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Scottish Politics II

Sea boundaries, interim joint development zones and the division of remaining oil/gas assets etc will be agreed accordingly should Scotland vote to leave the Union. This will guarantee a certain level of revenue as long as oil and gas remain relevant. We wouldn't be 'here' though if Thatcher had created a sovereign wealth fund as significant monies would have been on tap to help Scotland's transition to independence.

As I've mentioned several times, SNP/Greens are ideologically opposed to the extraction and use of fossil fuels.

The whole issue of a sovereign wealth fund aka Norway is probably moot. Norway is a very different, and infinitely less populous country.

An unsettled country like Ukraine is nowhere near meeting EU entry requirements, yet the direction of travel is clear. A settled country like Scotland is in a much stronger position and is more than capable of negotiating with a benign EU to secure membership. To think otherwise is to underestimate the Scots (and the EU).

I wouldn't dream of underestimating the EU. Or the Scots. But the EU, as we are smugly and oft reminded, is 'rules based'. Scotland doesn't come within a country mile of meeting those rules-based criteria.

I suppose, of course, that the EU could partake of a little creative accounting (aka cooking of the books) as it did with Greece, but then Scotland doesn't exactly possess Greece's legacy as the cradle of western civilisation, a nice gong for the EU - with all of its entirely synthetic claim to be the modern standard-bearer of that cultural legacy - to have scored.

As for borders, high-tech solutions employed in Northern Ireland will just be copied and pasted. I'm sure you will agree that this is a credible and workable solution.

Oh, now you really are having a larf, though I did wonder who would be the first to come out with it.

The EU, I'll remind you, rapidly shut down promising early discussions of technological border solutions in the WA talks, and have steadfastly refused to countenance them ever since. It doesn't take the mind of a great philosopher to see right through that to the fact that to acknowledge tech solutions would make a complete mockery of its overtly protectionist nature. Virtually the entire issue of complex, black pen and paper-based border checks a quarter of the way through the 21st century is a sham.

No word yet from all the tech experts on here, foremost amongst them TonyL, who have shot me down every time I've mentioned it. Funny, that.

It's a shame you introduced the Farage deflection as it has taken the thread in a bit of an unfortunate direction.

Is it? I think that the response has been interesting, amusing, and entirely predictable. The teeth always show.
 
I wonder what the Scexit equivalent of 'gammon' will be - white pudden?
We have our locally bred variety, Homogammonensus scotii*, much rarer than the version seen south of the border but if you know where to look, you will spot him:

P6az02Y.jpg

* WWF endangered species list

Frequents BBC QT studios
Has more than one shell suit
Failed UKIP election candidate
Member of the Orange Order
 
We have our locally bred variety, Homogammonensus scotii*, much rarer than the version seen south of the border but if you know where to look, you will spot him:


* WWF endangered species list

Frequents BBC QT studios
Has more than one shell suit
Failed UKIP election candidate
Member of the Orange Order

a41_a3a4de4a-9403-42a9-b3bd-a9a9744d3df0_1024x1024@2x.jpg


Wefail.Art have produced this lovely likeness of a more typically English BBC QT audience. Nails it, sadly.
 
