the scottish independence referendum

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.

None of that changes what I'm saying.

And pointing out that a nasty man has pointed out where you're a hypocrite could equally be interpreted as sour grapes at getting caught.

Alright, I'm not totally sure why you've decided to use such infantilising language to try and belittle what I'm saying but I understand that this is a subject that provokes strong feelings, so good luck to you.

Believing that Scotland has a right to unshackle itself completely from the Westminster political machine should its populace vote to do so hardly means that you are then ideologically compelled to agree that any region, town, village, island or household which organises itself and votes to keep all their shit and not share it with anyone has the moral authority to do so. IN MY OPINION.

I apologise if you took it that way, that wasn't what I meant to do. My intention there was to point out that last minute efforts to change the opinions of voters aren't the preserve of only one side otherwise campaigning would have been halted months ago and there wouldn't have been people walking the streets yesterday and probably even today. I also don't see how this is any different to the "Secret Shetland oil reserves covered up by MI5" conspiracy that DL wrote about recently (which has a reported 42% of Yes voters surveyed believing it) or the "there's bings of oil in the Clyde and Hebridean Sea, and submarines are just a cover story so we don't know about it" story which, when you follow the references back, can be traced to one blog post linking to a letter to a paper in which a guy claims a French "oil expert" told him it in a pub, other than this has actual statements by people in charge in it.

Well my opinion is the opposite. If your political ideology is self-determination then that should be your aim and you should support it wherever. If you believe power is best served in the hands of the people themselves then you should support it wherever. To pick and choose where your ideology applies and where it doesn't makes you no different to the "elitist" tag that's been thrown about, that a small handful of people get to choose how someone else should behave (and Elaine C Smith said on the C4 thing last night that's exactly what a Yes vote opposes). You can't wear ideas like clothes and change them when it suits. If Yes is treated like a protest vote against the current politicians in Westminster then it's just Nigel Farage writ large.

Yes as a protest vote also gives a lie to "doing this for a future generation".

this gets called out a lot, that it would be foolish to vote for independence based on dissatisfaction with the current crop of politicians.

but in the long run we are all dead. if the current crop of politicians has shown zero inclination of veering from a neoliberal centre consensus of public austerity that puts high finance and the south-east first and everyone else second, and that repeated elections haven't changed that arc one bit, well wtf are the options?

Pat Kane and Rhona Cameron both made that exact point last night on C4, that an independent Scotland would become a Socialist federal society. Which is fine, if that was what was on the ballot sheet. But how many Yes voters think that's what they're voting for? And what would happen if the SNP lose control of the Scottish Parliament to one of the UK parties?

I agree that plenty of the rhetoric from both sides could be neatly summarised as 'shite', I do think that a story briefed to all the national media about a revelatory new development one day before the election by somebody who is clearly very interested in the vote going a particular way (he's out of a job otherwise!) should be taken with quite the pinch of salt.

I don't consider voting yes because of a desire to break free from Westminster equal to a 'protest vote'. And it's absurd to suggest that believing the country of Scotland has the right to be wholly governed by a government in Scotland means that you are in fact, whether you like it or not, either a demented libertarian anarchist who believes in a system of 'every man for themself' or a hypocritical elitist.

i'd love to see a list of independence movements that weren't responses to the current crop of politicians.

I guess it depends what you mean by 'current crop'. If you mean 'all of them since I was born' then yeah maybe I am reacting in response to that.

This is all so Scotland could enter the Eurovision Song Contest on its own, isn't it.

:)

xpost

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/e5/fb/ba/e5fbba78430d9cf60931906c7a150b95.jpg

this to be retroactively designated a Scottish victory

I don't consider voting yes because of a desire to break free from Westminster equal to a 'protest vote'. And it's absurd to suggest that believing the country of Scotland has the right to be wholly governed by a government in Scotland means that you are in fact, whether you like it or not, either a demented libertarian anarchist who believes in a system of 'every man for themself' or a hypocritical elitist.

I don't believe I'm suggesting that at all, and you're right in saying that it would be absurd.

I'm quite interested in what the tautological differences between the Yes vote and UKIP are though:

Both believe policy is better set by the government of the people who live there
Both believe the greater body is responsible for removing sovereign powers from the body they believe should be in control
Both believe they are a Net Contributor to said greater body to the economic detriment of themselves
Both believe the greater body is either unelected or does not represent how they would vote

Actually, both believe the immigration policy specifically of the greater body is holding them back.

(And I'm not suggesting for a minute that SNP=UKIP before anyone says I am, as happened in the European Elections thread when I talked about the Greens and protest votes.)

With France, Netherlands and Spain getting independance at the same time.

(xpost re: Lulu)

truly, the boat that scotland rows may not be big enough for two

'I remembered the liberation that was implicit in “British” as a self-description, how it enlarged the sense of yourself and allowed you to feel part of something grander and more various.'

i liked this bit in the ian jack article. i don't want to have to tell people i'm english.

Well, you'll be OK unless all other parts of the UK leave it.

being proud of "british" vs "english" = different shades of off-putting nationalism that makes me think of racists but ultimately not that far from each other

feels weird as an english person having any opinion on what scots should or should not do but i am v enamoured of the strength of feeling the pro-yes scots i know (that's...all of them, p much) are displaying

someone called you an 'englishman' the other day caek

i don't really grok the difference between british + english - do ppl from northern ireland, wales, + scotland actually refer to themselves as british ever, or is that just for english ppl?

depends what faith they identify themselves as really.

like what? protestants in ireland identify as british, but catholics don't?