If Cameron now wins the election narrowly in 2015, as is possible, there will be an EU Referendum in 2017. England will vote for withdrawal and Scotland will not. Scotland will then demand to be 'free' within the EU (oh, the irony) and the devolved Parliament will demand it.
Chances of happening, not that low really, 8-1 perhaps?
36 comments:
Chances are zero because the English won't vote for "out"
Agree with SW: You've seen what project fear can rustle up when they want to.
Imagine PROJECT FEAR on an EU scale.
And also consider the sweeties that the EU can pull out of the bag if things get really desperate.
under those MEGA PROJECT FEAR circumstances 55% no - 45% yes would be a good result on an EU referendum.
I've recently had Project Fear demonstrated to me by an industrialist on another blog.
It is quite formidable, I'll be honest.
To defeat it we have to convince people that money isn't everything.
Our forbears knew this and were prepared to suffer rationing (among other things) and were prepared to put it all on the line to preserve our autonomy.
Incidentally, Salmond quitting - inevitable as it may have been - is IMHO bad news for UKIP
Sturgeon will quickly be seen as less effective if not actually out of her depth; and the dangers of the one-man-band leadership will be there for all to see
BTW, Kev, the willingness to suffer rationing was vs a fate a bit more tangible than, err, a degree of constitutional independence
I'll believe Salmond's gone when he's 6 feet under in a box. He's pulled off the quitting act before. I give it 18 months. The Fishy woman gets the job, isn't up to it, and he comes back 'when my nation calls, I answer'
Give us a link EK! or at least the gist of it.
PS: I'm not accepting rationing unless I'm at war. And I mean a proper war. With Putin or someone of equal stature.
I can't. Private blog. And in my real name !
The guy is a manufacturer in a multi billion dollar corporation and says business would suffer massive losses if trade tariffs were introduced with Europe. He also says the American business arm would pull offices and factories out of the UK. He has been told so and says that UK independence is a pipe dream. My suggestion that we should look outward to the BRICs and the Commonwealth is tosh.
I think I held my own with him but by the end I had retreated to saying that there were, ultimately, more important things than money.
Of WW1 & WW2 Peter Hitchens argues convincingly - in a series of posts on his blog - that we could have averted war Germany. I can get links if you'd like but I should warn you that he writes profusely.
Perhaps I should have used a stronger word than 'autonomy'. How about liberty instead ?
Because liberty is what I think is at stake with the EU. And that it is an apparently 'benign' place at the moment doesn't mean that it couldn't turn nasty on us - by which time we are already subsumed and it is too late.
BTW I hear the Scottish Nationalists are commiserating with a dram or three.
The unhealthy option - for good reason because there is no Highland Spring.
CU the Scots Nats won't try again for a while. They will want to be absolutely nailed-on sure before they force another referendum. As it is, if they don't pretty well promise never to hold another one, Scotland will lose a lot of business. Why would you invest in Montreal if it might try to cede again in two years' time?
Also, I think actually holding a referendum puts the nationalist fantasy to bed once and for all. There simply are not any sensible ways to split up an economy that has been integrated since pretty well before economies existed (ok ok you know what I mean).
It would be easier to leave the EU, but only a bit. These days you can't simply say "oh we can just trade", because of standards and other (what the EU calls) non-tariff barriers.
I laugh every time a Hannanite mentions Switzerland. Switzerland is basically in the EU (and these days even de facto in the Euro), but instead of the law emanating from two or three treaties it emanates from thousands.
If we do have our EU referendum, we will be presented with pretty much an identical situation as on Thursday: the prospect of jumping off a cliff will be extremely worrying; and we will get some reassurance that we won't feel quite as oppressed.
I'm not saying it cannot or should not be done, I just think it is so hard that it won't happen.
During this referendum campaign I kept asking myself what it was the nationalists actually wanted. What would they change if they had the power? And I came to the conclusion that they would change pretty much nothing.
The Nationalists are just small minded cunts who hate the English. They blame the English for every problem Scotland has and think all such problems would magically disappear if the English went away. Simple as. People like the fishy pair know civilised people don't like the raw hatred of the English, so they use codewords like 'tory' and 'westminster'. It allows them to pose as 'civic nationalists', but we all know what they really mean.
