Ya Bezzer! Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 Correct. Absolutely absurd scaremongering of the highest order. Strange that! I don't think anyone is saying it is likely to happen but the fact remains is it is not ultimately in the hands of the Scottish people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tio Pepe Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 How can a fact be scaremongering? Ask Yes Scotland. They have dismissed many facts as scaremomgering. Let's have a few more 'facts'. Westminster could make it illegal to eat haggis. Westminster could put the tax on a bottle of whisky up to £1000. Scottish dairy farmers could be forced to hand over their beasts to the government as part of a nationalisation programme. Princes Street Gardens could be turned into an MoD firing range. Holyrood could abolish all local councils in Scotland. One side or the other throwing these facts out would be ok would it? Not scaremongering at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 Ask Yes Scotland. They have dismissed many facts as scaremomgering. Let's have a few more 'facts'. Westminster could make it illegal to eat haggis. Westminster could put the tax on a bottle of whisky up to £1000. Scottish dairy farmers could be forced to hand over their beasts to the government as part of a nationalisation programme. Princes Street Gardens could be turned into an MoD firing range. Holyrood could abolish all local councils in Scotland. One side or the other throwing these facts out would be ok would it? Not scaremongering at all? Shite banter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tio Pepe Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 I don't think anyone is saying it is likely to happen but the fact remains is it is not ultimately in the hands of the Scottish people. VAT rules, for example, aren't ultimately in the hands of the Scottish people but no one on the Yes side is advocating leaving the EU as a result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tio Pepe Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 Shite banter Exactly. As shite as what's gone before about the dissolution of the Scottish Parliament. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Confidemus Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 Exactly. As shite as what's gone before about the dissolution of the Scottish Parliament. No one's suggesting it's about to happen. Dismissing it as a scare story is bollocks though as it is a thing that could happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunkmedal Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 The idea that democracy is only possible with a Yes vote doesn't stack up. First, we're not talking about some fundamental democratic deficit, we're talking about fairly limited differences in vote shares. The percentage of Scottish voters who've backed the Westminster government since the start of the Scottish Parliament is only marginally less (and at times more) than the equivalent Scottish government received. We had a Scottish government led by the SNP from 2007 to 2011 which had received 31-33% of the vote whereas the current Westminster coalition got 35.6% in Scotland in 2010. If we're going to argue the 2010 UK government is fundamentally undemocratic then you'd have to conclude the 2007 Scottish government was even less democratic. Clearly that sort of argument would be a nonsense. What we're doing here is taking a very reasonable but limited point - when you're part of a larger whole you have to accept some form of shared decision-making and that the opinions of people elsewhere can have an impact on your lives - and wildly exaggerating it to make it appear like a fundamental affront to democracy. An identical argument could be made about the EU - we get some benefits from EU membership, but it means we have to accept shared decision-making with 27 other states - or, for that matter, any nation state. The basic principle behind all nation states is that there's a benefit to pooling your resources but the downside to that is you also have to pool decision-making. That's not some uniquely Scottish problem, it's just politics. So the argument isn't about democracy, it's about whether you think there's a benefit to having shared UK decision-making in certain areas in the first place (while other policy areas are devolved to Scotland). For me, the economic arguments for that are pretty compelling: there's a mutual benefit to using shared regulations to govern the economy (particularly in areas which the EU's single market hasn't reached), shared labour standards, shared administrative procedures in certain areas, and so on. Indeed the benefits to doing this at a UK level are so clear that in reality they would still be set at a UK level anyway so I don't see what's democratic about being tied to UK decision-making but simply giving up our representation. When you throw in a proposed currency union and the inevitable fiscal co-ordination that would involve the case is even less convincing - is a foreign parliament having the capacity to limit our spending democratic? Ultimately democracy isn't about getting what you want at all times (that's impossible in any country) it's about making sure citizens are properly represented in decision-making - either directly through a referendum or indirectly through representatives. That's exactly what we have in the UK and if a majority of us vote against independence then I fail to see how anyone could call that undemocratic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeeTillEhDeh Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 The idea that democracy is only possible with a Yes vote doesn't stack up. First, we're not talking about some fundamental democratic deficit, we're talking about fairly limited differences in vote shares. The percentage of Scottish voters who've backed the Westminster government since the start of the Scottish Parliament is only marginally less (and at times more) than the equivalent Scottish government received. We had a Scottish government led by the SNP from 2007 to 2011 which had received 31-33% of the vote whereas the current Westminster coalition got 35.6% in Scotland in 2010. If we're going to argue the 2010 UK government is fundamentally undemocratic then you'd have to conclude the 2007 Scottish government was even less democratic. Clearly that sort of argument would be a nonsense. What we're doing here is taking a very reasonable but limited point - when you're part of a larger whole you have to accept some form of shared decision-making and that the opinions of people elsewhere can have an impact on your lives - and wildly exaggerating it to make it appear like a fundamental affront to democracy. An identical argument could be made about the EU - we get some benefits from EU membership, but it means we have to accept shared decision-making with 27 other states - or, for that matter, any nation state. The basic principle behind all nation states is that there's a benefit to pooling your resources but the downside to that is you also have to pool decision-making. That's not some uniquely Scottish problem, it's just politics. So the argument isn't about democracy, it's about whether you think there's a benefit to having shared UK decision-making in certain areas in the first place (while other policy areas are devolved to Scotland). For me, the economic arguments for that are pretty compelling: there's a mutual benefit to using shared regulations to govern the economy (particularly in areas which the EU's single market hasn't reached), shared labour standards, shared administrative procedures in certain areas, and so on. Indeed the benefits to doing this at a UK level are so clear that in reality they would still be set at a UK level anyway so I don't see what's democratic about being tied to UK decision-making but simply giving