SNP Referendum Nonsense

Sorry a little OT but if the scots get independence will the Labour party ever be able to get back into power in the uk?

The answer to that would be-very unlikely

It's one of the main reasons I would be quite happy to wave Scotland goodbye to go and happily live in its fairy tale socialist utopia.
 
The answer to that would be-very unlikely

It's one of the main reasons I would be quite happy to wave Scotland goodbye to go and happily live in its fairy tale socialist utopia.

Not quite. Labour would have still won the 1997, 2001 and 2005 elections without Scotland.
 
The answer to that would be-very unlikely

It's one of the main reasons I would be quite happy to wave Scotland goodbye to go and happily live in its fairy tale socialist utopia.

Is the prospect of a single political party being in power forever more not terrifying?
 
It's all out there, as I said before it isn't my place to hold your hand through this or evidence an entire two year campaign.

It is your place to substantiate your claim that throughout the entire debate about the future of Scotland, in this thread and everywhere else, many people are saying that the proposed semi-sort-of-independent-ish Scotland would be treated as, and I quote you directly, an international pariah state.

You will not do it because you can't. Your claim is baseless. It's propaganda.

All you do is move the goalposts, and I am being generous by phrasing it like that. I did not and never have said you should hold my hand and "evidence an entire two year campaign" . You made that up. Whenever you're pinned down on anything, you either answer something different or you refuse to answer something different (which is a deceitful tactic because you're pretending that the person you're replying to said something completely different to what they actually said). You're a politician.
 
And it would remain apart of the UK until independence day.

Thus would be negotiating within the EU as a part of the UK.

It has nothing to do with goal posts.

It has everything to do with goalposts because you're constantly swapping positions and hoping that if you repeat unsubstantiated statements often enough you'll stop people pointing out what you're doing. Which might well work by attrition.

The goalposts in question are being part of the UK and not being part of the UK. You're placing Scotland as both at the same time and pretending that the rest of the EU will accept any terms a semi-independent Scotland of the future might require because the Scotland of today is part of the UK. Scotland being part of the UK now is irrelevant - if Scotland leaves the UK then Scotland would not be part of the UK.

It's blinkered idealism at best to assume that every country in the EU would go against the best interests of the EU (and in some cases against the best interests of their own country as well) in order to benefit Scotland. Why on earth would they? Every single country would have a veto on the issue - Scotland would need every single one of them to grant Scotland special preferential treatment that would threaten the stability of the EU as a whole and several member states individually. It's a daft idea. Scotland's membership would not be worth the cost. It would be a small country with a correspondingly small economy. There are cities with bigger populations and bigger economies. Scotland simply isn't important enough to the EU.

But hey, let's go along with your magical negotiations idea.

I'm part of the UK. Scotland is part of the UK. So I, right now, open negotiations to make me King of Scotland. On my own terms, of course.

Well, there it is. I'm bound to become King of Scotland now. I'd better order my formal state robes.
 
It is your place to substantiate your claim that throughout the entire debate about the future of Scotland, in this thread and everywhere else, many people are saying that the proposed semi-sort-of-independent-ish Scotland would be treated as, and I quote you directly, an international pariah state.

You will not do it because you can't. Your claim is baseless. It's propaganda.

All you do is move the goalposts, and I am being generous by phrasing it like that. I did not and never have said you should hold my hand and "evidence an entire two year campaign" . You made that up. Whenever you're pinned down on anything, you either answer something different or you refuse to answer something different (which is a deceitful tactic because you're pretending that the person you're replying to said something completely different to what they actually said). You're a politician.

That is exactly the impression given by many vocal unionists and even many posters here. That Scotland would be subject to somewhat negative behavour and attitudes from many of its neighbours and many of the worlds bodies and institutes.

It's got nothing really to do with me personally, I'm not really involved in it, and I'm hardly the only person to make the observation. There are prominent unionists giving stark warnings on its use.
 
