The UK Political Landscape

If the 2021 population figures I got off the internet are correct then Scotland and Wales are actually slightly over represented in parliament.

It’s a union of equals relative to population size, no one person’s vote counts any more than anyone else’s no matter how much some would perhaps like it to be different to suit their purposes but would soon squawk if such a thing went against their agenda.

Looking at the finances I’m still waiting for a realistic answer on how Scotland or any other ‘region’ could afford to the leave the UK unless they’re willing stomach a huge drop in spending.

UK figures.JPG

These figures are pre kungflu but how does anyone rational think Scotland would make up that 13.5 billion/20% shortfall if it went independent ?? Especially as considering the only use of the pound they’d get is as Panama uses the dollar i.e. English tax payers would not be underwriting any Scottish debts via the bank of England. Or would they accept that kind of drop in public spending etc?
Plus it would have to set up it’s own civil service infrastructure, health service defence and pension system etc etc at THEIR cost. The majority of financial services jobs in Edinburgh would head south of the border because that’s where 90% of their customers are, I worked up there in that sector for quite a while and Edinburgh would be pretty much dead without that business sector. And all the defence contracts, bases and ergo all jobs directly and indirectly part of them would also head south.
Plus the Shetland and/or Orkneys have said they’d leave Scotland if it left the UK, so there goes a big chunk of the oil revenue.
Destination fucked basically and that’s without approaching Scotland with the vitriol that the snp nobs view England.

The same for Wales and Northern Ireland but re the latter would Southern Ireland want to double their deficit overnight to maintain current spending levels in Northern Ireland?

I was happy for Scotland to have it's referendum in 2014 but they went nnnahh and like the europhiles , the losers need to accept they lost

https://www.scotfact.com/scotland-share-of-uk-deficit

https://countryeconomy.com/deficit/ireland
 
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Marb said:
If the U.K government had held the e.u referendum vote under the pretence that it was only advisory, well there wouldn't really be a point in having a referendum. I'm afraid this is where people like me and those like you and Gina Miller share some disagreement.
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Suggest you go and educate yourself about the EU Referendum franchise, and then decide what side of the argument you want to be on.
 
pawras said:
If the 2021 population figures I got off the internet are correct then Scotland and Wales are actually slightly over represented in parliament.

It’s a union of equals relative to population size, no one person’s vote counts any more than anyone else’s no matter how much some would perhaps like it to be different to suit their purposes but would soon squawk if such a thing went against their agenda.

Looking at the finances I’m still waiting for a realistic answer on how Scotland or any other ‘region’ could afford to the leave the UK unless they’re willing stomach a huge drop in spending.

View attachment 2777

These figures are pre kungflu but how does anyone rational think Scotland would make up that 13.5 billion/20% shortfall if it went independent ?? Especially as considering the only use of the pound they’d get is as Panama uses the dollar i.e. English tax payers would not be underwriting any Scottish debts via the bank of England. Or would they accept that kind of drop in public spending etc?
Plus it would have to set up it’s own civil service infrastructure, health service defence and pension system etc etc at THEIR cost. The majority of financial services jobs in Edinburgh would head south of the border because that’s where 90% of their customers are, I worked up there in that sector for quite a while and Edinburgh would be pretty much dead without that business sector. And all the defence contracts, bases and ergo all jobs directly and indirectly part of them would also head south.
Plus the Shetland and/or Orkneys have said they’d leave Scotland if it left the UK, so there goes a big chunk of the oil revenue.
Destination fucked basically and that’s without approaching Scotland with the vitriol that the snp nobs view England.

The same for Wales and Northern Ireland but re the latter would Southern Ireland want to double their deficit overnight to maintain current spending levels in Northern Ireland?

I was happy for Scotland to have it's referendum in 2014 but they went nnnahh and like the europhiles , the losers need to accept they lost

https://www.scotfact.com/scotland-share-of-uk-deficit

https://countryeconomy.com/deficit/ireland
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Orkney and Shetland going independent and taking all of the oil revenue with them. :lol:
 
moehat said:
We’re all losers in this….
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I largely agree.

