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Post by happyjack on Aug 21, 2024 0:25:54 GMT
You are right that an arrangement such as that in NI is not open to Scotland. If only it were then we would perhaps have avoided the constant and societally damaging neverendum debate over most of the last decade because democracy disrespecting Indy types would not have been able to call for another referendum until late 2021 at the earliest, that being the minimum period of 7 years after the 2014 referendum. Instead, potential Scottish Indy referenda are not impeded by any minimum timeframe so, in theory, we could have an indyref every day of every week until such time as you and your fellow Indy zealots get the result that you so crave - after which, no doubt, you would hypocritically insist that the matter is settled for all time and that no further referenda would be tolerated. Can you explain why putting a 7 year minimum timeframe (not a fixed timeframe btw) on intervals between referenda rather than having no restriction upon how soon one referendum can follow on from another is preferable to you and your fellow indy zealots? I ask this because the logic of your position is beyond me. Surely you would prefer to have a follow up referendum as soon as possible, rather than having to wait for at least 7 years for the next one to come along, particularly if there were to be a spike in support for Scexit in the interim during which time that spike in support might subside and the prospect of a YES majority subside with it while you wait for the 7 year interval to expire? Except that the SNP played it by the book. Section 30 Orders were requested time and again and were rejected on each occasion. This begging, repeated ad nauseum, offended many members, who then left the party because of the failure to produce a back up plan! The SNP, in part, lost the election because so many supporters stayed at home rather than vote, while others voted for unionist parties. Quite why a self-respecting Independista would stoop so low is unfathomable. If, after Independence, Unionists showed that they wanted a referendum, why would the Scottish Government reject it? How many countries, having gained Independence, wanted to return to the toxic union? Ireland certainly didn't. How many want to return to Brit Rule? There is a long list of countries gaining Independence from Brit rule. So how many want a return to the "good old days". Answer? Not one!!! The fact that there is a 7 year NI option is annoying mainly because no such rule applies to Scotland. Of course, we want a referendum to be held when we want it! But, we have to ask for the right to hold one and the requests have been dismissed out of hand. Now, even if a 7 year rule was applied, the UK Govt would, in all probability, say NO! And, for this reason, another, back-up plan is required. The ideal time was when the Brexit result was known. Sturgeon bottled it. There was no chance that the UK Government would agree to a Section 30, so other methods should have been assessed, and set in motion That no such means was even considered, led to disillusion in the ranks. That led to a massive loss of support in 2017. Well, I am not sure what that’s supposed to be but it is not an answer to the questions posed in my post, that’s for sure. My best guess here is that it has finally begun to dawn on you that the whole 7 year grievance is an entirely bogus concoction of the Indy grievance creation machine and that you and so many others (including Thomas and Ripley aka ExPatria btw) have been fools to just lap up whatever nonsense you were fed and that you should actually have taken a minute or two to test the credibilty of what you were being asked to swallow before gobbling it up whole and then embarrassingly churning it out again in public like unthinking indy automatons. An Indy zealot such as you could never be seen to concede that so the mess you posted above, where you attempt to dance around and obfuscate, is as close to such a concession as we can expect from you. Having said that, the little that you actually say about the 7 year rule demonstrates, incredibly, that you still don't understand that there is absolutely zero detriment to the Scottish independence cause in us having no such restriction here and that nothing whatsoever happens after a 7 year period under the NI arrangement that couldn’t happen here at any time without us having to wait 7 years. Rather, it is the Irish nationalist cause that suffers, by comparison to us, all of the detriment here and it is the Irish nationalist cause that should be pointing at Scotland and asking why is Scotland treated so favourably and why can’t they have the same unrestricted timeframe. Why you can’t even yet get your head around this is beyond me because there is nothing remotely difficult to grasp here. Are you really so consumed by prejudice that you can’t see anything whatsoever without seeing it as a unionist conspiracy and anti-independence? What should be annoying to you or to any Indy zealot would be if we did have a timeframe that restricted the potential for a referendum to be held (as is the case in NI) and not that we don’t have one. As for your point that a UK government would say NO to a request for another referendum, there is no probably about it. In the prevailing circumstances, where so few people voted for independence supporting parties at the last ballot box event, they absolutely would not entertain the idea and nor should they because there is zero justification for doing so, so why on earth should anybody expect that they would or believe that they should? As I keep telling you, whether you like it or not, there will be no 2nd Indyref and no prospect of independence unless and until Westminster agrees to it and that won’t happen until the dial moves significantly over to the YES side and stays there without wavering for a sustained period. That probably means north of 60% of votes cast in favour of Indy supporting parties at each Westminster and Holyrood election for a period of 10 years or thereabouts. Achieving this level of clear and sustained support for independence is the only “back up plan” that has any chance of working btw. Oh, and if that day ever comes, don’t expect the same potential for gerrymandering as in 2014.The question will not be the same for a start and Scots throughout the UK will get their say at the ballot box, something that was disgracefully denied them in 2014. And don’t be surprised if there is no need for a Section 30 order either because when/if the conditions are ever right to ask the Indy question again, Westminster might very well do so of its own volition and might well also retain control of the whole process rather than devolve authority and responsibility to ScotGov, as is its privilege, of course.. |
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Post by happyjack on Sept 2, 2024 16:25:46 GMT
Anyway, what AS wrote in 2013, does not mean that his view had not changed by September 2014. That is desperate stuff, even by your standards. However, if his view changed over that period then it can only have shifted from the 25-30 year “once in a generation” position of 2013 to the much more hard-line view that the 2014 indyref would be a single and never to be repeated opportunity and that its outcome would therefore be final and permanent, hence his “one opportunity” stance, as illustrated by the pic at the top of the linked article below. As I have pointed out before, there are plenty more pics of Mr Salmond (often accompanied by Ms Sturgeon) promoting the “one opportunity” message out there. They are just a few clicks on your search engine away if you wish to check them out. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/scottish-independence/salmond-accused-of-laughing-off-national-debt-with-what-are-they-going-to-do-invade-joke-9723997.html |
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Post by Vinny on Sept 5, 2024 22:35:30 GMT
Swinney has got to be the most delusional British politician of the year. Even more so than Sunak in May.
