
Scottish Parliament Backs Independence Vote and Defies U.K - JumpCrisscross
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-28/scottish-parliament-backs-independence-vote-in-defiance-of-u-k?cmpid=BBD032817_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=170328&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily
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freehunter
Man, what happened to the people that created the British Empire? The one that
the sun never set over? Losing Australia and India and Canada, sure, they're
overseas, hard to manage, and the cultures are (in some cases) very different.
But England and Scotland? Find me an older partnership than that one (yes, I
know it hasn't always been friendly, but still). And for some reason, Brits
are content to throw all of it away and shrink back inside their turtle shell.

As an American, I love watching Top Gear and feeling their nostalgia for great
British cars, and for cars made in someone's shed with panels pounded by hand
over wooden molds... are there any actual British car companies left from
those days? Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by the Indians, Mini is owned by
the Germans, MG is owned by the Chinese.

Is this what Great Britain is now? Just the bottom half of a tiny island in
the North Sea? And people are content with this? I understand empires rise and
fall but it's still kind of sad to watch. A nation that once owned the entire
world, now they're closing their borders because they're afraid of the big
scary world outside.

Glad to see Scotland isn't putting up with it.

~~~
swordee
A very odd comment.

England and Scotland are not a partnership and have spent much of their
histories at war with each other. Scotland formed the UK with England because
they were bankrupt.

And the UK are not "closing their borders because they're scared of the
outside world". They've decided to leave a trading union that doesn't allow
them to control their borders, in which no elected person can introduce new
legislation, and in which they are not allowed to negotiate their own trade
deals.

You seem very much to have "bought the hype" here.

~~~
matthewmacleod
England and Scotland (as well as Wales and Northern Ireland) are very clearly
a partnership. There is significant imbalance therein, but that doesn't render
it nonexistent.

And the UK is very much flapping about with little idea of what it is doing
and why. Immigration does seem to be the biggest concern - but there is little
evidence as to _why_ it is the biggest concern.

If anything, I'd suggest that Brexit is the result of the same phenomenon that
elected Trump - a general dissatisfaction with the state of governance and a
lack of options with which to deal with it. People are understandably
frustrated and want to effect some change; it's easy to believe promises made
to this effect.

~~~
swordee
Is it possible that you can prove literally anything there that you have said?

~~~
matthewmacleod
I'm not really sure how one could prove impressions about political events…
it's certainly the impression I have from inside the UK though.

------
JumpCrisscross
Two interesting aspects to this vote:

1\. Rhetorically, "every argument used by Theresa May against the EU can be
used against her by Nicola Sturgeon" [1]. Returning control, cleaving oneself
from a significant trading partner, waiting to know the precise terms... These
arguments are both use by and usable against Theresa May.

2\. As a New Yorker, I'm excited. It's sad, particularly since smart people I
know voted to Leave. But our city has an unrivaled claim to London's crown in
the Middle East, Western Europe and Northern Africa. Worst case: we can
arbiter between the City of London and emerging economic centers in Dublin and
Edinburgh.

[1] [http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2017/03/playing-
st...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2017/03/playing-stalemate)

~~~
toyg
Of course brexit arguments work for the SNP: the separatist language is
universal, from Yugoslavia to Slovakia, from Sardinia to Catalonia, from Texas
to Libya... the big bad government far away is the root of all evil, "we" have
to take back control, "they" oppress us, our tribe is _different_ from their
tribe...

It's always the same story: when you start talking about drawing lines, you
give an excuse to anyone to look for differences, and because we're all
different at some level, you don't know where it's going to end. Do we think
people in Aberdeen and Glasgow are happy to be ruled by Edinburgh? That people
in Manchester are happy to be taxed to build railways in London? Of course
not. Egoistic tribalism is natural, and it scales down terribly well. You
legitimise one level and soon enough you're fighting the same arguments three
levels down: my town won't be ruled by your town! My district won't be ruled
by your district! My street won't be ruled by your street!

This is what the British elites of all stripes have unleashed upon us, with
their intolerance for progressive rules agreed in Bruxelles. We are running
towards the ethnic conflicts of yore. Sad days.

~~~
matthewmacleod
That's a bit of a shallow argument. So long as one accepts the existence of
nation states, one must accept that there are lines between them. The lines,
then, are subject to change by political consent.

