Indyref 2: This time it's personal.

Architect said:
This will, of course, change if and when Brexit goes ahead on the basis of what TM claims was the clear settled will of the people of the UK (52%? Settled will? Seriously?).
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Would that also be your reaction if a Scottish Indy Ref passed with a 52% 'yes' vote?
 
Craig B said:
I don't give a toss whether you and your friends are UK citizens, and what you get up to in pubs. You and they are not a constituent country in the U.K., and likewise Scotland is not a random collection of people constituting a region/group. Neither do Scotland, or your toper friends constitute a corporate financial undertaking like Glaxo, so none of this is of the slightest significance. Moreover, not even the Unionists in the government or the Labour Party spout such nonsense. To the contrary, they swear "vows" promising to uphold the sacred institutions of Scotland, if only our esteemed country will consent to stay in the UK.
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Your vehemence and aggression are duly noted :)

By the way, have you contacted Nicola Sturgeon's office yet to ask whether the mechanism for any future independence referendum will, of necessity, involve the Scottish government holding pre-requisite negotiations with the UK government to secure the assent of the UK government (via an amendment passed by the UK parliament) for Scotland to hold an independence referendum, and the assent that the UK government will honour the result of such a referendum? And that the Scottish government will not plan or hold any referendum - far less declare independence - until and unless it has successfully negotiated with the UK government with the result that the UK government grants assent?

Or do you think that Sturgeon's office will tell you something to the effect of "Sod the UK government and what it might or might not think! If we want to hold a referendum, and to declare independence if there's a majority Leave outcome, we won't care one iota about getting assent from the UK or not. It's the will of the Scottish People, dammit!"?

Which of those two answers do you think you might get if you actually asked?

Or are you happy to carry on with your incorrect belief system in a vacuum?
 
catsmate said:
As the ONS put it:
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Yep. Just as Catalonia is a country. Bavaria is a country. New South Wales is a country. North Dakota is a country. Sardinia is a country. Wuhan is a country. All under exactly the same defining criteria.
 
Two things.

Firstly, knock off the personalisation and bickering. Concentrate on the arguments, not the person making them, and debate in a civil and polite manner.

Secondly, whilst racism in any form is repugnant to most people, it is not against the rules on ISF to express racist or nationalist views, as long as those sentiments are directed against large groups of people or non-members of ISF. If such sentiments are directed towards your fellow participants in threads, or identifiable ISF members, then you may well be moderated. You will not be moderated for your views but you may well be moderated for the way you express them.

Please use your best endeavours to keep this thread civil, polite and free from personalisation.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Agatha
 
Aber said:
So what should the threshold be?
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That's a different question which was discussed at the time of Indyref. The one thing 52% is not, however, is the clear settled will of the people of the UK. It is a borderline majority.
 
LondonJohn said:
Yep. Just as Catalonia is a country. Bavaria is a country. New South Wales is a country. North Dakota is a country. Sardinia is a country. Wuhan is a country. All under exactly the same defining criteria.
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Really? I await your citation of equivalent official pronouncements in the matter from those countries.
 
Architect said:
That's a different question which was discussed at the time of Indyref. The one thing 52% is not, however, is the clear settled will of the people of the UK. It is a borderline majority.
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IndyRef was agreed to be a simple majority vote. Same as Brexit. Stop embarrassing yourself.
 
LondonJohn said:
Your vehemence and aggression are duly noted :)
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If you think that this is aggression you've lived a sheltered life. "I don't give a toss whether you and your friends are UK citizens, and what you get up to in pubs." Doesn't look aggressive to me. Permissive, more like. But anyway.
By the way, have you contacted Nicola Sturgeon's office yet to ask whether the mechanism for any future independence referendum will, of necessity, involve the Scottish government holding pre-requisite negotiations with the UK government to secure the assent of the UK government (via an amendment passed by the UK parliament) for Scotland to hold an independence referendum, and the assent that the UK government will honour the result of such a referendum? And that the Scottish government will not plan or hold any referendum - far less declare independence - until and unless it has successfully negotiated with the UK government with the result that the UK government grants assent?
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No, I have not. I've not merely not done it "yet"; but in fact I'm never going to do it.
Or do you think that Sturgeon's office will tell you something to the effect of "Sod the UK government and what it might or might not think! If we want to hold a referendum, and to declare independence if there's a majority Leave outcome, we won't care one iota about getting assent from the UK or not. It's the will of the Scottish People, dammit!"?
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No I don't think that. Such vehemence and aggression are not likely to emanate from the FM's office.
Which of those two answers do you think you might get if you actually asked?

Or are you happy to carry on with your incorrect belief system in a vacuum?
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I don't understand these points, and I don't know what belief system you're referring to.
 
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LondonJohn said:
Yep. Just as Catalonia is a country. Bavaria is a country. New South Wales is a country. North Dakota is a country. Sardinia is a country. Wuhan is a country. All under exactly the same defining criteria.
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WuhanWP is a city.
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, China, and is the most populous city in Central China.​
 
Craig B said:
WuhanWP is a city.
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, China, and is the most populous city in Central China.​
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Yup. And it's a sub-provincial division within that province, which means that it is administered separately and independently from the province in respect of the economy and law. Sounds familiar, doesn't it!
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
Not according to the Chinese government. Whereas the UK government does say Scotland is a country. For someone who values the UK constitution so highly you play pretty fast and loose with it when it suits.
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I've already pointed out: the UK government is perfectly allowed to use any terms it likes to refer to the regions of the UK. And the UK government knows perfectly well that a certain proportion of residents of England, Wales, NI and Scotland like to think that their region is a country. So it's politically expedient for the UK government to use that nomenclature.

