When will indyref2 happen?

[Ivo den Bieman]

Notice too the hysteria over the media presentation of Sturgeon's perception of an "opportunity to restart a conversation on independence".

It's hardly ging to be the case that she will name the date and start Article 30 proceedings on Thursday.

It's a tough triangulation for Sturgeon; not stirring up the latent Tory vote with a precipitate referendum call, whilst keeping the roasters who want to declare UDI tomorrow, muzzled, and at the same time keeping political control of the referendum timing firmly within her own grasp.

[NotThePars]

It’s quite laughable to assign any real political cache to RIC and Cat Boyd specifically. The independence campaign is the SNP’s to win or lose much more than any other actor or movement within Scotland.

[Colkitto]

Ruth Davidson calling for Nicola Sturgeon "to give it a rest!"  whilst speaking at an event called "The Union and Unionism"   

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

It’s quite laughable to assign any real political cache to RIC and Cat Boyd specifically. The independence campaign is the SNP’s to win or lose much more than any other actor or movement within Scotland.

Well Boyd in particular always hungry for publicity always appearing on question time, newspapers and online putting herself across as the voice of left wing indy and does significant damage every time she opens her gub. I get that many on our side have difficulty identifying that we need to get rid of the crazies before we gain any capital but allowing people like CB and RIC to align themselves to the cause and then appearing on national tv complaining about brexit then saying they didnt bother voting does us no good. If people here can’t see the damage they do then fair enough, we are heading for another loss unless we shake it up.

[Ivo den Bieman]

One TV appearance she made an absolute disaster of.

She's an obscure nobody with an occasional column in a newspaper most non-hardcore Yessers regard as beyond the pale / laugh at.

Most people have no idea who Cat Boyd is. The only far left politician the average voter knows is Tommy Sheridan, and because they know him and what he did, they don't want to know any of his successors.

I have no idea what fixating on Cat Boyd brings us. She's an irrelevance.

[NotThePars]

5 minutes ago, Ivo den Bieman said:

One TV appearance she made an absolute disaster of.

She's an obscure nobody with an occasional column in a newspaper most non-hardcore Yessers regard as beyond the pale / laugh at.

Most people have no idea who Cat Boyd is. The only far left politician the average voter knows is Tommy Sheridan, and because they know him and what he did, they don't want to know any of his successors.

I have no idea what fixating on Cat Boyd brings us. She's an irrelevance.

 

If the SNP party machine can be undermined 'significantly' by Cat fucking Boyd ) then that's a damning indictment for the organisation of Scotland's governing party and the clear dominant wing of the independence movement. 

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

One TV appearance she made an absolute disaster of.

She's an obscure nobody with an occasional column in a newspaper most non-hardcore Yessers regard as beyond the pale / laugh at.

Most people have no idea who Cat Boyd is. The only far left politician the average voter knows is Tommy Sheridan, and because they know him and what he did, they don't want to know any of his successors.

I have no idea what fixating on Cat Boyd brings us. She's an irrelevance.

You go back to the yes rallies, George Square, tv appearances at the time, she was all over the place, being lauded by the partick thistle middle class socialists and generally annoying any centrists (the key to winning this) any time she spoke. Yes she has faded into obscurity now, but she will be all over it like the last campaign. Look all im saying here is get the campaign polished, don’t encourage wallopers like CB, Eddi Reader and ECS to be as visible as they almost put hardened yes voters like me off voting for indy so its obvious to see the damage they do to the undecideds.

Im trying to get across that yes the grass roots campaign was successful in raising the vote to 45% but to get it over the line we need to win the centre ground, we wont do that with those nutters.

I used to be as into the campaign as many on here but taking a step back I can see exactly how we lost, currency, pensions, economy and EU. These are all things we probably would actually get right, but we let the campaign be dominated and the talking points by the people all listed above and lost.

I’d like to see someone like Henry Mcleish take a very active part (lets not pretend he isnt a yes voter).

 

I completely expected the reaction I’ve had here from the posters i’ve had it from.

