BS: time to go back to scotland

Subject: time to go back to scotland
From: peteglasgow
Date: 17 Dec 17 - 04:53 PM

i read this letter in the 'sunday herald' (well said P Davidson, Falkirk hope you don't mind me paraphrasing your argument)- i hadn't thought much about scottish independence for a while....'do folk who voted No ever consider what they voted for then....the Northern Ireland fiasco, coming after other indicators makes it clear that voting No meant giving up a right to a say in anything that affects scotland. Cameron and many others said 'do not leave our beloved union but send a strong voice to Westminster' next Scotland sent 56 (out of 59) mps to Westminster but instead of leading the debate they were completely ignored. not one of their amendments to the Scotland bill was accepted. VAT on police Scotland was not waived even after over 100 demands . Finally after voting to remain in the EU by a larger majority than the overall vote we are having to leave because England outnumbers Scotland. voting No allowed our votes to be ignored ad infinitum....our mps are defeated at every turn while the northern ireland 10 have the power to have their deal imposed. Not one single Scottish voting result has had any effect since they voted No. ' better together my arse

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Dec 17 - 07:45 AM

voting No allowed our votes to be ignored ad infinitum....
Your votes are not being ignored. It's just that in some cases they are not enough to swing the balance.
Do the Scottish MPs always vote as a bloc? Or do they have differences among themselves?
There are less Scottish nationalist MPs now that there were at the time of the vote on Scottish independence. Does this show that the public are becoming disillusioned with the party, or with the lack of progress?

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Allan Conn
Date: 20 Dec 17 - 02:31 AM

Nigel some of your facts are a bit off there. The claim that there are less SNP MPs now than there were at the time of the independence referendum is just not so. At the time of said vote there were only 6 SNP MPs whereas there are now 35 SNP members. There are less now than there were after the 2015 election it is true but one has to remember that election result was spectacular beyond even Sturgeon's wildest dreams would have been. So they are down yes but from an incredibly high position. Had you told the SNP leadership in 2014 that just three years later they would not have 6 MPs but 36 then I imagine they would take that having more Scottish MPs than all the other parties put together.

Likewise in the Scottish Parliament people say they they no longer now have a majority - but remember they were never supposed to have a majority as the system was designed to make it very difficult to get a majority. They may be 6 MSPs down from where they were at the time of the Independence vote but their share of the vote and actual constituency votes received is both actually up from where it was then - and though they don't have a majority in the house they still have more MSPs than all four major UK wide unionist parties have combined.

Support for independence itself has remained basically just about where it was at the 2014 vote with recent polling showing only a fractional increase. That doesn't mean the SNP vote itself is guaranteed though as folk don't vote on one issue only. Labour are making a mini revival coming second in most polls now so there is the Corbyn effect to an extent. There are though a proportion of Labour voters who support independence too. So how the independence polls go in the future will depend on various things.

How people look at this Brexit process retrospectively is going to be a factor. And many Scots (not all) do feel that as a nation the country voted pretty overwhelmingly that it did not wish to leave the EU - and that not only are we leaving the EU but we may leave on a harder Brexit that the bulk of Scots would want. There is a feeling among many that as a nation the wishes are being ignored and that the sheer force of English numbers in parliament is dragging others where they don't want to go. There is also a bit of a feeling that whilst ignoring Scotland's wishes the UK gvt is falling over itself to try and accommodate Northern Ireland. Yet the vote against leaving the EU was considerably higher in Scotland than it was in Northern Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Dec 17 - 05:46 AM

Scotland gets more representation in Westminster per head of population than England or Wales.
The way the national money is divided up is also disproportionate. With the "Scottish" oil that may be a way of compensation. A bizarre rationale but there it is.

Now what would the Welsh think of Birmingham getting its water? Or those in Gloucestershire having water carried across its land and roads closed for a duration and no recompense? Just to feed London's voracious appetite for growth. Using a restored canal to ferry water would be some recompense but do they consider it? Lip service is all we get. A long linear reservoir is what they would get!

For the common good? Rarely.

Scotland is not the only enclave to suffer form metrocentricity.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Dec 17 - 06:58 AM

You have a short memory if you don't recall Welsh resistance to the English stealing their water.

But the expropriation of Scottish oil is on an entirely different scale. Scotland would be one of the wealthiest countries in the world if we'd managed to stop Thatcher and her confederates stealing it. The comparison is with Norway (same size country, same amount of oil, now sitting on a trillion-dollar surplus because they made damn sure the oil companies paid their taxes).