up our representation. When you throw in a proposed currency union and the inevitable fiscal co-ordination that would involve the case is even less convincing - is a foreign parliament having the capacity to limit our spending democratic? Ultimately democracy isn't about getting what you want at all times (that's impossible in any country) it's about making sure citizens are properly represented in decision-making - either directly through a referendum or indirectly through representatives. That's exactly what we have in the UK and if a majority of us vote against independence then I fail to see how anyone could call that undemocratic. This whole referendum is self-determination. It!s not the outcome that matters but the democratic process of deciding who we want to align ourselves with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anonapersona Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 I don't think there's any doubt that democracy is the best political system, but without a written constitution there's no boundaries as to what is acceptable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 And yet Westminster retains the power to do so. The fact is that, while right now, it's unlikely to happen all it takes is a certain series of circumstances for the likelihood of that course of action to change radically. History is littered with examples of unforeseen events and conflicts. No. Westminster does not retain the power to do so. It retains the LEGAL power to do so. It lacks completely and utterly the political power to do so necessary to mobilise the legal power. Westminster needn't even completely abolish the Scottish Parliament, it can put a financial squeeze on it by withdrawing or reducing funding. Everyone knows that the Barnett Formula is unpopular at Westminster and could be scrapped with minimum fuss as it is merely a convention and isn't even enshrined in law . Any hostile power to devolution in Westminster could quite easily run down the Scottish Parliament to the point that it would be unable to meet spending commitments or simply became ineffective. Of course Westminster can change the funding arrangements for Holyrood. The idea if could do it unilaterally and without its consultation, however, is scaremongering nonsense. The Barnett formula actually is shit. Nats need to stop scaremongering about it being taken away. It is the single biggest structural problem with our present constitutional arrangments and specifically NEEDS replaced with something that wasn't a temporary departmental aid from the 1970s. But it's the SNP who keep putting a kibosh on any reform. The reason being, of course, that actually, Scotland does quite well out of the Barnett fomula and a more progressive formula would lead to Scotland, as the second richest part of the UK after London, providing more subsidy to deprived areas like the North West of England and to Wales and Northern Ireland. It is through this that the SNP show their true colours. They don't want Scotland to be a "beacon of progressivity" to their comrades in England. Their idea of what is progressive stops overtly at Gretna Green. It's not so hard to imagine an increasingly far right wing Conservative government in coalition with say, a UKIP style party in the near to medium future. If that were to happen, the Scottish Parliament would surely become one of the top political targets of that particular government. Yes it is hard to imagine that. UKIP are a total irrelevance. They will not win more than 5 seats at Westminster in my lifetime, especially not if, as Nats are also keen to point out, electoral reform doesn't happen. Anyone seriously suggesting that a Tory-UKIP coalition is a prospect for which we should be preparing more seriously than a planet-destroying hurricane is an idiot and should probably have the right to vote withdrawn from them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Confidemus Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 No. Westminster does not retain the power to do so. It retains the LEGAL power to do so. It lacks completely and utterly the political power to do so necessary to mobilise the legal power. Bollocks. As I have said, this is not a scare story. I don't think it would happen, but there is no doubt it COULD happen. Unless you'd care to explain why political power needs to propel legal power? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Bairn Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 Bollocks. As I have said, this is not a scare story. I don't think it would happen, but there is no doubt it COULD happen. Unless you'd care to explain why political power needs to propel legal power? Surely some of the Unionist scare stories "could" happen though - the reason they're dismissed as scaremongering is because they're unlikely to happen No currency union - Could happen Get vetoed from the EU - Could happen Get vetoed from Nato - Could happen Oil runs out sooner than expected - Could happen Y'know what I'm saying? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Confidemus Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 Surely some of the Unionist scare stories "could" happen though - the reason they're dismissed as scaremongering is because they're unlikely to happen No currency union - Could happen Get vetoed from the EU - Could happen Get vetoed from Nato - Could happen Oil runs out sooner than expected - Could happen Y'know what I'm saying? No currency union - Won't happen Get vetoed from the EU - We're a shoe in Get vetoed from Nato - Not massively fussed but won't happen Oil runs out sooner than expected - Absolutely won't happen HTH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Bairn Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 No currency union - Won't happen Get vetoed from the EU - We're a shoe in Get vetoed from Nato - Not massively fussed but won't happen Oil runs out sooner than expected - Absolutely won't happen HTH Holyrood gets closed - Won't happen HTH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Thompson Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 Surely some of the Unionist scare stories "could" happen though - the reason they're dismissed as scaremongering is because they're unlikely to happen No currency union - Could happen Get vetoed from the EU - Could happen Get vetoed from Nato - Could happen Oil runs out sooner than expected - Could happen Y'know what I'm saying? The difference, though, is that the Yes side arent using Holyrood closing as part of their campaign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H_B Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 The difference, though, is that the Yes side arent using Holyrood closing as part of their campaign. They are however using the UK leaving the EU imminently as part of their campaign. Which is also fantasically unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anonapersona Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 They are however using the UK leaving the EU imminently as part of their campaign. Which is also fantasically unlikely. As soon as the UK government suggested a referendum on the EU it becomes a subject for scrutiny, does it not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross. Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 The illusion of democracy is important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H_B Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 As soon as the UK government suggested a referendum on the EU it becomes a subject for scrutiny, does it not? The UK government haven't suggested a referendum on the EU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 I just hope a Yes vote is delivered to get it right up the Sevconians tbh. Isn't that what this argument is really about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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