Scottish Independence Referendum 2014

[minionofmidas]

Do we have a date?

[minionofmidas]

"Autumn" is not a date. I wanted to be able to count down the days til Independence.

[minionofmidas]

You could always solve these nomenclatural issues by elevating the Principality to a Kingdom, which would then be a part of the United Kingdom.

[minionofmidas]

And, really, (most) Northern Ireland Protestants are ethnically Irish, or more precisely, Protestant Northern Irish. Many of them have family links to Scotland, of course, but then that's true of many Irish Catholics as well you know?

[minionofmidas]

Would some Unionists get the idea that independence in alliance with England might be an option? Possibly. Would it actually be one? Obviously not.

[minionofmidas]

You could always solve these nomenclatural issues by elevating the Principality to a Kingdom, which would then be a part of the United Kingdom.

Wales isn't actually a Principality, is it?

No more than Scotland is a kingdom (despite the usage as a - I was going to say courtesy title, but it's more than that. Charles was formally invested with the office at some silly ceremony in Caernarfon when he turned 21. Which some Welsh separatists tried to plant a bomb at, and got themselves killed in the process.)

[minionofmidas]

And Saint Kilda? Can we give that to Ireland?

[minionofmidas]

the LibDems were going to proposed 'Home Rule' (whatever that means)

Partition.

[minionofmidas]

There is no other shade of Unionist. There are people who would oppose independence, but most of them would not identify as "Unionist". Unless it's in an Ulster context perhaps - and even those are not a majority of opponents of Scottish independence (and some of them are probably for, anyways. How else does the SNP poll reasonably well in the proddy parts of Glasgow?)

Though they don't all vote Nat - who do you think peoples the remaining Con vote in rural North East Scotland? All English transplants?

[minionofmidas]

And we know what the East Pakistanis did as a result.

Reg Empey clearly doesn't, though. I presume he means East Pakistan, not West Pakistan, as the statement's few shreds of coherence disintegrate into thin air otherwise.

[minionofmidas]

So no desire for a republic, then?

Can't scare the waverers given what polls are. Tartan Tories might like Independence and the Queen. And there's always the contentious issue of how you select the President and what powers you give him - remember Australia.

[minionofmidas]

The Conservatives might linger on for a while, either as a party of United Empire Loyalists or just as a more bourgeois alternative to the SNP - but not both. The LDs' time in Scottish history will probably be over within a term of a successful independence referendum. I'd expect a stable Labour-SNP two-party system.

[minionofmidas]

I think it's more likely that a post-independence SNP would very quickly slide into being a Party of Business with all that that tends to imply.

It sort of has already, though it's political suicide to openly boast about it (Labour too keep quiet)

The Conservatives might linger on for a while, either as a party of United Empire Loyalists or just as a more bourgeois alternative to the SNP - but not both. The LDs' time in Scottish history will probably be over within a term of a successful independence referendum. I'd expect a stable Labour-SNP two-party system.

Independence is in my view the only way for a Conservative Party revival. Of course, the party that organised wouldn't be the Tories; they would need to dissolve and form a right of centre party with the remnant Liberals and some SNP defections.

Yeah, that's the "more bourgeois alternative" path. It obviously has more longterm potential than the other one. Though things'd have to go fairly badly for the SNP for this to be much more than the Portuguese PP (or, you know, the current Tories in Scotland).

Good point about the Greens, I suppose.