I don’t know enough about public opinion in Scotland to know if Nicola Sturgeon’s commitment to a second independence referendum is a brilliant political move or a major error. People could very easily turn against her call, seeing it (as May has tried to present it) as putting political opportunism above the national interest. But if the majority of Scots are pro EU they may well see it as a smart move to apply more pressure on the government to step back from a hard Brexit and to win concessions for Scotland.
One thing has become clear in the last week – the interventions most likely to cause real problems for the government in the next couple of years are going to come from the SNP, or the Tory’s own ranks but not from Her Majesty’s official Opposition.
Although I was pro-In during the last ScotRef, and would have the same feelings should there be a second one, I have no problem whatsoever with Sturgeon’s motivations and reasoning behind this. And frankly, it’s a bit rich of the Tories to cry ‘political opportunism’ when their own version of that has brought us to this sorry pass.
Having said that, I think it’s a personally risky strategy for Sturgeon; if she fails, she’s toast.
Well, the polls say no – by a wide margin in the UK and a narrower margin in Scotland. So she’ll have an uphill struggle. But if the possibility at least makes May, Fox, Davis & co slow down and have a bit of a think, it’ll be worth it.
Next: Norn Iron. It would be ironic in the extreme if one result of this whole clusterfuck is a united Ireland after all this time.
Whether the UK respondents to the polls are pro or anti an independent Scotland is irrelevant. The vote, if it comes to that, will be for the Scots.
I’m English and I live in England and don’t know what the situation is with those living North Of The Border.
It was a 55-45 split last time. Next time it could be closer or even the other way around. Or Scotland could become disenchanted with Nationalism and the stay side could increase their majority.
Those who wanted more for Scotland last time but voted to stay all the same, don’t seem to have gained anything of substance from it, so maybe we’ll be seeing a split sometime in the future.
The NI situation is indeed interesting. Unionist politics seems to have sustained a lot of damage.
Not sure we’ll see a United Ireland in my lifetime, nevertheless. The deep divide between the religions hasn’t gone away yet.
I don’t think the UK poll is entirely irrelevant. It suggests that there is a large majority (larger than Brexit in fact) in favour of not breaking up the Union, a sentiment possibly directed just as much at Westminster as to Holyrood.
It’s not us in England, Wales and NI that will be casting our votes on it though.
The government in Westminster just refusing to allow a referendum to take place (which could happen) could cause a big anti-union swing in Scotland, I reckon.
Allowing one would cause problems from the UKIPers and hardline Tories down here too, mind.
I know! We’ll have a UK-wide referendum on whether or not to allow Scotland to have another referendum!
Job done. Cowlip for Prime Minister.
Just as soon as he can spell his name!
Fascist.
We like to set the PM bar reassuringly high.
My emotional barometer is that people around me (I live in the west and work in Glasgow) don’t know what to think. There’s definitely an air of ‘I’m not sure…’, even from formerly hardened Yes voters.
I voted Yes, cautiously, and I probably will again.
I think Nicola Sturgeon is brave to stick her neck out on the line like this. There’s absolutely no doubt her career depends on this. And I can’t see her having the bounce-back power of characters like Salmond or Farage.
There was a suggestion earlier today that she’d been pressured in to today’s announcement “by Salmond and others”. She knows she’s gone if it fails, so I thought she’d have had the resolve to hold back a bit. As someone said today, if you paint yourself into a corner, keep painting.
I’m not a Scot, though my wife is, and the plan was for us to move to Scotland at some point. Those plans have been put on hold today.
Same as you @Ernest Scribbler – Scottish wife and plans to move there one day. Personally I think Sturgeon is off her rocker but I held that view before yesterday. The vote differential in last referendum was 10 percentage points yet I understand that majority of Brexit votes north of the border were from SNP supporters so how does this vote for a second referendum make sense.
While we are at it lets have a ‘re-match of the England – Sotland 6 Nations game to see if we can get the result acceptable to her.
She is a witch.
