Possibly, although perhaps the feeling was there were many more votes to be gained by underlining the possibility of a Tory-free Scotland which the majority would love. None of those evil bastards would've voted Yes anyway.

[Scunnered]

Possibly, although perhaps the feeling was there were many more votes to be gained by underlining the possibility of a Tory-free Scotland which the majority would love. None of those evil bastards would've voted Yes anyway.

Peever not only voted Yes, he campaigned for it...

[phart]

If you believe that Greece is not an independent country then it could be argued that no country in the world is "truly independent". Apart from North Korea, mibee?

it could be argued that putting dog-shit in your cereal stops rabies. We'd have to see the argument before we could measure it's worth. It's not that an argument can be made, it's the quality of the argument.

[ParisInAKilt]

How can Greece be independent when the eurozone dictate policies that go against what their elected government want?