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Smaller nations sounds nice but in the intermediate term reality Scotland would become a minor province of the EU nation. It'd be trading Britain for something

Smaller nations sounds nice but in the intermediate term reality Scotland would become a minor province of the EU nation. It'd be trading Britain for something much bigger.

cstross 12y ago
We've already got that something (the EU). It's relatively benign. (Meanwhile, we've got an extra tier of government that insists on spending tax revenue raised in Scotland on stuff the Scottish people really don't want.)
- a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
  The EU is an ongoing and succeeding effort to replicate the United States Federal government in Europe. Scotland will eventually wind up having as much say as New Hampshire does in very important matters, such as control of its borders and agriculture policy.
  - nbouscal 12y ago
    That's an interesting choice of example state given New Hampshire's significant role in primary elections.
    - notahacker 12y ago
      The tendency of a few states (including a handful of very small ones) to get disproportionate attention at the federal level (and sometimes accompanying pork-barrel policies) is a bug rather than a feature of the US system.
      - smacktoward 12y ago
        There's nothing inherent in the American election system that requires New Hampshire and Iowa to get the attention they do. That's strictly an artifact of how the parties have chosen to schedule their primary calendars; New Hampshire and Iowa happened to be put first in the schedule, and people started paying more attention to them on the theory that winning these early primaries could start a snowball effect of support in the later ones. Either party could choose any time it wants to reshuffle their primary calendar and move some other states before NH and IA, or to hold all their primaries at once on the same day. There's just not much pressure on them to do so, so inertia keeps them where they are.
        maxerickson 12y ago
        The state parties set the dates. Of course the national parties can influence that, but there is no cohesive group mandating the dates. A not very talked about aspect of U.S. politics is how much influence peddling is possible at that level.
    - baddox 12y ago
      But they still can't make treaties with foreign nations, raise a military, mint coins, or any of several other things generally associated with sovereign nations.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    "control of its borders" I'm pleased to say that we don't seem to have quite the same obsession in Scotland with keeping immigrants out as a lot of people in the UK. In fact the SNP is rather keen on encouraging immigration. I'd far rather have the right to live and work anywhere in the EU than be trapped in the UK with Boris Johnson as PM running second hand UKIP policies.
    - a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
      Control of borders is practically the definition of a nation. If you don't have a say in who comes in, you aren't a nation.
      - tptacek 12y ago
        Control of borders is practically the definition of a nation in the sense of Westphalian Sovereignty, but arguing against that is Stross' whole point.
        a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
        He never really makes a coherent point about how his smaller states will handle borders. Bringing up Westphalia in this particular context is silly because it's an eternal truth. If your people don't control access to the land, you will lose control of the land. This was true ten thousand years ago and it's true of Tibetans now.
        tptacek 12y ago
        An "eternal truth"? It's called Westphalian Sovereignty because it's the result of the eponymous historical event, prior to which extranational forces played a huge role in the internal politics of states.
        a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
        What point are you making? A chimp can understand this need to control land access. Saying "westphalia" over and over sheds no light. Control over immigration and land use was not invented by 17th century european diplomats if that's what you think. To the extent nations failed to control their borders in the past they were simply unfortunately weak nations.
  - ghaff 12y ago
    Note however that EU != Schengen zone. (Though there's more to control of borders than simply crossing borders without immigration checks.) In fact, UK border checks are relatively strict even for other EU citizens.
    - jsnell 12y ago
      The strictest UK border check I've gone through in a few years was putting my (EU) passport into an automated passport reader and looking into a camera for 5 seconds.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  The UK has a government that spends tax revenues raised in the UK on stuff people in [some parts of] the UK don't want. A new country called Scotland will it seems have a government that spends tax revenues raised in Scotland on stuff people in [some parts of] Scotland don't want. If you lived in a tax raising city state then your city would do the same thing. If you didn't want an extra tier of government then why vote for one? We could have saved £414 million in one swoop on that.
  - wisty 12y ago
