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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
White Paper (THE #indyref thread)
(2915 posts)- Started 10 years ago by Morningsider
- Latest reply from chdot
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Posted 9 years ago #
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Just been briefed on news that there's a plan to blockade where I work tomorrow to prevent those inside getting out to vote.
Things that irritate me:
a) That it's happening.
b) That it's being viewed by some as representative of the Yes campaign.Posted 9 years ago # -
"prevent those inside getting out to vote"
Why??
Apart any notion of anti-democracy (and the assumption that the workforce will all vote the same way) won't stop postal or early voters!
Posted 9 years ago # -
But ultimately, no matter what the multitude of arguments for and against, it doesn't feel like the right time
I would of course like you to become persuaded it is the right time but realistically that ain't gonna happen here. But out of interest, is it not the right time because currently you feel Scotland is not capable currently of standing on its own feet as a country, or is it not the right time because currently things/the system aren't/isn't all that bad and they would have to get worse before it is time to do something radical about it?
For me a lot of "it" is about political reform to allow us to achieve what we (I) want to achieve. I'm not intending to vote Yes because it will, in itself, achieve the things I think the country should, I'm doing it because the way I see it is our best shot at doing these things. I can't see the status quo ever allowing for that - the Westminster system's real strength I see is it's self preservation abilities by very slow evolution - always behind the curve of public opinion, but not so far behind that it comes tumbling down.
(And is it ever the wrong time to rid ourselves of a FPTP electoral system and the den of patronage, expenses, unaccountability and privelege that is the House of Lords.)
Posted 9 years ago # -
@chdot: quite.
Amusingly I know that many occupants of said workplace intend to vote yes because they're fed up of being posted up here, and and yes vote would (eventually) see them all end up down south.
The rationality of such a blockade is probably for a different thread!
Posted 9 years ago # -
"But out of interest, is it not the right time because [...]"
It's not the right time because not enough people think it is the right time. What I mean is that I think there should be 70%+ backing a Yes (whether that is fair/correct/moral/legal) to achieve the kind of national excitement/vigour to move things onwards.
I'm sure from within the Yes campaign it may feel that that level of excitement is there, but taking the country (I mean Scotland) as a whole it can't possibly be if half the population are voting No.
For the record I voted for AV - not a great step forward from FPTP but a start.
I don't think slow evolution is necessarily a bad thing.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@cb: I agree that it seems odd we can make big decisions about a nations future without a clear majority, but also see that the same argument could be used in reverse.
There's nothing particularly special about the current situation apart from the fact that it's the current situation. Rejecting change is as momentous as embracing it.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"but also see that the same argument could be used in reverse."
I don't think I buy that. A No voter could say, "I didn't ask for this referendum, so I'm effectively being forced to vote on something I don't even want to have to vote on".
Saying you need to vote Yes because things will be worse/just-as-terrible if you vote No is starting to sound like blackmail (ok, perhaps that's a little over-dramatic).
Posted 9 years ago # -
@Celebs4indy: JOHN NIVEN 'Try this, imagine Scotland is independent & has to vote Yes to.. a union with England. Who in their right minds would do so?'
Posted 9 years ago # -
" imagine Scotland is independent"
I'll need a few more details around that for this thought experiment to work. What's the currency/in or out of the EU/GDP, etc, etc.
Oops, we're back to square one (kind of).
Posted 9 years ago # -
^ yeah but the Scotland you see is the product of 300 years of Union .... for both good and bad. Who knows what Scotland would've looked like if it had been Independent for all that time? The fact that the UK is in relative decline means that you can look at all the bad points of the Nation and ignore the good. Scotland could've ended up as a reactionary theocracy and we might still be fighting for abortion rights. It is all speculation and it is a bit like coming downstairs the night after the party and saying ' I wouldn't have voted for this mess'
Posted 9 years ago # -
SRD - I don't think that tweet is as clever as the author thinks. Scotland would already be in a union with England, through the EU/EFTA.
The popularity of any union would also depend on the situation at the time of the vote. A union with England might have seemed very attractive just after the financial crash. Possibly similar to the Darien fiasco, which (in part at least) led to the current union.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I read "now is not the right time" as "It is not the right time for me personally to make this decision". Which is pretty close to the No position of "I didn't ask for this referendum".
I see why some folk think things are okay, why bother, etc. Personally I find that overly complacent. It's a position that fails to recognise that, thus far, devolution has protected Scots from the worst of austerity, but that position is going to change, and soon. The biggest expenditure cuts are yet to come. When they do, life is going to get tougher for a lot of people, not just those on benefits.
Of course, some on the right are quite comfortable with that. It's an "I'm alright Jack" attitude. I'm not at all comfortable with such positions. Real and positive change is required, not the negative change of ever increasing "socialism for the rich; capitalism for everyone else" offered by Westminster.
Only a Yes vote offers the possibility of real, positive change. Not in the vote itself, but in the country we help to build afterwards, through electing governments to make change happen. There is no chance of Westminster governments enacting positive changes for people in Scotland.