She’s not in control anyway. She wanted polls of 60% for a year before calling it but pressure from within the SNP has made her make a series of ultimatum lite demands which TM has ignored and now she has to step up. Clearly she would never be happy until she’s stoked up enough indignation to be able to demand another referendum, regardless of concessions by the government. Politicians like Sturgeon, Farrage, Trump, Le Pen etc – the nationalist lot – feed off grievance and division, and this is her best shot. Not when she’d like it to be though.
Why did SNP voters vote for Brexit? The conspiracy theory answer? To force another Scottish independence referendum.
The percentage of SNP voters voting Remain in the EU referendum was one percentage point more than Labour voters. Yet, Sturgeon is a Remain heroine & Corbyn a Remain failure.
Perception = reality in politics. Truth is nothing to do with it. I won’t mention the media 🙁
Yes the media are definitely the reason Corbyn whipped his party to vote down the amendments to the Brexit bill then inexplicably organised a Momentum non-protest outside the Houses of Parliament to protest against the fact that, er, the amendments got voted down.
The man’s incompetence and stupidity isn’t caused by a hostile media. The media are hostile to him because he’s incompetent and stupid.
Despite his incompetence, pretty much as many (proportionally) Labour voters got out and voted Remain as did SNP voters.
Sturgeon appears competent (maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. Personally I’m not so sure). May is an self-interested opportunist. I don’t warm to any of them much.
It doesn’t help when Mhairi Black admits to holding her nose while voting for Remain. I said all along that the SNP would sniff an independence opportunity if a Leave vote was returned. Which probably answers why they spent a miniscule amount on the EU campaign.
The independence vote was one I felt very strongly about, and I was delighted when the “stay” result was announced… but then Brexit happened, and I’m now in full “f**k-it, we don’t deserve to keep them with us” mode…
For me, it all comes down to the fact that the UK is now massively and fundamentally different to the one the Scottish people voted to stay with 3 years ago – at the risk of being glib, it’s like agreeing to buy a house, and the current owners demolishing that nice conservatory & extension before you move in.
The 55%/45% independence referendum split doesn’t feel irreversible to me, especially bearing in mind how much in the “Remain” camp they were last year, and how hollow those “Stronger Together” slogans sound now… and that’s even before the undoubted pig’s ear of Brexit negotiations begin…
It’s definitely a calculated risk for Sturgeon, but I think she has the wind at her back, and the far-from-impossible prospect of an independent Scotland with a good EU deal looking down at a crippled and isolated England, Wales & NI would make her a legend in years to come… interesting times for sure (too f**king interesting…)
There are plenty of people in the EU that wouldn’t want Scotland in as a separate country – Spain would be wary given the National aspirations of the Catalans
True that. My hunch is that this is as much about putting pressure on May (and maybe even the EU who will see Scotland as an ally in the Brexit negotiation, but won’t want to admit an independent Scotland into the EU for the above reason) to maximise the benefit in the final Brexit settlement for Scotland. Her argument for a referendum is that Brexit is a gamechanger. If the negotiations deliver benefit and light Brexit at least for Scotland then she could say that that rationale no longer applies and back off from a referendum she’d probably lose.
And especially the Basques – which would also worry the French.
Basques worry me…. all those laces.
Yes.
By the time you’ve undone them, you’ve forgotten why.
Undone, scissors are the answer.
Hoi! Careful, you’ve got me skin!
I think you have it on the wrong way round.
It’s nothing she hasn’t clearly signalled before and she’s the leader of the SNP. The whole point of the SNP is Scottish Independence and this is an opportunity to secure that.
As the OP says, she is effectively acting as the Opposition – and she is doing a fine job. Corbyn could easily be doing this kind of thing, frustrating the Government at every turn, undermining them and throwing spanners in the works. Having a plan ready for when things happen. Sturgeon was on the front foot once the Brexit vote was confirmed, with a prepared response and a plan. This is what Opposition parties are meant to do.
Good answer this.