    The main problem is, revenue and spending are rarely done by the same people. The UK can blame the Scottish Parliament on reckless spending, and be forced to raise taxes. A local government can recklessly spend (or neglect infrastructure), and force the Scottish to bail them out. Should a state government fight to create jobs (even if it annoys special interest groups), or just rely on welfare from the federal government? If there's a government that is in charge of major infrastructure, health, education, social welfare, and taxes, then there's far less buck passing. States spend the big bucks, so states should be responsible for raising the big bucks. The other problem is that people only care about the highest level of government. Probably because it's more efficient for news organisations to only report on the Federal level (since the story will be more widely read). Look at the US. It seems that virtually everything gets blamed on Obama or the House, despite the fact that the real decisions are generally done at the state level, with far less scrutiny, because it's cheaper for the newspapers to just send a single correspondent to Washington, and report on what's going on there. I don't even know the current Premier (governor, in US terms) of my state. Not since a "memory lapse" in front of a corruption inquiry forced the last one out a few months ago, after the previous party lost a string of premiers also due to corruption - I just can't keep up. So there's two problems - no-one cares about anything other than the top level of politics (since the papers are all national now, and it's more efficient to just look at what happens at the Federal level), and there's too much buck passing between the level of government that has the money, and the level of government that spends it.
  - smsm42 12y ago
    One could argue that the smaller the government is and the more local the taxes are, less is the percentage spent on the things inhabitants of this locality do not want. Example: if you raise taxes on city level, then spending decisions are influenced only by people living in your city, and the chance it would be spent on building an airport in the next county that nobody flies from, to suit some politician, are much less. OTOH, if all the taxes are collected by a huge central government, the chances that you will disagree with a lot of its spending are much higher. Of course, the hybrid model is possible - with only taxes that are needed specifically for big things - like national defense - collected on hight level, and taxes needed for local things - like police, roads, schools, etc. - collected on the lower levels. That's how the federalism works.
baddox 12y ago
As opposed to being part of the UK, which is part of the EU nation?
- sentenza 12y ago
  Not for long. As a continental European, I'd be quite surprised if the UK voted to stay in the EU in the 2017 referendum. There is just so much hatred for the EU coming out of the UK that by now, its leaving almost seems a forgone conclusion.
  - Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
    As a Brit (English, living in Scotland), I'd say that there is a way to go before that and would make two points: 1) there is only one party promising that referendum and they're behind in the polls 2) current polls say that we'd vote to stay (http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/06/17/eu-referendum-record-lead/ http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/06/17/eu-referendum-record-lea...), even before any renegotiation. There are other polls which have said otherwise but YouGov provide an on-going tracker which I think shows that, while the level of support has changed, broadly we still support EU membership. Obviously all very uncertain (and until a couple of weeks ago polls were sure Scotland would stay in the UK) but I'd say that you shouldn't confuse the volume of some of the negative views on Europe with them being a consensus - most people are quietly happy with the status quo.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Smaller nations sounds nice but in the intermediate term reality Scotland would become a minor province of the EU nation. If it's admitted at all, which is far from certain.
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
  > If it's admitted (to the EU) at all, which is far from certain. I don't see why it would not be admitted. The EU is not in the habit of turning down that kind of country: wealthy, peaceful, of Christian heritage and adjoining several EU countries. And if you want to play that game, it's not certain that England will remain in the EU. An independent Scotland could well end up the only part of Britain left in the EU. Yes that would be a crashingly stupid thing for Britain to collectively do. But it's not impossible.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > I don't see why it would not be admitted. Inability to come to mutually agreeable terms -- Scotlands wants (1) essentially automatic admission without the normal new state process, and (2) to keep the UK's special exemption for using the sterling, and (3) to get part of the UK's rebates. AFAICT, much of the rest of the EU is opposed to all three of those. Spain is particularly opposed to the first (and possibly to Scottish admission at all), because an independent Scotland getting into the EU, especially on fast-track process, is seen as encouraging Catalonian independence. > The EU is not in the habit of turning down that kind of country: wealthy, peaceful, of Christian heritage and adjoining several EU countries. First, I think you are considering the wrong category: the category of interest is "states having recently broken away from existing EU member-states", particularly as the UK isn't the only EU member with regions that have some pro-independence sentiments, and admitting such a breakaway state is something that states that have their own aspiring breakaway regions are likely to see as providing encouragement to those breakaway regions. Also, an independent Scotland would be adjoining exactly one other country (the UK), and one of the reasons that seems to keep being cited for it leaving is that, even with Scotland still in the UK and exerting pro-EU pressure, the future of the UK in the EU is locally considered less than certain, so I'm not sure where you get that "adjoining several EU countries" is a fair description. > And if you want to play that game, it's not certain that England will remain in the EU. Of course its not; I don't dispute that at all.