I realise Question Time is beneath many here but Angus Robertson last night was eye opening. He doesn’t GAF about the actual issues Scotland faces, he’s only interested in independence. I sense quite a sinister, fanatical side exists amongst the SNP and its supporters. There was a guy in the audience who was hell bent on independence and his solution on how to pay for it was ‘tax the rich’. Good luck with that, they’ll have cleared off. A Scottish comic on the panel (forget her name) suggested the solution to Scotlands horrendous drug problem is to legalise hard drugs, which can only happen with independence. Quite staggering.
Labour were the main party in Scotland for years rightly or wrong it's a socialist up here. Labour have one MP in Westminster from here so what's happened.. Since the SNP have came to power myself and family life has improved in so many ways that Unionist parties have never achieved up here in my 63 years.. I will cover some here. I have the toothache a dentist will treat me with NHS I can upgrade anytime . The dentist or doctor rights a prescription that medication is free. To get to the chemist I have free bus travel as do anyone under the age of 21 years. Small business are free from business rates they only have to a small fee for garbage up lift and water supply savings for small business are huge. Living on a Island you always paid extra to fill up the car as I did. Our government changed that so we now pay for fuel as the same as the mainland . Islanders are also get subsidised fares. All children in Scotland get free meals at School. Infrastructure has improved drastically also. Drive from Glasgow Airport to the south there is a new motorway which skips Glasgow. Drive through to Edinburgh you will also notice new roads while new roads are still being built. Tuition fees have been scraped. Scotland also produces 93% of its own energy unfortunately it has to go on to the national grid so we are caught up with the crazy energy price increase. Have tried to give you a snap shoot of why the SNP are so popular up here they have improved many life's. Of course not all is well like NHS but nurses are paid more than south of the border. Two new ferries are well over budget . So was the Elizabeth Line, So was the Aircraft carriers. However the good far out weigh the bad. Westminster is lead by a class led system particularly for elites who also control most of the news media feeding political propaganda into the population. Scotland is a socialist country that's the route the SNP have taken with great success and why they are massively in front of another party. Lastly there are 35 countries in total have had independence from Westminster not one has asked to come back. Westminster and the establishment will stat project fear telling Scotland it can't afford independence. It will not be easy at first but we have the resources many countries can only dream of having we will be fine. Queen will still be head of state Scotland will join NATO we will always have a close relationship with England and Wales. I see N-Ireland leaving the UK also the change in population will see to that. A political different direction we are after and I'm sure many in England would love the same. As for project fear used in Brexit the 2014 independence vote. Look what Westminster said to Malta when it wanted Independence read this small link. Heard it all before so we all know what's coming up here but it won't work again. https://twitter.com/binman18691753/status/1541538571588435969?s=20&t=Em0_id6ZPU7hD5Ln2NuKnQ https://twitter.com/binman18691753/status/1541481140548157440?s=20&t=jjQGiOVirRM56LIxG-sIYA
 
I see Labour are shooting themselves in the foot as usual in promising never to form any alliance with the SNP.

Probably the SNP are too socialist for the present tory lite Labour! Not gammon enough for them either no doubt...
 
Labour were the main party in Scotland for years rightly or wrong it's a socialist up here. Labour have one MP in Westminster from here so what's happened.. Since the SNP have came to power myself and family life has improved in so many ways that Unionist parties have never achieved up here in my 63 years.. I will cover some here. I have the toothache a dentist will treat me with NHS I can upgrade anytime . The dentist or doctor rights a prescription that medication is free. To get to the chemist I have free bus travel as do anyone under the age of 21 years. Small business are free from business rates they only have to a small fee for garbage up lift and water supply savings for small business are huge. Living on a Island you always paid extra to fill up the car as I did. Our government changed that so we now pay for fuel as the same as the mainland . Islanders are also get subsidised fares. All children in Scotland get free meals at School. Infrastructure has improved drastically also. Drive from Glasgow Airport to the south there is a new motorway which skips Glasgow. Drive through to Edinburgh you will also notice new roads while new roads are still being built. Tuition fees have been scraped. Scotland also produces 93% of its own energy unfortunately it has to go on to the national grid so we are caught up with the crazy energy price increase. Have tried to give you a snap shoot of why the SNP are so popular up here they have improved many life's. Of course not all is well like NHS but nurses are paid more than south of the border. Two new ferries are well over budget . So was the Elizabeth Line, So was the Aircraft carriers. However the good far out weigh the bad. Westminster is lead by a class led system particularly for elites who also control most of the news media feeding political propaganda into the population. Scotland is a socialist country that's the route the SNP have taken with great success and why they are massively in front of another party. Lastly there are 35 countries in total have had independence from Westminster not one has asked to come back. Westminster and the establishment will stat project fear telling Scotland it can't afford independence. It will not be easy at first but we have the resources many countries can only dream of having we will be fine. Queen will still be head of state Scotland will join NATO we will always have a close relationship with England and Wales. I see N-Ireland leaving the UK also the change in population will see to that. A political different direction we are after and I'm sure many in England would love the same. As for project fear used in Brexit the 2014 independence vote. Look what Westminster said to Malta when it wanted Independence read this small link. Heard it all before so we all know what's coming up here but it won't work again. https://twitter.com/binman18691753/status/1541538571588435969?s=20&t=Em0_id6ZPU7hD5Ln2NuKnQ https://twitter.com/binman18691753/status/1541481140548157440?s=20&t=jjQGiOVirRM56LIxG-sIYA

Good to hear you are experiencing some positives. Of course, ‘free’ medication, bus passes, tuition fees, small business rates, school meals etc etc are not free at all. Somebody pays. I’d hazard a guess it’s not the residents of your small island, or indeed country (in their entirety). Socialism is expensive, so who pays when Scotland is independent, the EU? Which means meeting a set of criteria and observing a set of rules.