(But the mega-rich are making fortunes from it all.)

I still can't quite get my head around the obvious contradiction concerning Scotland leaving the UK but wanting to be part of EU.

Why walk away from a union that has been historically successful (for all its failings)? The whole idea of the EU was to make each individual member state stronger and better off and it has largely worked for all the gravy-training and financial waste that goes with it. Nationalistic arrogance. Yet Scotland voted to stay.

Why walk away from another union that has been historically successful (for all its failings)? The UK largely worked for centuries. Nationalistic arrogance. Not from the majority of Scots but by a Nationalistic power-mad minority.

And now we are being driven out of the UK by a Nationalistic power-mad bunch of reprobates in Westminster.

If another referendum gets the go-ahead I'll probably vote to leave too because of Bojo the Bozo and his corrupt band.

And Scotland will fail.

And the rest of the UK will go further down the pan.

It's a very bleak future.
 
Grasshopper said:
Laughable.
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Not really the unionist vote up there was about 64% and they're not liking centralised control by Krankie, the UK could offer them crown dominion status, like Jersey, if they vote to leave Scotland and they can keep say 80% of their oil revenue to build up their economy etc
 
Desert Orchid said:
I largely agree.

(But the mega-rich are making fortunes from it all.)

I still can't quite get my head around the obvious contradiction concerning Scotland leaving the UK but wanting to be part of EU.

Why walk away from a union that has been historically successful (for all its failings)? The whole idea of the EU was to make each individual member state stronger and better off and it has largely worked for all the gravy-training and financial waste that goes with it. Nationalistic arrogance. Yet Scotland voted to stay.

Why walk away from another union that has been historically successful (for all its failings)? The UK largely worked for centuries. Nationalistic arrogance. Not from the majority of Scots but by a Nationalistic power-mad minority.

And now we are being driven out of the UK by a Nationalistic power-mad bunch of reprobates in Westminster.

If another referendum gets the go-ahead I'll probably vote to leave too because of Bojo the Bozo and his corrupt band.

And Scotland will fail.

And the rest of the UK will go further down the pan.

It's a very bleak future.
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Yes, I have to be careful since I’m from the dreaded England even though I was based in Shetland for a bit after the oil started. Certainly I can’t see any advantage to Scotland breaking away from the union other than nationalistic pride. I suppose it’s possible that Scotland might benefit from joining the wider union, assuming they can get in which is no slam dunk, but the cost in losing the per capita support from UK as well as funding the multi-various infrastructure and service needs themselves would be huge.

Having said that, I can well understand the desire to jump from a ship that has holed itself below the waterline with Brexit. Harold McMillan said when he became PM that his job was to manage the UK’s decline and it was only joining the EU (then EEC) which halted that decline and enabled us to prosper. Now I think we are on the slippery slope again.
 
pawras said:
Not really the unionist vote up there was about 64% and they're not liking centralised control by Krankie, the UK could offer them crown dominion status, like Jersey, if they vote to leave Scotland and they can keep say 80% of their oil revenue to build up their economy etc
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The No vote was on a par with Edinburgh, but of course, that was within the context of the Uk being in the EU at the time. The only people that think the paradigm-shift of Brexit doesn't make a difference to people's perceptions around independence, are those far removed from the argument i.e. you.

Shetland Islands cannot secede from Scotland within the current constitutional framework (or any other framework, for that matter). And if Independence is achieved, any English "offer" would be straws in the wind - because the territory would at that point (still) belong to Scotland - de-facto. It would perhaps be for the English to offer, but it would be for the Scottish Government (not Shetlanders alone) to choose whether to allow it.....and I imagine you can guess what the response would be.

As for centralised control, do you really think they would swap Scottish control for English control? Don't make me laugh. If they were ever to gain their independence (an utter pipe-dream anyway), the likelihood is they would look to hitch their wagon to Oslo rather than London.

The oil is in Scottish territorial waters. Shetland provides processing. The suggestion they would retain any - let alone 80% - of North Sea Oil revenues is a load of cobblers.

I think I've indulged your fantasist nonsense enough now. Suggest you go and enjoy all your post-Brexit winning, and we'll leave it at that.
 