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Dec 19 - 03:03 PM

Could we have some updated opinions on this question,
in the wake of the election in December 2019?

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Dec 19 - 03:37 PM

Not My Prime Minister demos in Edinburgh and Glasgow tomorrow.

Big independence demo planned for Glasgow, Jan 11th.

Things are probably going to get ugly along the same lines as Catalonia, but the Union is fucked.

Though I suspect it's going to get much uglier in England. We have something to hope for, they don't. A lot of people are going to die.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Dec 19 - 04:16 PM

When THAT referendum was held,
I remember that
Glasgow had a majority of Yes (leave) votes.
Independence for Glasgow maybe?

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Dec 19 - 04:48 PM

"YES Scotland's Future" on FB have just uploaded a video by Bryan Simpson of a humungous rally in Glasgow tonight - thousands of people. Well done folks.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 13 Dec 19 - 05:54 PM

I hope and pray Scotland leaves, and helps end, both unions - UK and EU; apart from some local government, all any citizen of our world needs is their own nation and the United Nations. My poem, from WalkaboutsVerse, on "Repatriating"

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: keberoxu
Date: 15 Dec 19 - 12:40 PM

Ignorant and late learner that I am,
the well-known selling and re-selling of the Scottish Highlands
is just now getting my attention as it ought to have done.
Yes, I knew of the clearances,
what I was uncertain/ignorant of
was how much of the Highlands is owned by how few,
and how exclusive it all is.

This year, though, a chunk of Highlands real estate
was briefly on the market.
At least someone went through the motions of
making this offering public.
Since then, the property has changed hands, and is off the market again.

The location is:
Glen Strathfarrar, near Loch Monar.
The parcel is large enough to include
five, that's 5, "Munro"s.
Even I know what "Munros" are.

There are several photographs in the following
article by Greg Ritchie for Bloomberg.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Dec 19 - 04:58 PM

The Greens have done the most to publicize the inequities in land ownership. Andy Wightman has a couple of books about it and has been very active on Twitter.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 15 Dec 19 - 08:07 PM

- and we must ask the question, how did the landowners become landowners in the first place?
answer - they just took it! Or were possibly given it by a king* - whose ancestors originally just took it!! (* and also made themselves kings)
shower o' b*st*rds!

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Dec 19 - 08:25 PM

Absolutely right. John Seymour, among others, said that he loved landlords so much that he wanted millions of them. In other words, tax the land so much that landowners would get shut of their holdings as if they were getting their hands burned. Nobody made the land...

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 01:43 AM

Breaking up the huge Highland estates would simply replace an oligarchy making a fortune out of artificial desolation with thousands of smallholders living at subsistence level in the same desolation while it gets ever worse.

Most of that land needs to be rewilded for the sake of the planet.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Iains
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 03:17 AM

Only 10% of Scotland is arable land, most of the highlands and Islands is only fit for trees or moorland and rough grazing.
Subsidies accounted for 82 per cent of profit from farming, a figure which shows farming’s continued dependence on support payments.Livestock accounted for a third of output, with the beef sector, worth £715 million, the biggest earner.Barley 218 million milk 312million.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/total-income-farming-estimates-scotland-2016-18/pages/9/
If you make a cursory study of the relief, climate, soils and geology, it is obvious that a lot of the northern and western areas are very marginal for most kinds of agriculture.
Breaking up the huge Highland estates would simply replace an oligarchy making a fortune out of artificial desolation with thousands of smallholders living at subsistence level in the same desolation while it gets ever worse.
I would take issue with the artificial desolation. The highlands never has supported a dense population, especially when the clan system was destroyed during the Maunder minimum little ice age. Whether population densities increased during the medieval warming is unclear. Some argue the little ice age and concomitant famine did much to create the political union.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 05:37 AM

Seymour's thoughts were a bit more articulated than that. A tax on land wouldn't need to be a blunt instrument. You'd be allowed to own land tax-free up to a point, determined by the economic potential of that land. A hundred acres of fertile lowland farmland might have as much "value" in that regard as thousands of acres of Scottish upland. I agree about rewilding, but land that has been abused for centuries via deforestation and overgrazing won't go back to its pristine state without a lot of financial input. Can't see that happening without massive financial incentives...

And for chrissake let's stop people shooting at wild animals for the fun of it.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Iains
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 05:58 AM

but land that has been abused for centuries via deforestation
Woodland is the climatic climax in the UK - with mixed tree species.
How are you going to farm in a forest?
If you do not farm, how are you going to eat?