He's going to get clobbered. And the SNP fascists need to be kicked out.
Shame Starmer doesn't have the balls to reverse devolution.
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Post by morayloon on Sept 21, 2024 4:18:30 GMT
Anyway, what AS wrote in 2013, does not mean that his view had not changed by September 2014. That is desperate stuff, even by your standards. However, if his view changed over that period then it can only have shifted from the 25-30 year “once in a generation” position of 2013 to the much more hard-line view that the 2014 indyref would be a single and never to be repeated opportunity and that its outcome would therefore be final and permanent, hence his “one opportunity” stance, as illustrated by the pic at the top of the linked article below. As I have pointed out before, there are plenty more pics of Mr Salmond (often accompanied by Ms Sturgeon) promoting the “one opportunity” message out there. They are just a few clicks on your search engine away if you wish to check them out. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/scottish-independence/salmond-accused-of-laughing-off-national-debt-with-what-are-they-going-to-do-invade-joke-9723997.htmlNothing desperate about it!There is nothing to show that what was written, in "Scotland's Future", was expressed by Salmond in the months leading up to September 18th. Your assumption is frankly ridiculous. Many pics? What period of the campaign were they from? As I keep saying to you, "Scotland's Future" was an SNP document, it was not a document representing the YES movement. The YES movement was not SNP controlled. It was a separate organisation. When in 2014 did Salmond say that "Indyref would be a single and never to be repeated opportunity". That picture did come from the YES campaign as this short audio clip (and picture) also shows audioboom.com/posts/2380046-dennis-canavan-one-opportunity (Note that it was Canavan of the YES movement who kicked off that campaign). The poster says "One Opportunity" but it does not state, as you claim, that it is THE only one. It does not say THIS IS Your One Opportunity. It only says "One Opportunity to Use Our Wealth For Scotland". That does not rule out grabbing another opportunity when it arises, and it should have been grasped in 2016 when Scotland's vote was discounted, ignored. |
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Post by happyjack on Sept 21, 2024 4:58:01 GMT
How predictable are you? That is very much the slimy response I expected from you. We all know what “One Opportunity” meant in the context of that referendum and there is plenty of evidence that Salmond was punting it at the Scottish people in the final stages of the campaign so, if he changed his mind from believing that the referendum was merely a once in a generation opportunity as you suggest, then it was to the now or never position of “One Opportunity”. And to even try to claim that Alex Salmond, who was the leader of the SNP, the head of the SNP ScotGov, and the face, body and soul of Scottish independence not just in Scotland but across the whole country was not part of the YES movement is not only “frankly ridiculous” but risible. Further, if you believe that the SNP and the YES movement are two different organisations then you are wrong. The YES movement was not and is not an organisation but, guess what, a movement - one in which the SNP is and was by far the major player.
BTW - why does it matter what period of the referendum campaign the “One Opportunity” messaging was from? What matters is that Salmond and Sturgeon together with other senior YES figures promoted that message ( and the “Once in a generation/lifetime” message too) and they should therefore honour their rhetoric. However, if you really don’t know in what period of the campaign the many “One Opportunity” pics were taken then you should. As I have pointed out before on here, we were bombarded with One Opportunity messaging from the YES side in the final weeks and days of the campaign as they desperately ramped up their broken “vow” to the Scottish people so the images will be from that period (just as the date of the publication that I provided a link to suggests).
As for your usual fake grievance about the EU referendum, as you are well aware, Scotland did not have a vote for anyone to discount or ignore. Registered voters in Scotland did have a vote however, just like registered voters from across the country. Each vote cast in Scotland was counted and added to the tally of votes from everywhere else in the country to get the country’s decision on whether to Leave or Remain. A vote cast in Scotland was worth exactly the same as a vote cast anywhere else in our country. No votes were discounted or ignored. You know that to be the truth yet you persist with your pathetic and unwarranted whingeing. Why do you refuse to be honest with yourself and with everybody else about this?