Grasshopper said:
The No vote was on a par with Edinburgh, but of course, that was within the context of the Uk being in the EU at the time. The only people that think the paradigm-shift of Brexit doesn't make a difference to people's perceptions around independence, are those far removed from the argument i.e. you.

Shetland Islands cannot secede from Scotland within the current constitutional framework (or any other framework, for that matter). And if Independence is achieved, any English "offer" would be straws in the wind - because the territory would at that point (still) belong to Scotland - de-facto. It would perhaps be for the English to offer, but it would be for the Scottish Government (not Shetlanders alone) to choose whether to allow it.....and I imagine you can guess what the response would be.

As for centralised control, do you really think they would swap Scottish control for English control? Don't make me laugh. If they were ever to gain their independence (an utter pipe-dream anyway), the likelihood is they would look to hitch their wagon to Oslo rather than London.

The oil is in Scottish territorial waters. Shetland provides processing. The suggestion they would retain any - let alone 80% - of North Sea Oil revenues is a load of cobblers.

I think I've indulged your fantasist nonsense enough now. Suggest you go and enjoy all your post-Brexit winning, and we'll leave it at that.
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If Shetland decided to have a vote on whether to leave would you want to deny them??

If they then decide to leave yes they could easily join with Norway seen as they were part of Norway until the 1400s or they could join with the UK it would be up to them. I was suggesting they could have crown dominion status so they would not be under anyone's central control.

If Shetland went indy they would have their own territorial waters and the oil within would be their's not Krankie's, there are international rules re on territorial waters. I just suggested they could keep 80% of what was within their territorial waters if they joined the UK as a crown dominion.

But Shetland is just entertaining tangent cos either way though an independent scotland would have to sell a lot of short bread and iron bru to make up for the 13billion of english money they'd lose or reduce public spending or raise taxes which would then drive down south those with more 2p to their name.
Plus you'd have to send it all by ship or plane cos why would England let you transport freight through it?
 
barjon said:
Yes, I have to be careful since I’m from the dreaded England even though I was based in Shetland for a bit after the oil started. Certainly I can’t see any advantage to Scotland breaking away from the union other than nationalistic pride. I suppose it’s possible that Scotland might benefit from joining the wider union, assuming they can get in which is no slam dunk, but the cost in losing the per capita support from UK as well as funding the multi-various infrastructure and service needs themselves would be huge.

Having said that, I can well understand the desire to jump from a ship that has holed itself below the waterline with Brexit. Harold McMillan said when he became PM that his job was to manage the UK’s decline and it was only joining the EU (then EEC) which halted that decline and enabled us to prosper. Now I think we are on the slippery slope again.
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I have often referred to the short-to-medium term pain that would go hand-in-hand with independence, barjon.......the timescale of which isn't easy to define, but which would likely be at least a decade, and probably longer.

It becomes a question of whether or not one thinks it is worth it.

When the UK (and by extension Scotland) was part of the EU, there were very-limited upsides to Independence beyond the 'sovereignty' argument. The threat of leaving the EU was real, and a huge motivating factor in the IndyRef vote. Also, the country (as a whole) had only just emerged from the rubble of the Financial Crisis, and (my opinion) there was limited appetite for the sort of fundamental constitutional change - and the risks that went with it - that Independence represented. There were a million other reasons that prompted people to vote No (questions around currency, oil revenues, civil service etc), but I believe these were the two main ones.

The situation is radically different now.

We (and by that I mean the entire UK) have had the hardest-possible Brexit imposed upon us by Westminster - one which in no way reflects how close the referendum vote was. It is being pursued by a maniacal right-wing, English-nationalist government, which is wilfully trashing anything and everything that might once have been noble about Britain (and admittedly small book, but still). They are systematically dismantling the NHS, have a cavalier attitude to the law in multiple areas (prorogue of parliament, Partygate, the now the apparent desire to set fire to our alignment to ECHR), and their only real policy is to pursue the purest-possible form of Brexit i.e. the anti-immigrant one - regardless of what this does to the country.

