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When will indyref2 happen?


Colkitto

Indyref2  

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I am sure that a threat to a national rugby team playing in Cardiff would also be a boost for Welsh independence.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
I remember joking to a no voter on Sept 19 in 2014 that FIFA had now asked for the amalgamation of the Scottish and English national sides after the referendum result. For a few minutes they actually believed me and were horrified at the thought! [emoji23]
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Actually surprised No10 hast tried to get the EPL to include Celtic and Rangers in the hope that’d make the fans back the Union or risk losing out on the riches.


I’m admittedly no expert on these things but Barcelona’s presence in La Liga hasn’t exactly served as a bastion for the cause of Spanish unity
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I’m admittedly no expert on these things but Barcelona’s presence in La Liga hasn’t exactly served as a bastion for the cause of Spanish unity


No but like Scotland the Catalonian movement sits at around the 45% mark, are a percentage of Barcelona fans swayed by possible exclusion from La Liga and total irrelevance in a Catalonian league?

The same with Celtic and Rangers while we sit in the 45-55% area every vote is crucial. Would moving, Celtic, Rangers even Hearts and Hibs make a huge difference? probably not but it might be enough to tip the balance for Westminster.
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No but like Scotland the Catalonian movement sits at around the 45% mark, are a percentage of Barcelona fans swayed by possible exclusion from La Liga and total irrelevance in a Catalonian league?

The same with Celtic and Rangers while we sit in the 45-55% area every vote is crucial. Would moving, Celtic, Rangers even Hearts and Hibs make a huge difference? probably not but it might be enough to tip the balance for Westminster.


As both Celtic see themselves as a club of Irish heritage and Rangers of British heritage rather than Scottish heritage would either of their sets of fans actually miss being part of the Scottish set up. [emoji848]

Surely any U.K. league would also mean a combined national side as well eventually? We all know where the HQ for that would be and where they would probably play their home matches. I am certain that would be a vote winner in the devolved nations! [emoji6]
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Just out of interest if the first Independence Referendum had resulted in the Yes vote being successful, what kind of position would we now be in, financially or economically? I appreciate nobody could have foreseen the pandemic and its impact happening.

Genuinely interested to know the logical answer as it caused a huge debate on the work Zoom call the other day. Yes it was a quiet day. 

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2 hours ago, ThatBoyRonaldo said:

Hard to say about specifics - presumably the oil price decline in ~2015 would have led to some fairly serious panicking, but we wouldn't have had to deal with as much of the Brexit mess, and I suppose theoretically we could have seen a benefit with companies/EU agencies etc relocating north. I suspect overall economically things wouldn't necessarily have been all that different yet. 

Not economically but politically I think narrowly losing first time round was a fairly big disaster though. A narrow win would have been a nightmare in its own way obviously (cf Brexit) but the growing sense of inevitability around independence since 2014 has 1) neutered a lot of the radical energy of the first yes campaign - independence is by no means the 'establishment' choice now but in comparison to 2014 it's a relatively 'safe' choice and the demographics of the FBPE type people swung to Indy by Brexit have changed the campaign a bit and 2) enabled and worsened a lot of the toxic behaviour that's hanging around the SNP at the moment. A Yes in 2014 would have been a significant upset and a real rupture which would have created space for quite a radical project of building a new country. A Yes in 2021 or 2022 feels like something that the real centres of power in the UK would accommodate themselves to fairly easily, and would be a prelude to fighting the same battles with reactionaries and centrists along the same lines that progressive forces are battling everywhere else in the English speaking world. Not a reason not to do it obviously, but feels like next time round we'll all be going into it with less illusions about it all. 

Interesting take. Personally, I feel like there wouldn't be much difference between a Yes in 2014 or 2022 in terms of the political realignment afterwards, global circumstances aside. I think Yes 2014 felt fairly comfortable for a lot of 'moderate radicals' , if you like. But I doubt they were really ever a majority in the Yes movement and certainly not in the country as a whole. I don't think being able to convince more moderates to break Yes in 2014 would have given them the wind in their sails needed to have a significantly bigger influence on post-indy politics.