We’ve changed since September 2014. Politics in Scotland is a different. All the movement has been towards Scotland being a normal nation/state. I think we will become normal this time.
Can’t blame her for launching a lifeboat – it’ll be up to the Scots to decided whether to jump into the flimsy dinghy or stay on The Titanic in the hope that it might get rescued. It’s hard to see the EU bailing Scotland out, so they’ll be adrift on a very rough ocean for a very long time if they go. But Captain May’s clueless crew seem determined to drag the ship down with all hands, so maybe going overboard is the better option. I’ve run out of seafaring metaphors now.
I suspect the SNP would rather be desperately poor and independent than well supported and affluent as part of one of the largest economies, and one of the few that is growing, in the world. Good luck to them. I think the Scots are too sensible to fall for it though, personally.
I’ve never understood what’s the good of GDP growth if it doesn’t feed into wages. Which our “recovery” certainly hasn’t.
The Guardian politics podcast a couple of weeks ago was good on this – they had four economists arguing about the extent to which economists as a breed are responsible for the Brexit vote. One of the points was their models assume increasing GDP is “good” where in fact it could be at the cost of vast unemployment in a given area. However we do have employment, where many countries don’t – horrendous youth unemployment in the southern European countries for example due to ECB mandated austerity – a pleasure awaiting Scotland if Nicola Sturgeon gets her wish and becomes an independent full member of the EU.
Yeah, compared to Greece or Italy or Spain we’re laughing, but I tend to think a (big? Dunno) driver of Brexit has been the govt trumpeting recovery and growth, people not actually feeling that in their wallets at all, and then the outright falsehood of £350m a week being repatriated for me, you and a dog named Boo to roll around with on a big NHS bed of money.
That amount of money sounds like a lot, and even more so when someone tells you it’s going to Donald Tusk when you’ve had a below inflation pay rise every year since the Blair administration.
My suspicion is the main drivers were control (not none, or repatriation, but control) of immigration and the democratic deficit. And, sure, some little Englander nut jobs too but I refuse to believe that more than half the country are little Englanders. Michael Gove was right, people had had enough of experts, especially very rich people arguing that staying in the EU was best. It’s not hard to see the logic that someone who hadn’t seen wage growth for years might conclude that if rich bastards like it, it may well be a contributor to my own reduced circumstances. My enemy’s friend is my enemy, if you like. And they are right of course. The intention of freedom of movement is to drive down wages to the lowest common denominator. So the economic argument got lost in the fog. People ceased to care about it or just thought bollocks, let’s try it, things can hardly get worse.
If Donald Trump can get nearly 50% of electors to cast a ballot for him, my faith in electorates not doing things for insane reasons is pretty sodding shaky, I’ll be honest.
I said at the time, as Churchill said “the best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter”.
A pithy comment from Churchill doesn’t round off an argument. We like to think that he was a wise, charismatic leader with a dry sense of humour, so a comment like that is taken in that spirit by most of us.
Can you imagine a world leader today saying that with a straight face? Unfortunately I can.
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/does-free-movement-really-enable-low.html
3 years ago I never quite understood the argument as to why Scotland should leave one economic union….free movement, common currency, shared common defence etc….and yet stay in/join another one. However, that was before the Brexit shambles, so I do see why the SNP are taking this line – it really is their last chance for a long time, as trying to leave the UK and then join the EU would be horribly difficult post Brexit. The new fly in the ointment is that many Yessers are anti EU too….i.e. they want a little independant country and like the EU even less than the English….so this isn’t the same question any more.
A further factor is if the final referendum date is in the next Scottish parliament – then the SNP has to fight an election on it, and as they have already lost their majority, could end up without the means to enact it anyway.
My wife is Scottish and her parents and family of that generation were all pro-independence and then anti-EU, one or two to the point of posting some pretty offensive stuff on Facebook. So Jules is enjoying teasing them about which they hate the most, the English or Johnny Foreigner, coming over here, taking our benefits, etc.