I no longer want to be a citizen of a country whose political system allows this situation to develop, and which doesn't have the constitutional means to put a handbrake on these types of behaviours. For me, the UK system of governance is fundamentally broken, and I would rather try independence, accepting of the risks that go with it.

Gaining EU membership is I agree, no slam-dunk. Fiscal conditions are always brought-up as a barrier to entry (which is fair enough), but I believe where there's a political will there's a way. In Scotland, the EU would hopefully see an enthusiastic ex-Member, and create a pathway for us to re-join was early as possible. That would be my hope, at least.

In any event, I'm still prepared to take my chances.

It's also worth stating that I have zero animosity to my English brethren. This is not a Serbia/Croatia scenario, and no-one outside the a tiny number of claymore-rattling loons, has any beef with English people. Once Scotland secures its independence and accedes to the EU, I would love to see English remainers move north of the border to take advantage; where they would be welcomed with open arms, in the same manner as we do with all other immigrants to the country. In this scenario, we would at least be assured of having all the English brains at our disposal, to help rebuild our economy.
 
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pawras said:
If Shetland decided to have a vote on whether to leave would you want to deny them??

If they then decide to leave yes they could easily join with Norway seen as they were part of Norway until the 1400s or they could join with the UK it would be up to them. I was suggesting they could have crown dominion status so they would not be under anyone's central control.

If Shetland went indy they would have their own territorial waters and the oil within would be their's not Krankie's, there are international rules re on territorial waters. I just suggested they could keep 80% of what was within their territorial waters if they joined the UK as a crown dominion.

But Shetland is just entertaining tangent cos either way though an independent scotland would have to sell a lot of short bread and iron bru to make up for the 13billion of english money they'd lose or reduce public spending or raise taxes which would then drive down south those with more 2p to their name.
Plus you'd have to send it all by ship or plane cos why would England let you transport freight through it?
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1. It's the same argument as the Isle of Mull, or Portobello, or fu*cking Barlanark demanding independence from Scotland i.e. a joke concept that will never happen, which invalidates entirely the rest of your drivel.
2. It's 'Irn' Bru. Please improve your research if you're going to try to be funny.
3. An 8-week wait to pass through customs at Dover is not conducive to a successful export economy or haulier health. We would find alternate means of shipment of Goods.
4. We'll be mainly a Service economy anyway, given all the English FS entities will shift their HQs to Edinburgh to take advantage of our position in the EU.

:thumbsup:
 
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Grasshopper said:
1. It's the same argument as the Isle of Mull, or Portobello, or fu*cking Barlanark demanding independence from Scotland i.e. a joke concept that will never happen, which invalidates entirely the rest of your drivel.
2. It's 'Irn' Bru. Please improve your research if you're going to try to be funny.
3. An 8-week wait to pass through customs at Dover is not conducive to a successful export economy or haulier health. We would find alternate means of shipment of Goods.
4. We'll be mainly a Service economy anyway, given all the English FS entities will shift their HQs to Edinburgh to take advantage of our position in the EU.

:thumbsup:
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All those FS would have long shifted south where 90% of their customers are before EU allowed another broke ass country looking for a handout to join, they have enough of those already.
 
Like I say - enjoy all your Brexity winning. You don't need to worry your pretty little head about Scotland.
 
Grasshopper said:
Like I say - enjoy all your Brexity winning. You don't need to worry your pretty little head about Scotland.
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The trots aren't in government and we are no longer ruled by a foreign power so I am very happy yes. :D
As I told guys up there when I lived there , you lot think about us a lot lot more than we think about you cos we generally don't give you a second thought until such as Krankie starts yapping like a wee scotty dog.
 
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Grasshopper said:
I have often referred to the short-to-medium term pain that would go hand-in-hand with independence, barjon.......the timescale of which isn't easy to define, but which would likely be at least a decade, and probably longer.

It becomes a question of whether or not one thinks it is worth it.

