When will indyref2 happen?

[git-intae-thum]

Just now, welshbairn said:

Do you think it would be wise to announce plan B to him now? If we don't initially follow the constitutional path to the letter, we won't get any support when we need to get more creative.

I genuinely hope you are correct

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Do you think it would be wise to announce plan B to him now? If we don't initially follow the constitutional path to the letter, we won't get any support when we need to get more creative.

This.

Like a manager telling the opposition what they are going to do if their plan A tactics fail.

[Ad Lib]

2 hours ago, Carnoustie Young Guvnor said:

Totally agree with paragraphs one and three. 

However, unionists will never recognise or accept there is a mandate. They've said so. They've already refused to recognise an identical mandate.  It will make no difference. I think you're maybe giving them a little much credit too, there isn't a single unionist on earth who genuinely believes we don't have a mandate right now, they just say that.

Whether you like it or not, there are at least some Unionists who think any mixture of the following:

(a) that 2016 wasn’t a mandate because the SNP didn’t win a majority

(b) that 2016 wasn’t a mandate because it was too soon after 2014

(c) that 2016 wasn’t a mandate because the conditions set by the SNP and Greens were hypothetical/not the same/not clear enough

(d) that the fall in the SNP’s seats share and votes in 2017 in some sense politically “overrode” any suggestion 2016 was a mandate because they were losing momentum

(e) that 2019 was really a Brexit election so you can’t treat it as a fresh mandate for an indyref

(f) that any mandate sought less than (say) 5 years after the first referendum sullies the idea that the first referendum was being respected

(g) that even if politically the SNP had a mandate for indyref2 for pragmatic reasons it was wrong to pursue it while Brexit was in limbo and the new settlement unclear

(h) that you shouldn’t make a referendum the public political priority during a pandemic.

Unionists are not a monolith. Not all of them (just the loudest ones) are “NO SURRENDER”. A Holyrood single party majority on an unambiguous pledge to hold a second referendum, secured almost 7 years after indyref1, will change the balance of sentiment.

Even if the UK Government’s response is to be NO SURRENDER it will be a more extremist position within its own umbrella and will probably be the wedge that splits them from moderate Unionists.

The underlying public support for a wildcat referendum just objectively will be higher if you keep the powder dry for now than if you reveal your hand. And, paradoxically, that’s more likely to get you a negotiated referendum.

2 hours ago, Carnoustie Young Guvnor said:

I don't see much of a way forward. Even if we hold a consultative referendum they will boycott it, unionist councils will refuse to facilitate it and they will claim its illegitimate. 

Some of them might. Your task is to persuade the roughly half of Unionists who don’t vote Scottish Tory that that’s just not a democratic position. Give Starmer’s Labour the breathing space to switch on this and see how viable and legitimate the Tory Government looks after that.

41 minutes ago, git-intae-thum said:

I fear the legal argument missed the boat when we left the jurisdiction of the European courts. It is unlikely the Scottish court will make a decision either way. The matter ultimately may head to the UK supreme court. I think it obvious the outcome thereafter.

If "the Scottish people" are unable to see enacted what they have repeatedly expressed through the ballot box, then where does that leave us. I think the terms occupation and subjugation quite apt tbh.

The European Courts would never have had any interest in the legal question of whether the Scottish Parliament has the legislative competence to enable an independence referendum. It doesn’t engage and never has engaged any questions of EU law.

We are not “occupied” or “subjugated”. We are constrained by a set of constitutional arrangements to which, in their infinite wisdom, the Scottish people reaffirmed their explicit consent in 2014: warts, risks, flexibilities and all.

39 minutes ago, ThatBoyRonaldo said:

These two posts pretty much sum it up for me tbh. It is hard to see a way forward without either a compliant Labour party willing to destroy itself in England in power at Westminster, or support in Scotland reaching the kinds of sky high levels that make extra-legal approaches feasible. Not sure I'd fancy being in the FM's shoes in May when Johnson refuses a referendum as I don't think she has any good options at that point.

