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It seems from this distance that only the Scots will have the utter right to pull out of the UK.
So to make it a fair go should the English have the right to vote to chuck Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales out of the UK ?
Or do Scots believe they are somehow special ?
It seems from this distance that only the Scots will have the utter right to pull out of the UK.
So to make it a fair go should the English have the right to vote to chuck Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales out of the UK ?
Or do Scots believe they are somehow special ?
If you can believe it, nzrugby, Scotland wants independence from England, but then they want to pimp themselves out to the EU so they fight for independence, only to give up their sovereignty to Brussels. Because that makes a lot of sense right? Add insult to injury, they also want to adopt the euro as their currency, further giving up more sovereignty. This is not about Scottish independence, it's all about separating from those "English bastirds"
It seems from this distance that only the Scots will have the utter right to pull out of the UK.
So to make it a fair go should the English have the right to vote to chuck Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales out of the UK ?
Or do Scots believe they are somehow special ?
Your question isn't an equivalence. The independence vote is not on ejecting England out of the UK, it's on Scotland withdrawing from the UK. If you're asking whether England is constitutionally capable of withdrawing from the UK, then the answer at present is no, but only because English people have not elected a Government with that as part of their policy. If English people did elect a Government on that basis, then yes they have the same right to do so.
If you can believe it, nzrugby, Scotland wants independence from England, but then they want to pimp themselves out to the EU so they fight for independence, only to give up their sovereignty to Brussels. Because that makes a lot of sense right? Add insult to injury, they also want to adopt the euro as their currency, further giving up more sovereignty. This is not about Scottish independence, it's all about separating from those "English bastirds"
I spent a great deal of time in the independence thread explaining what the problem is with Scotland's position within the UK, if you've read it then why do you reduce this question to some simplistic notion of nationalistic pettiness?
I spent a great deal of time in the independence thread explaining what the problem is with Scotland's position within the UK, if you've read it then why do you reduce this question to some simplistic notion of nationalistic pettiness?
Because that's all that it is. It's not unusual for someone in your position to come up with 20 different reasons why this is so and so. The same thing happens with climate change. One person on your side claims that CO2 is a pollutant and must be reduced, and people who believe the same thing he does do hoolahoops to come up with 20 different justifications on why CO2 is bad. It's basic psychology. The fact of the matter is, you can tell people, just like Salmond already does, why Scotland needs to be independent, but the fact of the matter is Scotland would have less autonomy in a larger EU than if you stay with the UK. You have more influence now on a country with 53M people than you will with a more planned centralization of a union with several hundred million.
Sometimes the truth is far less complicated than what it seems. Occam's razor
Because that's all that it is. It's not unusual for someone in your position to come up with 20 different reasons why this is so and so. The same thing happens with climate change. One person on your side claims that CO2 is a pollutant and must be reduced, and people who believe the same thing he does do hoolahoops to come up with 20 different justifications on why CO2 is bad. It's basic psychology. The fact of the matter is, you can tell people, just like Salmond already does, why Scotland needs to be independent, but the fact of the matter is Scotland would have less autonomy in a larger EU than if you stay with the UK. You have more influence now on a country with 53M people than you will with a more planned centralization of a union with several hundred million.
Sometimes the truth is far less complicated than what it seems. Occam's razor
If you don't mind I'll regurgitate the gist of my post in the other thread.
The Tory Party are unelectable in Scotland for a raft of historical reasons and ideological differences the party has with the Scottish electorate as a whole. In Westminster elections, this means Scottish voters can only vote for Labour if they wish to cast a vote for a party capable of running the UK. Agree or disagree?
The Labour Party were instrumental in committing the UK to the Iraq war, creating the circumstances which led to the deaths of up to 1 million Iraqi's, no politician has faced justice over this monumental error of judgement. Yet Scottish voters (and many rUK voters) are compelled to vote Labour if they wish to have a relevant vote over which party forms a Westminster Government. There are no alternative politicial parties open to Scottish voters who are capable of forming a Westminster Government. Agree or disagree?
Proportional representation in Westminster which could resolve this problem is now dead and buried for the foreseeable future after the alternative vote fiasco. Agree or disagree?