However, I suspect that with the shambles that Brexit is turning into and the likelihood that the “doors” won’t “slam shut”, as they expected would happen post Brexit, they will go with the independence option and agree with staying in the EU.
Why do you think Brexit is turning into a shambles? Seems entirely clear to me. Much as I didn’t vote for it.
When Boris, Davis and Fox all go on different Sunday politics shows and give contradictory answers is pretty symptomatic
They are usually being asked hypothetical questions which only the negotiation will answer. And variously they are grandstanding of course. But the basics are perfectly clear. We can ask “what if” questions and argue about the “maybe this” answer, which is enjoyable, but the bottom line is we don’t know and won’t for ages.
if they haven’t got a consistent negotiating position on basics – which they haven’t – we are in a bad place.
Or they aren’t declaring it, which they shouldn’t.
Oh, they are declaring stuff. Witness David Davies performance yesterday AM.
I think after the budget u-turn and Davis’s select committee performance yesterday, where he blithely admitted his dept haven’t even looked at trifles such as British people’s health coverage on the continent, it’s optimistic in the extreme to imagine they have any idea what they’re doing.
Maisterstroke, shirley?
I suspect there’ll be much sound, fury, stoked grievance a d maybe this time a bit more English annoyance. At the end of the day, i also suspect that this reality will deliver the same result as last time.
Sturgeon knows the risks all too well – she’s a brilliant poker-faced tactician. I suspect this is being done to provoke a slap-down and help nurse greater animosity and grievance, helping to boost support for independence.
It does make you wonder what is going through her head. The only rational explanation is that she believes independence, even if with horrific hardship, is better than being part of the UK. Very odd.
The clue’s in the party name. They care about independence far more than anything else. Actually governing, reversing the decline in healthcare outcomes or education attainment or addressing their own dependency on English taxpayers? Not so much.
The SNP has lost its majority and Nicola Sturgeon has been outpolled by the Tories’ Ruth Davidson for almost a year. I think they worry about losing their opportunity. And the best possible time of maximum uncertainty, media mudslinging, Remainer ‘told you so’s, parliamentary shenanigans and general chaos will be the months leading up to actual Brexit. What better time to lob in their grenade and do the full Violet Bott routine.
That’s exactly right.
It’s all a symptom of an unwelcome trend in UK politics in which nationalism is becoming a driving force. I’ve always seen the SNP crowd as similar to the UKIP/right wing Tories in that they keep bellowing about national identity and framing membership of a broader grouping as the root of all their problems. They’re dragging the UK into a downward spiral that is set to make the whole country poorer and a less pleasant to live, and from which it will likely take decades to recover.
And that’s the glass half full version.
It’s not a UK think, it’s wider – Le Pen, Trump, Sturgeon, Wilders, – all cut from the same cloth.
This is true. Though Scot nats will complain that their version is magically different from all the other nationalisms that have ever existed and in no way based on grievance, sentimentality and anti-English hatred. It is though.
There is a huge difference between then and now.
Back in 2014 the oil price was high and all SNP planning was predicated on the price staying high.
Since then it has plummeted as the chart via the link shows:
10 year oil price trend
Although price have picked up a bit in recent months they are likely to fall again with the discovery of a new Texas oil-field, suitable for extraction through fracking, that was reported on Today this morning as likely to be yielding 1,000,000 barrels/day in the not too distant future.
Which suggests that demand from the USA for Saudi crude and oil from other parts of the Middle-East is likely to fall still further.
So there will be no black gold to support the Scottish economy. How will the rest of the EU look upon the admission of Scotland, post-Brexit, if the outlook is that they will be admitting a nation that is going to be another call on EU resources, rather than a contributor to its wealth?
In 2014 I was worried that independence would result in a 1000 Year Reich of Tory rule in England. But it looks like we now have that anyway so it makes no odds.
I suspect Sturgeon has painted herself into a corner by linking independence to Europe. More Scots voted to stay in the UK than voted to stay in the EU. Plus the single market is less than 15% of Scottish trade.