I particularly enjoy their contortions over so-called "new Scots". They would truly have you believe that some indigent from Eritrea (or wherever) has more in common with Scots voters than someone called Smith from Bedfordshire, who - as they would have it - does not share their concern for human rights and communitarian values. This from a party whose founders were big fans of Hitler and blood-and-soil facism. If I had my way I'd lock 'em up for sedition.
At this point I should confess that tolerance is an English virtue; we disputatious Scots tend not to have it.
an English virtue; we disputatious Scots tend not to have it
really SW ? - I find that hard to believe ... (+:
SW? Gone native have we.
Are you one of the "parcel of rogues"?
tolerance is a virtue that is forced on you.
with waves of mass immigration over the last 948 years (and poss more) the brits have had a choice of
(a) killing/firebombing/expelling/gassing the newcomers
(b) moaning about the newcomers for about 40 years (until the parents know no different)
As a mass we chose (b) just about every time (though as we all know, moaning might have been a wee bit of a euphemism in the 30s and 70s)
The scots had newcomers forced on them ~300 years ago in a rather untactful way. After that point, there probably have not been waves of tenant farmer immigration into the isle of skye - they havent had to be rolerant on a repeated basis.
My train of thought is as always undermined by the french.
@Sebastian Weetabix
You commented in the last thread about "An upsurge in English nationalism. He (Salmond) is steadily achieving his aim of turning the English against the union."
Put the blame where it really belongs. Labour, and especially Scottish Labour. The Scottish Labour Party made "English" and "Tory" synonymous. They did it deliberately. They stoked both Scottish and Welsh nationalism and when in power they set up Devolution in the most anti-English fashion possible. The leader of Welsh Labour even said it was his job to "make the English jealous".
You can't make the Welsh more Welsh, the Scots more Scots and then expect the English to be "more British".
I used to be proud to be British. Not any more. When you are abused and legislated against then you start to identify by how you are oppressed - as English. My three children face £9,000 University tuition fees because they are English and Scottish MPs whose own kids were unaffected voted to impose tuition fees on them.
Once again, we keep hearing "England is too big and so must be broken up into Euro-regions to make it manageable". They promote Division in the name of Unity - it is truly Orwellian.
I wanted Scotland to go because it is an existential threat to my country. We've just had a Referendum in the 700th anniversary year of Bannockburn. Do you honestly think the English will be going on about Hitler, Napoleon or the Spanish Armada 700 YEARS after the event?
You said Scotland had ruled England for the last 300 years. Misruled more like. Just look at Neather's revelation that they deliberately encouraged mass immigration in order to rub our (English) noses in it - Mandelson even said they "sent out search parties" for immigrants.
According to the last Census, the majority in England now consider themselves English but not British. Why the surprise? It is not Salmond doing it, he's just taken advantage of the opportunity. It is Labour Party bigotry.
We've just learned of more than 1400 cases of child rape (and even murder) whilst those few people who did try and speak out were threatened with the sack and sent on "Diversity" courses. Councillors were all informed in 2005 but told to keep quiet. Rotherham's MPs (including the Scot Denis MacShane) opposed any Inquiry as "not helpful". To whom? The victims or the Labour Party?
And you wonder why the English don't want to be in a Union with people who not only don't have our best interests at heart, they actively aim to do us harm?
Well, at the last Westminster election 78% of Scottish voters chose unionist parties, and if opinion polls are to be believed, you raving English nationalists who wanted Scots to leave are outnumbered by the 70+% of your English compatriots who want to keep the union. The great thing about the union is that it is greater than the sum of the parts - but a minority of stupid bone headed cunts on both sides of the border are too stupid to see it. Btw, I also opposed the pretendy wee parliament in Edinburgh, precisely because I thought it would undermine the union, giving a midden for the cock Salmond to crow on.
As for the PC nonsense in Rotherham that prefers to allow child rape rather than permit even a hint of a suspicion of racism is fuck all to do with Scotland. Perhaps you haven't noticed that all the councillors, coppers and social workers are all white English people from South Yorkshire? I don't see any of you lot bringing them to account either. Where are the angry demonstrations? The private prosecutions by concerned citizens over malfeasance in public office? Perhaps like all truly enraged Englishmen you have written to the newspaper and immediately forgotten all about it.