[Jmothecat2]

I'm moderately interested in politics and can only remember seeing her on TV once and that was a couple of years ago now. Apart from seeing some of her more outlandish National articles retweeted by people trying to make fun of her I hardly remember her. There are far more significant players in the Indy movement and I doubt many voters would be thinking about her when casting a vote at any future referendum.

[Loondave1]

I just thought Antlion was a bot.

Violet Elizabeth Bott apparently.

[Loondave1]

I'm not sure if it's stupidity, or more just a case of being a collection of absolute sadcunts who are incapable of getting on with their lives (nothing to lose eh), but the folk constantly screaming for another vote haven't shown themselves to be the most politically astute so far.  Seems like a lot of the same people who were absolutely certain that it would be a Yes vote last time and definitely the same people whose demands for a referendum have already backfired once since Brexit. 
As someone who still wants Independence, even if it doesn't happen in the next five minutes, I disagree that there is 'nothing to lose'. As far as I can tell, there are two ways that overall defeat can happen - the disappearance of a pro-Independence political force in Holyrood or a second referendum failing. People like yourself seem determined to make both happen. 
I'd throw in a third threat and that is a rolling back of devolution itself. If the SNP show themselves to be more representative of their own hardcore base than of Scotland as a whole, this one will become particularly serious. I'm sure most of them are well meaning but for my money, the window sticker simpletons are as big a threat to Independence as any staunch w****r out there. They've arguably already fucked up the opportunity for us to really capitalise on Brexit and if the SNP listens to them too much in the next few years, they might end up killing the whole thing off.   

" window licker " surely ?

[DrewDon]

Salmond obviously did very well to get his corporation tax cut proposal past the hard-left 'nutters' dominating the Yes campaign in 2014. 

[renton]

14 hours ago, Ivo den Bieman said:

There's rumours circulating that Tories are preparing for an autumn election as the Maybot has realised that she cannot hold her squabbling party of far-right crazies, zealots and xenophobes together, and will be swept away by Brexit's floodtide of shite.

It'd be crazy to call another indyref at the moment because:

1. referendum fatigue

2. possible new General Election (SNP should have learned something from the last General Election)

3. people wanting to "wait and see" what Brexit actually means in practice

4. the supposed game changer, the Westminster seven-year power grab, is failing to raise the hackles of all but the already converted

People in Scotland (in general) tend to be conservative with a small c. There's been more life-changing referenda in the last four years than there had been in the period 1973-2014. People have had enough of constant change, constant turmoil, constant upheaval, constant political stalemate, constant uncertainty, being used as expendable pawns in an ideological battle.

The trouble is, there's no turning the clock back to pre-June 2016. Regardless of your individual views on Brexit, the UK is now an international laughing stock and has suffered reputational damage on the international stage that will take a long time to repair. This constant political chaos feels very much like the new normal.

In these circumstances, it's better to wait. I don't understand the "but we might lose a majority in 2021" line. If the pro-independence bloc loses an overall majority then, then a Yes vote in an indy ref 2 was never going to happen anyway.

Brexit will be a shocker. People will lose jobs, the cost of living will jump, travel will become more expensive and difficult. I'm afraid it's going to take quite a few years of pain in a post-Brexit unitary UK state before the majority opinion that would trigger a successful indyref 2 result will be reached. It would be sheer suicide to call it prematurely and run the risk of a second defeat and the issue being removed from the table in our lifetimes.

Patience is a very under-rated virtue in today's politics. This is the most hideous and inhuman government Britain's had for over a century. It still leads in the polls down south. The ineptitude of the Labour leadership coupled with a visceral gut reaction from the electorate outwith Scotland to a possible Labour-SNP pact, plus all the factors above, means that (*for me, anyway) now is the wrong time to call another independence referendum.

The No vote- an alliance of the easily frightened elderly, risk-averse  gammon, I'm all right jacks, contrarian trolls and the Loyalist vote  is going to be very difficult to prise apart, in a relentlessly hostile media landscape.

