Scottish Independence Referendum - 18 September 2014

[afleitch]

On the other hand, if they really did want to remain as part of the UK, it would be pretty hard for Shetland and Orkney at least, to be denied that.

Ironically, at least it would guarantee an open border policy and a reciprocal relaxation in trade. Supplying Lerwick directly from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne would be a logistical nightmare.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Could Shetland and Orkney become Crown Territories instead?

[Simfan34]

The Zetlanders and Orcadians saying 'no' to independence for Scotland is not the same as saying that in the event of independence that they would wish to remain part of the UK and governed in effect, from London (given than Scotland had left) if that makes sense.

The might not vote for it, but they would go along with it.

One wonders why the "if Canada is divisible, then Quebec is divisible" principle should not apply for Scotland.

But the idea of Shetland and Orkney- and their corresponding sea territory that just happens to have the Scots' beloved oil- remaining British would be absolutely hilarious.

[Simfan34]

Also the form of a Scottish monarchy is interesting to consider. Would they have a Governor General like the other realms? I imagine this would be received coolly by people there- or perhaps it would be one of the Princes. Or could they do without? The Queen spends much of her time there already. I'm not sure how much pomp a state opening of Parliament would have with the building there, but besides there isn't much she'd have to go there for she doesn't already?

And coronations? Elizabeth I?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Western Isles will probably be one of the strongest Yes areas in the country.

Though apparently the Wee Frees are against.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If Scotland can dissolve its union with a 50%+1 vote

Actually it can't. Referendums in the UK are technically always advisory referendums because of Parliamentary Supremacy (i.e. in practical terms sovereignty lies with Parliament, which cannot be bound by decisions made by other authorities or even - this is the best bit - itself).* Were Scotland to vote for independence, the decision must be (at the very least) rubber stamped by Parliament at some point. A really, really narrow win for Yes would thus have the potential to create quite the constitutional clusterfyck.

_{*There are also certain - currently entirely theoretical - complications regarding the Act of Union, but those are best left undisturbed for now...}

[bore]

The Western Isles will probably be one of the strongest Yes areas in the country.

Though apparently the Wee Frees are against.

They're pretty much against everything

[Gary J]

The royal representative in Scotland before the union of parliaments had a title like Lord Commissioner.

I imagine Princess Anne would be well placed to represent the Queen, as she and her son have been building up support for a while. Princess Anne often attends rugby union internationals in Edinburgh and her son was involved in playing the game within the Scottish system.

The Queen is, of course, half Scottish herself and spends part of her year in Scotland (Christmas and New Year), so no doubt some arrangement could be made foe who does what within the royal family.  

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Western Isles will probably be one of the strongest Yes areas in the country.

Though apparently the Wee Frees are against.

They're pretty much against everything

I gather that they do now allow the use of musical instruments in church. Admittedly the vote was narrow and some ministers resigned in protest.

[EPG]

To summarise Sibboleth's explanation, Scotland gets 50%+1 because the British government has implicitly accepted those terms in Scotland and allowed a referendum, whereas the Scottish government has not done so for Shetland.

[afleitch]

_{*There are also certain - currently entirely theoretical - complications regarding the Act of Union, but those are best left undisturbed for now...}

To be fair so little of the Act of Union remains unamended or unappealed it's pretty much like the ship of Theseus at this point.

[Hnv1]

A legal question, the Yes vote won what happens in the general election? will the Scottish MPs take their seats and be able to vote despite the fact that they will soon be out of the union? if Labour win due to the Scottish vote what happens?

I feel like a generation of future law students will suffer studying this cluster of a constitutional problem.

[politicus]

The Zetlanders and Orcadians saying 'no' to independence for Scotland is not the same as saying that in the event of independence that they would wish to remain part of the UK and governed in effect, from London (given than Scotland had left) if that makes sense.

The might not vote for it, but they would go along with it.

One wonders why the "if Canada is divisible, then Quebec is divisible" principle should not apply for Scotland.

Scotland was an independent kingdom before joining the union, Quebec was a British colony before it entered the Canadian confederation. The northern part of Quebec with its sizable native population was added later, while the present boundaries of Scotland have been (almost) stable from the middle ages. So there is a big difference in the history and legal status of those to entities.