I sometimes wonder what the reaction would be if there was a referendum for an independent London / Home Counties. It would certainly have a very high GDP and be able to afford some incredible public services. Why not?
 
I see Labour are shooting themselves in the foot as usual in promising never to form any alliance with the SNP.

Probably the SNP are too socialist for the present tory lite Labour! Not gammon enough for them either no doubt...
Labour are quite keen to go into coalition with the Tories up here, maybe they are planning the same in Westminster...
 
An unsettled country like Ukraine is nowhere near meeting EU entry requirements, yet the direction of travel is clear. A settled country like Scotland is in a much stronger position and is more than capable of negotiating with a benign EU to secure membership. To think otherwise is to underestimate the Scots (and the EU).

Fantasy. There's nothing at all settled about Scotland. The SNP don't have serious answers to such basic questions as what would its currency be? Would it have a central bank or not? (The EU would certainly require one, which means Sterlingisation could only be very temporary). Would it have a plan for reducing its huge Barnett-funded fiscal deficit of +20% to the EU's requirement for entry of 3%? (Which would require the most swingeing austerity programme ever in a developed econonomy). A brand new country with a massive deficit would also be a huge risk in terms of default, so interest rates on Scottish government debt would be penal.

What would it plan to do about having an EU land border with the trading partner that is currently 60% of its exports? The Good Friday Agreement requires co-operation on an Irish land border, no such agreement exists for Scotland and neither would free movement of people automatically continue. Can it seriously expect to join NATO while closing a key NATO facility such as Faslane/Coulport? (Irish freeloading on NATO is coming to an end as both Coveney and Veradkar have acknowledged). How would it cope with the brain drain as well as capital flight? It may get a level of inward investment back once the Scottish Groat had devalued sufficiently to reduce labour costs but internally to Scotland that might look like a period of 20 or 30% inflation with a massive reduction in the value of wages and pensions relative to rUK. Goodbye to all the SNP Barnett-funded freebies too.

If the SNP were honest they would say - none of this matters. A mere 20 years of pain and we can have Denmark, or Sweden. But neither have Scotland's fiscal deficit, nor its increasingly ill-educated population. (The first rule of SNP membership is: don't talk about Scotland's plummeting PISA ranking). It could take way longer than 20 years, if it ever happens. I would respect the party a lot more if it wasn't in cloud cuckoo land with its economics. As it is, they are nothing but a bunch of snivelling liars, exactly what they accuse Boris of, maybe worse.

Oh and as for a benign EU, yes there may be countries like France who would want to stick it to the English and admit Scotland asap but there are also others - notably Spain and Italy - with fissiparous regions who would not want to give any succour to their own seccessionists.
 
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I see Labour are shooting themselves in the foot as usual in promising never to form any alliance with the SNP.

Probably the SNP are too socialist for the present tory lite Labour! Not gammon enough for them either no doubt...
They’re actually already in one in Scotland- with the Tories.
 
Fantasy. There's nothing at all settled about Scotland. The SNP don't have serious answers to such basic questions as what would its currency be? Would it have a central bank or not? (The EU would certainly require one, which means sterlinisation could only be very temporary). Would it have a plan for reducing its huge Barnet-funded fiscal deficit of +20% to the EU's requirement for entry of 3%? (Which would require the most swingeing austerity programme ever in a developed econonomy). A brand new country with a massive deficit would also be a huge risk in terms of default, so interest rates on Scottish government debt would be penal.