You're just the mirror image of those SNP twats. Fuck off back under your stone and take your stupid bigotry with you.
The last few comment underline what Salmond has stirred up. The accommodating and tolerant English have had their forgiving attitude rammed down their throats by the last couple of weeks "negotiations", capitulation sounds a better word. This on top of situations like Rotherham, enforced PC/Multiculturalism and a hundred other stupid/unnecessary laws and rules that we have allowed to encroach not only on our freedom but our very identity as a nation.
The Scots already had it pretty good. I think that is a fact that the general public was largely unaware of. But now we have had the cost and non-benefit highlighted many people are a little aggrieved that they have been promised (hurriedly and rashly) even more.
Cameron MUST follow through on the English/ parliament/assembly whatever you want to call English voting on English only affecting matters, or he is a dead man walking as far as the election goes. He doesn't have long before that election, which is where it may have been a clever move to tell the Scots it will be January-ish, this allows him to escape the accusations of using a quick solution as electioneering(which it undoubtedly is).
If the Scots have to wait for a couple of extra months though while the "English Question" is sorted, well so be it, For Cameron it also moves the resolution even nearer the May election and a good solution will probably win him votes. Essentially his fate is now entirely in his own hands.
I have no quarrel with Scots in general in fact I haven't met an ignorant and aggressive Scot only "normal people" with a little more sense of national identity than the English. They are still proud of their history, mingled as it is with our own, any 300 year marriage (forced or no) is going to involve the occasional tiff.
Finally, I am a little bemused by the whole devolution thing. On the one hand we have politicians who support the EU and it's greater togetherness on the other they seem to support splitting us (The UK) apart. To a simpleton such as me those two fact don't gel.
@Sebastian Weetabix
Struck a nerve have I?
I wasn't having a go at Scotland, I was having a go at the Labour Party, Scottish Labour in particular.
The fact that you have reacted so aggressively to me just proves my point. You are simply incapable of seeing the English point of view, seeing everything through a Scottish prism.
Incidentally, there have been demonstrations in Rotherham, but the media is doing a good job of not reporting it. For example did you know that today there has been a Muslim demonstration in Rotherham? Of course not. Because it doesn't involve Scotland and so you are simply not interested.
@ Sebastian Weetabix
The MP for Rotherham was the Scot Denis Macshane.
You conflate British with English which is a tendency buck-passing Scots possess when seeking to attribute blame. The British Establishment is terminally anti-English unless it is misappropriating good English things like Magna Carta, as British.
If devolution had uniquely dumped on Scotland what it has uniquely dumped on England, Scots would have rioted long ago. However, rather than suggesting the virtual apartheid enacted against the English is in any way discriminatory and wrong, Scots prefer to proclaim how much more compassionate and caring they are compared to the English.
The Union is an anachronistic political artifice that neither the English nor Scots wanted in the first place and the sooner it is strangled the better.
I had thought Denis McShane is in fact Polish (not that it matters).
By sheer coincidence Peter Hitchens says this today, of Project Fear threats:
"But I could see why Scots got cross when they were told separation from England would make them poorer.
So what? The power to rule yourself is priceless. Isn’t our history full of people who put liberty above money?"
Jesus wept. Some people are denser than lead.
Firstly, it's not 'Scottish Labour', it's Labour that has given us most of our present troubles. The problem in Rotherham is a home grown English one in a rotten borough which has been Labour since the first world war. If you English don't vote for Labour, you won't get Labour. Secondly your PC thing comes from metropolitan Marxists in Islington and Hampstead who run the upper reaches of academia, quangos, BBC etc. Thirdly, your average Clydeside voter, except on matters of government spending, is probably one of the most reactionary right wing people in the world. They don't much care for the unlimited importation of a new third world electorate which is why Labour's electorate is tending to stay home on general election days.
Finally, Stephen Gash (well named indeed), your ignorance doesn't quite exceed your stupidity, but my goodness, it's close. Denis MacShane's real name is Matyjasek. His father's Polish and his mother's Irish. Any surname starting 'Mac' is Irish in origin; if it starts 'Mc' it is Scottish. And the Union is apartheid? Got a passbook, have you? Have to use a different bus? Don't have a vote? Get beaten by plod, do you?
