the scottish independence referendum

i keep wondering what would happen to, say, a scottish family living and working in marseilles.

Could keep UK passport and apply for Scottish one if they wanted it.

huh!

Setting up an independent country in which, say, 49.5% of its inhabitants don't want it to it exist does seem a bit crazier than the other way around.

― Alba, Thursday, 18 September 2014 16:57 (8 minutes ago)

49.5% of its inhabitants voting no ≠ 49.5% of its inhabitants don't want an independent scotland to exist tout court

As far as I know, nobody will be forced to give up a UK passport unless they apply for a Scottish one and the UK decides to ban dual passports, which they won't.

Setting up an independent country in which, say, 49.5% of its inhabitants don't want it to it exist does seem a bit crazier than the other way around.

What are they going to do, all move to Northern Ireland, like the Orange Order imagines?

shd just vote with twitter http://trendsmap.com/v2/Lf62/w

People would get used to the idea and get on with their lives... if actually happened, which it won't

My brother has moved back to No because, in his words, "the Yessers are a total embarrassment"

To be fair, almost any large scale movement looks like a total embarrassment.

Not supermajority perhaps, but too close and we'll never hear the end of it from the losing side.

there are some legitimacy arguments wrt the majoritarian plebiscite for something as significant and irreversible as this

then there is the rejoinder that if votes were weighted by life expectancy in order to favour those who are most exposed to the perils of living in a new country, there would be a clear if not super-majority

shd just vote with twitter http://trendsmap.com/v2/Lf62/w

― lag∞n, Thursday, September 18, 2014 12:11 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tons of yes tweets coming from catalonia

Until a few weeks ago I was firmly No (voted No on this thread), then I was sure I wasn't going to vote at all because I wasn't confident about either side; then 20 minutes ago I decided to vote and voted Yes out of overwhelming curiosity to see what it's like if independence does happen.

Remember when Twitter was small enough to have a world map like that just showed any old tweet?

twittervision

'stoked 4 the madness' vote could be key

has there been comments on this whole by Wales or NI officials? is there any chance the Welsh follow suit?

No fucking chance

Until a few weeks ago I was firmly No (voted No on this thread), then I was sure I wasn't going to vote at all because I wasn't confident about either side; then 20 minutes ago I decided to vote and voted Yes out of overwhelming curiosity to see what it's like if independence does happen.

I get this. The economics adage of you pray for the change because natural experiments are the only experiments.

The stoked 4 the madness vote makes sense if your life is either so good or so shit that you can hardly imagine it being worse, I guess. I am middle-aged.

there do seem to be enough people in the central belt of scotland for whom life is miserable indeed

Many of whom will be voting for the first time ever - or that's what we're told, I hope they do but I can see the turnout being not as big as predicted

Can you imagine if poor people voted all over the UK? Wow, hold on to your hats, if not your seats.

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

― lag∞n, Thursday, September 18, 2014 10:25 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

on track

Alba, you don't seem to be particularly keen on democracy atm.

tbf democracy is bad

I'm fine with democracy, and of course wish Scotland well whatever the result.

Oh, do you mean my comment about large scale movements? I just mean I'm naturally squeamish about sloganeering and "come on let's be positive and stop overthinking things" type mentality, even though part of me thinks that's just something I have to suck up as long as it doesn't veer into totalitarianism.

a combination of - i wish this had never happened & the 50% issue as well as that but really i was just being daft.

argument for democracy being bad seems to be reinforced somewhat by the spectrum of reasons ppl are giving for voting on this particular occasion.

not claiming that my reasoning would be any less spurious or half-assed if i were to vote of course.

Is Scotland going to join the Euro or will they be getting their own Scotto? (maybe with something from this album http://www.scott-o.com/ as the anthem?)

Jed: oh, well the "wish this had never happened" thing (in the event of a No vote, really) is more a pragmatic thing about my fears about how a loss would affect enthusiastic Yes supporters and maybe the nation's psyche. But I do in more general terms reject the idea that it's undemocratic to not always want referendums. I mean, I'm not an expert on democratic systems at all, but I think most of us aren't advocating referendums as a primary tool of democracy, it's just the argument about when they're appropriate and when they aren't.

As for the 50% thing, I wasn't really arguing in favour of a supermajority hurdle – I haven't thought enough about it. It just did strike me as a kind of bad start for a country if nearly half of its inhabitants voted not to have it become independent. Yes, you can look at it vice versa.

Is Scotland going to join the Euro or will they be getting their own Scotto?

The Jeez-o

I suppose the reason I don't think it's as bad vice versa, and I may be wrong about this, is that I think of the people voting Yes, many are voting for it as a means to an end, not because they fundamentally don't like the idea of being in union with the other parts of the UK. For a start, many may well have preferred devo-max if that was on the ballot paper.

It just did strike me as a kind of bad start for a country if nearly half of its inhabitants voted not to have it become independent. Yes, you can look at it vice versa.

― Alba, Thursday, September 18, 2014 7:05 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess in the past, it was very different (with imperialism/expansionism being the norm) and these are different times, but that kind of interests me.

many may well have preferred devo-max if that was on the ballot paper.

And people still think Cameron should keep his job after this fiasco?

Fuck me, the brother has changed his mind AGAIN and voted Yes!

It just did strike me as a kind of bad start for a country if nearly half of its inhabitants voted not to have it become independent.

― ∞, Thursday, September 18, 2014 2:09 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah that's one the basic ideas behind Canada's clarity act.

One of my more trivial concerns about this referendum is that I won't feel comfortable wearing a t-shirt for my favourite prog rock band Yes. A lot of people will think I'm obsessed with the referendum after it has passed, and the Roger Dean designs would just make me seem all the weirder.

Yeah, I haven't been wearing my two ISIS t-shirts for a couple of months either now.

I was going to joke about this but I'm too late:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/dot-scot-internet-domain-given-go-ahead-1-3140723

ha xp

any word on when we'll know the final results?

6-8 am

they will declare a winner before counts are finished if it's mathematically impossible for the other side to have won but individual regions results will be declared as they happen.

if it's as close as predicted then it might take time, no?

http://election.pressassociation.com/Declaration_times/scotland_ref_2014_by_time.php

If the central belt counts fast enough we can ignore the Republic of Shetland.

well done FYI Macedonia's bro

To be honest, I'd prefer they waited till all the votes were just counted then a fat man just appeared on telly at 7am, opened an envelope and said "yes" or "no".