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Post by morayloon on Sept 21, 2024 5:08:25 GMT
Except that the SNP played it by the book. Section 30 Orders were requested time and again and were rejected on each occasion. This begging, repeated ad nauseum, offended many members, who then left the party because of the failure to produce a back up plan! The SNP, in part, lost the election because so many supporters stayed at home rather than vote, while others voted for unionist parties. Quite why a self-respecting Independista would stoop so low is unfathomable. If, after Independence, Unionists showed that they wanted a referendum, why would the Scottish Government reject it? How many countries, having gained Independence, wanted to return to the toxic union? Ireland certainly didn't. How many want to return to Brit Rule? There is a long list of countries gaining Independence from Brit rule. So how many want a return to the "good old days". Answer? Not one!!! The fact that there is a 7 year NI option is annoying mainly because no such rule applies to Scotland. Of course, we want a referendum to be held when we want it! But, we have to ask for the right to hold one and the requests have been dismissed out of hand. Now, even if a 7 year rule was applied, the UK Govt would, in all probability, say NO! And, for this reason, another, back-up plan is required. The ideal time was when the Brexit result was known. Sturgeon bottled it. There was no chance that the UK Government would agree to a Section 30, so other methods should have been assessed, and set in motion That no such means was even considered, led to disillusion in the ranks. That led to a massive loss of support in 2017. Well, I am not sure what that’s supposed to be but it is not an answer to the questions posed in my post, that’s for sure. My best guess here is that it has finally begun to dawn on you that the whole 7 year grievance is an entirely bogus concoction of the Indy grievance creation machine and that you and so many others (including Thomas and Ripley aka ExPatria btw) have been fools to just lap up whatever nonsense you were fed and that you should actually have taken a minute or two to test the credibilty of what you were being asked to swallow before gobbling it up whole and then embarrassingly churning it out again in public like unthinking indy automatons. An Indy zealot such as you could never be seen to concede that so the mess you posted above, where you attempt to dance around and obfuscate, is as close to such a concession as we can expect from you. Having said that, the little that you actually say about the 7 year rule demonstrates, incredibly, that you still don't understand that there is absolutely zero detriment to the Scottish independence cause in us having no such restriction here and that nothing whatsoever happens after a 7 year period under the NI arrangement that couldn’t happen here at any time without us having to wait 7 years. Rather, it is the Irish nationalist cause that suffers, by comparison to us, all of the detriment here and it is the Irish nationalist cause that should be pointing at Scotland and asking why is Scotland treated so favourably and why can’t they have the same unrestricted timeframe. Why you can’t even yet get your head around this is beyond me because there is nothing remotely difficult to grasp here. Are you really so consumed by prejudice that you can’t see anything whatsoever without seeing it as a unionist conspiracy and anti-independence? What should be annoying to you or to any Indy zealot would be if we did have a timeframe that restricted the potential for a referendum to be held (as is the case in NI) and not that we don’t have one. As for your point that a UK government would say NO to a request for another referendum, there is no probably about it. In the prevailing circumstances, where so few people voted for independence supporting parties at the last ballot box event, they absolutely would not entertain the idea and nor should they because there is zero justification for doing so, so why on earth should anybody expect that they would or believe that they should? As I keep telling you, whether you like it or not, there will be no 2nd Indyref and no prospect of independence unless and until Westminster agrees to it and that won’t happen until the dial moves significantly over to the YES side and stays there without wavering for a sustained period. That probably means north of 60% of votes cast in favour of Indy supporting parties at each Westminster and Holyrood election for a period of 10 years or thereabouts. Achieving this level of clear and sustained support for independence is the only “back up plan” that has any chance of working btw. Oh, and if that day ever comes, don’t expect the same potential for gerrymandering as in 2014.The question will not be the same for a start and Scots throughout the UK will get their say at the ballot box, something that was disgracefully denied them in 2014. And don’t be surprised if there is no need for a Section 30 order either because when/if the conditions are ever right to ask the Indy question again, Westminster might very well do so of its own volition and might well also retain control of the whole process rather than devolve authority and responsibility to ScotGov, as is its privilege, of course.. The 7 year rule applies to NI. The same standard should apply to Scotland! No detriment? When our elected Governments have played by the book, gone through the motions of begging for a Section 30 Order? Several times that has happened and it has always been rejected. So your premise is, frankly, out of this world. As you say there is nothing hard to grasp. Yet you singularly fail the test. The SNP might have lost support, but Labour only beat them by 5.3%. The vagaries of FPTP gave Labour its much vaunted massive majority (just as it favoured the SNP in previous elections) The fight for Independence is not over. Polls show that support for Independence remains in the high 40%s. Polls since the election, which asked the actual question, have not shifted. Keith Brown has admitted that requesting a Section 30 is a waste of time because Westminster will never grant one. That is something those of us who bailed out kept telling the leadership. They have wasted 10 years only to recently come to that conclusion. They should have been looking at other options. But Sturgeon & co got derailed by gender recognition etc. Options like that put forward by Chris McEleney and Angus Brendan MacNeil should have been taken on board. 60% is a bogus figure. That the SNP espoused this treachery was one of the reasons I left. Why should artificial barriers be allowed? Cunningham would be proud of Wishart et al who support the hair brained idea. Apart from 1979, which was also run undemocratically, referenda have been a 50%+1 winner take all. It was good enough in 1998, it was good enough in 2016. It should be good enough for Indyref 2. You are just a No man who knows full well that the closeness of 2014, allied to the entry of tens of thousands of new voters, and the death of so many NO voting pensioners means the pendulum could have swung to YES. The UK Government realise this, and the threat of losing their cash cow, means they will fight tooth and nail to stop it . During the indyref campaign, about 20% was added to YES support. The increase was down to the campaigning YESers, and bloggers like Stuart Campbell, who forensically dismantled the lies of Better Together. The Wee Blue Book was an eye opener for thousands of voters. The Unionists know that age demography favours YES therefore they'll do all they can to stop a referendum happening. Scots voters in rUK were rightly disenfranchised. They chose to leave the country, and by doing so gave up any right to have a say in the future of the country they abandoned |
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Post by happyjack on Sept 21, 2024 6:11:52 GMT
You really are too thick for words. Just to be clear, I have no objection to having a 7 year rule in line with NI. That simply offers further protection from the threat of future damaging indyrefs so if that’s what you want then that’s fine by me. However, you need to do some joined up thinking if you can because you are all over the place on when a referendum should be held. You say here that you want a gap of at least 7 years between referenda but you also said on another post today that Scotland should have had another indyref in 2016, only 2 years after the 2014 indyref. Make your mind up for heaven’s sake.
Yes, no detriment, at least for the YES proposal, that is. the Indy case suffers absolutely zero detriment from not having a 7 year rule as per NI. Scotland as a whole, however, does suffer detriment from not having such a rule in place, as we saw from the aftermath of the 2014 indyref where we were almost immediately subjected to the damage of the push for another indyref by the dishonourable and democracy denying YES movement; something that would and could not have happened if there had been a 7 year rule in place.
