The end of the union

[Disco Buc]

Is more now likely than ever.
Interesting read .
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/06...g-end-britain/

Do you lads on here think it's now more likely than ever before.

[Disco Buc]

Just like to add doesn't Queen Nicola look great in that link .
WYOWYN.

[Jupiter]

That was written in June last year. Why have you dug that out?

[ragnarok]

At the moment, no.

Economic conditions were more favourable at the time of the referendum than they are now.

Brexit, rather than offering a path to a second referendum has simply muddied the waters. It still isn't clear what an independent Scotland's relationship within or with the EU would be. Given that the UK appears to be leaving the single market, that would potentially create significant issues for an independent Scotland within the EU given that England would still be Scotland's biggest trading partner.

Whether you are for independence or not, on a purely practical level independence would initially be an economically painful adjustment. Probably more painful than the UK's separation from the EU will be. You have to sell that to folk based on an abstract notion of things being 'better' in the long term...or you try to whip up popular resentment which is probably the angle the SNP will go for.

[sancho_panza]

Brexit, rather than offering a path to a second referendum has simply muddied the waters. It still isn't clear what an independent Scotland's relationship within or with the EU would be. Given that the UK appears to be leaving the single market, that would potentially create significant issues for an independent Scotland within the EU given that England would still be Scotland's biggest trading partner.

At the moment what seems to have happened is Brexit has created a huge amount of uncertainty and some people are reluctant to pile more uncertainty on top of it by backing independence. There's also a potential framing effect. The Leave and Yes campaigns were very different, but they both appealed to a certain type of anti-establishment voter. As Brexit is now at the centre of the political agenda these voters are perhaps less inclined to support independence because the SNP are on the other side of the EU issue.

Personally, while I completely agree that the economic argument for independence is far weaker than it was in 2014, and the polling doesn't seem to be too favourable to Yes at present, I still think Yes would have a good chance of winning a second referendum. The framing effect mentioned above immediately disappears if we're suddenly in another referendum campaign and what Brexit highlighted is that economic arguments can be trumped by making appeals to identity and democracy/sovereignty (the EU referendum strengthens the latter case pretty significantly).

[Getintaethem]

Sancho - interesting post around framing. In the last referendum, it was a battle framed by the SNP, against rule by Westminster. What the SNP have done since June is go hard on Brexit and frame the battle for remaining in the EU.

I can understand why they have done this. The more powers the SNP Government have the more intense the scrutiny on how well they are performing. Education standards have not improved since they were in office. They have, for the first time, in English, Maths and Science gone below England. England are starting to show improvement against international standards and places like London are outperforming. You can look at the economy and economic development (not just in the NE of Scotland), police, local government funding and business rates, social work and the child snooping charter. There are not a huge number of success stories flying around. The deficit is over 9% - higher than Greece's, the economic basket case of the EU. The only thing stopping Scotland being in a worse position than Greece - what allows us to keep spending etc. is the rest of the UK in effect bailing us out. Comparing Scotland to Westminster, when the SNP have so much more devolved power now and a referendum could be used to actually compare the records of the two would not be good for the SNP. In the paper around the EU produced by the SNP Government they state that they could pay as much as £3bn to stay in the EU. That is one tenth of Scotland annual budget and the writer said in the select committee on Brexit that this was a "price worth paying." All things remaining equal, if we did not cut spending or increase taxes significantly that would mean that our budget deficit would be around 19%. Totally unsustainable. This is before you factor in any part of the UK national debt that would be allocated to Scotland.

Therefore, politically, it made sense to go hard on Brexit. YouGov have done some great analysis of the people who voted in the last Scottish Independence ref, people who voted in Brexit and compared them to the latest independence polls. Although there is not much difference in the headline figures for the actual vote in the Independence vote and the polls now, their research has found that there is a lot of churn between Yes and No voters. The biggest churn is in Yes voters that voted Leave in Brexit and No voters that voted Remain in Brexit. Hardly a surprise given what the SNP have been saying.

Now the route for Sturgeon to win is in getting back the Yes voters that voted Leave and I believe that this is what she is banking on.

However, it does need 2 things to happen. Firstly, Brexit negotiations in the next 18 months need to go badly and secondly there is no more bad news from the EU. I doubt that these negotiations will go badly mainly because there are more pressing concerns for the EU than Brexit over the next 2 years. Now even the bigwigs in the EU are admitting that it could fall apart. What is for sure is that things in the EU are going badly (even outside of Brexit) and in that timeframe at least one country could either have left or be on the verge of leaving the Euro. This would be hugely destabilising on the EU and would probably lead to others leaving. I don't think anyone thinks that Greece will be in the Euro long term but Italy will also need to leave or will become even worse economically than it is now. Then you add other countries into the mix like France, The Netherlands etc. and the likelihood of something catastrophic happening in the EU in 18 months gets more and more likely. This would not have been so disastrous for Sturgeon if she had not fixed her flag on independence on EU membership - on a EU that seems destined for some big issues over the next 2 years.

She has gone down the road of bluff against May and May has called her bluff by saying that the UK will come out of the single market. Sturgeon is therefore in trouble as she has made threats on a referendum in order to get compromise on Brexit that she will have to stake her political career on. I doubt that she will want to do this, however, the pressure on her to call a referendum may be too great politically. The leader of the Yes campaign wrote an article where he analysed referendum campaigns around the world and he stated that the longer a government is in power the less likely they are to win a referendum.