Scotland voted _strongly_ to remain in the EU, and despite this it will be
leaving. That's obviously part and parcel of being in a union, but coming so
soon after an independence referendum in which one of the key arguments was
"voting for independence means leaving the EU" it seems pretty obvious why
there would be disquiet. It's demonstrative of how difficult it is to have a
political union where there is such wildly disproportionate power wielded by
one member through the weight of population.

I'm an absolute card-carrying supporter of Scottish independence. But
honestly, I'd rather see genuine federalism in the UK to deal with the
structural constitutional problems. However, there is no political will to
make that happen, so it seems like a lost cause.

~~~
skissane
> Scotland voted strongly to remain in the EU, and despite this it will be
> leaving. That's obviously part and parcel of being in a union

I don't know why it has to be part and parcel of being in a union. Let me make
a comparison to Australia–in Australia, constitutional amendment referendums
must be passed by both a majority of voters nationally and also a majority of
states. So even if 52% of Australians nationally vote in favour of a
constitutional amendment, if it fails to also get a majority in at least four
of the six states, the amendment fails.

If the UK applied the same rule as Australia does–the UK doesn't have a
written constitution like Australia does, but Brexit no doubt is an issue of
constitutional level importance–then the Brexit referendum would have failed,
since even though it got a national majority, it only passed in 2 of the 4
constituent countries.

Or, similarly, look at the US–constitutional amendments aren't passed by
national referenda, rather by votes of states legislatures, but still 75% of
states must approve, so a bare national majority in favour of a constitutional
amendment is unlikely to be enough for its ratification.

So, David Cameron could have designed the Brexit referendum to require a
double majority of national voters and constitutent countries, very similar to
the Australian model, and somewhat similar to the US model, but he chose not
to do that–and had he done that, Brexit would have failed. Healthy political
unions tend to have strong mechanisms for protecting the rights of their
smaller members, but the UK has basically non-existent mechanisms for doing
this, and while the Brexit referendum could have been a good opportunity to
start doing that, it didn't happen. So this isn't "part and parcel of being in
a union" at all.

~~~
dragonwriter
> So, David Cameron could have designed the Brexit referendum to require a
> double majority of national voters and constitutent countries

I'm not sure he could have designed it to "require" anything, since after all
it was a non-binding referendum, with which the government was free to do
whatever it chose, and it's not clear that there is any basis for a binding
referendum.

The decision _after the fact_ to treat the referendum as if it were a binding,
simple-majority-rule, measure, OTOH, is ceetainly questionable.

~~~
Silhouette
_The decision after the fact to treat the referendum as if it were a binding,
simple-majority-rule, measure, OTOH, is ceetainly questionable._

There were plenty of questionable things about the referendum, but I really
don't think this was one of them. If you look at Hansard during the debates on
the enabling legislation, one MP after another spoke in terms of giving the
people the final say, or words clearly to that effect. If you look at the
official booklet, sent to every household in the UK by the government at
taxpayers' expense, it too contained wording that clearly implied the people
would decide.

Personally I'm of the view that we need more direct democracy to fix our
political systems rather than less, and I see little democratic legitimacy in
arguments about Parliamentary sovereignty given the alternatives available to
us today. So for me, whether or not I agree with the result, as a matter of
principle I would have preferred the referendum to be absolutely legally
binding anyway. But even if our most senior lawyers held that it was not, it
seems quite clear that even before the vote the expectation both of Parliament
and of the general public was that the referendum result should decide the
matter.

------
vkou
"The Conservative Party, which governs the U.K. though is the largest
opposition group in the Scottish Parliament, says no referendum should take
place, not least because there’s no public or political consent for one."

That's odd - didn't the fact that this measure passed 69-59 imply that there
is political consent? Brexit passed on a far slimmer popular margin.

~~~
lettergram
The British have always been rather keen on giving people the "right to vote"
when it is best for them. The last few Scottish independent votes were times
selected with the best odds of remain (same with northern Ireland for that
matter).

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _The British have always been rather keen on giving people the "right to
> vote" when it is best for them_

Brexit was a massive miscalculation by Westminster [1].

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/22/tory-fury-as-
davi...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/22/tory-fury-as-david-
cameron-suggests-labour-government-in-europe/)

------
hackuser
I think of all the time, attention, political capital, and other resources
Brexit and similar issues consume. Imagine what could be accomplished if it
all was directed toward productive pursuits like economic, political, and
social gains.

