Will Scotland Leave the UK?

I read an interesting comment piece in the Graun last week, which suggested that the SNP knows the jig is up and is now pursuing a core vote strategy, pushing all the right buttons to ensure the hardcore activists stay happy.

Presumably somewhere in the party hierarchy they will have worried what will happen to the nationalist cause if the referendum is a complete disaster for them. Party splits may not be entirely unthinkable, but if Alec can say "I did my best but those rotten scheming Unionists used their Establishment power to thwart me" then he might survive with his reputation intact. Amongst the party faithful, at least.

Originally Posted by Chris

I read an interesting comment piece in the Graun last week, which suggested that the SNP knows the jig is up and is now pursuing a core vote strategy, pushing all the right buttons to ensure the hardcore activists stay happy.

Presumably somewhere in the party hierarchy they will have worried what will happen to the nationalist cause if the referendum is a complete disaster for them. Party splits may not be entirely unthinkable, but if Alec can say "I did my best but those rotten scheming Unionists used their Establishment power to thwart me" then he might survive with his reputation intact. Amongst the party faithful, at least.

At the start of this I always wondered if Cameron had played Salmond's bluff but calling the referendum way earlier than the SNP would have wanted it. I think Salmond wanted to gradually inch his way there by getting more devolved powers ,establishing the SNP in Scottish politics more consistently, and then calling it when the time suited him (i.e if the Euro is no longer a basket case).

I still wonder if this is the case and if Salmond has another goal in mind. Devo-max....

Salmond is a gradualist and wanted "devo max" as a precursor to full independence. He wanted devo max as a third option on the referendum but Dave played hardball with him. He knows he can't sell independence in the raw but he thinks there's an outside chance of selling it if he makes it look as much like devo max as possible, hence the guff about currency union, NATO, the Queen, etc, very little of which has been SNP policy until quite recently.

He may have been hoping the UK Gov would start giving concessions in order to buy off potential Yes voters - maybe even promising to grant devo max, everything except actually relinquishing the Westminster parliament's sovereignty over Scotland, which could be obtained at a later date.

He may now be hoping to shore up the Yes vote as much as possible in order to prevent the issue being buried for 50 years.

Trouble is if Scottish independence becomes an issue too often it may no longer be the case of Scotland breaking from the union but the union wanting shot of Scotland I've seen a hardening of views towards Scots independence with many people getting fedup of constantly being portrayed as the bad guys I know it's hardly representative. Personally I'm getting sick of salmond and his pathetic nationalist rants but I don't hold anything against the Scots or Scotland as a whole I know he is a part and not representative of scotland. By the time this is done the damage he could do might not be so easy to repair even without the issue not being resolved for quite a while.

[Osem]

I think a good deal of damage has already been done. A great many people I know are hacked off with hearing about how Scotland wants to have its cake and eat it - pick and choose which bits of 'independence' it wants to suit themselves and to hell with everyone else. Even if there's a sizeable NO vote I wonder how many companies might be thinking that the genie's out of the bottle and Scotland isn't a good place to be.

[Derek]

The only danger is a slim majority NO vote.

That will allow Salmond to lick his wounds and come back for another go in 10 years or so. A resounding rejection of his plans will be enough to kick the Nats into the long grass for a generation or two and leave Scotland open for business.

[Russ]

From 'Twop twips' this monring:

ALEX SALMOND. Ensure a ‘yes’ vote by simply arranging for England to win the World Cup in July. Somehow.

Alex Salmond's true aspirations for Scotland revealed: He wants it to be like Panama or Montenegro.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...cy-Plan-B.html

The comments suggest that Scotland would adopt so-called "sterlingisation" if the Westminster parties made good their promise not to agree a currency union after independence.

Scotland would therefore share the pound in a similar way to how Panama unilaterally uses the US dollar or Montenegro uses the euro.

Such a move would likely see Scotland resigning all control over monetary policy and losing the Bank of England as lender of last resort, with potentially dire economic consequences.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Chris

Alex Salmond's true aspirations for Scotland revealed: He wants it to be like Panama or Montenegro.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...cy-Plan-B.html

Well, he's been called out on it.

Be interesting to see how he trys to sell this one, as this, for any right minded Scot would be the nail in the yes campaign coffin.

So what are the polls indicating now?

ICM/Scotland on Sunday: NO 49, YES 37. The rest are don't know/won't vote.

ICM polling has shown YES is static and NO has picked up a few of the don't knows in the past couple of days.

However, when you strip out the don't knows from any poll you always end up with a little over 60 NO and a little under 40 YES. ICM/SoS don't seem to have put the detail online so I can't see if that still holds true, but it always has been until now.

Basically, nobody with a settled opinion on the issue has changed their mind over the past 18 months. I suspect most of the 'don't knows' haven't either, and probably won't do by September.

Salmond will have to win all the don't knows if he wants to even come close to winning the referendum. I'd say that's very unlikely.

[Osem]

What baffles me is the mindset of the people who'll actually vote Yes.

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by Osem

What baffles me is the mindset of the people who'll actually vote Yes.

"Each to their own" as they say.

[weenie]

Talking among my friends/colleagues not one is in agreement with the yes vote...but many of my eldest son's friends in the age range of "20-23" seem to be undecided ... compared to a couple of months back. TBH I wish it was all over I THINK THE UK SHOULD BE ONE ...
The UK...

What will the UK become if Scotland leaves ? The Slightly Less United Kingdom ?