You can huff and puff and whinge and grievance-stir as much as you like, and you can disrespect the democratically expressed decision of the Scottish people, and you can dishonour the once in a generation/lifetime rhetoric that YES sold to the Scottish people, but there will not be independence without a referendum, and there will not be a referendum without the support of a majority of MPs, and there will not be support from a majority of MPs unless and until there is evidence of a meaningful majority in favour of independence over a sustained period, much along the 60% for 10 years line that I have outlined above. It doesn’t matter what I am or what you might think, that’s just how it is and how it will be so you would do well to recognise that and to start working towards getting support for Indy over 60% rather than kidding yourself on that there is any other viable route to independence open to you.
You might be right with your age demographic theory and if you are then that might lead to 60% support for Indy parties at a series of elections over a sustained period, which might well lead to another indyref. However, young people don’t stay young but get older, become financially more aware, and acquire assets and wealth that they want to protect and therefore become more resistant to change (particularly glaringly detrimental economic and fiscal change) so they are likely, as the majority of people have always done as they journey through life, to become more pragmatic, more risk averse, and therefore more in favour of preserving the status quo. If you want any evidence to support that view then consider why, a full 10 years after the indyref, the dial hasn’t moved any closer to YES despite a full decade of the NO voting oldies dying off and a full decade of fresh new young ones coming onto the voters’ roll.
And you can think what you like about Scots in rUK but there will be no gerrymandering by the SNP next time, so rUK Scots will be given a vote next time - if there ever is a next time, of course, which is looking increasingly unlikely in our lifetimes at least.
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Post by Ripley on Sept 22, 2024 15:56:31 GMT
Well, I am not sure what that’s supposed to be but it is not an answer to the questions posed in my post, that’s for sure. My best guess here is that it has finally begun to dawn on you that the whole 7 year grievance is an entirely bogus concoction of the Indy grievance creation machine and that you and so many others (including Thomas and Ripley aka ExPatria btw) have been fools to just lap up whatever nonsense you were fed and that you should actually have taken a minute or two to test the credibilty of what you were being asked to swallow before gobbling it up whole and then embarrassingly churning it out again in public like unthinking indy automatons. An Indy zealot such as you could never be seen to concede that so the mess you posted above, where you attempt to dance around and obfuscate, is as close to such a concession as we can expect from you. Having said that, the little that you actually say about the 7 year rule demonstrates, incredibly, that you still don't understand that there is absolutely zero detriment to the Scottish independence cause in us having no such restriction here and that nothing whatsoever happens after a 7 year period under the NI arrangement that couldn’t happen here at any time without us having to wait 7 years. Rather, it is the Irish nationalist cause that suffers, by comparison to us, all of the detriment here and it is the Irish nationalist cause that should be pointing at Scotland and asking why is Scotland treated so favourably and why can’t they have the same unrestricted timeframe. Why you can’t even yet get your head around this is beyond me because there is nothing remotely difficult to grasp here. Are you really so consumed by prejudice that you can’t see anything whatsoever without seeing it as a unionist conspiracy and anti-independence? What should be annoying to you or to any Indy zealot would be if we did have a timeframe that restricted the potential for a referendum to be held (as is the case in NI) and not that we don’t have one. As for your point that a UK government would say NO to a request for another referendum, there is no probably about it. In the prevailing circumstances, where so few people voted for independence supporting parties at the last ballot box event, they absolutely would not entertain the idea and nor should they because there is zero justification for doing so, so why on earth should anybody expect that they would or believe that they should? As I keep telling you, whether you like it or not, there will be no 2nd Indyref and no prospect of independence unless and until Westminster agrees to it and that won’t happen until the dial moves significantly over to the YES side and stays there without wavering for a sustained period. That probably means north of 60% of votes cast in favour of Indy supporting parties at each Westminster and Holyrood election for a period of 10 years or thereabouts. Achieving this level of clear and sustained support for independence is the only “back up plan” that has any chance of working btw. Oh, and if that day ever comes, don’t expect the same potential for gerrymandering as in 2014.The question will not be the same for a start and Scots throughout the UK will get their say at the ballot box, something that was disgracefully denied them in 2014. And don’t be surprised if there is no need for a Section 30 order either because when/if the conditions are ever right to ask the Indy question again, Westminster might very well do so of its own volition and might well also retain control of the whole process rather than devolve authority and responsibility to ScotGov, as is its privilege, of course.. The 7 year rule applies to NI. The same standard should apply to Scotland! No detriment? When our elected Governments have played by the book, gone through the motions of begging for a Section 30 Order? Several times that has happened and it has always been rejected. So your premise is, frankly, out of this world. As you say there is nothing hard to grasp. Yet you singularly fail the test. The SNP might have lost support, but Labour only beat them by 5.3%. The vagaries of FPTP gave Labour its much vaunted massive majority (just as it favoured the SNP in previous elections) The fight for Independence is not over. Polls show that support for Independence remains in the high 40%s. Polls since the election, which asked the actual question, have not shifted. Keith Brown has admitted that requesting a Section 30 is a waste of time because Westminster will never grant one. That is something those of us who bailed out kept telling the leadership. They have wasted 10 years only to recently come to that conclusion. They should have been looking at other options. But Sturgeon & co got derailed by gender recognition etc. Options like that put forward by Chris McEleney and Angus Brendan MacNeil should have been taken on board. 