Scottish Parliament Election, 6th May 2021

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I don’t particularly see how the SNP can resile from committing itself to rejoining the EU, given how it has milked Scotland ‘being forced out of the EU against its will’ mercilessly over the last five years (plus committing to rejoin might help steady nerves in the financial/business sector if it does look like things are going to head south for the economy).

Wouldn't an EEA membership (the "Norway option") be sufficient?

True, I hadn’t considered that.

But then one of the most valid reasons for the UK remaining would come into play: why pay for access if you don't get a seat at the table? Scotland would have considerably more say over the nature of its  economic relations with the rUK by using its EU veto than it would through the external consultative mechanisms that EEA membership might allow.

Tbh I kind of doubt the SNP would pursue EU membership. It's nice to keep it open, because it represents a contrast with Westminster, but the idea of Scotland being in an separate economic bloc to rUK seems ... disadvantageous, especially if they need a hard border.

Ironically, whatever 'success' of Brexit can be claimed with regards to Northern Ireland will probably defuse this argument. Hoisted on their own petard.

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Eh so yeah, the thing I don’t really get is, given how much English « Unionism » seems to be based around resenting Scotland. Why even be bothered about whether they become independent or not? Like what’s the point in keeping them in the Union just so that you can keep the resentful victim complex about Scottish nationalism?

Asking for a friend, like

English unionism/nationalism in this respect is equal parts warmed-over colonialism and pragmatic realism. Though they'd never admit it, a large swath of English people, from the far right to the centre left, feel quietly superior to the other constituent nations of the UK on account of England's larger size and the primacy of English language and political/cultural institutions. It's more subtle, but it's basically the same jingoistic swagger of Brexit and the CANZUK twits.

The more pragmatic (read: less condescending) argument is that Scotland - and to a lesser extent Wales and NI - provides geographic/strategic resources that England would be considerably weaker without. North Sea oil is a (declining) reason. Fishing rights, EEA prerogatives, and the ease of border control for an entire island vs a land border are others. The big one, I'd say, is the UK nuclear arsenal. Without the deep water ports in Scotland, the UK's nuclear-armed submarines would be impossible to hide, repair, or deploy from domestic waters.

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Eh so yeah, the thing I don’t really get is, given how much English « Unionism » seems to be based around resenting Scotland. Why even be bothered about whether they become independent or not? Like what’s the point in keeping them in the Union just so that you can keep the resentful victim complex about Scottish nationalism?

Asking for a friend, like

English unionism/nationalism in this respect is equal parts warmed-over colonialism and pragmatic realism. Though they'd never admit it, a large swath of English people, from the far right to the centre left, feel quietly superior to the other constituent nations of the UK on account of England's larger size and the primacy of English language and political/cultural institutions. It's more subtle, but it's basically the same jingoistic swagger of Brexit and the CANZUK twits.

The more pragmatic (read: less condescending) argument is that Scotland - and to a lesser extent Wales and NI - provides geographic/strategic resources that England would be considerably weaker without. North Sea oil is a (declining) reason. Fishing rights, EEA prerogatives, and the ease of border control for an entire island vs a land border are others. The big one, I'd say, is the UK nuclear arsenal. Without the deep water ports in Scotland, the UK's nuclear-armed submarines would be impossible to hide, repair, or deploy from domestic waters.

Happy to say as proud Englanders go I am the exception to what you described. Bring on a Federal UK.

Hehe, good on ya, though I think the appeal of a federalized UK is, from the perspective of a Scot, a distinction without a difference as far as English nationalism/unionism goes. Even if it's shorn of chauvinism, the English insistence on a coagulated-but-variegated federal system is precisely the attitude that a nationalist wants to be rid of.

I say this with the informal authority of being born and raised in Canada/Québec. I've seen first hand what federal systems are and aren't capable of.

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A fairly banal result, all told. Nothing to be thrilled about, but I'm glad all the good guys made gains.

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https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1391121713484685312

SNP 40.3, Greens 8.1 and Alba 1.7 = 50.1%, a majority for the pro-independence parties.

Odd; the unionists were ahead (majority) in the constituency results. In any case it's far too close for my liking.

The consolation is that unionists clearly understand tactical voting and seem pretty well concerned by independence - hence they will vote for a different unionist party. Hopefully that leads to good turnout from them in a referendum.

If their best coordinated effort at tactical voting produced either a bare majority or failed to secure one, I wouldn't get your hopes up about unionist prospects in an imminent referendum.

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I am not sure I get the SNP logic on mandate for referendum.    In 2016 SNP+Greens also had a majority yet I did not see SNP claim back then there was a need for a second referendum yet this time SNP+Greens having a majority justifies a referendum ?

The last election was a couple of months prior to the EU referendum, so the SNP didn’t have the fig leaf of a ‘material change in circumstances’ to cover the demand for a second referendum. Once the country voted to leave, the SNP began trotting that line out, only to go silent on the subject after the 2017 general election given the massive reverse they suffered that year, falling from 50 to 37 percent of the vote and losing 21 seats.

Brexit, and the so called hard brexit in particular, handed the SNP the argument for a second referendum on a silver platter. And of course Sturgeon accepted the gift (who would not have done so?) and frankly Johnson and the Tory rightwing hardly have a valid argument to deny them a second referendum now.