Regard the impatient and those who think this'll all be easy with a good deal of scepticism. Wait. It's easy to look back to 2014 and be bitter but it's not going to make the horrible dilemmas of 2018 any easier to solve. Jumping the gun certainly won't solve the issue in the Yes movement's favour.

 

In terms of the 2021 majority argument, I disagree when you say the lose of the pro-Indy majority could be taken as a sign that we couldn't get a pro yes majority in a referendum. Given that Holyrood is built to make majorities hard to maintain, the fickleness of the Greens list only vote share (or indeed it's commitment to Indy),  the sheer improbability of another single party majority again, the fact that a 2021 election will still be fought on issues other than the constitution - even with that as a prime mover, plenty of local issues could tip fine balances - means that even with a 1% slip you could see the loss of our ability to call one in the 5 year period between 2021 and 2026.

I'd also remark that the media landscape is unlikely to get any less hostile in any conceivable time frame.

Jumping the gun might be bad, but so is letting the opportunity waste away.  I don't pretend to know that 2019 is too early or not,  but I'm not a fan of the let it burn around us until people see their senses approach either. If only because by the time this complete clusterfuck of a Tory government is done, a lot of the machinery we need will be dismantled. Any goodwill with Europe long since squandered, the normalisation of a more inward looking, aggressive, xenophobic and racist attitude from the government down and with far fewer constraints on telling us to get fucked than we have currently. Much more of our economy can be saved, and a greater chance of a Yes vote in my opinion if we hold one while a positive outcome could at least partially guarantee a degree of continuity with the institutions that exist today.

[Antlion]

4 hours ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

I have left wing views on some things like health care, education, foreign military intervention etc and right of centre views on crime and punishment and common market membership.

I just dont see how Elaine C Smith, Cat Boyd telling us how all property is theft , some hummus eating art students doing sketches of lady gaga songs and a bunch of folks who think Braveheart is real will win over the middle ground that is key for a second vote, if that makes me a ‘yer da’ then so be it.

The winning argument has to be sound in every way for it to stand up to scrutiny. Some of the grass roots campaigning in the last ref was cringey and actually put many voters off, the difficulty is that so many on the yes side are so blinded by this that they can’t accept it.

Get the economic argument right and we have a good chance, but rely on the romanticism like last time we’ve no chance.

I agree with much of what you say, but “the economic argument” versus “the romantic” argument is not at all how it was last time. British Nationalists, from what I recall, were the ones bleating about the war dead and three hundred years of glorious UK rule; the economic argument was fought, but not well.

Of course, as disappointing as it is, a winning economic argument will not win the day. Brexit has shown us that people will even vote against what they perceive as economic certainty (and I don’t even believe the UK represents economic certainty) if they’re sufficiently enthused.

[Ivo den Bieman]

17 minutes ago, renton said:

In terms of the 2021 majority argument, I disagree when you say the lose of the pro-Indy majority could be taken as a sign that we couldn't get a pro yes majority in a referendum. Given that Holyrood is built to make majorities hard to maintain, the fickleness of the Greens list only vote share (or indeed it's commitment to Indy),  the sheer improbability of another single party majority again, the fact that a 2021 election will still be fought on issues other than the constitution - even with that as a prime mover, plenty of local issues could tip fine balances - means that even with a 1% slip you could see the loss of our ability to call one in the 5 year period between 2021 and 2026.

If pro-"Yes" parties lose overall control in 2021 then I'm not really sure how you could argue that a Yes vote could still be won on "fine margins". Further, I don't see the current Green leadership (or one likely to assume any degree of control in the party in the foreseeable future) as being "fickle" on the cause of independence. If anything the younger generation I have encountered whilst campaigning (I am not currently a member of any party) are more radical than the current leadership. The days of Robin Harper hiding staunch royalism and Unionism behind a multi-coloured scarf are long gone. There is a small right of centre anti-independence minority in the Greens and it does have one or two elected people (Aberdeenshire's Martin Ford, an ex "Lib Dem", for example was a No in 2014, I am sure) but much like the old fundies in the SNP, hardly in a position of any serious influence.

