the scottish independence referendum

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?

in northern* ireland i should've specified

Yeah pretty much. My friend who hails from County Armagh reckons his area is more proudly British than anywhere in the UK. When he's at home, he's British, when he's in England he's Irish.

cant imagine being asked 'where are u from' type questions and not answering 'london'

And many immigrants like to identify as British but would feel less sure about calling themselves English, Welsh etc.

really?

Britain seems less of an ethnicity, so fits with multi-culturalism better. Black British, not Black English, etc.

Here are some stats:

http://www.britishfuture.org/blog/why-do-non-white-brits-feel-that-little-bit-more-british/

when are results supposed to be posted? do you folks do [often misleading] exit polls?

Results will be posted overnight, by council area. The final result should be known by 6 or 7am UK time (5 or 6am GMT).

We tend to have exit polls after general elections, but I've heard that there aren't any planned for this.

Saw an opinion poll this morning saying 53% no

I'm really not thinking the polls will offer much since most of them are by landline and there's 500,000 extra voters this time including huge numbers of 16 and 17 yr olds, which is a great thing.

I've went from a Yes to a Maybe and I still haven't made up my mind and it feels horrible.

Some pollsters are candid about the fact that their confidence levels a very low, because there's no real precedent to weight their data against. The ICM head said he wouldn't be surprised if this ended up being another 1992, when the general election polls vastly underestimated the Tory vote.

The 16-17 year olds are split 50-50 in the polling data - it's 20 and 30 somethings that have consistently the pro-Yes group (which partly explains why almost everyone I know in Scotland or see on social media is for Yes).

another 1992, when the general election polls vastly underestimated the Tory vote.

Oops, this sounds like I'm talking about the Tory vote again here. I'm not – I'm just using that as the famous example of when polls were very wrong.

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

Interesting that UKIP oppose Scottish independence given those beliefs.

One could draw up a similar set of "beliefs" showing problems Unionists have with Better Together somehow not applying to the island of Ireland.

James Ball on the lack of exit polls:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/18/scottish-vote-no-exit-poll-democratic-deficit

Economists normally as ideologically disparate and disputatious as Alan Greenspan, Paul Krugman, Adam S. Posen and Niall Ferguson all have predicted a negative economic outlook for an independent Scotland, while expressing anxiety, too, about the impact of such uncertainty on the larger European and global economies.

Greenspan, Posen, AND Ferguson? I’m convinced.

But half of Scots, give or take a few percentage points, are expected to vote for independence anyway. Some do not believe the negative forecasts, calling them “fear-mongering.” Some say they resent the sense that an outside elite is patronizing them or doubting their capacity. And many will vote yes for other reasons — to feel responsible for their own fate and to build, or rebuild, what they hope will be a fairer, less unequal country of their own, for better or worse.

It is patronizing. The economic issues are unclear and posed by hacks.

re: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/world/europe/scotland-independence-referendum.html

Oddly, a quote from the most respected (and cited) macroeconomist referenced in the article is near the bottom:

Mr. Gethins pointed to Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, who has dismissed most of the warnings, arguing in The Scotsman that “independence may have its costs — although these have yet to be demonstrated convincingly; but it will also have its benefits,” which Scotland can recapture through the taxes it would not have to share with London.

Mike Smithson ‏@MSmithsonPB 20h
Wow. Edinburgh council says 89.6% of postal votes have been returned. That's massive. #indyref http://bit.ly/ZpOZMk

Rebecca Gray ‏@Rebecca__Gray 4h
By 10am, 18.5% of Scots had voted! Huge turnout. #indyref http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/u/indyref-live-vote.18092014718

big turnout as expected

The Stiglitz column is solid: http://www.scotsman.com/news/joseph-stiglitz-independence-has-costs-and-benefits-1-3541038

how do scottish people itt feel about conservative leaning people in the southeast of england who want or claim to want scotland to vote for independence?

the thing that worries me abt scottish independence from an economic perspective is they seem dead set on a currency union of some type which is not the best imo

has this been posted yet? fun to see how other areas are reacting http://trendsmap.com/v2/Lf62/w

neither krugman or stiglitz are particularly convincing because they are speaking in generalities from afar

thought this piece was better than both in prognosticating (or disavowing prognostications about) the likely economic consequences

not a nobel prize winning economist but a shrewd writer, and not american

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/15/scottish-economy-viable-scots-state/print

Great column. Thanks.

There was this also, written in February:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/23/scottish-referendum-salmond-independence-oil

lol at Niall Ferguson being described as an "Economist"

"I have to say that after the events I've been facing over the past few days, assassination would be a welcome release."

-- British Prime Minister David Cameron, quoted by National Review.

wow someones a lil stressed out