The fact that they were allowed a referendum less than a decade ago seems like a good enough reason to me. Can you name me any country which routinely allows an integral and important part of it to hold an independence referendum every few years (or even  a single one at all)?

Québec held independence referendums in 1980 and 1995, the latter having been promised by the Parti Québecois as early as 1988; they lost the 1989 election so had to wait until after they won in 1994 to put it into effect.

By the time the SNP/Greens get around to holding the next referendum it'll have been at least 7-8 years since the last one. Also worth noting that the latter referendum in Québec followed from the eventually-unsuccessful but massive effort at constitutional reform (the Meech Lake Accords) initiated by the federal PC party in 1987, a nice parallel to Brexit. Point being, if you're looking for a precedent, you've got one.

On a different note, if the objection to holding another referendum on independence so soon after the last is that there's a kind of moral hazard in doing so, I'd counter that it's far more dangerous to a country's democratic integrity if it denies such requests than if it grants them.

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I am not sure I get the SNP logic on mandate for referendum.    In 2016 SNP+Greens also had a majority yet I did not see SNP claim back then there was a need for a second referendum yet this time SNP+Greens having a majority justifies a referendum ?

The last election was a couple of months prior to the EU referendum, so the SNP didn’t have the fig leaf of a ‘material change in circumstances’ to cover the demand for a second referendum. Once the country voted to leave, the SNP began trotting that line out, only to go silent on the subject after the 2017 general election given the massive reverse they suffered that year, falling from 50 to 37 percent of the vote and losing 21 seats.

Brexit, and the so called hard brexit in particular, handed the SNP the argument for a second referendum on a silver platter. And of course Sturgeon accepted the gift (who would not have done so?) and frankly Johnson and the Tory rightwing hardly have a valid argument to deny them a second referendum now.

The fact that they were allowed a referendum less than a decade ago seems like a good enough reason to me. Can you name me any country which routinely allows an integral and important part of it to hold an independence referendum every few years (or even  a single one at all)?

Québec held independence referendums in 1980 and 1995, the latter having been promised by the Parti Québecois as early as 1988; they lost the 1989 election so had to wait until after they won in 1994 to put it into effect.

By the time the SNP/Greens get around to holding the next referendum it'll have been at least 7-8 years since the last one. Also worth noting that the latter referendum in Québec followed from the eventually-unsuccessful but massive effort at constitutional reform (the Meech Lake Accords) initiated by the federal PC party in 1987, a nice parallel to Brexit. Point being, if you're looking for a precedent, you've got one.

On a different note, if the objection to holding another referendum on independence so soon after the last is that there's a kind of moral hazard in doing so, I'd counter that it's far more dangerous to a country's democratic integrity if it denies such requests than if it grants them.

I knew that someone would bring Quebec but it is a bad example because the Canadian government did not approve the referendum which is why Parizeau explicitly stated that he would have tried a unilateral declaration of Independence had the result been a Yes. The supreme court of Canada later ruled that such an action would have been unconstitutional.

In fact, even the 1980 referendum was not done with the approval of the federal government and Trudeau stated that he would have simply disregarded the result were the Quebecois to choose "Yes".

By all means you can believe that the Scottish people deserve to have a second referendum on their status. But donot act like the UK is being undemocratic or something by refusing one. Westminster gave its full blessing to Scottish referendum in 2014 and the people voted to stay. Scotland is 8% or 9% of the UK's population and a third of its surface area. France would never grant such a favour to Corsica or Brittany, nor America to Texas or California, nor Germany to Bavaria, nor Italy to Venetia, nor Spain to Catalonia (duh!) and as it turns out, Canada to Quebec. What the UK did in my opinion is highly underappreciated for some reason.
 
The truth of the matter is that in no country, (yes even among western liberal democracies) would a government voluntary allow such a thing as an independence referendum on a significant portion of its territory to become a regular occurrence. And they are right because putting even all the sovereignty concerns aside and the potential of foreign interference by adversaries like China or Russia, there is the obvious fact that if 10 independence referenda fail, the independentists will keep asking for one until they get their way but you can damn well bet that they would never allow a reunification referendum even if the polling were to support one.

Your account of the two referendums in Canada is highly misleading. It's neither the prerogative nor in the gift of the Canadian federal government to approve or deny a referendum on independence held legally in a province; it's entirely the province's business how it wishes to conduct - or sever - its relations with the federal government, and should one choose the latter the federal government has no right to deny the province the freedom to do so. (It's a bit of legal fiction to say unilateral secession was deemed unconstitutional; it was, technically, but the obligation to negotiate de facto independence renders unilateral declarations unnecessary to begin with).

In any case, the relevant point is that in both cases the Canadian federal government did not and could not refuse the right of Québec to hold a referendum. What might have come after a 'Yes' vote is moot insofar as it pertains to the UK and Scotland's second referendum.

The real underlying issue in both cases is the matter of consent. Canada and the UK are both a federation/union based on the idea that all the constituent jurisdictions choose to be a part of it. As soon as a central government denies a request for secession, the federation/union by definition is no longer a consensual one.

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https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1391109074138411009?s=19

Is it fair to say that southern/lowland Scotland is essentially an extension of northern England?  

There is a rhoticity hard border, for a start.

And a geological one (look it up)!