There’s also the problem that the timing of any referendum is down to the Westminster government. They won’t want one until after Brexit negotiations are complete so that’s late 2019 at the earliest and since 2020 is a general election year probably not until 2021 – though that’s a Holyrood election year. Plenty of time there for the SNP’s domestic policy failings to come home to roost.
Also if the change in material circumstances is the Brexit vote then surely the vote should be based on fact i.e. what the final Brexit deal looks like.
It seems that this would be asking a lot from Scotland – i.e. “wait a few years until you see what we negotiate for Brexit”. It’s like being in a taxi driven by someone who doesn’t know where they’re going, how long it’ll take to get there or how much it’s going to cost. “erm…yeah….er..sorry – change of plan – just drop me off here, thanks…no, no…keep the change. Good luck!”
A better analogy is to be offered a lift by someone who hasn’t decided where they are going yet. If you are sensible you might wait till they know before deciding.
I like mine better. Scotland is already sitting in the back of the cab with everyone else while we go towards Brexit. At the moment the cab is parked up, the driver is reading the Daily Mail and not moving at all, assuring us that he knows what he’s doing and everything’s going to plan.
In which case, why isn’t Sturgeon pushing for a vote now? Because she knows her best chance is crunch time in the Brexit negotiations. The SNP spent about 4 pence ha’penny on the Remain campaign. Literally the only thing that matters is picking the optimum time to secure the desired result.
So much for her “once in a lifetime opportunity”
https://youtu.be/6HyUmDuPa6g
As someone on The Twitters said, she apparently meant the lifetime of a guinea pig.
And you may find yourself, living in a shotgun but an’ ben…..
…sorry, I’ve wandered in from another thread.
I have Scottish ancestry but am thoroughly Northern English. I’m just sick of the whole thing. Will there be referendum every three years until the answer is independence? By the looks of things, the English will be financially better off if Scotland left the Union. More money for London, then.
*sigh*
Sturgeon has really been backed into this by her sans-culottes. This is not the time she’d have chosen.
Will the separatists win this time? On the surface it’s unlikely. The economic case for separation in the last White Paper has been shown to be wishful thinking. a separate Scotland would be poorer – and those dependent upon the welfare state or public services would be particularly worse off.
That’s not to say that people won’t do it, of course – look at Trump and Brexit.
On the plus side, if my pension was paid in sterling rather than the Bawbee (or whatever the new currency is called) I’d be able to live like a king. So, swings and roundabouts.
I really don’t think any person forced her into this. Events, circumstances, yes.
The old Labour language of Nats and separatists really isn’t working anymore – the Nats and separatists are in your Tory Party allies.
Labour For Independence is growing again so that’s good.
I do believe that, this time, we will become a normal nation/state.
Only when the ancient nation of Pictland frees itself from the chains of Irish imperialism will there be a normal nation state.
Fight for your dream my brother!
Hey Jorrox, I don’t really care much about Scottish independence other than not understanding nationalism at all but I was just interested in your words “normal nation state”.
I suppose first I don’t get why Scotland is any more distinct from the rest of Britain than, say, Yorkshire or London, both of which have very identifiable cultures and characters of their own. Like, I get that Scotland definitely has things about it which are not like the rest of the UK, used to be a state of its own but so did Cornwall, Mercia and Wessex. What makes Scotland special such that its claim to statehood is greater and more compelling than other culturally distinct parts of this island? Is it just that 1706 is less long ago?
And the other part I guess is what aspects of British democracy are uniquely denied to Scottish people? I live in an area of pure blue. The nearest island of Labour or Lib Dem is an hour’s drive away, surrounded by a sea of Tory. I don’t vote Tory, I never will. That’s true of loads of people round here, but we’re unfortunately still a minority. Why is our lack of a voice at Westminster less important than your lack of a voice at Westminster?
And once you’ve got independence, won’t Argyll & Bute start talking about Holyrood much the same way you currently talk about London? Isn’t lack of representation for some areas just a function of centralised democracy?
