Alex Salmond did not come across in a positive way during that interview IMO. Comparing a YES vote without every single demand of Salmond's campaign, to the Crimea referendum was reaching.
Also he refuses to acknowledge that should the vote go his way, he has no mandate to decide how the rest of the Union should respond towards a newly independent Scotland. Border patrols, a currency union, etc will be decisions for Westminster, and possibly an England, Wales, and Northern Ireland referendum to decide what kind of relationship they have with Scotland.
As far as I see it anyway...
Scottish independence
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"Dangerous"?
IF the vote isnt clear cut, it will not put the issues to bed.
I have bad feeling we could be heading for 48/52 or even 49/51 spilt in ether direction. If the yes votes ends up 2% behide the no vote or the margin of error or spoilt ballot papers is equal to that amount, we will probably end up having another vote 18 months down the line.
I have bad feeling we could be heading for 48/52 or even 49/51 spilt in ether direction. If the yes votes ends up 2% behide the no vote or the margin of error or spoilt ballot papers is equal to that amount, we will probably end up having another vote 18 months down the line.
Doubt it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_referendum,_1995barcode wrote:IF the vote isnt clear cut, it will not put the issues to bed.
I have bad feeling we could be heading for 48/52 or even 49/51 spilt in ether direction. If the yes votes ends up 2% behide the no vote or the margin of error or spoilt ballot papers is equal to that amount, we will probably end up having another vote 18 months down the line.
Even the SNP's will realise that this is a once in a generation thing. A majority is a majority.
In Quebec you have a self-proclaimed state separated from its mother country by a language (French), a religion (Catholicism), an ancestry (French), geopolitical outlook (separatism) and, above all, a massive chip on its shoulder about being disadvantaged because of these differences. Some of this may apply to Scotland too, but somehow I doubt most Scots can claim pure Celtic / Pictish blood in their veins and that 80% of the population speak Gallic.
Quebec's independence movement seemed to reflect global politics at the time - a lot of European colonies were being given back to native populations - and at the same time a lot of independence groups coagulated to form one bloc - the PQ. They reached the height of their political power in the 1980s. A 1980 referendum on Quebecois sovereignty failed 60/40. Then in 1982 the Canadian federal government, in an attempt to patriate their own laws from the British crown, left Quebec out of the negotiations. A few years later, the other province leaders sat down with Quebec to try to get them to endorse the 1982 Constitution Act.
They failed. This eventually led to the aforementioned referendum - the second in 15 years - Should Quebec get out or stay in Canada. This time only 50.58% voted yes - a swing of 10% to the Sovereignist side. But it was still enough to keep Quebec a part of Canada. Disappointed, and after a horrible post-election public outburst by their leader, the pro-secessionist movement decreased in popularity, a new law was introduced which apparently enshrined the right of Quebec to be involved in constitutional matters, and the PQ were defeated in the 2003 election by the pro-Canada side. However in 2012 the PQ again won the Quebec provincial election, albeit in a minority governance.
The ugly truth is in Quebec you will see signs in shops telling you that you will not be served if you speak in English, that you must speak French (the only official language in a province where 1 in 5 are Anglophone). In Quebec, you have people who did not even inhabit the land 600 years earlier claiming it passionately as their home, yet it was conquered in 1753 and shrewdly sold by Ze French to England in exchange for Haiti. In Quebec, you have a GDP lower than the Canadian average and a debt in the region of 47% of GDP. There is a lot to be sorted out in Quebec before it can think of secession again.
I believe Scotland don't want to secede from Britain for the type of cultural, language, religious or sociological reasons Quebec want independence for - it's primarily an economic move. Politically, Scots aren't disenfranchised from the UK. They're not powerless or left out of decisions - if anything the West Lothian issue makes their MPs (and our Welsh ones) carry more weight - separate but equal.
The SNP can't fight this battle with haggis, kilts, whisky, caber tossing and Irn Bru alone. It's not enough to say "We're Scottish so therefore we must be different." On the face of it, and it is galling to have to face up to this as a proud Welshman, nationalism and patriotism are just useful dictionary terms for expressing an identity which in itself is meaningless - you may as well form a country based on the shared ideal of owning the same brand of dishwasher tablet.
What they must do is put the argument to the 5 million or so voters who will go to the ballot boxes in 6 months that they are better off out of than inside Britain's economic bubble. Recent events since 2007 may skew that perception. Certainly the ConDems being in charge of the public purse and ferreting all the money to the SarfEast doesn't help. No wonder the trains I work on ferry hundreds of people to work in London from 200+ miles away at stupid o'clock AM. But so long as the message is out there, and people can make up their minds, I don't see any problem with it, however it goes.
But don't think this will be the be all and end all. In 1998, PQ said they would not chase another referendum because they didn't think they would win. In fact, a recent poll now shows only 1 in 5 people think that Quebec will ever leave Canada, interestingly the same proportion of people who speak an unofficial language in their own home province. However, should the tide turn, who knows? If the SNP continues to hold onto its support, forming government after government in Holyrood, who's to say that in 2020 Salmond's successors don't have another crack of the whip? What happens if Labour gets back in Westminster in 2015 and the anti-London feeling subsides slightly?