Posted 9 years ago # -
'A No voter could say, "I didn't ask for this referendum, so I'm effectively being forced to vote on something I don't even want to have to vote on".'
No-one is forced to vote here; if someone wants to be forced to vote they could move to Switzerland.
Every now and then some sort of thing comes up which is just part and parcel of living in a particular place, even if you only happen to be living in a particular place because you happen to like the food/tolerate the climate/speak the language/were born into, rather than having deliberately moved there in order to be occasionally offered the opportunity to cast a vote. Some of these part/parcel things can be ignored/rejected (the opportunity to vote) but some are effectively mandatory (paying income tax) and can only be avoided by moving to a different country (or not earning enough for your earnings to be eligible or earning enough to accountant your way out of it).
Posted 9 years ago # -
Posted 9 years ago # -
Interesting graphic, but those were all separate colonies at the time of their independence. (Apart from Eire). So the state they were becoming Independent of included Scotland. Don't pretend that Scottish people didn't play a major part in colonial rule.
Posted 9 years ago # -
The sun hasn't set on the British Empire yet.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Interesting graphic, but those were all separate colonies at the time of their independence
I read somewhere (and can't recall where because I've skim read so much stuff online recently) of a pre-WW1 plan for Scottish home rule that would have resulted in it being given the status of a dominion. i.e. like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland etc. It's effectively what Ireland became in the period between the Free State being declared and the Republic in 1949. Although I don't think the Irish really took too much notice of what the UK considered them to be.
Malta was apparently the only imperial posession which they ever gave serious thought to actually integrating into the UK proper.
Don't pretend that Scottish people didn't play a major part in colonial rule.
Theres growing recognition of this fact. I did some artwork over the summer for a series of book talks around Scotland involving Commonwealth authors on this subject. Have to say when I was researching the subject matters I learnt a lot, particularly about the Glasgow "Tobacco Lairds".Posted 9 years ago # -
"Don't pretend that Scottish people didn't play a major part in colonial rule."
I never said anything of the kind. I found the graphic on Twitter, I'm not responsible for its conflation of colonies, dominions and parts of the union.
However, given that the UK government position is that it alone will be the continuator state (however wrong it may be about that) then de facto we are looking at a post-colonial scenario for Scotland, whatever the Treaty of Union may say, and regardless of the history of the Empire too.
Posted 9 years ago # -
This #indyref thread now has more posts than the "Today's rubbish driving..." thread.
Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Gavin Corbett @gavincorbett
Postal ballot #indyref turnout in Edinburgh is now 89.6%! The final 10.4% can hand postal ballot in at any polling place in city tomorrowPosted 9 years ago # -
@eddie_h, still some way to go before it catches the "Spotted" thread mind you. Which has to be a good thing, surely?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Just listened to Brown's speech. Don't think the result would be anywhere near as close if he had been leading the 'No' campaign.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Brown's always been good at speeches. Funny too. But what he did as chancellor makes him the wrong man to speak about 'uncertainty' and 'financial crisis', not to mention NHS privatization.
Posted 9 years ago # -
#indyref will be over tomorrow but rubbish driving will always be with us...
Posted 9 years ago # -
Brown's always been good at speeches. Funny too. But what he did as chancellor makes him the wrong man to speak about 'uncertainty' and 'financial crisis', not to mention NHS privatization.
^ not denying that. But the passion and power he put into it really shows you how lacklustre the 'No' campaign has been. It has been effectively sleepwalking its way into the referendum and has allowed 'Yes' to take the moral high ground without really challenging. Salmond isn't exactly clean when it comes to 'gold-plated financial regulation', but it hasn't stopped him unashamedly tugging at the heartstrings in the way Brown just did there.Posted 9 years ago # -
Meanwhile in Glasgow...
And in the Meadows...
Posted 9 years ago # -
from the guardian liveblog:
In a clear sign they are preparing for the possibility of a yes vote and emergency recall of parliament, Commons officials have sent journalists a briefing note detailing the last times the House of Commons was recalled on a Saturday.
The last Saturday sitting was on 3 April 1982, the day after the Falklands war began.
The previous three dates were:
3 November 1956 - Suez Crisis
30 July 1949 - Summer adjournment debates – last sitting of the summer
2 September 1939 - Outbreak of World War IIThat perhaps gives some sense of the scale of the constitutional crisis for the UK if Scotland does vote to leave. PO
Posted 9 years ago # -
GB making the rest of the BT team look fairly invisible. But he does echo of yesterday's crisis as SRD observes.
"This our flag. These are our streets etc". Is this GB code for big business to 'butt out' and let Scotland decide ? (Just kidding....)
Nice to see Rory Bremner being brave and keeping the BT'rs amused at the Festival Theatre tonight. (He is a very definite 'no' so not doing it for the money) Hope he does the skit I suggested where GB returns as temporary 'supreme crisis commander' of the UK. The little episode of the saltire being run up and down above Downing St could work in nicely as visual.
Streets in centre are very noisy with pro-Indy. BT'rs don't seem to have got out as much en-masse but the vote might be very different.
Posted 9 years ago # -
The Scottish independence activists who shout their message from the hills
Posted 9 years ago #
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