This is why I hate the SNP. They foster division amd promote disharmony and give an excuse for turds like Gash, the BNP and the EDL to crawl out from under a stone. And Hitchens is an arsehole as well. We do have freedom to control our affairs through the medium of elections in a BRITISH demos. How dare he suggest I am un-free?
MacShane (his mother's name) was born in Glasgow. Now, I can understand you not wanting to claim him as one of your own, but you're not dodging that one.
As for the 'apartheid' comment above, a little extreme, but it does get over that after Devolution the English have FEWER political rights. We have no say what happens within Scotland, Wales and NI for health, education, transport, the legal system and a whole raft of other issues - as much as 80% of Governance. But Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs all have a vote on these matters for England and they all use that as a swing vote they can sell in order for more goodies for their countrymen. Which happens. For example the Northern Irish MPs who removed the fundamental protection of Double Indemnity from English Law in return for the Scot Gordon Brown giving them big bribes of English money.
And you can hardly have failed to notice that "Austerity" has meant DOUBLE the cuts applied in England than in Scotland, Wales and NI - and remember, thanks to the Barnett Formula these heavier cuts are being applied on a lower base.
It wasn't the SNP who enacted this bigoted and lopsided Devolution Settlement, it was Labour - and the senior members of the Cabinet at that time were nearly all Scottish.
There have only been two Cabinet discussions blocked from release by Freedom of Information requests. One concerns the Iraq War. The other is the Devolution Discussions. They wouldn't be hiding them if there was nothing to hide.
MacShane: oh ffs. Dogs, stables, horses.
Re austerity: what cuts? There haven't been any. Government spending in cash terms is higher this month than last month and higher this year than last year.
In parallel public sector/BBC world, they think a reduction in the rate of increase equals a cut. On planet normal most of us think this is not so.
Wildgoose @ 10.57 (and later interventions but particularly 10.57)
Absolutely, couldn't agree more.
Mr Weetabix, why are you so angry? Your arguments are nigh on incomprehensible, what with the rage. You cannot want a Union in which SLAB has any further chance of shoving itself into UK governance.
Since the betrayal by the Liberal Democrats of the reformation of Labour's rotten and Scottish boroughs - so roundly denounced by ND, and now needing another means of remedy, what do you suggest might be done to be shot of the permanent deformation of UK representative democracy by Labour (in all its manifestations). Even Gordon Brown has grown some fingernails and is once again hanging on for dear life.
Wildgoose is right.
Some Scottish MP was on the news saying that "English votes for English laws" would result in two classes of MPs. FFS, that's what we have now ! Scots MPs can vote on things which only impact England. How much longer do we put up with that ?
If devo-max (or however Cameron fulfils his panic bribe) means that Scots MPs end up only voting on the Armed Forces, overseas aid and Foreign policy, so be it. If they miss the power they can become MSPs.
The other thing we must beware of is the EU plan to breakup England into 'regions', which will be fed to us disguised as 'devolution'.
Ah the West Lothian Question still in search of an answer ... espcially in the quasi-federal-but-not-really structure the UK now has.
The posturing of my local baffoon of an MP, Grayling will add nothing to the situation either.
The WLQ could have been solved last week.
As one of the "cunts" referred to by my fellow Scot, SW, since as Hatfield girl highlighted you lack the coherence to put forward your ideas, what is your solution to the WLQ.
I am with Tam Dalyell. The pretendy wee parliaments have been a disaster, simply a springboard for separatists. We should abolish them and get back to the status quo ante. In my opinion devolution SHOULD have been localism with tax raising powers at local authority level (preferably county and city level). That way you get equal treatment for all, in all parts of the UK - and the WLQ does not arise. What we have now is a tin-pot Napoleon in Scotland (I see he was at it again this morning, greeting that it wasn't fair) and an equal-and-opposite rise of English nationalism which isn't good for anybody. This idea of extending more powers for Holyrood combined with English votes for English laws inevitably will result in the end of the Union. True Federalism will not work in the UK because England is simply too big and dominant (and clearly there is zero appetite for the regionalisation of England, at least not among ordinary folk).
