Indyref 2: This time it's personal.

[Rolfe]

You can't logically stop there, but must be promoting a single world government. No wonder you're not too keen on Scottish self determination.

We went the full 12 rounds on this one at the time of the previous referendum, mainly with Soapy Sam I believe. He was an utterly impractical fan of one world government and blind to all the complications.

It seems to me there are only two basic ways of achieving this. One is the classic top-down method which has been tried before and doubtless will be tried again, where a power with colonial ambitions attempts to conquer or annexe the entire world. This is not a future I view with any favour at all.

The other is something generally akin to the EU, where numerous small states agree to pool their common interests at international level. I quite fancy that, but how do we get there? One crucial point is that large powerful states actually hinder this objective, as they're more interested in securing their own power base than in mutually beneficial co-operation. In this scenario the individual state-units need to be small enough individually not to be able to pose a serious threat to the others.

Of course government has to come in layers. I don't want to have to contact someone in Peking about the malfunctioning street light outside my house. A one world government couldn't do away with state-sized groupings for sheer practicality. Also, people do have loyalty and attachment to their own nation state, it's in the nature of the beast and you won't change that in a hurry. So at this level smaller states that aren't over-powerful and have the incentive to work with their similarly-sized neighbours are preferable. It has been estimated that around 5 million people is about right, funnily enough. I could live with that.

The idea that amicable one world government can be achieved by large states gobbling up the smaller ones and assimilating them is to my mind fanciful. When it's been tried before it's been a recipe for conflict and outright wars. Go small and co-operate seems a much better bet.

And then there's the present day to deal with. None of us is likely to see one world government in our lifetimes. We live in a world of nation states which co-operate with each other to a greater or lesser extent. Borders are a fact. Why is the one between Scotland and England so unthinkable in this context? Five million people isn't even small for a state, it's medium-sized. (Small is Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta etc.) There are many independent states of this size doing well and the states high up the happiness index are strikingly similar to Scotland in terms of both size and location. They also have powerful neighbours but they don't let these powerful neighbours take all their decisions for them, or hand over all their assets to them to get pocket money in exchange.

It seems that for some people it's fine if you're already an independent state of about 5 million people managing your own domestic and international affairs, but if you're an essentially identical grouping which doesn't happen to be an independent state at the moment they'll call you all sorts of evil Nazi names simply for aspiring to that pretty unremarkable status.

 

[Planigale]

We went the full 12 rounds on this one at the time of the previous referendum, mainly with Soapy Sam I believe. He was an utterly impractical fan of one world government and blind to all the complications.

It seems to me there are only two basic ways of achieving this. One is the classic top-down method which has been tried before and doubtless will be tried again, where a power with colonial ambitions attempts to conquer or annexe the entire world. This is not a future I view with any favour at all.

The other is something generally akin to the EU, where numerous small states agree to pool their common interests at international level. I quite fancy that, but how do we get there? One crucial point is that large powerful states actually hinder this objective, as they're more interested in securing their own power base than in mutually beneficial co-operation. In this scenario the individual state-units need to be small enough individually not to be able to pose a serious threat to the others.

Of course government has to come in layers. I don't want to have to contact someone in Peking about the malfunctioning street light outside my house. A one world government couldn't do away with state-sized groupings for sheer practicality. Also, people do have loyalty and attachment to their own nation state, it's in the nature of the beast and you won't change that in a hurry. So at this level smaller states that aren't over-powerful and have the incentive to work with their similarly-sized neighbours are preferable. It has been estimated that around 5 million people is about right, funnily enough. I could live with that.

The idea that amicable one world government can be achieved by large states gobbling up the smaller ones and assimilating them is to my mind fanciful. When it's been tried before it's been a recipe for conflict and outright wars. Go small and co-operate seems a much better bet.