What would it plan to do about having an EU land border with the trading partner that is currently 60% of its exports? The Good Friday Agreement requires co-operation on an Irish land border, no such agreement exists for Scotland and neither would free movement of people automatically continue. Can it seriously expect to join NATO while closing a key NATO facility such as Faslane/Coulport? (Irish freeloading on NATO is coming to an end as both Coveney and Veradkar have acknowledted). How would it cope with the brain drain as well as capital flight - it may get a level of inward investment back once the Scottish Groat had devalued sufficiently to reduce labour costs but internally to Scotland that might look like a period of 20 or 30% inflation with a massive reduction in the value of wages and pensions relative to rUK. Goodbye to all the SNP Barnet-funded freebies too.

If the SNP were honest they would say - none of this matters. A mere 20 years of pain and we can have Denmark, or Sweden. But neither have Scotland's fiscal deficit, nor its increasingly ill-educated population. (The first rule of SNP membership is: don't talk about Scotland's plummeting PISA ranking). It could take way longer than 20 years, if it ever happens. I would respect the party a lot more if it wasn't in cloud cuckoo land with its economics. As it is, they are nothing but a bunch of snivelling liars, exactly what they accuse Boris of, maybe worse.

Oh and as for a benign EU, yes there may be countries like France who would want to stick it to the English and admit Scotland asap but there are also others - notably Spain and Italy - with fissiparous regions who would not want to give any succour to their own seccessionists.
What on earth has the Good Friday Agreement got to do with the Scottish English border?
 
As I wrote above, Scotland doesn't have an equivalent to the GFA which effectively guarantees the absence of a hard border. Forget that for Scotland. Self-evident, no?
The nature of the prospective border will depend on bilateral agreement. Once Scotland rejoins the EU, inevitably there will be a hard EU- rUK border unless of course the remnant U.K. joins the EU customs zone etc.
 
To this outsider looking in, there are certain analogies to the situation in Ireland when the Irish Free State came into being a century ago. Suddenly there was a country with then a population somewhat smaller than Scotland's, whose main industrial base was suddenly on the other side of a land border and no longer belonging to the Free State. It took a long time for Ireland to get to its present standard, and for a long time we in the north (heavily subsidised, still, by Westminster) regarded the southerners as the poor relations. No longer.

Of course there are substantial differences - the bitter racial/religious that still plagues the North does not exist in Scotland, and the Scottish Free State will almost certainly not collapse immediately into a bitter civil war as did the Irish Free State. And Scotland still does have some industrial base, whereas the Irish Free State had precious little. However, it seems to me that an independent Scotland will have to go through a long period of difficulty and deprivation to return to its present standard of living. It will need the EU to subsidise it to the same extent as Westminster does, and, as others have pointed out, EU entry is not assured and, if feasible, is somewhat down the road.

So, while I sympathise with the Scottish desire to escape from the clutches of Westminster, I really can't see it as a practical proposition in the short-medium term. Am I unduly pessimistic?
 
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The nature of the prospective border will depend on bilateral agreement. Once Scotland rejoins the EU, inevitably there will be a hard EU- rUK border unless of course the remnant U.K. joins the EU customs zone etc.

Precisely. Hard border for 60% of Scotland's physical trade (compared to 12% with the EU). What could possibly go wrong there?

Besides if the SNP continue to run the show - having shown even worse fiscal incontinence than England's hapless Tories - a failed state is sure to follow fairly quickly.
 
Of course there are substantial differences - the bitter racial/religious that still plagues the North does not exist in Scotland, and the Scottish Free State will almost certainly not collapse immediately into a bitter civil war as did the Irish Free State. And Scotland still does have some industrial base, whereas the Irish Free State had precious little. However, it seems to me that an independent Scotland will have to go through a long period of difficulty and deprivation to return to its present standard of living. It will need the EU to subsidise it to the same extent as Westminster does, and, as others have pointed out, EU entry is not assured and, if feasible, is somewhat down the road.

So, while I sympathise with the Scottish desire to escape from the clutches of Westminster, I really can't see it as a practical proiposition in the short-medium term. Am I unduly pessimistic?

I think you are a bit too sanguine about the lack of a religious divide in Scotland. Most people like myself from west certainly haven't experienced it it that way. And I can't see the EU signing up to subsidise feckless levels of SNP spending when much of its Barnett-funded largesse is not available even in some wealthy EU countries. But I agree with your point that Scotland faces a long hard road post-independence and the SNP should be honest about that. They aren't, which makes them not a serious political party - Tartan clown shoes to match Boris's ones with a St George's Cross on.
 
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