It is better to exhaust the avenues of less bad options first in such a climate. That’s what impatient Salmond-ite yer da’s haven’t yet grasped.

[Ad Lib]

27 minutes ago, git-intae-thum said:

This is very condescending.

People are obviously concerned with regards to what the plan is when Johnson says naw....as he will.

As it stands the now there isn't one.

It would be a bit fucking stupid to reveal Plan B before Plan A has failed, and when the very act of revealing Plan B in and of itself kills off Plan A once and for all, even if there’s a good chance Plan A won’t succeed.

15 minutes ago, git-intae-thum said:

Following this line of thought implies that we require the agreement of the UK government..... regardless of victory or defeat in this upcoming court case.

To secede we do.

To hold a referendum on secession? Possibly we don’t.

But if you want independence you want a referendum held in a political context in which both sides are committed to respect and implement the result. Otherwise your national liberation movement is going to be emerging out of a boycotted referendum, civil unrest and economic disruption.

My teens were disrupted by a global financial crisis. My early 20s were governed by austerity. My late 20s have been disrupted by Brexit and a pandemic.

I’d like my 30s to be a bit more stable if it’s all the same to you.

15 minutes ago, git-intae-thum said:

Even if that were the case.....it still does nothing to resolve the scenario of what happens when that agreement is consistently withheld, despite numerous democratic mandates.

Let’s approach that scenario (publicly) if and when we get there.

The idea that Sturgeon isn’t thinking through those eventualities is naive.

The idea that she should give a running commentary of her back up plan is even more so.

13 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Do you think it would be wise to announce plan B to him now? If we don't initially follow the constitutional path to the letter, we won't get any support when we need to get more creative.

This with bells and fucking whistles.

[Gordon EF]

[Antlion]

3 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

My teens were disrupted by a global financial crisis. My early 20s were governed by austerity. My late 20s have been disrupted by Brexit and a pandemic.

Surely you don’t think that Brexit disruption is going to go away any time soon? The agreement of the pathetic deal Johnson and his incompetents managed is only the beginning.

Edited January 17, 2021 by Antlion

[ICTJohnboy]

1 hour ago, Ad Lib said:

 

My teens were disrupted by a global financial crisis. My early 20s were governed by austerity. My late 20s have been disrupted by Brexit and a pandemic.

 

 

So you are obviously a jinks on this country's future economic well-being.

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Ad Lib said:

My teens were disrupted by a global financial crisis. My early 20s were governed by austerity. My late 20s have been disrupted by Brexit and a pandemic.

These boys at the Somme had it easy.

[Ad Lib]

26 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

These boys at the Somme had it easy.

The Boomers pretending that they’re part of the Lost, Greatest or Silent Generation when really they just drank most of the milk before dealing a marginally shitter hand to Generation X and Millennials will be the driving force of UK/Scottish politics in the 2030s, because they’re going to be a less influential voting block.

Thank f**k.

[welshbairn]

37 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

The Boomers pretending that they’re part of the Lost, Greatest or Silent Generation when really they just drank most of the milk before dealing a marginally shitter hand to Generation X and Millennials will be the driving force of UK/Scottish politics in the 2030s, because they’re going to be a less influential voting block.

Thank f**k.

I certainly hope so. There is delusion amongst those denying they're just about to hit middle age or younger that everyone over 50 is a reactionary boomer. I'm glad the over 80s are getting first dibs on the vaccine because in my experience most of those who had even childhood experience of WW2 are much keener on European collaboration and still remember what Socialism was supposed to be about, compared to their useless offspring, the Boomers. I was happy to get all the free Uni and maintenance grants of course, and tax free holiday jobs, and freedom of movement etc later in life, and I'd much rather we'd passed all that on to the next generation. Maybe it's due to reading more of the Beazer than Commando comics when I was a kid. 