And then there's the present day to deal with. None of us is likely to see one world government in our lifetimes. We live in a world of nation states which co-operate with each other to a greater or lesser extent. Borders are a fact. Why is the one between Scotland and England so unthinkable in this context? Five million people isn't even small for a state, it's medium-sized. (Small is Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta etc.) There are many independent states of this size doing well and the states high up the happiness index are strikingly similar to Scotland in terms of both size and location. They also have powerful neighbours but they don't let these powerful neighbours take all their decisions for them, or hand over all their assets to them to get pocket money in exchange.

It seems that for some people it's fine if you're already an independent state of about 5 million people managing your own domestic and international affairs, but if you're an essentially identical grouping which doesn't happen to be an independent state at the moment they'll call you all sorts of evil Nazi names simply for aspiring to that pretty unremarkable status.

I agree with most of this. having an ideal does not mean one cannot see that it is unlikely to come to pass in the near future nor that there are not challenges in achieving it, nor that there are not problems. It may well be that a population of 5 million is a good level of government. A population of 50 thousand may be another good level of government. (I suspect 5 million is chosen not entirely randomly but to match the population of Scotland.) We do have a World Health organisation, a World Bank, etc. Are there global issues? Is there value in having some form of democratic input to global bodies? Currently input is from governmental level, governments of varying legitimacy.


My view is that
1) There was a referendum on Scotland remaining part of the UK; the vote was clear remain.
2) There was a vote on the UK leaving the EU the vote was less clearly leave.
There was no vote on Scotland being in or out of the EU.

If we reverse things would a vote pre independence on Brexit that resulted in a remain outcome for the EU prevent a subsequent Independence referendum on the grounds that the people of Scotland voted to remain in the EU and independence would have meant leaving the EU therefore there was no need for an independence referendum? Of course not. You cannot claim one question asks a completely different thing.

My view is that a referendum should not occur before Brexit has been finalised. If a pre-Brexit referendum is lost there will be another referendum post-Brexit anyway, whatever the shape of Brexit is, that will be a substantial change from pre-Brexit conditions to justify another referendum. The shape of the final outcome will influence my vote on independence. If there is a pre-Brexit vote I am planning at present to vote to remain in the UK (unless someone comes up with a good case to change my mind).

 

[Planigale]

What did I say about them and the USSR that makes you think I should be forcibly consigned to amadhouse?

That what happened to dissidents in the USSR, they were declared mad and sent to an asylum. I was asking if you believed that was what happened in the UK since you were equating the UK with the USSR.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I agree with most of this. having an ideal does not mean one cannot see that it is unlikely to come to pass in the near future nor that there are not challenges in achieving it, nor that there are not problems. It may well be that a population of 5 million is a good level of government. A population of 50 thousand may be another good level of government. (I suspect 5 million is chosen not entirely randomly but to match the population of Scotland.) We do have a World Health organisation, a World Bank, etc. Are there global issues? Is there value in having some form of democratic input to global bodies? Currently input is from governmental level, governments of varying legitimacy.


My view is that
1) There was a referendum on Scotland remaining part of the UK; the vote was clear remain.
2) There was a vote on the UK leaving the EU the vote was less clearly leave.
There was no vote on Scotland being in or out of the EU.

If we reverse things would a vote pre independence on Brexit that resulted in a remain outcome for the EU prevent a subsequent Independence referendum on the grounds that the people of Scotland voted to remain in the EU and independence would have meant leaving the EU therefore there was no need for an independence referendum? Of course not. You cannot claim one question asks a completely different thing.

My view is that a referendum should not occur before Brexit has been finalised. If a pre-Brexit referendum is lost there will be another referendum post-Brexit anyway, whatever the shape of Brexit is, that will be a substantial change from pre-Brexit conditions to justify another referendum. The shape of the final outcome will influence my vote on independence. If there is a pre-Brexit vote I am planning at present to vote to remain in the UK (unless someone comes up with a good case to change my mind).

You are in danger of getting me wound up. One question asks a completely different thing, i agree. Nobody is saying differently. However the evidence is not to be ignored where it exists. Every single local authority area in Scotland voted to stay in the EU. The margin of victory for that position in percentage terms was far wider than either referendum result. The conclusion is clear.