Both Orkney and Shetland were ceded from Norway in the 15th century (well technically pawned actually...) to the Scottish kingdom and was a part of the Scottish state for centuries before the union with England.
While they have a bit more Nordic words in their dialects than mainlanders and have retained a few old customs, Zetlanders and Orcadians are Scots. Claiming they wanna go back to Norway once in a while and learning Norwegian in evening classes are part of the sort of pseudo-ethnic local patriotism small regions with a distinct heritage in Europe like to play with. We have a few of those local patriotic micro-nations in Scandinavia as well, such as Elfdalians with their archaic language in Dalarna and the Scanian nationalism. And their is the Cornish nationalism in England.

This phenomenon is a sort of extreme local patriotism and should not be mistaken for actual  secessionist movements even when they use a secessionist discourse.

"To simply say that "Scotland is a nation. Council areas are not" doesn't do it for me; the definition and boundaries of "nations" are nearly always ambiguous and less clear-cut than people imagine them to be.

Scotland is a much more well defined and homogeneous nation than most European nations. The old highland/lowland dividing line is virtually obsolete as the Gaeliec culture has in reality died out outside of the Western Isles (highland (pseudo-)culture has of course on a symbolic level spread to all of Scotland in the form of kilts, bagpipes and tartans etc.). People in the Borders and Galloway do feel Scottish, there is no English minority in southern Scotland and as noted above Zetlanders and Orcadians local patriotism don't make them an ethnic minority.

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Every region feels a bit different, but they still consider themselves Scottish.

[You kip if you want to...]

A legal question, the Yes vote won what happens in the general election? will the Scottish MPs take their seats and be able to vote despite the fact that they will soon be out of the union? if Labour win due to the Scottish vote what happens?

I feel like a generation of future law students will suffer studying this cluster of a constitutional problem.

That's been the £1,000,000 question south of the border and the answer so far has basically been we'll cross that bridge when it comes.

Some have said that Scottish MPs may just be banned from voting on English matters until secession in 2016. I'd imagine if the government's majority rests on Scottish MPs, there'd have to be a snap election post-secession.

[politicus]

A legal question, the Yes vote won what happens in the general election? will the Scottish MPs take their seats and be able to vote despite the fact that they will soon be out of the union? if Labour win due to the Scottish vote what happens?

I feel like a generation of future law students will suffer studying this cluster of a constitutional problem.

Technically there isn't much of a constitutional problem, the Scottish seats are as valid as all others until Scotland actually secedes. If Labour gains a majority they can form a government, if they haven't got a majority any longer when Scotland secedes in 2016 or (more likely) 2017 they will have to resign.

Politically its another matter and some sort of compromise will have to be worked out, but it isn't really a legal issue.

[njwes]

Scotland is a much more well defined and homogeneous nation than most European nations. The old highland/lowland dividing line is virtually obsolete as the Gaeliec culture has in reality died out outside of the Western Isles (highland (pseudo-)culture has of course on a symbolic level spread to all of Scotland in the form of kilts, bagpipes and tartans etc.).

Uh-oh, sounds like someone needs to read up on his Eric Hobsbawn!

I understand your points and they're well-taken, but ultimately I think any areas of Scotland that genuinely would prefer to stay in the UK by large margins should be allowed to if they make their wishes clear. There's something disturbing to me about saying, well they have to leave the UK no matter what their wishes because that's the collective will of ~the nation~. It sounds very early 20th century to me.

[ingemann]

Scotland is a much more well defined and homogeneous nation than most European nations. The old highland/lowland dividing line is virtually obsolete as the Gaeliec culture has in reality died out outside of the Western Isles (highland (pseudo-)culture has of course on a symbolic level spread to all of Scotland in the form of kilts, bagpipes and tartans etc.).

Uh-oh, sounds like someone needs to read up on his Eric Hobsbawn!

I understand your points and they're well-taken, but ultimately I think any areas of Scotland that genuinely would prefer to stay in the UK by large margins should be allowed to if they make their wishes clear. There's something disturbing to me about saying, well they have to leave the UK no matter what their wishes because that's the collective will of ~the nation~. It sounds very early 20th century to me.

So you suggest that Scotland should look like a Swiss Cheese with every household deciding whether they want to be part of UK or Scotland, in fact that does seem a little unfair, what about households, where people vote for two different sides, I think we should split them or make them co-domains of Scotland and UK. Clearly that would be the anti-nationalist solution. In fact I think we should extent this to the general vote, with households voting for one party, getting their candidate as PM, while household voting for the other party getting their candidate as PM.