It has everything to do with goalposts because you're constantly swapping positions and hoping that if you repeat unsubstantiated statements often enough you'll stop people pointing out what you're doing. Which might well work by attrition.

The goalposts in question are being part of the UK and not being part of the UK. You're placing Scotland as both at the same time and pretending that the rest of the EU will accept any terms a semi-independent Scotland of the future might require because the Scotland of today is part of the UK. Scotland being part of the UK now is irrelevant - if Scotland leaves the UK then Scotland would not be part of the UK.

It's blinkered idealism at best to assume that every country in the EU would go against the best interests of the EU (and in some cases against the best interests of their own country as well) in order to benefit Scotland. Why on earth would they? Every single country would have a veto on the issue - Scotland would need every single one of them to grant Scotland special preferential treatment that would threaten the stability of the EU as a whole and several member states individually. It's a daft idea. Scotland's membership would not be worth the cost. It would be a small country with a correspondingly small economy. There are cities with bigger populations and bigger economies. Scotland simply isn't important enough to the EU.

But hey, let's go along with your magical negotiations idea.

I'm part of the UK. Scotland is part of the UK. So I, right now, open negotiations to make me King of Scotland. On my own terms, of course.

Well, there it is. I'm bound to become King of Scotland now. I'd better order my formal state robes.

Perhaps you could explain why it is unsubstantiated?

All I am doing is pointing out that it wouldn't be outside of the EU, as claimed by some, when negotiating independent membership.

Being an active member and citizens at the moment and meeting EU criteria it is pointing out that there are no conformity issues.

It's not about special preferential treatment, I don't know who is really professing that. Although you do a good job yourself on adding shadows to the Unionist argument.

Too wee too unimportant to bother with.
 
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That is exactly the impression given by many vocal unionists and even many posters here. [..]

No it isn't.

You made a false claim.

You have provided no evidence to support it.

You are repeating the claim and are claiming that your claim itself is evidence of the thing that you are claiming exists. It isn't.

You can't provide any evidence of anyone saying that a semi-independed Scotland would be treated as an international pariah state (which was your claim).

You can't even provide any evidence of anyone saying anything remotely like that.

If you genuinely interpret people saying that a semi-independent Scotland would not have every member state of the EU giving Scotland special preferential treatment even against the best wishes of their own countries and the EU in general (which is what people are actually saying) as Scotland being an international pariah state (which is what you wrongly claimed people are saying) then you are, to put it politely, making a highly irrational interpretation that goes against the evidence.
 
[..]
It's not about special preferential treatment, I don't know who is really professing that.

You are. You are claiming that every country in the EU would agree to Scotland joining the EU on preferential terms even when allowing that is directly against the best interests of their own countries (or, more accurately, their own government or their own government's interpretation of what's best for their own country) and the EU as a whole.

You're not consistent (either internally or externally) on this subject because your nationalism over-rides everything else for you. You'll just say (and maybe believe) anything that is politically useful at that instant in time.

Although you do a good job yourself on adding shadows to the Unionist argument.

Too wee too unimportant to bother with.
That is another false statement from you.

Perhaps you should stop making any claims about anything that anyone else has said about this issue, since you keep making false claims about what other people have said.

Anyone who cares can check back and see what I actually wrote (that Scotland by itself would be a small country with a correspondingly small economy and therefore not important enough to the EU for every country in the EU to give special preferential treatment to Scotland even though that would go against the best interests of the EU).

As for being a unionist, I'm not strongly inclined either way although I'm slightly inclined to think that England would benefit slightly if it left the union. I think it would be risky though, because a newly independent England might well not be able to join the EU with the same terms that the UK has. England would have a much better chance of that than Scotland would because it has far more money and power, but it's very far from a sure thing. I think that the risk outweighs the potential rather unsubstantial rewards of English independence.
 
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No it isn't.

You made a false claim.

You have provided no evidence to support it.

You are repeating the claim and are claiming that your claim itself is evidence of the thing that you are claiming exists. It isn't.

You can't provide any evidence of anyone saying that a semi-independed Scotland would be treated as an international pariah state (which was your claim).