That itself does not justify Scottish independence but it does justify asking the question once more. Holding a referendum is not the same as saying independence is the answer.

As for your characterisation of the previous results i think again you have fallen for the Unionist spin. I don't think 55% is a significantly clearer margin than 52% especially when yet again it is clear that the voters were lied to with respect to vow and the EU in particular.

Again and to clear one more time to avoid you repeating the same errors. I think people can vote for the Union if they want to. There are certainly arguments to be made for that. But denying a vote or opposing a referendum is not supporting the Union it's supporting the disenfranchisement of Scotland in the entire process.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

That what happened to dissidents in the USSR, they were declared mad and sent to an asylum. I was asking if you believed that was what happened in the UK since you were equating the UK with the USSR.

No he really wasn't.

I never understand why people fail to grasp that two things can be equivalent in some aspects without being identical in all.

If your argument is that there is no reason for Scotland to wish to be independent then please make it but let's not get the nonsense we have in the last few pages that because things aren't as bad as the worst examples then nothing needs to change.

If you have an objection to the independence of Scotland on principle then let's discuss those principles otherwise let's move on and debate the real issues. It's tiring how often the debate around Scotland gets bogged down in discussion of irrelevancies that are taken for granted by and of every other nation on the planet.

Wanting Scotland to stay in the UK because you don't like countries makes as much sense as refusing to go to work as head climate change researcher because the bus isn't zero emission.

 

[Craig B]

That what happened to dissidents in the USSR, they were declared mad and sent to an asylum. I was asking if you believed that was what happened in the UK since you were equating the UK with the USSR.

Not in that sense. I stated that leaving a political union was not the same thing as rejecting cooperation with other peoples. For example, the Baltic Republics seceded from the USSR. Does that mean they rejected association with other peoples? No it doesn't. They rejected the USSR because it was illegitimate and oppressive, but they then joined the EU, because terms of EU membership are better than were those offered by the USSR.

Likewise, if Scots or N Irish reject the U.K., will that mean they want to cut off contact with other peoples? No, if they remain in the EU. It will simply mean that the terms offered by the EU are better than those offered in the U.K.

Nothing whatever did I say about the UK being the same as the USSR in terms of human rights. You're making that up and then saying I should be locked up as a lunatic.

The UK was perfectly capable of conniving at gross violations of democratic principle in N Ireland for half a century. But not on anything like the scale of abuse perpetrated in the Baltic Republics by Stalin.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm just tired of all these arguments that seem to accept it's perfectly legitimate for countries like Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia and so on to exist, but that there are special existential reasons why Scotland's aspiration for the same status must be opposed.

None of these countries is isolationist or rejects co-operation with other states. None of them is accused of racism or hatred of their previous "parent" state because they achieved independence. None of them is being urged to reunite with the previous parent state in the interests of achieving one world government.

I'm tired of being called a Nazi and a fascist and a racist and a hater of the English simply for wanting the same deal as these other countries.

 

[Planigale]

I'm just tired of all these arguments that seem to accept it's perfectly legitimate for countries like Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia and so on to exist, but that there are special existential reasons why Scotland's aspiration for the same status must be opposed.

None of these countries is isolationist or rejects co-operation with other states. None of them is accused of racism or hatred of their previous "parent" state because they achieved independence. None of them is being urged to reunite with the previous parent state in the interests of achieving one world government.

I'm tired of being called a Nazi and a fascist and a racist and a hater of the English simply for wanting the same deal as these other countries.

I suppose one argument is there was a referendum and the people of Scotland voted to remain into UK.

A second is international law gives priority to unity as opposed to division. There is not a right to partition.

Certainly an indy ref pre Brexit is prior to a change in situation. Hypothetically if there was a vote for independence pre Brexit then subsequently the UK did not leave the EU would you argue that the vote for independence was invalidated? Or would the case be that since the referendum was predicated on Brexit, the referendum result was not valid until Brexit?