The big advantages of independence for me were always a more left-leaning Overton window, PR leading a real possibility of smaller more radical parties at least getting a voice and the chance to wipe the slate clean on the anachronistic political structure of the UK. Unless there are fundamental changes in Scottish/UK politics, we'll still get all of those no matter when we vote Yes.

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One of the great joys of this thread is when people post the latest ideas on how to save the Union.

Prince Edward and no Scottish national football team. Egad.

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6 minutes ago, ThatBoyRonaldo said:

These are all true and all still good reasons to vote yes but my point is more that as a political project independence is now much more a creature of the professional, cosmopolitan middle class than it was in 2014. Of course this is a good thing! 60% is better than 45%. But the SNP have been in power for 14 years at this point, the public sector has significantly swung behind them, you can see how a certain conservatism kicks in (imo). 

An interesting facet of indyref 2 (whenever it happens) will imo be what happens to the left. The first referendum took place in a country where it was reflexively assumed near everyone was a labour or ex-labour voter. They had 40-odd MPs and were still the opposition at holyrood. The whole strategy for yes was basically to ape labour values and harvest labour voters - a continual theme of debates was around whether left wing values were more possible in either the UK or an independent Scotland. This was phenomenally successful to the point where it has basically killed the party until independence day at least and probably beyond. But for indyref 2 if those voters are assumed to be in the bag who does the campaign go for? The obvious answer is middle class public sector professionals who voted No but don't like Brexit - the whole tone of the campaign changes. Add that to the fact that the opposition won't be staffed by wanky Blairites but by truly demonic Tory right wingers who will have no scruples about red baiting etc and playing the immigration card etc and it becomes harder for me to see the campaign next time being as radical as it was in 2014. Everything will be a bit more hard-headed and serious-suited.

Of course if that's what we have to do to win then fair enough. Liz Lochhead has a quote about feminism that I think applies to a lot of left politics in that "it's like the washing up - you just have to keep doing it". No final victories, no final losses, the struggle continues post referendum regardless of the result.

Pretty much agree with all of that. The analogy that springs to mind  for me is doing a good job at work. It inevitably just leads to being given more work with increased expectations.

It's a general dilemma of the left everywhere I think. New labour being the prime example. You can't win by only having the true believers onside. So you have to water down your instinctive position to some degree to win. Just moving yourself into the centre by aping aspects of the right (looking at you Sir Keith) is easy but even winning will be a bit of a phyrric victory. Tempting moderates by offering them stuff most of them actually like but just enough to stop them feeling like "tHiS iS LiKe ThE sOvIeT uNiOn!" is difficult is the ideal. It wasn't perfect by any means but I don't think Corbyn was a million miles off getting some success with that. Brexit, a hostile media, open rebellion in the PLP and strategic incompetency was a bit too much to contend with though.

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On 07/02/2021 at 19:25, Dunfermline Don said:

 


As both Celtic see themselves as a club of Irish heritage and Rangers of British heritage rather than Scottish heritage would either of their sets of fans actually miss being part of the Scottish set up. emoji848.png

Surely any U.K. league would also mean a combined national side as well eventually? We all know where the HQ for that would be and where they would probably play their home matches. I am certain that would be a vote winner in the devolved nations! emoji6.png

 

Lets be honest here, other than Celtic and Rangers fans overseas there is very little interest in both teams outside Scotland nowadays, Gerrard at Rangers does create some interest in England but other than that they are never going to compete financially with the present European footballing infrastructure.

You jut have to watch the likes of Tottenham Hotspurs training camp facilities on Amazon Prime to see how far behind we are.

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Mind that ITV show in the '90s where folk phoned in to vote whether or not they wanted a monarchy?

Scotland was the only "region" of the UK to vote for abolition, and (IIRC) Alasdair Stewart had quite the look of "oh shit, this wasn't how it was supposed to go"  :P

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