60% is a bogus figure. That the SNP espoused this treachery was one of the reasons I left. Why should artificial barriers be allowed? Cunningham would be proud of Wishart et al who support the hair brained idea. Apart from 1979, which was also run undemocratically, referenda have been a 50%+1 winner take all. It was good enough in 1998, it was good enough in 2016. It should be good enough for Indyref 2. You are just a No man who knows full well that the closeness of 2014, allied to the entry of tens of thousands of new voters, and the death of so many NO voting pensioners means the pendulum could have swung to YES. The UK Government realise this, and the threat of losing their cash cow, means they will fight tooth and nail to stop it . During the indyref campaign, about 20% was added to YES support. The increase was down to the campaigning YESers, and bloggers like Stuart Campbell, who forensically dismantled the lies of Better Together. The Wee Blue Book was an eye opener for thousands of voters. The Unionists know that age demography favours YES therefore they'll do all they can to stop a referendum happening. Scots voters in rUK were rightly disenfranchised. They chose to leave the country, and by doing so gave up any right to have a say in the future of the country they abandonedBack in 1976, when the queen presented the bicentennial bell to the American people, she claimed to have lost the American colonies for lack of knowing when and how to give up what is impossible to keep. She also claimed to have learned to respect the right of others to govern themselves in their own ways. She said in her speech: "It seems to me that Independence Day, the Fourth of July, should be celebrated as much in Britain as in America. Not in rejoicing at the separation of the American Colonies from the British Crown, but in sincere gratitude to the Founding Fathers of this great Republic for having taught Britain a very valuable lesson. We lost the American Colonies because we lacked that statesmanship to know the right time, and the manner of yielding, what is impossible to keep. But the lesson was learnt. In the next century and a half we kept more closely to the principles of Magna Carta which have been the common heritage of both countries. We learnt to respect the right of others to govern themselves in their own ways." I agree in principle that expatriate Scots should not vote unless they are still paying taxes in Scotland, but I think that allowing them to vote in the referendum could have boosted the independence vote. Americans in particular favour self-determination. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath is often cited as the inspiration for the 1776 text of the Declaration of Independence, to which numerous Scots were among the original signatories. The very ideas behind it were those of Scottish philosophers. Today, about 40 million Americans have Scots or Scots-Irish ancestry and I'm sure many of them would love the opportunity to vote for Scotland's independence. |
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Post by happyjack on Sept 22, 2024 16:54:39 GMT
Morayloon said “Scots voters in rUK were rightly disenfranchised. They chose to leave the country, and by doing so gave up any right to have a say in the future of the country they abandoned”.
Scots voters in rUK did not leave the country. They simply moved to a different part of the country than the Scottish part. These Scots born people continue to reside within the same country as anyone living in Scotland and continue to be citizens of the same country as Scots born people living in the Scottish part of the country. They have not abandoned their country any more than Scots who remain resident in Scotland have. They would, however, find their status transformed into aliens rather than citizens of the country in which they were born and currently reside if Scotland ever became independent. That would result in a serious change in circumstances for these people so an indyref is an event in which they have high stakes (in this respect higher than those of Scots living in Scotland as they would not become aliens in their own home) and one which they should therefore be fully entitled to participate in.
Ripley said “I agree in principle that expatriate Scots should not vote unless they are still paying taxes in Scotland”.
For the avoidance of doubt here, Scots resident in rUK are not expatriates. They continue to live in the same country that the region of Scotland forms part of. They also pay taxes to the same government for it to spend on the same country as Scotland based Scots do. Indeed, some of the taxes they pay will go towards providing Scotland with the circa £20-25 billion per annum fiscal surplus it receives from our country’s treasury each year; a bumper surplus that benefits the Scottish population so much.
Ripley said “ I think that allowing them to vote in the referendum could have boosted the independence vote”
That may well be true but there were surprisingly very few Scots born UK citizens living abroad who were registered to vote in the UK at that time (probably fewer than 3,000 across the globe if the figures from a recent UK Parliamentary briefing paper are correct) and certainly nowhere close to changing the outcome of the 2014 indyref. Most Scots based in rUK, however, were and will be registered to vote and their numbers would have added in the region of 15% to the franchise which would obviously have seriously impacted upon the final figures. Rightly or wrongly, rUK based Scots are generally considered to be predominantly opposed to independence which is doubtless why the SNP ScotGov denied them a say in 2014 despite them having had a very strong case for inclusion in the process. This is just one of several examples of SNP ScotGov gerrymandering that will surely be addressed should we ever have a 2nd referendum.
Ripley said “Americans in particular favour self-determination.”
That’s surprising. I was unaware of a massive clamour across the 50 states for independence from the USA - or of any significant calls for fragmentation of individual states into smaller independent countries either. Perhaps you mean individual self-determination, in which case I tip my hat to them. However, I don’t understand why any of this matters as it is not Americans but Scots who could potentially be voting in any future Scottish indyref..