[politicus]

Scotland is a much more well defined and homogeneous nation than most European nations. The old highland/lowland dividing line is virtually obsolete as the Gaeliec culture has in reality died out outside of the Western Isles (highland (pseudo-)culture has of course on a symbolic level spread to all of Scotland in the form of kilts, bagpipes and tartans etc.).

Uh-oh, sounds like someone needs to read up on his Eric Hobsbawn!

I am not male.

I doubt that Hobsbawn - of all people - would disagree with me about the pseudo-Highland culture invented in the early 19th century and its spread across Scotland - including lowland areas completely alien to the original Gaelic culture. Its a well established historical fact.
That the usual symbolic representations of Scottishness are derived from this romantic invention of Highland culture should be obvious.

[EPG]

A legal question, the Yes vote won what happens in the general election? will the Scottish MPs take their seats and be able to vote despite the fact that they will soon be out of the union? if Labour win due to the Scottish vote what happens?

I feel like a generation of future law students will suffer studying this cluster of a constitutional problem.

Short answer, Scotland's seats in Westminster exist under the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 as amended by order, and this would not change after a Yes vote unless the law were changed.

Long answer, there is relevant legal precedent to deprive Scotland of seats. The Irish Free State did not participate in the November 1922 election, despite Britain's only affirming Irish independence in December. However, Ireland had already created its own revolutionary house of representatives, courts, local government, etc., which were doing government work, so an election to Westminster would have been pointless and farcical at best.

This is precedent for the legality of any change to remove Westminster seats for a country on its way out of the union. But there is a big but. Ireland had already been in revolution since 1919 and there was a whole year to prepare the electoral arrangements between the agreement of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and its legal ratification by the crown. Surely the agreement between Scotland and the rest of the UK wouldn't be completed before the scheduled 2015 general election. It would be very foolhardy to abolish Scottish seats before they were definitely leaving the UK.

What I don't know is whether Scottish MPs could be deprived of their seats after a valid election, even if their constituencies were no longer valid in future elections because well um they were now in another country. The cleanest solution would be a dissolution of Parliament.

[DC Al Fine]

Scotland is a much more well defined and homogeneous nation than most European nations. The old highland/lowland dividing line is virtually obsolete as the Gaeliec culture has in reality died out outside of the Western Isles (highland (pseudo-)culture has of course on a symbolic level spread to all of Scotland in the form of kilts, bagpipes and tartans etc.).

Uh-oh, sounds like someone needs to read up on his Eric Hobsbawn!

I understand your points and they're well-taken, but ultimately I think any areas of Scotland that genuinely would prefer to stay in the UK by large margins should be allowed to if they make their wishes clear. There's something disturbing to me about saying, well they have to leave the UK no matter what their wishes because that's the collective will of ~the nation~. It sounds very early 20th century to me.

So you suggest that Scotland should look like a Swiss Cheese with every household deciding whether they want to be part of UK or Scotland, in fact that does seem a little unfair, what about households, where people vote for two different sides, I think we should split them or make them co-domains of Scotland and UK. Clearly that would be the anti-nationalist solution. In fact I think we should extent this to the general vote, with households voting for one party, getting their candidate as PM, while household voting for the other party getting their candidate as PM.

Not ripping on you ingemann, but this reminds me of some Parti Quebecois politicians who think that 50%+1 is an acceptable threshold for independence, but THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL IS PART OF QUEBEC AND I DON'T CARE IF 80% OF THEM VOTED NO!!!!!!

[ag]

If Scotland can dissolve its union with a 50%+1 vote, why shouldn't some of the council areas dissolve their relationship with Scotland with the same such vote?

Scotland is a nation. Council areas are not.

"Nation" is but a legal definition. The Parliament would be able to create a few, if it so desires.

[ag]

To summarise Sibboleth's explanation, Scotland gets 50%+1 because the British government has implicitly accepted those terms in Scotland and allowed a referendum, whereas the Scottish government has not done so for Shetland.

True. But the Parliament would still have to act to implement the referendum decision. As far as I understand, it has not committed to the exact shape of Scottish independence. It would be, let us say, interesting

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

Wait... if parliament has to consent to independence, where are the votes going to come from to do that?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Events might turn out in such a way that the major parties vote for it (as happened with the establishment of the Irish Free State). Who knows? The possibility of a gigantic constitutional clusterfyck is also quite real, of course.

[Keystone Phil]

Who knows? The possibility of a gigantic constitutional clusterfyck is also quite real, of course.

Wow. Even more reason for Scotland to leave this third world-esque circus.