My guess is the only result you will regard as valid is one for Scottish independence.

I think the principle being established is that every new SNP government will have a right to and will seek a referendum.

If you believe in democracy you would accept the results of the referendum. The possibility of Brexit was known at the time of the independence vote.

1) Scotland voted to be part of the UK.
2) The UK voted to leave the EU.

That is democracy in action. I did not vote the same way as the majority but I am prepared to argue for democracy.

The SNP government could see if it got a majority mandate at the next election for a repeat referendum if they put this up front in the manifesto. It is currently a minority government it does not have a popular mandate.

 

[Planigale]

I'm just tired of all these arguments that seem to accept it's perfectly legitimate for countries like Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia and so on to exist, but that there are special existential reasons why Scotland's aspiration for the same status must be opposed.

None of these countries is isolationist or rejects co-operation with other states. None of them is accused of racism or hatred of their previous "parent" state because they achieved independence. None of them is being urged to reunite with the previous parent state in the interests of achieving one world government.

I'm tired of being called a Nazi and a fascist and a racist and a hater of the English simply for wanting the same deal as these other countries.

I suppose that since the King of Norway once ruled much of Scotland and the King of Denmark was once King of England that that independence has already happened.

The difference is that Scotland and England merged to form a new nation, like Italy or Germany. Whilst most examples you give one can argue for a separate nationality defined on language or in some cases on religion (partition of India or Palestine). That is not the case here.

PS Worked out whether Britain was responsible for the partition of Cyprus yet?

 

[Planigale]

Not in that sense. I stated that leaving a political union was not the same thing as rejecting cooperation with other peoples. For example, the Baltic Republics seceded from the USSR. Does that mean they rejected association with other peoples? No it doesn't. They rejected the USSR because it was illegitimate and oppressive, but they then joined the EU, because terms of EU membership are better than were those offered by the USSR.

Likewise, if Scots or N Irish reject the U.K., will that mean they want to cut off contact with other peoples? No, if they remain in the EU. It will simply mean that the terms offered by the EU are better than those offered in the U.K.

Nothing whatever did I say about the UK being the same as the USSR in terms of human rights. You're making that up and then saying I should be locked up as a lunatic.
The UK was perfectly capable of conniving at gross violations of democratic principle in N Ireland for half a century. But not on anything like the scale of abuse perpetrated in the Baltic Republics by Stalin.

No how many times do I need to say I was alluding to the practice in the USSR of declaring dissidents mad and detaining them in asylums. Your insistence on trying to personalise this is tiresome. Move on.

Can I ask you how you feel about the treatment of the ethnic Russians in the Baltic states? Should the EU have allowed countries to join who deny citizenship to a significant minority of their population?

I assume that you support the existence of a divided Ireland from what you write?

 

[Craig B]

I suppose one argument is there was a referendum and the people of Scotland voted to remain into UK.

A second is international law gives priority to unity as opposed to division. There is not a right to partition.

Certainly an indy ref pre Brexit is prior to a change in situation. Hypothetically if there was a vote for independence pre Brexit then subsequently the UK did not leave the EU would you argue that the vote for independence was invalidated? Or would the case be that since the referendum was predicated on Brexit, the referendum result was not valid until Brexit?

My guess is the only result you will regard as valid is one for Scottish independence.

I think the principle being established is that every new SNP government will have a right to and will seek a referendum.

If you believe in democracy you would accept the results of the referendum. The possibility of Brexit was known at the time of the independence vote.

1) Scotland voted to be part of the UK.
2) The UK voted to leave the EU.

That is democracy in action. I did not vote the same way as the majority but I am prepared to argue for democracy.

The SNP government could see if it got a majority mandate at the next election for a repeat referendum if they put this up front in the manifesto. It is currently a minority government it does not have a popular mandate.