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Post by morayloon on Oct 3, 2024 17:38:53 GMT
How predictable are you? That is very much the slimy response I expected from you. We all know what “One Opportunity” meant in the context of that referendum and there is plenty of evidence that Salmond was punting it at the Scottish people in the final stages of the campaign so, if he changed his mind from believing that the referendum was merely a once in a generation opportunity as you suggest, then it was to the now or never position of “One Opportunity”. And to even try to claim that Alex Salmond, who was the leader of the SNP, the head of the SNP ScotGov, and the face, body and soul of Scottish independence not just in Scotland but across the whole country was not part of the YES movement is not only “frankly ridiculous” but risible. Further, if you believe that the SNP and the YES movement are two different organisations then you are wrong. The YES movement was not and is not an organisation but, guess what, a movement - one in which the SNP is and was by far the major player. BTW - why does it matter what period of the referendum campaign the “One Opportunity” messaging was from? What matters is that Salmond and Sturgeon together with other senior YES figures promoted that message ( and the “Once in a generation/lifetime” message too) and they should therefore honour their rhetoric. However, if you really don’t know in what period of the campaign the many “One Opportunity” pics were taken then you should. As I have pointed out before on here, we were bombarded with One Opportunity messaging from the YES side in the final weeks and days of the campaign as they desperately ramped up their broken “vow” to the Scottish people so the images will be from that period (just as the date of the publication that I provided a link to suggests). As for your usual fake grievance about the EU referendum, as you are well aware, Scotland did not have a vote for anyone to discount or ignore. Registered voters in Scotland did have a vote however, just like registered voters from across the country. Each vote cast in Scotland was counted and added to the tally of votes from everywhere else in the country to get the country’s decision on whether to Leave or Remain. A vote cast in Scotland was worth exactly the same as a vote cast anywhere else in our country. No votes were discounted or ignored. You know that to be the truth yet you persist with your pathetic and unwarranted whingeing. Why do you refuse to be honest with yourself and with everybody else about this? Predictable? I merely stated the truth. You don't like it? More fool you. As it is, you are no more than an Ultra Unionist troll, hell bent on trying to create chaos. You misquote time and again in your vain quest to show you know it all. For instance, I didn't say Salmond was not part of the YES movement. I said he did not run the YES movement. The YES movement was led by Blair Jenkins and Dennis Canavan. That you are not aware of the structure of YES says a lot about your knowledge of what was actually going on in 2013-14. Most non Scots, and, dare I say it, many Scots, I can forgive for not knowing anything about YES. But, for someone who sets himself up as the font of all knowledge, I have no sympathy at all!!! Your debating skills leave a lot to be desired. When in doubt, lash out. That seems to be your motto. Ad hominem attacks are supposed to be outlawed, but the lack of moderation on the forum has allowed you to get off scot free for far too long. Maybe I should bring the mods in to see if any of them are worthy of the name! What Salmond said does not mean that the Yes movement is bound by it. Nothing fake about it. Scotland voted Remain, Fact. Scotland was dragged out of the EU by the vote in England, Fact. That you cannot accept reality, really says a lot. |
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Post by happyjack on Oct 3, 2024 18:54:07 GMT
Oh, what a surprise.!You pop your head up again once you saw that Thomas was back on to give you hauners. How predictable are you.
If that Is the best you can come up with after hiding away for all this time then you really shouldn’t have bothered because there is nothing remotely of interest or merit in that deluge of drivel.
I am not Unionist ( ultra or otherwise) for the reasons I have laid out many times, none of which you have been able to refute, yet you insist in persisting with your false accusations because you simply can’t accept that anyone but an ultra unionist would hold you ,your hollow beliefs and you twisted attitudes in such contempt.
Neither am I a troll unless you think that troll means someone who exposes your delusional Indy ramblings and your anti-English behaviour for what they are. If that is what you think a troll is then I am guilty as charged.
Predictable - yes, it was - and you were not “merely telling the truth”, at least nothing close to the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as is your usual M.O.
Where did I misquote you? I don’t see where I quoted you at all in the post you are responding to, never mind misquote you. When I quote anybody I try to take care to do so accurately and therefore I usually copy and paste over from any posts on here or from any publication that I want to quote from. Where are all of the examples of my misquotes that must surely be out there if I misquote time and again as you claim?
I can’t pretend that I am aware of the structure of the YES campaign hierarchy ( and I certainly could not produce an organogram, that’s for sure.) Do you really think that many people knew this? I have always known that Jenkins and Canavan fronted it up (although I doubt that they pulled the strings). Do you really think that many people knew the full organisational structure of the YES movement even back then ,never mind now - and don’t you therefore think that you are being a bit hard on me, 10 years after the indyref, for not knowing the organisational structure of that failed organisation in full?
My debating skills are reasonably good but when I am dealing with numbskulls and closed- minded bigots who are unwilling to accept reality and facts that don’t suit their delusional arguments and who instead insist on presenting fantasy scenarios and tired old Indy factoids instead, then after not very long what debating is there to do?
Please feel free to contact the mods if you want. The last time you suggested that was because you claimed that I was repeatedly using abusive language towards you in a thread and, when I explained that the reverse was actually the truth, you refused to accept that and told me to go away and prove it. I did just that and found that you had used abusive language towards me 40-50 times in that thread alone whilst there were zero examples of me doing the same to you. That was on the old forum but the point is still valid so just be prepared for your own language to be examined if you do decide to raise anything with the mods.
As you are well aware but as you insist on denying ,Scotland did not have a vote in the EU referendum. Registered voters in Scotland did have a vote however, just like registered voters from across the country. Each vote cast in Scotland was counted and added to the tally of votes from everywhere else in the country to get the country’s decision on whether to Leave or Remain. A vote cast in Scotland was worth exactly the same as a vote cast anywhere else in our country. And you can insist on repeating your fake facts about what happened but none of that makes it anything other than Indy whingeing nonsense.