They could win, anything could happen, but it is far harder for the SNP to win this time around.

You have to remember that the SNP have been running a pseudo independence campaign since June almost unopposed and the polling has hardly moved. You have also got to factor into any new independence campaign that it would be hard for No to run as bad a campaign as they did last time. They will get more organised this time around - especially without the Cameron cabal - they are already planning the campaign, something that never happened with Cameron. I can see a significant number of Yes voters staying at home in another independence referendum and this probably will cause them to lose.

The SNP had 2 heavyweights in Salmond and Sturgeon. Both could have their political careers ended by referendum. Who would the SNP go to without either of them leading the party in Scotland in 2021?

Just one man's opinion.

[Getintaethem]

Part of Sturgeon's pretext around having a second independence referendum was that Scotland was not being listened to because 62% of Scots voted Remain and their voice should be heard. Another one of the SNP's grievances. She would have you believe that another independence referendum in these circumstances was her moral duty. Well, poll out today says 67% don't want a second Scottish independence referendum. We listened to what she had to say but we don't agree with her by a bigger margin than her much heralded Remain vote. Will Sturgeon listen to the people of Scotland? Will SHE allow our voices to be heard?

[57vintage]

Post-EU referendum research showed that the 62-38 split was matched almost exactly by both SNP and Labour voters. That would suggest that there is no guarantee that an independence referendum outcome would be any different from Sept 2014's.

To underline that, and possibly confuse it even further, John Curtice has also said that since the EU vote, the numbers who voted for independence from the UK in 2014 who would now vote No in a second referendum, are almost identically balanced by those who voted No in 2014 who would now vote the other way given that we're on a shambling, rusting 3-wheeled train on the way out of the EU.

The SNP have also got to walk a tightrope of keeping onside those "politically engaged for the first time in 2014" by dangling a carrot to them, but taking a massive gamble on calling for (and having their wish fulfilled) a second referendum which they cannot guarantee winning.

Of course, politicians have the luxury of demitting office if their plans go wrong, with generous severance pay and pensions, whilst the proletariat can go **** themselves.

[Getintaethem]

Post-EU referendum research showed that the 62-38 split was matched almost exactly by both SNP and Labour voters. That would suggest that there is no guarantee that an independence referendum outcome would be any different from Sept 2014's.

To underline that, and possibly confuse it even further, John Curtice has also said that since the EU vote, the numbers who voted for independence from the UK in 2014 who would now vote No in a second referendum, are almost identically balanced by those who voted No in 2014 who would now vote the other way given that we're on a shambling, rusting 3-wheeled train on the way out of the EU.

The SNP have also got to walk a tightrope of keeping onside those "politically engaged for the first time in 2014" by dangling a carrot to them, but taking a massive gamble on calling for (and having their wish fulfilled) a second referendum which they cannot guarantee winning.

Of course, politicians have the luxury of demitting office if their plans go wrong, with generous severance pay and pensions, whilst the proletariat can go **** themselves.

I would be really surprised if a second independence referendum were as close as 10%. The likelihood is that the gap will be more if a referendum were held this side of the next Scottish Parliament election. 2 reasons, dissatisfaction with the SNP Government is going to continue to grow and Yes supporters last time will be more likely to abstain. Secondly the No/Remain voters who are telling pollsters right now that they will vote Yes this time around will have time to reflect on whether Brexit is such a major issue and is more important than not continuing to be in the UK and will also be affected by dissatisfaction with the SNP. This scenario will prove to be a disaster for the SNP.

Last poll showing an almost equal support for Yes and No looks to be an outlier.

I notice that in Ireland even with no major party supporting withdrawal from the EU, there is a lot of support for them to leave the EU at same time as the UK as they see that their economy is far more dependent on the UK than the rest of the EU. Their two main export markets are the UK and USA - will both be outside the EU. They are also really worried that if tariffs were put on their beef industry, which is heavily reliant on UK exports, (Ireland is the only country in the EU adding more farms) would almost certainly transfer over to the UK.

Call me old fashioned but I for one would just like the Government governing for a change. Here is an idea, perhaps sort out the police service after the disastrous single force idea, sort out the Health Service and perhaps make our education better than England's again - oh and sort out the economy and stop the centralisation of services to Edinburgh.

[dons8321]

Part of Sturgeon's pretext around having a second independence referendum was that Scotland was not being listened to because 62% of Scots voted Remain and their voice should be heard. Another one of the SNP's grievances. She would have you believe that another independence referendum in these circumstances was her moral duty. Well, poll out today says 67% don't want a second Scottish independence referendum. We listened to what she had to say but we don't agree with her by a bigger margin than her much heralded Remain vote. Will Sturgeon listen to the people of Scotland? Will SHE allow our voices to be heard?

But her "poll" is an actual one whilst the other is based on seeking out option (and we know how well polls have done in the recent past). Personally I don't think there should be another ref. at the moment as it wouldn't produce a different result to the last one -I just don't think the 62% who voted to Remain would vote for independence which seems to be basis of her argument.