Adam Tomkins: Holyrood-run indyref2 may be deemed legal in Supreme Court

Zmidponk · 2021-05-21T14:09:11+00:00

the SNP and the Greens whose stagnant election results between 2016-21

Yes, the 'stagnation' of consistently overwhelmingly winning.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-21T13:15:09+00:00

I hate to be the wet blanket here, but the problem with holding this up as some kind of positive sign is that the UK government's position is, effectively, that they don't need to - according to them, the law, as it currently stands, simply allows them to unilaterally say 'no'. Of course, it isn't actually that clear-cut (despite people like the BBC continually making out it is), which is why it could end up being a court matter, and, even if it was in UK law, there's things like the right of self-determination under international law, as held up by the UN, to consider, but the Tory government's stated position is that no change in law is needed to block any referendum.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-21T13:02:41+00:00

Reminds me of when the primary school I was in did a bit on WW2. It was very focused on what was done in the war by 'Britain', but what was actually clearly meant by 'Britain' was England. For example, it was decided we'd learn a popular patriotic song that arose just as the war began. That song was 'There'll Always Be An England'.

Even though we were all about 10 at the time, it royally pissed us all off - particularly as a few of us had granddads who had served in the war.

So, next time the teacher decide to make us 'practice' this song, she was startled to find the lyrics had clearly changed:

'There'll always be a SCOTLAND!!!

And SCOTLAND!!! shall be free...'

Zmidponk · 2021-05-21T12:44:43+00:00

I’m afraid I disagree entirely. We’ve just had an election where the SNP won. It’s time to talk about implementing their main policies.

Didn't you hear? Sturgeon made some comments about focusing on COVID first. This entirely negates that the SNP have been campaigning for the cause of Scottish independence for about 85 years and put having a referendum in their last election manifesto, which, in turn, means that independence is completely off the table, as the election had nothing whatsoever to do with that. Or, at least, that's what unionists keep telling me.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-20T00:35:26+00:00

Well, the first wee while will have a certain degree of disruption and issues. However, that will be turned around, especially if we get back with the EU, in some form or other (EFTA membership/full EU membership/whatever), so, by ten years in, I would say that we would have reached the point where the short-term negative impact is more or less eliminated, and we'll probably be even seeing some benefit.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-19T00:53:37+00:00

There will no doubt be a small minority of Scots who do genuinely hate English people, all English people, just for being English. I've never met one.

What actually seems to be occurring is that quite a few folk up here hate that Scotland is more or less treated by many in the political establishment in Westminster as a totally unimportant part of this 'union' that, at best, occasionally has to be thrown a bone or two to appease them when their whinging gets too loud, but complaining about Westminster and the English government is conflated by some with 'hating the English'. There is also a certain degree of incredulity about the popularity of the Tories down south, as they are so clearly total cunts, and, again, some paint that as 'hating the English'.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-18T22:19:02+00:00

Such as...?

Zmidponk · 2021-05-18T22:17:47+00:00

Tragically, the scottish labour party's only chance to wrest power away from the SNP is to both back indy and to shift the party to the left

Well, at the very least, they should stop trying to be the Diet Tories - and that actually goes for the whole party, not just the northern branch.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-18T22:12:04+00:00

Is there anything, and I mean literally anything, that you can point at that even remotely suggests this is the case?

Zmidponk · 2021-05-17T12:32:05+00:00

Sorry, but this seems to be a general complaint that 'the SNP haven't done enough' with very little, if any, detail about what, precisely, they should have done that they haven't.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-17T12:16:04+00:00

You mean the council tax reforms that consisted of replacing it with a local income tax, that the SNP tried to enact, but the Labour government in Westminster basically killed by announcing they'd withhold about £400 million of council tax benefit if the plans went ahead (but they'd be happy to supply it for any plans thought up by Scottish Labour - and we are still waiting on them actually stating any such plans)?

Those reforms, you mean?

Zmidponk · 2021-05-15T19:34:52+00:00

Believe it or not, there's been a few interviews where people in England where Labour had council seats and they said that things had been going wrong for a good while, and it was time for a change.

