the scottish independence referendum

Back in 2003 some kids from my highschool were marching on the street chanting: 'Alaska, Iraq, Norway will be next'

as well as presumably continuing to build uk warships and possibly host some of the uk submarine fleet? xps

Alaska?

xp

Oil-rich area overtaken by the US.

We may or may not have been mediocre at history.

i don't know enough to have a solid opinion about the decision, but i'm eagerly anticipating the outcome of this vote
have also been enjoying hearing all the scottish voices on the radio
yesterday npr talked to a bagpipe player from glasgow :)

worst scum of the universe, those bagpipe players

gyac - thanks for those belated answers

how many times am i going to greet the-morra?

poll?

i gret four times the day.

Andy Murray says he's decided to vote Yes because of "no campaign negativity last few days". I still can't believe that anyone consciously votes on something this important as a reaction to how a campaign has been handled.

Good timing though.

I thought she was Canadian?

i would have thought he'd be responding to general negativity, rather than specifically about the handling of the campaign, which seems quite legitimate. they've all said, we have one chance and it won't be given to us again, perhaps he thought it's best to grasp that opportunity. what can any of us do? we're not economists and even the economists (even the reasonably impartial ones) disagree so wildly that we're all taking a stab in the dark. to my mind there is NO WAY i can allow the status quo to continue which it will if i X on the NO box. who am i kidding - the status quo is the best i can expect if i X NO, there is much much worse on the horizon, and those who are rising genuinely hate the scots.

sorry i tried to redraft that and it got garbled.

there is much much worse on the horizon, and those who are rising genuinely hate the scots.

well, that parts def pretty negative, who's rising?

gingerists

Boris Johnson, of course. Theresa May. Ukip is rising not so much as a force in itself but as an influence on the tories, i believe.

It's not really the economic arguments that would convince me to be a No voter, jed. It's that I'm deeply suspicious of separatism as a route to escaping rightwing government, both in practical terms, and in terms of the "looking after your own" aspects of it. But many better-educated people than me have wrestled with this and come out for Yes, and I'm respectful of their intentions. I am lucky in that what I want and expect out of this referendum is the same thing, though I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that I wish it hadn't taken place at all.

oh i know you love scotland, you've spent so long here, but i can't really parse some of that:

I am lucky in that what I want and expect out of this referendum is the same thing

are you saying you expect yes to lose and want it? because i think you may be surprised. maybe you mean something else though.

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that I wish it hadn't taken place at all.

why not? and for whose sake do you wish that?

are you saying you expect yes to lose and want it? because i think you may be surprised. maybe you mean something else though.

That's what I mean, yes.

why not? and for whose sake do you wish that?

Because for a while I believed in the "what a wonderful flowering of political debate" line and of course there has been, but I wonder, in the event of a No vote, what that energy will become. I dearly hope it will continue to drive political engagement, but I worry that it will make people more resentful, feel more disenfranchised. And I worry that the smash-bang-wallop appeal of an independence referendum will make normal politics seem a waste of time. There's much that's wrong with everyday politics, but there's much that's important and valuable too. And then there's the question of the divisiveness. Without being up there, I can only go on other people's reports (both friends' and media) about the resentment felt by Yes voters towards No voters, but if No prevails, I just hope whatever wounds there are don't fester.

resentment would be equally felt by no campaigners in the result of a yes win surely. Its not that long since letter bombs were sent by bigoted loonies up there. One would hope that loonies on either side will stick to being armchair warriors.

Sorry, I wasn't meaning to make a judgment about what disappointed No campaigners would do vs what disappointed Yes campaigners would. It's just that I expect a No win, so it was that way around that I was talking.

thanks Nick. It's not going to be pretty, either way, but i'm certainly happy it has happened. i've never seen such a high level of political engagement in the uk and i never expect to see it again. we should celebrate that at least.

i suppose it useless to speculate, and we'll find out in 26-28 hours anyway, but my hunch is that yes will win and that it won't be that tight.

The polls are saying the opposite! No poll has Yes ahead so why the confidence?

i'm not really sure what you mean.

seems like in a super high stakes unprecedented situation like this it wld be pretty easy to get the turnout estimates wrong and if one side is more enthusiastic that cld easily swing it

need some unskewed polling obvs

i'm not confident, at all. it's just a hunch based on the polls generally being weighted towards the status quo because of the way they do them (they phone land lines, for the most part). new registrations from 16-18 year olds, who are generally outside the polling criteria will be weighted towards yes, imo, as would previously disenfranchised voters who have registered specifically for this vote.

it's all conjecture.