When the UK (and by extension Scotland) was part of the EU, there were very-limited upsides to Independence beyond the 'sovereignty' argument. The threat of leaving the EU was real, and a huge motivating factor in the IndyRef vote. Also, the country (as a whole) had only just emerged from the rubble of the Financial Crisis, and (my opinion) there was limited appetite for the sort of fundamental constitutional change - and the risks that went with it - that Independence represented. There were a million other reasons that prompted people to vote No (questions around currency, oil revenues, civil service etc), but I believe these were the two main ones.

The situation is radically different now.

We (and by that I mean the entire UK) have had the hardest-possible Brexit imposed upon us by Westminster - one which in no way reflects how close the referendum vote was. It is being pursued by a maniacal right-wing, English-nationalist government, which is wilfully trashing anything and everything that might once have been noble about Britain (and admittedly small book, but still). They are systematically dismantling the NHS, have a cavalier attitude to the law in multiple areas (prorogue of parliament, Partygate, the now the apparent desire to set fire to our alignment to ECHR), and their only real policy is to pursue the purest-possible form of Brexit i.e. the anti-immigrant one - regardless of what this does to the country.

I no longer want to be a citizen of a country whose political system allows this situation to develop, and which doesn't have the constitutional means to put a handbrake on these types of behaviours. For me, the UK system of governance is fundamentally broken, and I would rather try independence, accepting of the risks that go with it.

Gaining EU membership is I agree, no slam-dunk. Fiscal conditions are always brought-up as a barrier to entry (which is fair enough), but I believe where there's a political will there's a way. In Scotland, the EU would hopefully see an enthusiastic ex-Member, and create a pathway for us to re-join was early as possible. That would be my hope, at least.

In any event, I'm still prepared to take my chances.

It's also worth stating that I have zero animosity to my English brethren. This is not a Serbia/Croatia scenario, and no-one outside the a tiny number of claymore-rattling loons, has any beef with English people. Once Scotland secures its independence and accedes to the EU, I would love to see English remainers move north of the border to take advantage; where they would be welcomed with open arms, in the same manner as we do with all other immigrants to the country. In this scenario, we would at least be assured of having all the English brains at our disposal, to help rebuild our economy.
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Difficult to argue against any of that, grassy - except that the hope it would turn out alright is a song already being sung by the brexiteers :D.

I have to say that I do think that animosity towards England is a feature that colours things unduly (not getting at you here, as you have made your feelings plain). We used to go to Arran every year as well as travelling about elsewhere and all we ever met was friendliness. That changed when The Sun ran an “I’m a proud Scot from ……..” pull out poster campaign and every other car had one posted in their back window. All seemed to become a bit threatening. On Arran that year even the shopkeeper refused to deliver the daily newspaper (which he had done for several years) until our landlady went and tore him off a strip. Perhaps our experience and discomfort colours my own judgement, of course.
 
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Barjon, the difference between me and a Brexiter, is that I know there are no unicorns, and I’m ready to accept the difficulties which attach themselves to independence.
 
Well I got my ‘unicorn’ i.e. the trots are not in government plus they and remainer quislings got their arses totally smacked in the GE, and best of alll we are no longer ruled by a foreign power.

What about yours eh? Well county jockland is still ruled by England and as a 13+ billion per annum net taker from UK, rather than being one of the largest net contributors as the UK/England was to the EU, Krankie needs to come up with answers of how she’d plug that 13+ billion per annum gap and whether she’d use the £ or Euro as per Panama uses the dollar or print her own monopoly money on back of tunnocks caramel wafer wrappers. The first two means no fiscal control and latter means borrowing on the international money markets at Wonga rates. You could use the Euro but your deficit means you’ve no chance of meeting the fiscal requirements to join the EU unless they gave you a pass just to **** us off.
Even “IF” there is another indy referendum Krankie will have to have rather more than hopium on offer to persuade people other than ardent nats to accept the gigantic cuts in public spending that would be required if they voted Yes cos you’d certainly be getting fk all from us.
In meantime cos your population is 1/10th size of England and were stupid enough to send shouty snp nobs, that the rest blatantly takes no notice of, to the real parliament, you’ve got zero sway there unless there’s a minority government.

So as for your unicorn? Oh dear LOL.