[Carnoustie Young Guvnor]

4 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

Whether you like it or not, there are at least some Unionists who think any mixture of the following:

(a) that 2016 wasn’t a mandate because the SNP didn’t win a majority

(b) that 2016 wasn’t a mandate because it was too soon after 2014

(c) that 2016 wasn’t a mandate because the conditions set by the SNP and Greens were hypothetical/not the same/not clear enough

(d) that the fall in the SNP’s seats share and votes in 2017 in some sense politically “overrode” any suggestion 2016 was a mandate because they were losing momentum

(e) that 2019 was really a Brexit election so you can’t treat it as a fresh mandate for an indyref

(f) that any mandate sought less than (say) 5 years after the first referendum sullies the idea that the first referendum was being respected

(g) that even if politically the SNP had a mandate for indyref2 for pragmatic reasons it was wrong to pursue it while Brexit was in limbo and the new settlement unclear

(h) that you shouldn’t make a referendum the public political priority during a pandemic.

Unionists are not a monolith. Not all of them (just the loudest ones) are “NO SURRENDER”. A Holyrood single party majority on an unambiguous pledge to hold a second referendum, secured almost 7 years after indyref1, will change the balance of sentiment.

Even if the UK Government’s response is to be NO SURRENDER it will be a more extremist position within its own umbrella and will probably be the wedge that splits them from moderate Unionists.

The underlying public support for a wildcat referendum just objectively will be higher if you keep the powder dry for now than if you reveal your hand. And, paradoxically, that’s more likely to get you a negotiated referendum.

Some of them might. Your task is to persuade the roughly half of Unionists who don’t vote Scottish Tory that that’s just not a democratic position. Give Starmer’s Labour the breathing space to switch on this and see how viable and legitimate the Tory Government looks after that.

The European Courts would never have had any interest in the legal question of whether the Scottish Parliament has the legislative competence to enable an independence referendum. It doesn’t engage and never has engaged any questions of EU law.

We are not “occupied” or “subjugated”. We are constrained by a set of constitutional arrangements to which, in their infinite wisdom, the Scottish people reaffirmed their explicit consent in 2014: warts, risks, flexibilities and all.

It is better to exhaust the avenues of less bad options first in such a climate. That’s what impatient Salmond-ite yer da’s haven’t yet grasped.

You don't know their minds and don't speak for any of them. We can judge them by their actions, which are wholly undemocratic and saw them refuse to accept not one but two votes in our parliament did not constitute a mandate. So we can dismiss points a to h. Plus you are failing to see how undemocratic all of this is, in a democracy the losers don't get to decide what happens. We have elections to decide who is in charge, and they lost roundly, so their views a to h are entirely irrelevant. 

As far as Scotland goes unionists are a monolith, that's why Labour field paper candidates in some seats now and the actual leader of the 'Scottish' Labour party told people to vote Tory live on TV. They have Ulsterised our politics now and everything is viewed through the prism of the constitution.

All you've really done here is seek to make excuses for people who want to deny democracy cause they know they can't win.

Our task is simply to win elections in order to attain the mandate to implement the government's manifesto, its an absurd position to be arguing presumably with a straight face our task is to persuade the losers in an election to accept defeat. That's incredibly Trumpist.

 

"A Holyrood single party majority on an unambiguous pledge to hold a second referendum, secured almost 7 years after indyref1, will change the balance of sentiment."

 

This is naive and simply incorrect, and I will remind you of it later in the year when it is proven to be so, again.

[GordonS]

4 hours ago, git-intae-thum said:

This is very condescending.

People are obviously concerned with regards to what the plan is when Johnson says naw....as he will.

As it stands the now there isn't one.

I don't care if it's condescending, I look down on people who think the present Scottish Government aren't seeking independence because it's a manifestly stupid opinion with literally no basis in reality.

The SNP can go into the election arguing that, if the UK government doesn't agree to a referendum, they'll hold one themselves. If a court rules that the Scottish Parliament doesn't have the power to hold a referendum then it yanks a leg out from the SNP's campaign. If that's what you're hoping happens then fine, but you can't pretend it helps the cause of independence.