The electoral system is Scotland is designed to prevent parties from having outright majorities. For the SNP nevertheless to obtain one at the previous election was considered remarkable, and it was. In coalition with the Greens they should have a majority on the issues discussed here. Brexit was "possible" in 2014, but it was not expected, and Scottish voters were explicitly told that to stay in the EU they should vote No. Also we were given various "Vows" about devolved powers; but I'm not sure these assurances are worth much now. What do you think?

There is a test of Party support coming up soon - local government elections. I wonder what the outcome of these will be.

Democracy in action, which you promote, must necessarily provide for further expressions of choice, when situations change. You say Brexit was foreseeable. What was also foreseeable, because it was announced, was that if Brexit occurred, that would be a change justifying a fresh test of opinion.

 

[Rolfe]

I spoke to people about the possibility of Brexit at the time. I was accused of scaremongering. Nobody thought it was a serious possibility.

First Cameron had to win an overall majority in Westminster, because the LibDems wouldn't agree to a referendum. That was considered extremely unlikely before the election itself. More than that, Ruth Davidson went on record reassuring the Scottish people that it was extremely unlikely and her party did not expect to get a majority, so nobody needed to worry about the possibility of Brexit when casting their independence vote.

Second, the Conservatives actually had to call a referendum. I would not personally have died of shock if Cameron had procrastinated and demurred and hoped the whole thing would go away on its own.

Third, the referendum had to return a Leave majority. Who thought, in the summer of 2014, that that was at all likely? Only paranoid Yes campaigners who were called scaremongers.

You really can't say, a circumstance which you believed was only a faint and unlikely possibility when you cast your vote has come to pass, but you're absolutely not entitled to change your mind because of this.

 

[Rolfe]

This nonsense about "the SNP lost its majority" is simply dishonest. The overall majority in 2011 was absolutely supposed to be impossible. But by a quirk of the spread of the votes the SNP gained over 50% of the seats on under 50% of the votes. A skew built into the (imperfectly) PR system that was quite explicitly intended to benefit Labour and the LibDems when it was set up (and look at who set it up) flipped and benefited the SNP when the surge came.

In 2016 the SNP gained a larger percentage of the actual votes than in 2011. Just think about that for a minute. But the proportionality of the system worked rather better than time and the party gained less than 50% of the seats. On over 46% of the vote. If that's not a mandate, what sort of a mandate has any Westminster prime minster had for the past 50 years?

Holyrood was always meant to be a coalition parliament, as most PR systems are. The specific intent was that Labour and the LibDems (who were both advantaged by the skew in the system at the beginning) would pretty much always be able to form a coalition or at least the LibDems would support a Labour minority government. The final check and balance was that it it ever got to the point where the SNP emerged as the largest party, they would still need the LibDems to form a government and so they could be thwarted in anything the unionist parties didn't want them to do. (Nice work for LibDem members - always in government without the boring necessity of actually winning an election.)

But then the LibDems forgot the script in 2007, refused to go into coalition with the SNP to keep them in check, and the rest is history in the making.

So, 2016. The SNP got something like 46.5% of the vote. Absolutely bloody eye-popping in an election with five serious parties competing. They were so close to the 50% that they only need the relatively small Green party's support to command an absolute majority. Indeed, they don't even need the support of the Greens, they only need the Greens not to oppose (abstain) as the SNP alone has more seats than all three unionist parties combined. This is the sort of mandate most politicians in PR parliaments would kill for.

It's the basis of pretty much all government in PR parliaments. It was the basis of the first Scottish government in 1999, a Labour/LibDem coalition. Nobody ever questioned their mandate on matters which were publicly supported by both parties.

For people to look at the utter arithmetical fluke of 2011 that saw over 50% of the seats gained on under 50% of the vote (at the time it was reported as "the SNP broke d'Hondt") and insist that that either has to be repeated or the SNP has to achieve an outright >50% of the vote before it can be described as having a mandate is sly, dishonest goalpost-shifting.

 

[Rolfe]

This is nice.