Personally I have no beef with Scotland, I’ve had a number of jock girlfriends, and having lived and worked there and numerous other places I think Edinburgh is one of the best cities in the world. In reality I was glad they voted no in 2014 as I very much see the Scots, apart from the blue woad nats, as our brethren, but if they had voted yes, I wouldn’t have been like the remainer shite here and tried to overturn it, I would have said fair play that’s your choice.
 
No unicorns here. I've already admitted the road post-Independence will be difficult. Maybe you need to pay more attention?

"Fair play - that's your choice." This sentiment presumably doesn't apply to Scotlands overwhelming vote to stay in the EU though? Seems you're not entirely consistent when it comes to self-determination.

No fiscal control? I'll take it. Give me the Euro any day over a currency managed by incompetents, that is going to be even flatter on its arse when Brexit reality really starts to bite.

I'm sure you and all the other Tory sheep will enjoy lolling around in your non-Trot cess-pit, being laughed at by the very people you voted for.
 
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You may be willing to live on square sausage rolls & chips with salt n sauce to be independent but as I said Krankie will need more than hopium to persuade those who aren’t ardent nats given all the financial realities.

The UK as a whole voted on the EU on pure democratic vote and majority of the UK as a whole voted to leave, deal with it. If it had been by constituency like the GE then remain wouldn’t even have been close and that was with government at the time pushing for remain.
Just because the majority of one region, that represents less than 10% of the overall population voted otherwise, that means fk all. That carries even less weight than saying we should stay because the majority of London voted remain, cos at least that area is a net contributor to the UK rather than constantly having their hands in English tax payers pockets.
If it had been a vote to join you wouldn’t accept a majority in a demographic minority blocking that so do try to be realistic & stop trying to claim an individual Scottish vote should count more than an individual English vote to suit your agenda.

You see the EU & Euro as well managed? Hahahahahahahahaha
 
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It is the fact that 68% of Scotland voting to stay in the EU meaning "fu*ck all" (as you rightly state) that is overwhelmingly driving the desire for Independence.

Every single other region in England has their hands in London tax-payers pockets. London also voted overwhelmingly to Remain. You can't have it both ways.

Last time I checked, no-one in the EU Commission or the EU parliament were up for breaking laws or international treaties, to pander to a handful of muppets helping prop-up a thoroughly-discredited Executive.
 
The only thing that mattered with EU vote was the overall result not that in any one region large or small, broke ass or not, packed with grievance monkeys or not.
But the fact you think or try to claim a majority of a minority, ie county jockland in this case, should block the wishes of the majority 10x bigger. ie England, shows how deluded you are, as I said you wouldn't have it if a minority was blocking us joining so give up on that nonsense cos you’re just making me laugh.

I wouldn’t want Jockland to go indy but in the end I’d just go meh that’s a good 13+ billion saved per year cos the tail does not get to wag the dog end of story. Part of me would laugh at watching you be financially fkd and cut all those services currently financed by England. Plus IF, and that’s a very big IF, you ever got into the EU it would be even funnier to watch the contradiction of demanding independence where by you left a union where you had about 9% of the say to be then out with your begging bowl to join one where you’d have about 2%. Then considering the ever expanding list of things covered by QMV in the EU, i.e. zero veto for anyone regardless of the very easily changeable political direction of the other countries, having to cut your cloth according to what the Germans, French & Italians say, i.e. see Greece for where you’d end up. LMFAO !!!!!!

Actually you'll find that the rest the UK is carried to varying degrees by the South East of England (voted leave), London (voted remain) and East of England (voted leave) not just London.

While both sides argue the toss over who is breaking what part of the WA, the EU has no qualms about breaking treaties when it suits it’s purposes e.g. on treaty obligations re trade it has been subject to record breaking penalties of $7.5 billion (£5.75 billion) – the highest ever levied by the WTO.


While I’m not the biggest fan of Boris, he seems too much under the influence of his latest bint, but he kept the trots out of power and the UK out of the EU, so while sir kneel of brussels had his own beer and curry party up north, he could have been having coke and hookers parties let alone something with a birthday cake in no10 for all I really care.
 
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