In the event that the UK government refuse a referendum and there is no legal means to hold one, what would the SNP have to do before you regard them as being "for" independence? Just declare independence and hope for the best? Maybe create an SNP border guard? Storm Holyrood? It's a perfectly reasonable position to think that, at that point, there are no good options in the short term and the best tactic is to wait, keep the issue live and let support for independence grow. You might disagree but to characterise those who see it that way as 'soft' on independence is wrong.

[GordonS]

4 hours ago, git-intae-thum said:

Following this line of thought implies that we require the agreement of the UK government..... regardless of victory or defeat in this upcoming court case.

Even if that were the case.....it still does nothing to resolve the scenario of what happens when that agreement is consistently withheld, despite numerous democratic mandates.

If you want there to be an independent Scotland with a Scottish Government recognised by other countries and by our own courts, then that's exactly the situation. It's tough but it's the real world. Catalonia voted for independence; are they independent?

[GordonS]

58 minutes ago, spongeheid15 said:

Hundreds dying every day and all the horrible little b**&":d thinks about is independence 

Fewer are dying in Scotland than England, because our laws are made in Scotland and our health service is run in Scotland.

Constitutional matters are life and death.

[GordonS]

4 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

Unionists are not a monolith. Not all of them (just the loudest ones) are “NO SURRENDER”. A Holyrood single party majority on an unambiguous pledge to hold a second referendum, secured almost 7 years after indyref1, will change the balance of sentiment.

Even if the UK Government’s response is to be NO SURRENDER it will be a more extremist position within its own umbrella and will probably be the wedge that splits them from moderate Unionists.

I think the smart tactic from the UK government is exactly that, a giant NO SURRENDER. About 15% of Scots will love it, which is all the Tories need. Then they just stand back and watch the SNP and the wider independence movement tear itself apart. In their dream scenario the Salmondists topple Sturgeon, a fundamentalist replaces her and starts talking UDI and it scares the moderates back to the unionist side.

[lichtgilphead]

2 hours ago, spongeheid15 said:

Hundreds dying every day and all the horrible little b**&":d thinks about is independence 

"Most appropriate member-name" thread for this pish

[DA Baracus]

3 hours ago, spongeheid15 said:

Hundreds dying every day and all the horrible little b**&":d thinks about is independence 

You're an exceptionally stupid person with a very ugly soul.

[Gordon EF]

3 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

The Boomers pretending that they’re part of the Lost, Greatest or Silent Generation when really they just drank most of the milk before dealing a marginally shitter hand to Generation X and Millennials will be the driving force of UK/Scottish politics in the 2030s, because they’re going to be a less influential voting block.

Thank f**k.

It's staggering how much boomers genuinely just cherry pick achievements from their parents generation as their own.

[git-intae-thum]

2 hours ago, GordonS said:

I don't care if it's condescending, I look down on people who think the present Scottish Government aren't seeking independence because it's a manifestly stupid opinion with literally no basis in reality.

The fact that we are no further forward than from the white paper of 7 f#ckin years ago makes it certainly a valid opinion. Given some in the higher echelons of the party are on record as being decidedly soft on indeoendence then it is an opinion that needs pushed!

However I hope that opinion is wrong.  I hope you are correct and that there is a secret plan B. 

[git-intae-thum]

2 hours ago, GordonS said:

I think the smart tactic from the UK government is exactly that, a giant NO SURRENDER. About 15% of Scots will love it, which is all the Tories need. Then they just stand back and watch the SNP and the wider independence movement tear itself apart. In their dream scenario the Salmondists topple Sturgeon, a fundamentalist replaces her and starts talking UDI and it scares the moderates back to the unionist side.

Yep....being a condescending twat and labelling views held by a large proportion of the SNP membership as stupid and "yes das" etc is really going to help heal any developing rift.