I agree with you that the timing is anything but an exact science. I am not persuaded that jumping the gun (which in present circs will certainly see independence off the table for decades in the likely event of a second No vote) is better than waiting and seeing. I don't want to wait until everything is well ablaze. Six months to a year is all that will be needed- for people to see that not only is the NHS not being boosted but actually being prepared for sale to private American health providers as part of a trade deal- the self enrichment of the Leadsoms and Rees-Moggs; the over-riding of the late 90s devolution settlement to ram through hard-right policies no one wants or voted for- that will be a referendum fought on much more solid ground with first-hand evidence.

People need to see and feel the consequences of this. Not for long, but enough. This is where I'm all right Jack attitudes, believing in "The Vow" and being too self-absorbed to care about politics leads you. Do something about it.

 

[Ivo den Bieman]

1 hour ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

You go back to the yes rallies, George Square, tv appearances at the time, she was all over the place, being lauded by the partick thistle middle class socialists and generally annoying any centrists (the key to winning this) any time she spoke. Yes she has faded into obscurity now, but she will be all over it like the last campaign. Look all im saying here is get the campaign polished, don’t encourage wallopers like CB, Eddi Reader and ECS to be as visible as they almost put hardened yes voters like me off voting for indy so its obvious to see the damage they do to the undecideds.

Im trying to get across that yes the grass roots campaign was successful in raising the vote to 45% but to get it over the line we need to win the centre ground, we wont do that with those nutters.

I used to be as into the campaign as many on here but taking a step back I can see exactly how we lost, currency, pensions, economy and EU. These are all things we probably would actually get right, but we let the campaign be dominated and the talking points by the people all listed above and lost.

I’d like to see someone like Henry Mcleish take a very active part (lets not pretend he isnt a yes voter).

 

I completely expected the reaction I’ve had here from the posters i’ve had it from.

again, I don't see where this obsessive fixation with a couple of obscure cultural figures and the personalities of ultra-left groupuscules gets us, but maybe that's just me.

I didn't see the 2014 campaign being dominated by Cat Boyd and Eddie Reader. That's laughable, frankly. They were minor voices on the fringes that few folk encountered.

We get that you don't like people you perceive as middle class idealists ("art students eating humus" "Partick Thistle Socialists" blah blah blah). Many of a different persuasion would argue that our delegation of politics to middle class, sober, market-economy focused pragmatists / careerists since 1979 has led us to the current disastrous situation most find themselves in. Can we move on?

 

[NotThePars]

We do seemingly like to buck the trend so maybe Scotland will be the country where appealing to the sensible centre is rewarded with victory.

 

[Ivo den Bieman]

Appeals to form a Centrist Dad party in England are seemingly stillborn. Some Bond villain is waiting in the wings with a £50million warchest, but he's yet to find his Graeme Souness.

The fact that Nick Clegg, Tony Blair and various wet Tory nonentities have been suggested as potential members of the leadership cadre tells you all you need to know.

Politics is too divided up here along generational and unionist / nationalist lines for the "radical centre" to get very far. Macron's government is already reminding us that the "radical centre" is actually the radical right, just with nicer teeth, better manners and notionally kinder to minority communities.

 

[Antlion]

No sense of irony in STV reporting that people are tiring of talk of a referendum - after yet another report about our glorious golden gods, Harry and Meghan.

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, Ivo den Bieman said:

Appeals to form a Centrist Dad party in England are seemingly stillborn. Some Bond villain is waiting in the wings with a £50million warchest, but he's yet to find his Graeme Souness.

The fact that Nick Clegg, Tony Blair and various wet Tory nonentities have been suggested as potential members of the leadership cadre tells you all you need to know.

Politics is too divided up here along generational and unionist / nationalist lines for the "radical centre" to get very far. Macron's government is already reminding us that the "radical centre" is actually the radical right, just with nicer teeth, better manners and notionally kinder to minority communities.

 

And Italy tells us what happens if you ignore the centre. An alliance of anarchists and fascists.

Edited May 21, 2018 by welshbairn

[Ivo den Bieman]

Can you expand on that?