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Post by morayloon on Oct 3, 2024 19:16:02 GMT
You really are too thick for words. Just to be clear, I have no objection to having a 7 year rule in line with NI. That simply offers further protection from the threat of future damaging indyrefs so if that’s what you want then that’s fine by me. However, you need to do some joined up thinking if you can because you are all over the place on when a referendum should be held. You say here that you want a gap of at least 7 years between referenda but you also said on another post today that Scotland should have had another indyref in 2016, only 2 years after the 2014 indyref. Make your mind up for heaven’s sake. Yes, no detriment, at least for the YES proposal, that is. the Indy case suffers absolutely zero detriment from not having a 7 year rule as per NI. Scotland as a whole, however, does suffer detriment from not having such a rule in place, as we saw from the aftermath of the 2014 indyref where we were almost immediately subjected to the damage of the push for another indyref by the dishonourable and democracy denying YES movement; something that would and could not have happened if there had been a 7 year rule in place. You can huff and puff and whinge and grievance-stir as much as you like, and you can disrespect the democratically expressed decision of the Scottish people, and you can dishonour the once in a generation/lifetime rhetoric that YES sold to the Scottish people, but there will not be independence without a referendum, and there will not be a referendum without the support of a majority of MPs, and there will not be support from a majority of MPs unless and until there is evidence of a meaningful majority in favour of independence over a sustained period, much along the 60% for 10 years line that I have outlined above. It doesn’t matter what I am or what you might think, that’s just how it is and how it will be so you would do well to recognise that and to start working towards getting support for Indy over 60% rather than kidding yourself on that there is any other viable route to independence open to you. You might be right with your age demographic theory and if you are then that might lead to 60% support for Indy parties at a series of elections over a sustained period, which might well lead to another indyref. However, young people don’t stay young but get older, become financially more aware, and acquire assets and wealth that they want to protect and therefore become more resistant to change (particularly glaringly detrimental economic and fiscal change) so they are likely, as the majority of people have always done as they journey through life, to become more pragmatic, more risk averse, and therefore more in favour of preserving the status quo. If you want any evidence to support that view then consider why, a full 10 years after the indyref, the dial hasn’t moved any closer to YES despite a full decade of the NO voting oldies dying off and a full decade of fresh new young ones coming onto the voters’ roll. And you can think what you like about Scots in rUK but there will be no gerrymandering by the SNP next time, so rUK Scots will be given a vote next time - if there ever is a next time, of course, which is looking increasingly unlikely in our lifetimes at least. I really don't care if you object to anything. Changes in circumstances was mentioned re Brexit, way back in 2013. Thus when Scottish democracy was trampled on, in 2016, a material change in circumstance occurred and should have led to Indyref2. Sturgeon bottled it! The call for action in 2016 would have happened even with a 7 year gap in place. If dramatic changes are forced on Scotland, the people must have their say whatever time gap is set. The fact is that, if the UK Government is to continue with its intransigency, it is up to the Nationalist leadership to come up with an alternative plan. You forget one thing in your age description, the youngsters who voted YES in 2014, and the tens of thousands who have come onto the electoral register since then, have grown up with Independence as the foremost issue in Scottish political life. Perhaps they will buck the trend suggested in your post The SNP has settled for Devolution and seem to have given up on the very policy it came into existence to achieve. What is required is a more radical party, perhaps Alba, perhaps something not on the scene yet, to get us out of this disunited kingdom Independence has dominated Scotland since the Edinburgh Agreement ensured the Referendum was going to happen. About 20% was added to YES support over the campaign. We do not need a 20% turnover this time. A referendum campaign will focus minds and support will rise. There was no gerrymandering. The UK Government agreed on the franchise and, along with the Electoral Commission, the question. Your revisionist history holds no water. You forget that English people, residing in Scotland, were allowed to vote and, according to Ailsa Henderson's survey, swung the vote to No. Why should those who left Scotland have a say in the future of Scotland? And where is your evidence showing that they will be allowed to vote next time? |
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Post by happyjack on Oct 3, 2024 19:57:05 GMT
And I really don’t care if you don’t care if I object to anything because your opinion is of zero value as far as I am concerned.
I am not going to waste any more time on the 7 year NI arrangement. You are obviously too thick or too wrapped up in your Indy grievance mindset to do other than seek grievance even when there is not a thing to get aggrieved about or to see the glaring inconsistencies in your arguments either.
The UK government is not being intransigent, it is the Scottish people who are being intransigent by not allowing themselves to get suckered into the Indy lie.
The only change in circumstances that matters is if the will of the Scottish people changes to the point where 60% or more demonstrate support for Indy for a significant period of time (10 years maybe?)
Ailsa Henderson was obviously wrong because the figures don’t back her up, as I have previously demonstrated and, quite frankly, as you should have spotted for yourself. However, as I have come to recognise, if anyone tells you anything that plays to your prejudices, you just gullibly swallow it up whole without thinking - and, as this one was blaming the English for something that you were unhappy about, then that absolutely played to your prejudices so there was absolutely no way you were going to question it.
I have already explained why Scots resident in rUK should have got a vote. They will get a vote next time because the UK government will say so and because sound democratic principles dictate so.
I hadn’t forgotten that point about age distribution. But even with that the level of support for Indy has not gone up in the 10 years since Indyref despite that factor and despite 10 years and counting of old NO voters having passed away and dropped off the voters roll while 10 years and counting of new, fresh Indy voting fodder has hit the voters’ roll in lieu..
What is required in not a more radical Indy party but for the YES movement to respect the will of the Scottish people and to honour its one opportunity / once in a lifetime rhetoric and stand down so that we can get on with our lives as we are entitled to expect to be able to.
There’s not going to be an indyref or indyref campaign unless and until the circumstances I have already described arise so you can forget about hanging your hopes on using an indyref2 to boost support.
There was outrageous gerrymandering by the SNP ScotGov. The UK government was so cocksure about the outcome that they let them have just about every trick that they asked for because that would prevent the YES side from whingeing about the rules when they got beat at the ballot box. That was a mistake that won’t be made again.