"imo" doing a lot of work again.

the polls generally being weighted towards the status quo because of the way they do them (they phone land lines, for the most part)

― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Wednesday, September 17, 2014 10:39 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as a john kerry voter i strongly advise you against hanging your hat on this particular unit of thought

i'll take that advice.

what's the increase in turnout over regular elections? something like 30%?

sorry, I mean polls have NO ahead in every one

i got that eventually, it's late :)

No poll has Yes ahead was just too much for my brain at this point.

and mine it seems too

Turnout makes it hard to be certain about the reliability of the polling here, though they're working on that.

Places in the east of Glasgow had turnouts under 30% at the last elections; all the predictions are those turnouts are going to be massive this time.

Do many people in Easterhouse take YouGov surveys? It still only has 40% broadband uptake iirc.

voted

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2014/sep/16/-sp-is-this-the-end-of-britishness

^ian jack's article on british identity is mb a little ponderous but the thought of some newly independent scots feeling in some sense british got me wondering if there cld ever be scope for a sort of pan-british isles cultural identity shorn of political/imperial import similar to the nordic countries or w/e, or at least some neater term for [the uk + scotland + ireland]

I doubt it really, yr only british when yr abroad anyway

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/17/shetland-may-reconsider-place-scotland-yes-vote-alistair-carmichael

A petition of more than 1,000 signatures raised by islanders from Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles calling for a separate referendum on whether they could themselves become independent was rejected last month by the Scottish government, which said it had promised new powers to the three island groups.

I thought last-minute promises of 'jam tomorrow' devolved powers, which they have no intention of keeping, in order to cling on to oil-rich territory and deny the citizens the right to self-determination was supposed to be the preserve of elitist, Etonite, self-serving politicians?

The commitment to implement an Islands Act is in the Scottish Government's white paper.
Obviously it could easily turn out to 'jam tomorrow' but it's not last minute.

xxp I enjoyed that Ian Jack article though I agree it is more than little ponderous. The stuff about the post-war consensus fostering a thin kind of British identity in Scotland, which has been destroyed by Thatcherism, poll tax &c was interesting.

xp Well neither was the 'Vow' that was on the front pages and so decried the other day - it was from April (as both Salmond and Strurgeon agreed, admitted and commented on) but the new part was to align the dates proposed so the same offer was on the table irrespective of who won the next UK election. Those facts didn't stop it being disingenuously presented as a last minute thing, and some Yes voters on the C4 programme last night explicitly said it was only invented this week.

It is disingenuous to say that the proposals made by the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats were made at the last minute.
But these were three different sets of proposals only to be implemented if the individual parties came to power at the next Westminster election.
The "We'll do this on an accelerated time frame once there's a No vote" was last minute.
Maybe it's just me but I haven't seen any detail on which set of proposals are actually going to implemented?

i've heard a lot of talk about how, hey, even the economists can't agree! and, er, maybe, on some issues, but there is pretty broad consensus that an independent scotland would be destined for squeaky bum time on its public books for one, two, or three decades while it found its way in the global debt markets. and that the difference between yes voters and no voters in this respect is simply whether that's a price worth paying for political independence.

xp But none of this is really the point. If the people of Shetland want to hold a referendum to break away from Scotland and do whatever (self-govern, rejoin the UK etc) then how can the Scottish Government ideologically oppose it? All the same rules that applies to today's vote surely apply there?

Either greater devolved powers is preferable to self-determination or it isn't.

Feel like the Shetland thing is a bit of a canard.

As a non-resident I don't get a vote, and my background (born in England to English parents of Scottish descent, raised in Scotland from ages 2 to 21, moved to England for work) means that I've never really had any sort of nationalistic feeling, but I really do hope it's a yes. I have always considered Scots who complain about stuff like Andy Murray being called British once he started winning things to be insecure, over-sensitive fuds, but the coverage of this whole issue has been incredibly insulting.

When I look at the list of people who have publicly urged Scotland to vote no, it seems natural to think that doing the opposite of what they want is the only possible answer.

Anyway, good luck to all ILXors north of the border, hope you don't all get chibbed to death by yes-campaigners high on 'buckfast'.

Well it's not false and I'm not 100% how misleading it is.

Either you believe that greater devolved powers are at least equal to self-determinism or you don't. That is what an ideology is. You don't change it because it suits you. You believe it and stick by it.

This is a story which broke one day before the vote after the media were briefed by the Secretary of State for Scotland, hardly an impartial observer and presumably delighted to have a chance to do something of consequence for a change.