4 ms·

Uh, Britain organised a full blown referendum for Scotland after Scots voted a separatist party into their own local Parliament ... a referendum the nationalist

• another-dave 10y ago
  If I remember correctly, the SNP ran in 2016 (after the Scottish referendum) with a manifesto that said if UK voted "Leave" in Brexit but Scotland voted "Remain", they would push for a second independence referendum. So this was the platform on which they were returned to government. Also, I think it's fair to say that Britain leaving the EU is a sizeable enough change to counter the "once in a generation" line — the choice is no longer Independence V status quo of 2014. Especially considering that at least some people voted to stay in the UK in order to remain in the EU.
  • diminish 10y ago
    Also the "better together" argument for UK is hurt. If not better together (eu) then why better together (uk)? Actually Scotland can join the Nordic examples of a very rich and welfare states in Scandinavia if not EU.
• jwdunne 10y ago
  When the majority of Scotland wanted to remain part of the EU, the terms changed. The fact is Scotland, NI and Wales largely wanted to remain whilst England drags the rest along with. They have no choice. That's a pretty big change in the game and wasn't really on people's minds in 2014. I certainly wasn't thinking about the EU exit in 2014. In fact, in 2015, a 2016 EU referendum wasn't widespread knowledge. In fact, I was shocked by the leave vote. Almost as much as the Conservative majority a year before. I'm from Salford too and the vote was a highly Leave. I'm sure those in Scotland felt that more so.
  • Balero 10y ago
    Wales voted to leave by a large margin.
    • jwdunne 10y ago
      Thanks for the correction :)
    • random_comment 10y ago
      This is factually untrue. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36612308 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36612308 Wales voted by a 52.5% to 47.5% margin to leave. There are very few countries in the world where a non-binding referendum with that kind of margin would be considered a mandate to make a fundamental change to the constitutional basis of the country.
      • asdfgadsfgasfdg 10y ago
        So they voted to leave by a bigger margin than the UK as a whole did then.
        • random_comment 10y ago
          Correct, a narrowly bigger margin. I think if '52-48' is redefined as a 'big margin' then it becomes very hard to define 'a narrow margin' without running into the impact of statistical noise.
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    > The fact is Scotland, NI and Wales largely wanted to remain whilst England drags the rest along with. Scotland and NI wanted to stay by large margins, England and Wales to leave by much smaller margins. Were a majority of the four required to pass the referendum, it would have failed on a 2-2 tie.
  • Nursie 10y ago
    Wales didn't largely want to remain. Efforts to paint this as purely an English problem are bizare, even in Scotland around a.third of voters voted to leave the EU. Surely that pojnts to huge dissatisfaction even without a majority for leaving?
• dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Britain organised a full blown referendum for Scotland after Scots voted a separatist party into their own local Parliament ... a referendum the nationalists then lost. A major (and perhaps decisive) point in the remain campaign in that referendum was the (quite correct) point that Scotland leaving the UK would face significant risks in remaining in the EU, since other EU members with potential breakaway regions would see that as potentially encouraging their own breakaways. Had it been known that staying in the UK would guarantee Scotland would be taken out of the EU and not even be in a position to try to negotiate admission, the independence referendum might well have gone the other way.
• dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Britain organised a full blown referendum for Scotland after Scots voted a separatist party into their own local Parliament ... a referendum the nationalists then lost. A major (and perhaps decisive) point in the remain campaign in that referendum was the (quite correct) point that Scotland leaving the UK would face significant risks in remaining in the EU, since other EU members with potential breakaway regions would see that as potentially encouraging their own breakaways. Had it been known that staying in the UK would guarantee Scotland would be taken out of the EU and not even be in a position to try to negotiate admission, the independence referendum might well have gone the other way.
• ionised 10y ago
  They voted to stay in the UK on the expectation that the UK would remain within the EU. A second Scottish referendum is absolutely the right call to make and the only reason I can figure that English people are so against the idea, is that this time they expect to lose a member of the union.