But things are so poisonous now it is probably too late. I give it 10 years. No national politician is even prepared to attempt to roll back the devolution we have now and I daresay my fellow Scots wouldn't allow it, given how useless the Westminster establishment presently is. Cameron will not be able to deliver extra powers for Holyrood due to his justifiably angry backbenchers; Milliband will oppose English-only voting for partisan reasons; Salmond and pals will capitalise; English rage will grow; we all become less British and more Balkanised every day. In the end we will ALL be poorer for it, materially and spiritually.
@Hatfield Girl: hopefully the above was sufficiently coherent for you. I hold no candle for Labour. They've been a catastrophe for years and are directly responsible for the present mess. As we used to say when I was a boy, they're no fit to run a mennodge. But it is a curious idea of 'Union' that seeks to prevent them taking full part in the political life of the UK. Scotland has only 59 MPs out of 650. If the English lumpen proletariat doesn't elect Labour, you won't get a Labour government. But all of northern England and the inner cities do vote for Labour, don't they? It's almost as though the Tories only represent banksters, arable farmers and home counties toffs - and couldn't give a toss for anyone else. In Yorkshire where I have the pleasure to reside, they're as popular as Ebola. What with that and Labour's shambles in Rotherham, if UKIP get their act together they could do very well up here.
"But it is a curious idea of 'Union' that seeks to prevent them (Scots MPs) taking full part in the political life of the UK"
They can take just as full a part as English MPs. Where there are devolved powers in a geographic area, no MP from that area should be able to vote in Westminster where the subject of the vote is devolved.
That applies to English as well as Scottish/Welsh/N.I. MPs - there just happen to be no powers devolved to England at present.
I am finally in agreement with Sebastian Weetabix. Devolution has been a disaster, and a predictable disaster at that.
When Devolution was proposed I was a member of the Liberal Democrats and I argued that National Devolution for one meant National Devolution for all, and that it made more sense to devolve to stronger local government throughout the UK. After all, (I remember arguing), there are huge differences in Scotland between the Gallic Highlands and Islands, Nordic Orkney and Shetland, and the famous disagreements between West and East Coast Scotland, "Weegies and Edinbuggers".
Similarly between Welsh speaking rural North Wales and the English speaking valleys of South Wales.
And so on.
I had a lot of abuse shouted at me for these views, in particular from Scottish Liberal Democrats at the idea that Scottish Devolution must also mean Devolution to England. I ended up resigning in disgust.
I joined the Campaign for an English Parliament which has long argued for an English Parliament in a federal UK, reforming the House of Lords into a new federal Upper House for all 4 national parliaments. A renewed Union seeing as they've thoroughly wrecked the old one.
But there's no interest, and it is Unionists (and especially Scottish "Unionists") who are most vehemently opposed to sorting out the mess. What? Actually treat England fairly?!
Which is why Devolution is indeed proving to be a "Road to Independence with no Exits". It's a shame. But the politicians won't fix the problem they've made and when it really blows up it will all be too late - too many people will already have taken sides.
I can't see an English parliament being the answer either. I certainly don't want to pay for more politicians.
Westminster will do fine, MP's will just have to learn they can't vote on everything. Diddums. I am sure their exta free time can be spent usefully in a hostelry at taxpayers expense!
Not much talk about the situation in Wales. I had the (mis)fortune to live through the setting up of the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) and the next few years before I finally escaped back to England. WAG exists so that Welsh windbags have somewhere in which to pontificate but at vast expense. It seems to achieve very little. As far as I remember the sum total of approx 10 years of its existence was to abolish prescription charges and hospital parking charges for the people in Wales. I'm not sure what they've done lately but thank my lucky stars I don't have to listen to all the hot air on my local news since returning home.
I agree devolution has been a bit of a disaster and just serves as a sop to the "natives" and to isolate them more whilst whipping up nationalist fervour.
Well personally I think it is progress. After all, when the Union was first entered into, 75% of Scots were opposed. Now it is only 45%, and in many key cases a great deal less than 40%.
However, devolution has been a disaster. It would have been much preferable for all kinds of reasons for "Parliament" to have moved with every election between the 4 nations that make up the Union. This would have had the benefit of not only allowing all the regions to feel that Parliament was more inclusive, but the various parasites and hangers-on of the Westminster Circus would have had to move too, causing these creatures (which normally prefer dark corners) to be exposed to the daylight.
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