In what ways is Scotland not “normal” right now? You might mention self-determination, but you were asked 2 years ago and self-determined: it’s just that your side didn’t get the “right kind” of self-determination?
What am I missing? Because it seems to me the only answer to my questions is “Yes but we’re special” (or “special-er” than other British areas with their own cultural identity) which seems to me to make Scottish nationalism just the same as all the other nationalisms.
It’s the Farrage “taking back control” thing again, which I do understand. It’s the “at any price” which I don’t. Scotland wasn’t in great financial shape when the Union was created (indeed, it was the main reason) and isn’t now. We are genuinely “better together”. Ultimately I just want the moaning to stop. I’m weary of those beady eyed shouty SNP politicians on Question Time blaming everything on Westminster where, by all accounts, SNP policies aren’t exactly going brilliantly in Scotland.
Scotland is a nation in a union with another nation. Yorkshire isn’t. If you don’t think Scotland is a nation then I won’t try to persuade you otherwise. I believe Scotland is a nation and I want it to be the same as most every other nation in the world. That’s all.
As to how parts of Scotland might act in the future, we’ll be just the same as any other nation in that regard I do believe.
The key thing for me is that we (on the Yes side) don’t seek to be different. We want to be the same as the rest of the world. No better, no worse – just the same.
But Scotland itself is a union of different nations. And no doubt those were unions too.
As a glance at a map of Europe from 1700 will confirm, nations change all the time (no Germany or Italy but still the Holy Roman Empire).
The nationalist case rests on the belief that some sort of mystical perfection was reached with annexation of Shetland in 1472 (closer to 1707 than 2017 is).
Like all faith-based beliefs, this cannot be falsified.
And that’s nationalism for you.
Why can’t we all just get along? 😂
That’s the craziest thing you’ve ever said.
That’s the second time you’ve said that about me.🍻
You must have got a bit crazier than the last time Moosey said it.
The next time I say that I will append the words”…up to now”.
…and possibly also “…in this thread”.
Ach! Those days are over.
I’m interested in what your average Scot thinks of her? Do they see her as a female Braveheart battling the bullies from the south? Do they wince very time she clip clops onto the TV with her annoying voice and bad suit? Do they view her with Salmonds hand up her skirt directing traffic so to speak? In this day and age it’s more about how you “feel” about a politician than what they’re saying. We all agree Boris, Farage and Trump were chatting shit but the people that voted for them weren’t really listening to what they were saying but how they were saying it. They also had an electorate fed up with the status quo who would vote anything that wasn’t more of the same. Is that the situation in Scotland? Is she a big enough personality to pull this off? I doubt it.
My view on independence is much like when someone hands their notice in at work. I don’t care how good or important they think they are if they want to leave it’s probably a good idea to let them go. I’d let them have another vote before Christmas.
The average Scot speaks. I don’t think she was well liked until during the first Indyref. The general view was a competent nippy sweetie. But during the campaign people really took to her, She was everywhere and did a huge amount of face to face stuff. By September 2014 she was a camera phone magnet with folks lining up for a selfie with her.
She’s been at the top for 10 years now and still has a great approval rating.
Her ratings have fallen by a third and she is less popular than the Tory leader according to a recent poll.
https://reaction.life/nicola-sturgeon-popular-ruth-davidson/
The trouble with polls is that they only reflect the opinions of people who can be bothered to answer questions from pollsters.
I never engage with pollsters these days.
I agree. I was just pointing out that Jorrox’s assertion that she retains her popularity is not strictly the case.
I know about that poll. I’m not too worried about it. And I think the numbers are turning!
Dave, I thought YOU were Scottish!
Irony alert:
But it is okay for the people of the UK to make a crucial decision that way?
That’s exactly what I thought when I heard her say that.
Is this the right place to point out that our dear PM is starting to look like Noel Gallagher?
Hmm, you could be onto something here…
Noel Gallagher, yesterday:
http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/0DDD/production/_86694530_86693759.jpg