Jackie Kemp is a well-known Scottish writer and journalist who voted No in 2014. (If I recall correctly she's the daughter of Arnold Kemp, who was the editor of the Glasgow Herald back in the days when it was a serious newspaper.) She's changed her mind. This is one of a series of films showing the ways people's views have changed over the past couple of years.

The possibility of Brexit was known at the time of the independence vote.

She says something very interesting in relation to this.

The English people were told that if they voted for Brexit it would threaten the territorial integrity of the Unkted Kingdom. But they didn't take that on board and frankly they didn't seem that interested. So actually I feel that England has left us.

The message that a Leave vote in 2016 would very probably lead to Scotland having another independence referendum and winning it was broadcast loud and clear during the campaign. There wasn't the series of difficult hurdles to overcome that there seemed to be for Brexit itself in 2014. People in England were told, but they voted Leave anyway. As Jackie said, they didn't seem to care much. Either they thought, oh well we can probably thwart another attempt by Scotland to break free, or they didn't really mind.

A recent opinion poll showed that something like 58% of people in the UK as a whole don't want Scotland to be independent. But when people were polled on whether they'd be prepared to sacrifice Brexit to keep Scotland it was a pretty clear No. The English masses want to keep Scotland, and as another commentator observed recently it looks increasingly like a nationalistic desire to hold on to a colonial possession, but they want out of the EU even more.

Independence for England while we cling on to our vassal state as tightly as we can. That's how it's going. It's not playing well around here.

So less of the "the Scottish people voted No knowing that Brexit might happen" schtick. The English people voted Leave knowing that Scottish independence might happen, and it was a far far bigger "might" than the Brexit thing. They accepted that.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I suppose one argument is there was a referendum and the people of Scotland voted to remain into UK.

A second is international law gives priority to unity as opposed to division. There is not a right to partition.

Certainly an indy ref pre Brexit is prior to a change in situation. Hypothetically if there was a vote for independence pre Brexit then subsequently the UK did not leave the EU would you argue that the vote for independence was invalidated? Or would the case be that since the referendum was predicated on Brexit, the referendum result was not valid until Brexit?

My guess is the only result you will regard as valid is one for Scottish independence.

I think the principle being established is that every new SNP government will have a right to and will seek a referendum.

If you believe in democracy you would accept the results of the referendum. The possibility of Brexit was known at the time of the independence vote.

1) Scotland voted to be part of the UK.
2) The UK voted to leave the EU.

That is democracy in action. I did not vote the same way as the majority but I am prepared to argue for democracy.

The SNP government could see if it got a majority mandate at the next election for a repeat referendum if they put this up front in the manifesto. It is currently a minority government it does not have a popular mandate.

Do you understand the difference between a result being valid and the result being binding in perpetuity?

The referendum result was valid in 2014 and 2016 - albeit voters were convinced by lies in both cases - but in 2018/19 the situation will be different. Hence another referendum is legitimate if the government want it.

If that result is to stay in the UK then it will again be a valid result.

It doesn't seem like you are listening to what people are saying here.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Sheesh. Last time, a good reason to vote Stay was so that Scotland, on leaving the UK, would not also be leaving the EU. The anti-readmission tea leaves were also against leaving. Today, the argument stands on its head, and the tea leaves are quite favorable for a rapid readmission, in spite of Spanish and German machinations to tame their home-crowd separatists by promising terror to outsiders looking in. This is simply because a readmitted Scotland would be a, pardon the expression, yuuuuge boost to the very idea of the EU and bolster its mojo.

Indyref2, by all means.

 

[Rolfe]

Do you understand the difference between a result being valid and the result being binding in perpetuity?

Unionists keep whining about the SNP "not accepting the result" of the 2014 referendum. Of course they accepted it. Scotland is not independent and nobody has declared UDI.