You say that we will have 'less autonomy' as part of the EU than if we remain in the UK. The two most important issues to me as an individual are:
With independence we can alter corporation tax to become more competitive with the Republic of Ireland, our major competitor for foreign investment. To put this in perspective, Eire's corporation tax rate is 12.5%, Scotland's corporation tax rate is 24%. 24% makes perfect sense for the South East of England and the City of London which doesn't have problems attracting investment. It makes a lot less sense for Glasgow which has seen almost all its multinational businesses like IBM in Greenock and Dell in Glasgow close their Scottish facilities and shift their operations to Dublin. (Impossible to change under devolution)
We can drastically reduce the "defence" budget and size of our armed forces, including and especially the removal of nuclear weapons. (Impossible under devolution)
There are hundreds of other proposed changes under independence from re-nationalising the railways through to benefit reform, all of which are impossible under devolution. However the two I listed above are the ones most important to me. You say that we'd enjoy less autonomy as a smaller member of the EU than as part of the UK. Apart from "losing" Maggie's EU rebate (which isn't necessarily a loss), what exactly is it that you feel we'd lose, given that they are powers we don't have anyway? If in the future we joined the Euro I agree that we wouldn't be able to set our own interest rates, but given that we can't do that anyway it's not really a loss! We would at least gain fiscal autonomy even if our monetary autonomy remained elsewhere. Give me an example of this supposed 'loss' of autonomy that you feel we'd be subject to?
Furthermore, you seem to be implying that 'someone in my position' will seek whatever justifications they can to support a foregone conclusion. I don't know how you define 'someone in my position', but I'll take a few guesses. Maybe you think that I feel some subconscious urge to storm Carlisle with my trusty claymore and start molesting the native scum? Or maybe a better Freudian explanation would be that as a child I never truly resolved my relationship with my anus, and Scottish Independence is a cause which I use to fill that childhood void? Maybe you'd care to elaborate?
Then again, while we're dealing in naff psychological assessments of each other, maybe there are actually some very powerful arguments for wanting Scottish independence which are in fact swaying me, but you're experiencing cognitive dissonance? (Look that up if you're unfamiliar, useful concept.)
I'm not scottish. But I only think its fair that they get to vote for their own future.
I mean, why should we who don't live in Scotland get a right to vote for them. In that case, England may vote Scotland in or vice versa when the Scots may not want that.
If you don't mind I'll regurgitate the gist of my post in the other thread.
You say that we will have 'less autonomy' as part of the EU than if we remain in the UK. The two most important issues to me as an individual are:
With independence we can alter corporation tax to become more competitive with the Republic of Ireland, our major competitor for foreign investment. To put this in perspective, Eire's corporation tax rate is 12.5%, Scotland's corporation tax rate is 24%. 24% makes perfect sense for the South East of England and the City of London which doesn't have problems attracting investment. It makes a lot less sense for Glasgow which has seen almost all its multinational businesses like IBM in Greenock and Dell in Glasgow close their Scottish facilities and shift their operations to Dublin. (Impossible to change under devolution)
We can drastically reduce the "defence" budget and size of our armed forces, including and especially the removal of nuclear weapons. (Impossible under devolution)
Eoin
Eoin
I'm not going to regurgitate your whole post so let me just make a couple of observations with regard to the above.
1. The Euro zone is moving towards fiscal harmonisation which means that it is unlikely that Euro zone members will be able to compete with each other on the basis of favourable tax rates. The near collapse of the Irish economy and the bail outs in Greece and elsewhere mean that it is likely that this will be accelerated.
Now, I don't know about Dell, but I do know about IBM. IBM did not shift their Greenock operations to Dublin. IBM Greenock was mainly manufacturing for the IBM PC division. This business was sold to Lenovo. Lenovo has gradually shifted all manufacturing to China (with some in India). IBMs' Dublin operation was low skill assembly. Parts were assembled there and then shipped, semi-finished, all over the world as part of a tax planning strategy called BOP. I visited the Dublin plant about 12 years ago and there were relatively few people employed there.
2. You are correct re: the defence budget. But don't forget that defence industries employ many people in Scotland. 5000 at Faslane alone and then warship building on the Clyde and at Rosyth. There are also a great many Scots in the armed forces. What happens to them when they return home looking for jobs, houses and benefits? The savings equation is a bit more complicated than it appears in the politician's sound bites.
Last edited by Jaggy001; 11-02-2012 at 12:09 PM..
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so they fight for independence, only to give up their sovereignty to Brussels. Because that makes a lot of sense right? Add insult to injury, they also want to adopt the euro as their currency, further giving up more sovereignty. This is not about Scottish independence, it's all about separating from those "English bastirds"