Maybe yet another analogy will help illustrate the truth here. In politics, and specifically in respect of UK (and regional) governmental organisation, the word "secretary" has a particular meaning and status. If someone is a secretary in government, this has a very particular and very high-status meaning. Which is a very different meaning to a secretary at a law firm, for example. Likewise, in international politics (especially European politics), the term "chancellor" describes the head of government. In the UK, for reasons of historical anomaly, the term "chancellor" describes the head of the finance ministry of government. So the UK chancellor is, indeed, the "chancellor" within the narrow UK definition, but under any wider definition (s)he is most definitely NOT the "chancellor", but is instead the "finance minister".

And thus it is in international law and colloquial usage with the word "country". Scotland (and England for that matter) is not a country under the commonly-understood international political/legal sense of the term. But that is not to prevent anyone from referring to England or Scotland as "countries" (or even "nations" for that matter), provided that everyone is aware that this is merely a colloquial local usage of the term and not a usage of the term under the commonly-understood international political/legal sense of it. Just as with "secretary" and "chancellor".


ETA: For yet another comparator, plenty of people (and some official bodies) refer to Wales as "the Principality of Wales". That is their prerogative. But it DOESN'T mean that Wales is actually a principality in the accepted definition of the term. And Wales is, of course, not a principality in the accepted definition of the term. The fact that it ONCE was is neither here nor there in 2016. Scotland was once a country. England was once a country. In 2016, neither are countries, regardless of whether or not they like to refer to themselves as countries.
 
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LondonJohn said:
Yup. And it's a sub-provincial division within that province, which means that it is administered separately and independently from the province in respect of the economy and law. Sounds familiar, doesn't it!
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Yes it does. That is indeed a familiar arrangement wrt the governance of cities. Something like that was the case in my own native city for much of the twentieth century.
From 1931 to 1975, the full title of Glasgow was "The City and County of Glasgow". Prior to the 1931 boundary changes, Glasgow was part of Lanarkshire.​
 
Craig B said:
Yes it does. That is indeed a familiar arrangement wrt the governance of cities. Something like that was the case in my own native city for much of the twentieth century.
From 1931 to 1975, the full title of Glasgow was "The City and County of Glasgow". Prior to the 1931 boundary changes, Glasgow was part of Lanarkshire.​
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Did Glasgow govern itself independently from any other part of Scotland or the UK in respect of the economy or administration of law?
 
LondonJohn said:
Did Glasgow govern itself independently from any other part of Scotland or the UK in respect of the economy or administration of law?
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China has no courts of law or economic agencies with authority over Wuhan? That is very surprising. No, Glasgow has never had that remarkable level of autonomy. But of course it has by-laws and local taxes and other local economic arrangements.
 
As a bystander, let me ask some questions.

What prevents IndyRef2 being held regardless of anything Westminster may or may not demand? Scotland can hold it anyway.

If Westminster blocks a popular IndyRef success for secession, what then prevents a Scottish appeal to ICJ for UDI?
 
abaddon said:
As a bystander, let me ask some questions.

What prevents IndyRef2 being held regardless of anything Westminster may or may not demand? Scotland can hold it anyway.

If Westminster blocks a popular IndyRef success for secession, what then prevents a Scottish appeal to ICJ for UDI?
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Of course. What could the U.K. Government do to stop these things? Use force? As I've said: send in the redcoats, or the bluejackets, or the Black and Tans? Declare the Scottish Parliament an illegal assembly? Put Sturgeon's head on a spike at London Bridge? These are fantasies. The power to do such things to rebellious provinces, let alone constituent countries of the UK, has passed away.
 
Craig B said:
Of course. What could the U.K. Government do to stop these things? Use force? As I've said: send in the redcoats, or the bluejackets, or the Black and Tans? Declare the Scottish Parliament an illegal assembly? Put Sturgeon's head on a spike at London Bridge? These are fantasies. The power to do such things to rebellious provinces, let alone constituent countries of the UK, has passed away.
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In that case why bother with a second Indy ref, why not hold a Scottish Parliament election pre article 50 or certainly by next May and when the SNP and the other Independence parties like the Greens win declare UDI. If Scotland wants to be a sovereign state it should get on and act like a sovereign state. Almost any action that the UK Government takes following such an election from sending in troops (ridiculous) to trying to dissolve the Scottish Parliament and withholding revenue (perhaps probable) will give grounds to go to the UN to seek status.

What Scotland needs now is legitimacy to be at the EU table in its own right and this rather drastic approach may be the fastest route to that.

Plus the election will have the added benefit of showing how out of touch the UK Government is with the needs of the Scotland in terms of immigration and access to the single market and as it would be based on a elected manifesto would be unlike the EU referendum vote legally binding on parliament and not advisory.
 
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abaddon said:
As a bystander, let me ask some questions.

What prevents IndyRef2 being held regardless of anything Westminster may or may not demand? Scotland can hold it anyway.

If Westminster blocks a popular IndyRef success for secession, what then prevents a Scottish appeal to ICJ for UDI?
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Nothing. but that doesnt mean they would necessarily be successful or that it would be quick or easy to achieve. it would also obviously mean rather hostile negotiations on shared assets. They'd Have to find somewhere to park trident for a start.
 
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