The SNP was sitting on a stonking majority in the Scottish parliament at the time of the referendum and it essentially confirmed that majority in 2016. In between that it scooped 56 out of a possible 59 Scottish constituencies in the Westminster election. All of these elections were won while the party was explicitly standing on an independence for Scotland platform.

Throughout most of the SNP's history it has stood on the basis that a majority of seats or votes at a Westminster election would be considered a mandate for these MPs to walk out and re-convene in Edinburgh to start independence negotiations. Maggie Thatcher and others recognised this as a valid route to independence. After the 2015 victory they could actually have done that.

They didn't, because they respected the result of the 2014 referendum, and the 2015 manifesto had explicitly stated that this development would not happen. But, y'know, once the SNP had won all these seats, it could have done that despite what the manifesto said. Parties break manifesto pledges all the time and it's often difficult to stop them.

So don't give me this "not respecting the No vote in 2014" rubbish. If the SNP weren't respecting that, they had (and still have at this moment) all the levers in their hands to declare de facto independence.

Instead they stood again for Holyrood, this time with an explicit manifesto commitment to hold a second independence referendum in the absolutely explicitly stated event that an overall UK vote to leave the EU resulted in a Scotland which had voted strongly to remain being dragged out against its will.

On this manifesto they got 46.5% of the vote. What percentage of the popular vote did the Conservatives get in 2015, and yet that's a mandate? The SNP outnumbers all unionist MSPs combined. Supported by the Greens, who also have a strong and longstanding committment to independence for Scotland, the two parties have an overall majority.

The intention is, not to disrespect or disregard the 2014 result - I've just explained what "disregarding" that result would actually look like - but to offer the voters the chance to change their minds given the drastically changed circumstances.

And if this isn't democratic enough for some people, I'd like to know what is. Or is it just a case of "my side won last time, even though we won by lies and deceit and trickery, and nobody is to be allowed to change that"?

 

[Planigale]

Do you understand the difference between a result being valid and the result being binding in perpetuity?

The referendum result was valid in 2014 and 2016 - albeit voters were convinced by lies in both cases - but in 2018/19 the situation will be different. Hence another referendum is legitimate if the government want it.

If that result is to stay in the UK then it will again be a valid result.

It doesn't seem like you are listening to what people are saying here.

In 2018 /19 the UK will still be in the EU. So things will not have changed. We may or may not know what the future holds, but we certainly will not know in the run up to an 18/19 referendum.

Part of the driver to have an early referendum is that the thought is the UK government will be distracted by Brexit leaving an 'unopposed' case for Scotland leaving the UK. I think that this is obviously a good reason for those who believe independence is the right thing as anything that shifts the odds in their favour is obviously right. However it is not the correct thing. The timing of the referendum should be post Brexit.

An unsuccessful pre-Brexit referendum will result in a post Brexit referendum on the grounds that the political situation has changed. Rather than having a referendum every four years it should be stretched out to eight years then a decision can be made noting the consequence of Brexit (if it has happened).

Hopefully an independant Scotland would hold a referendum on joining the EU, so even the status of an independent Scotland in the EU is unknown.

 

[Planigale]

Sheesh. Last time, a good reason to vote Stay was so that Scotland, on leaving the UK, would not also be leaving the EU. The anti-readmission tea leaves were also against leaving. Today, the argument stands on its head, and the tea leaves are quite favorable for a rapid readmission, in spite of Spanish and German machinations to tame their home-crowd separatists by promising terror to outsiders looking in. This is simply because a readmitted Scotland would be a, pardon the expression, yuuuuge boost to the very idea of the EU and bolster its mojo.

Indyref2, by all means.

Of course the people of an independent Scotland may not wish to join the EU, like their neighbours in Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Faroes, and England! You would have to say that it does not look like the EU is that popular amongst nations on the North Atlantic seaboard!

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Of course the people of an independent Scotland may not wish to join the EU, like their neighbours in Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Faroes, and England! You would have to say that it does not look like the EU is that popular amongst nations on the North Atlantic seaboard!

That, young sir or madame, is wishful thinking.