Quote:
Originally Posted by Sephiroth
Well - being still a member I might as well post.
It's the word "sovereignty" and its implications that has spurred me (as it has Chris).
Scotland is a nation that united with England & Wales some hundreds of years ago to form the current union. The UK government has no democratic issue with Scotland leaving the UK; thus the sovereignty question was settled in the 2014 referendum. If the UK government wants to authorise another referendum, so be it (though I don't think they should be bullied by Sturgeon into doing it soon).
The embarrassment might come if Sturgeon holds an advisory referendum and there is a majority for independence. It would be democratically awkward for the UK government to refuse a binding referendum on a determined date.
My (arrogant) post of 17-July sets out some of the things that need to be settled before a referendum should take place - so that the Scots will know the score in advance.
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Your problem is illustrated by your use of “the Scots”, as if it’s a single homogeneous mass entirely, or largely, sealed off from the rest of the UK. For starters, 10% of “the Scots” are actually English. I’m one of them. Most (but by no means all of us) believe in the Union. All of us - that is, about half a million people - have an absolute right to move back to England if Scotland became independent and we didn’t like how it was turning out.
It is vastly unlikely that anybody born anywhere in the UK and living in Scotland - including people Scottish by birth - would lose the right to move and settle in England. That’s one enormous migrant crisis waiting right there if a grand experiment in Scottish nation building goes pear shaped. In fact there would inevitably be some movement simply on the basis of a Yes vote, most likely among more affluent and mobile families, making even harder for a newly independent Scotland to succeed. England simply can’t warn “the Scots” what will happen and then wash its hands of it. It will continue to have an interest in Scotland’s future, for good or ill.
Furthermore, Sturgeon’s great risk in holding an advisory referendum is that the unionist side simply boycotts it on the basis it wasn’t authorised by Westminster, following the precedent set, and agreed to, by the Nats in 2014. That gives the Nats a guaranteed massive majority, on a small turnout, which the UK government can paint as no more democratic than an average Monday in Minsk.
None of this is to say that the Nats won’t huff and puff and scream and scream and scream until they’re sick, but when it comes to it they are absolutely powerless to force anything to happen. The only thing ever likely to force a UK government to relent is a substantial, sustained lead in the polls, which the Nats have never had. Nicola knows this and in the past has voiced that view. She can’t voice it aloud any longer because she has enough opposition within the party to risk a leadership challenge if she starts looking like the Nat who doesn’t want independence.