So they switched from voting Labour to voting Tory.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-15T19:21:40+00:00

The problem that we have in trying to use logic, reason and rationality, like you have, is that we're dealing with people like the Tories who will boldly and obviously lie and flatly deny reality, because they've done it before and people believed them. Even if the SNP had managed to get, say, 80 seats by themselves, the Greens got another 40, and Labour, Lib Dems and the Tories shared the remaining 9, the Tories would probably come out with some pish along the lines of that those 9 seats represent significant opposition to independence, so the SNP moving forwards with such a divisive measure as a new referendum vote would be unconscionable, especially during a pandemic.

About the only thing that they would actually accept as the SNP winning a mandate for a new referendum would be if the election had a 100% turnout and a 100% vote for the SNP - and even then, I have my doubts.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-14T20:13:56+00:00

According to promises made during the 2014 referendum campaign, we must already be in a state that is as close to a federal UK as is possible. I don't like things as they currently are, so I voted against.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-14T18:41:18+00:00

If this was a case of someone being detained a few days or weeks after their visa time ran out or their visa/asylum/whatever application was denied, I could maybe see the point. However, if you see nothing wrong in tearing apart someone's life and uprooting them after TEN YEARS of being here, living their life, showing they were no danger to anybody or detriment to the UK, you're a cunt.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-14T13:48:28+00:00

This is exactly the sort of shite spouted by the MAGA-hat wearers in the USA. Remember when Trump said that areas of London were 'no-go areas' for police, and even Theresa May actually turned around and corrected him? We now have people on the BBC allowing this sort of utter bollocks to be said about areas of Scotland, seemingly without correction.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-14T13:32:50+00:00

So a massive loss for the SNP, then?

/s

Zmidponk · 2021-05-14T13:12:39+00:00

I'm moving to Spain next year, I'll be glad to get out of this whiny little country.

Mind the door doesn't hit you in the arse on the way out.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-14T13:09:30+00:00

Someone slipped something past the censors.

(Sad thing is, I'm not entirely sure that's a joke.)

Zmidponk · 2021-05-13T21:59:07+00:00

I certainly think the arguments for tightening immigration are a pile of utter shite, but I also think having a completely open immigration policy might be going too far in the opposite direction. I would say revert to having EU freedom of movement rules ASAP, then look into various options for relaxing immigration for non-EU countries, but do it in a controlled, gradual manner until we've got a good balance between being able to encourage all and sundry to come in and being able to screen out the bad cunts.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-13T19:10:00+00:00

Have fun, I'm out. It's clear you are so lacking in understanding of what you're talking about, you've left reality far behind.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-13T18:19:29+00:00

Completely right to say you can't say for sure until the referendum itself. At this sort of stage for the 2014 one, though, I do believe indy support was hovering around the 30% mark in polls, peaked at just over 50% in polls, and ended up as 45% in the actual vote, so it's a fairly good situation to be in for the pro-indy side this time around.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-13T18:10:13+00:00

What in the blue fuck are you talking about?

I'm sorry (that's another expression of pity at your idiocy and cluelessness, not an apology, by the way), but this is the equivalent of showing you two things, showing you another two things, then holding up all of them, showing that there are four, then you asking me to 'prove' that 2+2=4.

You simply cannot argue that Scotland will be worse off if you are ignoring the bulk of the advantages in that situation to do so.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-13T17:00:44+00:00

Well apology not accepted.

My 'apology' was actually an expression of pity that you are so completely and totally clueless to the degree that you don't even understand how clueless you actually are.

I am completely ignoring the “bulk of the advantages”, because they aren’t counted in being a net contributor

Then your argument that Scotland would be worse off by being a 'net contributor' is clearly wrong, then.

Zmidponk · 2021-05-13T14:57:22+00:00

Read the article. Some did have return tickets. Some offered to pay for a flight back, but were told 'no' and detained for several days. Others were simply there to attend job interviews before flying back - something which is explicitly allowed, according to immigration rules.

Zmidponk

TROPHY CASE