My feelings? Who cares. I'm not Canadian, or Scottish, I don't live there. However, I do cling to petty nationalism and patriotism. If someone walked up to me tomorrow and said I could live in an independent financially viable Welsh state free of control of people who've never even stepped foot west of the dyke? I'd be tempted....
Quebec's independence movement seemed to reflect global politics at the time - a lot of European colonies were being given back to native populations - and at the same time a lot of independence groups coagulated to form one bloc - the PQ. They reached the height of their political power in the 1980s. A 1980 referendum on Quebecois sovereignty failed 60/40. Then in 1982 the Canadian federal government, in an attempt to patriate their own laws from the British crown, left Quebec out of the negotiations. A few years later, the other province leaders sat down with Quebec to try to get them to endorse the 1982 Constitution Act.
They failed. This eventually led to the aforementioned referendum - the second in 15 years - Should Quebec get out or stay in Canada. This time only 50.58% voted yes - a swing of 10% to the Sovereignist side. But it was still enough to keep Quebec a part of Canada. Disappointed, and after a horrible post-election public outburst by their leader, the pro-secessionist movement decreased in popularity, a new law was introduced which apparently enshrined the right of Quebec to be involved in constitutional matters, and the PQ were defeated in the 2003 election by the pro-Canada side. However in 2012 the PQ again won the Quebec provincial election, albeit in a minority governance.
The ugly truth is in Quebec you will see signs in shops telling you that you will not be served if you speak in English, that you must speak French (the only official language in a province where 1 in 5 are Anglophone). In Quebec, you have people who did not even inhabit the land 600 years earlier claiming it passionately as their home, yet it was conquered in 1753 and shrewdly sold by Ze French to England in exchange for Haiti. In Quebec, you have a GDP lower than the Canadian average and a debt in the region of 47% of GDP. There is a lot to be sorted out in Quebec before it can think of secession again.
I believe Scotland don't want to secede from Britain for the type of cultural, language, religious or sociological reasons Quebec want independence for - it's primarily an economic move. Politically, Scots aren't disenfranchised from the UK. They're not powerless or left out of decisions - if anything the West Lothian issue makes their MPs (and our Welsh ones) carry more weight - separate but equal.
The SNP can't fight this battle with haggis, kilts, whisky, caber tossing and Irn Bru alone. It's not enough to say "We're Scottish so therefore we must be different." On the face of it, and it is galling to have to face up to this as a proud Welshman, nationalism and patriotism are just useful dictionary terms for expressing an identity which in itself is meaningless - you may as well form a country based on the shared ideal of owning the same brand of dishwasher tablet.
What they must do is put the argument to the 5 million or so voters who will go to the ballot boxes in 6 months that they are better off out of than inside Britain's economic bubble. Recent events since 2007 may skew that perception. Certainly the ConDems being in charge of the public purse and ferreting all the money to the SarfEast doesn't help. No wonder the trains I work on ferry hundreds of people to work in London from 200+ miles away at stupid o'clock AM. But so long as the message is out there, and people can make up their minds, I don't see any problem with it, however it goes.
But don't think this will be the be all and end all. In 1998, PQ said they would not chase another referendum because they didn't think they would win. In fact, a recent poll now shows only 1 in 5 people think that Quebec will ever leave Canada, interestingly the same proportion of people who speak an unofficial language in their own home province. However, should the tide turn, who knows? If the SNP continues to hold onto its support, forming government after government in Holyrood, who's to say that in 2020 Salmond's successors don't have another crack of the whip? What happens if Labour gets back in Westminster in 2015 and the anti-London feeling subsides slightly?
My feelings? Who cares. I'm not Canadian, or Scottish, I don't live there. However, I do cling to petty nationalism and patriotism. If someone walked up to me tomorrow and said I could live in an independent financially viable Welsh state free of control of people who've never even stepped foot west of the dyke? I'd be tempted....
I get the feeling Salmond would have been off holding it in 2015, six months after the UK election, especial ifAlexia wrote: However, should the tide turn, who knows? If the SNP continues to hold onto its support, forming government after government in Holyrood, who's to say that in 2020 Salmond's successors don't have another crack of the whip? What happens if Labour gets back in Westminster in 2015 and the anti-London feeling subsides slightly?
a Tory majority government appeared.
Here is one of the more utter fringe parties supporting the No campaign.
http://www.britainfirst.org/scotland-leaflet2.pdf
http://www.britainfirst.org/scotland-leaflet2.pdf
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?s ... d=13898587Alexia wrote:Leaving aside the utter lunacy of the far-right who decry "political correctness" and EU interference, those happy smiling white faces on their leaflet look suspiciously American to me. Just a hunch.