------
markvdb
Yuval Noah Harari had interesting things to say about nationalism versus
globalism.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_nationalism_vs_gl...](http://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_nationalism_vs_globalism_the_new_political_divide)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuval_Noah_Harari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuval_Noah_Harari)

------
sparkzilla
I had just finished writing this for a non-Scottish friend...

Most people outside of Scotland misunderstand why a country like Scotland
wouldn't want to be 'free'. It's because a vote for independence is also a
vote to break a 300-year-old union in which we are a major partner. The
separatists say we are dominated by England, but I often wonder who dominates
who? The separatists want to replace this working Union with the EU, a failing
40-year old experiment in which we would only play a minor part, and be
dominated by Germany.

An equivalent would be like California wanting to leave the USA because it
has, in recent years, voted Democrat. While some are agitating for that, the
citizens know that the federal government for all its faults, still gives many
benefits, and any such proposal will never get serious traction. People can be
californians AND be Americans in the same way that I can be Scottish AND
British. Imagine then, how frustrated Californians would be if those agitators
put governance to the side, while pushing for "once-in-a-generation" referenda
every few years.

The reality is that every poll shows that the Scottish people don't want
another referendum. They already voted, and want to get on with their lives.
Today's vote was pushed by the SNP (scottish National Party), who will use any
pretext to have another try at independence, despite 30% of their own
followers voting for Brexit, and increasing anger at their lack of action on
policies that actually matter to people's daily lives. The SNP have overplayed
their hand to the extent that lifelong Labour supporters I know are going to
vote Tory just to stop the SNP.

~~~
skissane
> The separatists say we are dominated by England, but I often wonder who
> dominates who? The separatists want to replace this working Union with the
> EU, a failing 40-year old experiment in which we would only play a minor
> part, and be dominated by Germany.

The UK is far more lopsided than the EU. England has a majority of the
population (~83%) and a majority of seats in both the House of Commons (~82%)
and the House of Lords. By contrast, while Germany is the biggest country in
the EU, it still contains a minority of the EU population (~16%), and a
minority of the votes in the EU institutions. The EU also has much better
institutional mechanisms to protect the rights of its smaller/weaker
constituents than the UK does – e.g. unanimity for many major decisions,
double majority voting in the Council of the European Union (55%–72% majority
of member states representing 65% of the EU population) – by contrast, the
House of Commons and the House of Lords both have a decisive English majority
and 50%+1 in each chamber is enough votes to pass anything at all.

~~~
yarper
In fact it's a lot more complex than that even. The fact that Scotland has a
devolved govt. where England does not means that Scottish MPs can vote on
English only issues but English MPs cannot vote on devolved Scottish matters
[1].

The lopsided nature is in part because Scotland has a population of less than
London (alone) and other areas of England such as Yorkshire would probably
qualify for devolution based on their population (pretty much the same as
Scotland).

The whole issue is highly politicized by all sides.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lothian_question](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lothian_question)

------
peteretep
It seems disingenuous to suggest that Brexit gives ground for IndyRef2; it was
always a possibility during IndyRef1.

~~~
erispoe
Pro-independence has risen in the polls since Brexit. It's enough to give the
SNP enough political clout to push for another referendum. Brexit was a remote
possibility during the IndyRef campaign. On the contrary, Cameron said
multiple times that Scotland would have no guaranteed place in the EU as an
independent country, making thinly veiled threats of opposing Scotland joining
the EU. Cameron was backed in this by the conservative Spanish government who
would very much like to prevent Catalonia from holding its own referendum.

~~~
sparkzilla
The polls have actually shown a significant decline in the pro-independence
vote (apart from a single outlier) since Brexit. And if the pro-independence
side had won the country would currently be out of Europe.

~~~
matthewmacleod
_And if the pro-independence side had won the country would currently be out
of Europe._

It is difficult to make that claim with any certainty.

~~~
peteretep
Given Spain has power of veto, seems hell-bent on preventing Catalonian
seccession, and as recently as a few months ago was reiterating its opposition
to an easy Scottish accession to the EU[0], I think the burden on proof lies
on those making the claim against.

[0] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/22/spain-rejects-
nic...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/22/spain-rejects-nicola-
sturgeon-brexit-plan-scotland-seemingly/)

------
Boothroid
So long, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

~~~
abandonliberty
Yes, now is the time for an emotional, nationalistic, knee-jerk response.
Maybe if you play it right you can get back to killing each other again.