What a silly boy!

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 06:24 AM

I think Scottish indepedence is a great idea. What ever noises Boris is making this week about being grateful to the Northern constituencies - everyone knows they don't give a fuck about anywhere north of Luton.

Get rid of the midges and I'd want to live there myself.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 06:49 AM

Scottish independence MUST be conditional on every person in the UK being granted automatic FREE dual nationality and a guarantee of a decent place ot live and a decent job.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 07:04 AM

Why's that?

England didn't give a bollocks when they closed down Ravenscraig.. They went on voting for Thatcher.
Its not as though we've shown any great passion to Scotland.

I have a lot of time for the SNP.

Besides it would create jobs - customs officers at Carlisle. Unlike Mexico - we wouldn't need to build a wall. Its there already.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: weerover
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 08:04 AM

It now begins to look that the United Kingdom is so far from being united that an independent Scotland is inevitable. That would, I believe, mean the end of the Trident nuclear "deterrent" on the Clyde, which would be a huge step forward for humanity.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 09:21 AM

I've got room in my garage, if I move a couple of things.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Iains
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 09:50 AM

There is a refit complex for them at Devonport, plenty of room. Not very friendly people though. Last time I came ashore there at night we were illuminated with floodlights and looking at the barrels of submachine guns held by a bunch of squaddies, despite having radioed our arrival. That was during the troubles though.(I would like to think we were being used as targets for an exercise, but who knows?)

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 09:54 AM

Mitch Benn: We're Moving to Scotland

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 05:12 PM

SBP-cooperator ....I don't understand what you are suggesting?
Why on earth should Scotland returning to her previous, normal state of independence (which she was for hundreds of years before England managed to get itself together, form a nation) have a requirement for everyone in the (former) UK to have dual nationality?
Dual nationality of which nations?
Scotland is a welcoming country, we encourage migrants to come here, help our country to grow and thrive - BUT I think it unlikely that we would trust Boris Johnstone, Jacob Rees Mogg, Michael Gove (yes I know he was born in Scotland)or any of their ilk to set foot on our soil!
(Have you watched / listened to the abuse SNP politicians receive from the Tory benches in Westminster? ?

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 06:13 PM

I see the mass media talking of "IndyRef2" now.
With a catchphrase like that one,
the media at least won't let go.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: robomatic
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 08:54 PM

I am an anglophile, and by that I am by no means limited to the English. That whole messy bunch of islanders over there, various backgrounds, shades, and brogues, lilts, dropped and carried aitchs, high and low and un churched haggis loving or loathing. And I carry the usual fear of change. And I hold to a very American prejudice that countries are better off staying as united as possible. That might come from the way we're taught the causes and results of the American Civil War 1860-1865.

But-

I worked with a Scot a few years ago, and other than being one of the few yanks who could understand him the first time, he was full of attitude about the English. And he felt that they were full of attitude about the Scots.

So. . .

In the light of recent votes while I very much think it's in the Scots' (and everyone elses') interests to maintain the Union, I can see that it is by no means a sure thing.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Dec 19 - 11:22 PM

I can't see us having a civil war Robo.

Boris and his mates wouldn't actually notice for a couple of months if the country disintegrated and north of Luton floated off into the Atlantic.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 03:27 PM

Is this a picture worth a thousand words?

the vote throughout Scotland

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 08:27 PM

Scotland's merry gritters are out in force;
see the Naming of Snowploughs thread.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Dec 19 - 07:08 PM

How the written word gets around in
the outer Hebrides.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Dec 19 - 01:39 PM

And here is the First Minister's document, online.

Scotland's Right to Choose

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Dec 19 - 04:50 AM

what a farce of democracy , the election result based on the elctoral count was not a victory for the conservatives , these same people who went on about democracy are now preventing scotland from execrising their democratic choice,hypocrites

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: Iains
Date: 22 Dec 19 - 05:08 AM

But who owns Rockall?

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Dec 19 - 06:58 AM

"To Scotland, Again"

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Dec 19 - 07:59 AM

It's funny how people who moan long and loudly, about losing to a slim majority, rejoice vociferously about winning by a similar margin.

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Dec 19 - 02:33 PM

My answer to Iains' question dates back to
the Michael Flanders lyric:

"Though we're thrown out of Malta,
Though Spain should take Gibraltar,
Why should we flinch or falter
When England's got …   rock-all?"

Subject: RE: BS: time to go back to scotland
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Dec 19 - 05:04 AM

The Goons once ended an episode on Rockall.

They were blown to bits.