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Post by morayloon on Oct 3, 2024 19:58:56 GMT
Oh, what a surprise.!You pop your head up again once you saw that Thomas was back on to give you hauners. How predictable are you. If that Is the best you can come up with after hiding away for all this time then you really shouldn’t have bothered because there is nothing remotely of interest or merit in that deluge of drivel. I am not Unionist ( ultra or otherwise) for the reasons I have laid out many times, none of which you have been able to refute, yet you insist in persisting with your false accusations because you simply can’t accept that anyone but an ultra unionist would hold you ,your hollow beliefs and you twisted attitudes in such contempt. Neither am I a troll unless you think that troll means someone who exposes your delusional Indy ramblings and your anti-English behaviour for what they are. If that is what you think a troll is then I am guilty as charged. Predictable - yes, it was - and you were not “merely telling the truth”, at least nothing close to the whole truth and anything but the truth, as is your usual M.O. Where did I misquote you? I don’t see where I quoted you at all in the post you are responding to, never mind misquote you. When I quote anybody I try to take care to do so accurately and therefore I usually copy and paste over from any posts on here or from any publication that I want to quote from. Where are all of the examples of my misquotes that must surely be out there if I misquote time and again as you claim? I can’t pretend that I am aware of the structure of the YES campaign hierarchy ( and I certainly could not produce an organogram, that’s for sure.) Do you really think that many people knew this? I have always known that Jenkins and Canavan fronted it up (although I doubt that they pulled the strings). Do you really think that many people knew the full organisational structure of the YES movement even back then ,never mind now - and don’t you therefore think that you are being a bit hard on me, 10 years after the indyref, for not knowing the organisational structure of that failed organisation on full? My debating skills are reasonably good but when I am dealing with numbskulls and closed- minded bigots who are unwilling to accept reality and facts that don’t suit their delusional arguments and who instead insist on presenting fantasy scenarios and tired old Indy factoids instead, then after not very long what debating is there to do? Please feel free to contact the mods if you want. The last time you suggested that was because you claimed that I was repeatedly using abusive language towards you in a thread and, when I explained that the reverse was actually the truth, you refused to accept that and told me to go away and prove it. I did just that and found that you had used abusive language towards me 40-50 times in that thread alone whilst there were zero examples of me doing the same to you. That was on the old forum but the point is still valid so just be prepared for your own language to be examined if you do decide to raise anything with the mods. As you are well aware but as you insist on denying ,Scotland did not have a vote in the EU referendum. Registered voters in Scotland did have a vote however, just like registered voters from across the country. Each vote cast in Scotland was counted and added to the tally of votes from everywhere else in the country to get the country’s decision on whether to Leave or Remain. A vote cast in Scotland was worth exactly the same as a vote cast anywhere else in our country. And you can insist on repeating your fake facts about what happened but none of that makes it anything other than Indy whingeing nonsense. I did see that T had returned. But what has that got to do with anything? Nothing of "interest or merit"? Why did you respond if that was the case. Despite your protestations, you have shown, over the years, that you are indeed an extreme, ultra Unionist. From your utterances on the old forum through to this very day, your Unionist philosophy shines through. A 'normal' Unionist would not be coming out with the utter bilge you do. As for being a troll, I wonder if you can explain how you manage to pop up as soon as I post anything? Jesus, even when I once posted after 5am, one morning, there you were responding straight away. Makes me wonder if there is more than one of you manning the computer. I think you should read it over again. Salmond not part of the YES movement is what you stated I said. I said no such thing. I don't think you knew the names at all. How else do you explain the Salmond was leader thing you persist with? Reasonable? Turning to abuse, at the slightest drop of a hat, shows debating is not your forte. Your 'reality' is a figment of your imagination. The old forum? Very handy! Scotland voted Remain, Fact, and no amount of revisionism will detract from that Fact! |
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Post by happyjack on Oct 3, 2024 20:39:33 GMT
Nothing of interest or merit is quite correct. I responded because you shouldn’t expect to get away with talking shite all the time without it being pointed out for what it is.
Show me where I misquoted what you said about Salmond. I don’t see where I have quoted or misquoted you on anything but I could be wrong.
Show me where I have said anything that is part of unionist philosophy and only unionist philosophy, never mind saying so much that is shines through, as you claim. All of my utterances have been that if I can have it demonstrated to me that Indy would result in the Scottish people being better off rather than suffer deep financial damage then that would win me over. That point must keep bypassing you. And, of course, you don’t have to be a unionist to know that people are talking delusional drivel, as is the case with most Indy fanatics out there.
Salmond might not have been the leader of YES Scotland ( who officially fronted up the YES campaign) but, formally or otherwise, he was the undisputed leader of the YES movement for many years running up to, and during, the indyref, that’s why. It seems to be you, not me, who doesn’t understand what was going on when you say that Jenkins and Canavan were in charge of the YES movement when they were simply the most senior people in YES Scotland.
I have debated pretty much single-handedly with up to 5 of you Indy types at the same time on here and, even more so, on the old site. In all that time you haven’t been able to make a dent in me or in what I say whilst I have shown the 3 indy zealots amongst you to be reality avoiding, fact denying, zero credibility fantasists. If debating is not my forte then what does it say about you?
Very handy or not, that’s what happened and it happened back then. And, unfortunately for me, it is not very handy because I cannot lay it out in front of you anymore to demonstrate the absurdity of your attitude. However, I am sure that you remember it well because it made you look such a fool - or maybe that’s a reason for you to choose to forget?
Scotland didn’t have a vote. Fact.
Every Scottish based person and any Scot residing in rUK who was listed on the voters’ roll had a vote, Fact.
Every vote cast by every person in Scotland got added to and counted in with the votes by others elsewhere in the country. Fact
Each vote cast in Scotland carried the same value as each vote cast elsewhere in the country. Fact
The outcome was democratic. Fact.
The country voted to Leave. Fact.
The Indy fanatics among us simply can’t accept democratic outcomes that don’t produce the result they wanted with good grace. Fact.
BTW - I pop up here when it suits me to pop up here - and it might not always be 5am where I happen to be from time to time when it is 5am where you are. Simples!
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