You can't even provide any evidence of anyone saying anything remotely like that.

If you genuinely interpret people saying that a semi-independent Scotland would not have every member state of the EU giving Scotland special preferential treatment even against the best wishes of their own countries and the EU in general (which is what people are actually saying) as Scotland being an international pariah state (which is what you wrongly claimed people are saying) then you are, to put it politely, making a highly irrational interpretation that goes against the evidence.

There have been all sorts of redicious statements, from threats that North Korea could somehow attack Scotland (Cameron) to preemptively bombing Scotland in the face of invasion (Some **** in the Lords) to countless scare stories about how Europe is ultimately going to savage Scotland for taking democracy in to its own hands, to increased levels of terror and an inability to offer rounded security services (May), various reasonings as to why Scotland would be economically catastrophic if it would go alone (Moore, Alexander, Darling), to threats of bits of Scotland being annexed willy nilly by the MOD and so forth.

It's not that it hasn't happened, or it isn't there, it's all in the other thread.
 
You are. You are claiming that every country in the EU would agree to Scotland joining the EU on preferential terms even when allowing that is directly against the best interests of their own countries (or, more accurately, their own government or their own government's interpretation of what's best for their own country) and the EU as a whole.

You're not consistent (either internally or externally) on this subject because your nationalism over-rides everything else for you. You'll just say (and maybe believe) anything that is politically useful at that instant in time.

What are these preferential terms?

That is another false statement from you.

Perhaps you should stop making any claims about anything that anyone else has said about this issue, since you keep making false claims about what other people have said.

You said it.

"Scotland simply isn't important enough to the EU."

Anyone who cares can check back and see what I actually wrote (that Scotland by itself would be a small country with a correspondingly small economy and therefore not important enough to the EU for every country in the EU to give special preferential treatment to Scotland even though that would go against the best interests of the EU).

As for being a unionist, I'm not strongly inclined either way although I'm slightly inclined to think that England would benefit slightly if it left the union. I think it would be risky though, because a newly independent England might well not be able to join the EU with the same terms that the UK has. England would have a much better chance of that than Scotland would because it has far more money and power, but it's very far from a sure thing. I think that the risk outweighs the potential rather unsubstantial rewards of English independence.

...
 
[TW]Fox;25412636 said:
Not adopting the Euro would seem to be a special term is it not?

If other countries can do it I don't see why it's going to be an issue, also considering the reputation damage the currency has taken.

I don't think the EU is going to remove millions of its citizens because they don't want to adopt a different currency.
 
I knew this thread would turn into a Biohazard talking it up with no evidence thread. /leaves
 
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If other countries can do it I don't see why it's going to be an issue, also considering the reputation damage the currency has taken.

I don't think the EU is going to remove millions of its citizens because they don't want to adopt a different currency.

EU members only vote in favour if it has no affect on them or it's a positive one. Spain doesn't like the idea of Scotland even getting a referendum, if it voted yes they'd be very unlikely to support any effort by Scotland to join.

That's just one of them, but many of them have special terms, but go them after becoming members and through years of negotiation and with some potential negative effects on others should they have failed to win those concessions.

I don't see what Scotland can do from the outside and with little in the way of leverage, I'm not saying it's impossible but I think it's exceptionally unlikely.
 
EU members only vote in favour if it has no affect on them or it's a positive one. Spain doesn't like the idea of Scotland even getting a referendum, if it voted yes they'd be very unlikely to support any effort by Scotland to join.

That's not true, many of the statements have been misinterpreted. They recognise that the situation is constitutionally different.

That's just one of them, but many of them have special terms, but go them after becoming members and through years of negotiation and with some potential negative effects on others should they have failed to win those concessions.

I don't see what Scotland can do from the outside and with little in the way of leverage, I'm not saying it's impossible but I think it's exceptionally unlikely.

What is exceptionally likely sorry?

Roughly staying as we are in terms of membership? I can't see anybody wanting to 'cut' us off to be honest.
 
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