Smaller nations sounds nice but in the intermediate term reality Scotland would become a minor province of the EU nation. It'd be trading Britain for something much bigger.

cstross 12y ago

We've already got that something (the EU). It's relatively benign. (Meanwhile, we've got an extra tier of government that insists on spending tax revenue raised in Scotland on stuff the Scottish people really don't want.)

a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
The EU is an ongoing and succeeding effort to replicate the United States Federal government in Europe. Scotland will eventually wind up having as much say as New Hampshire does in very important matters, such as control of its borders and agriculture policy.
- nbouscal 12y ago
  That's an interesting choice of example state given New Hampshire's significant role in primary elections.
  - notahacker 12y ago
    The tendency of a few states (including a handful of very small ones) to get disproportionate attention at the federal level (and sometimes accompanying pork-barrel policies) is a bug rather than a feature of the US system.
    - smacktoward 12y ago
      There's nothing inherent in the American election system that requires New Hampshire and Iowa to get the attention they do. That's strictly an artifact of how the parties have chosen to schedule their primary calendars; New Hampshire and Iowa happened to be put first in the schedule, and people started paying more attention to them on the theory that winning these early primaries could start a snowball effect of support in the later ones. Either party could choose any time it wants to reshuffle their primary calendar and move some other states before NH and IA, or to hold all their primaries at once on the same day. There's just not much pressure on them to do so, so inertia keeps them where they are.
      - maxerickson 12y ago
        The state parties set the dates. Of course the national parties can influence that, but there is no cohesive group mandating the dates. A not very talked about aspect of U.S. politics is how much influence peddling is possible at that level.
  - baddox 12y ago
    But they still can't make treaties with foreign nations, raise a military, mint coins, or any of several other things generally associated with sovereign nations.
- arethuza 12y ago
  "control of its borders" I'm pleased to say that we don't seem to have quite the same obsession in Scotland with keeping immigrants out as a lot of people in the UK. In fact the SNP is rather keen on encouraging immigration. I'd far rather have the right to live and work anywhere in the EU than be trapped in the UK with Boris Johnson as PM running second hand UKIP policies.
  - a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
    Control of borders is practically the definition of a nation. If you don't have a say in who comes in, you aren't a nation.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      Control of borders is practically the definition of a nation in the sense of Westphalian Sovereignty, but arguing against that is Stross' whole point.
      - a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
        He never really makes a coherent point about how his smaller states will handle borders. Bringing up Westphalia in this particular context is silly because it's an eternal truth. If your people don't control access to the land, you will lose control of the land. This was true ten thousand years ago and it's true of Tibetans now.
        tptacek 12y ago
        An "eternal truth"? It's called Westphalian Sovereignty because it's the result of the eponymous historical event, prior to which extranational forces played a huge role in the internal politics of states.
        a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
        What point are you making? A chimp can understand this need to control land access. Saying "westphalia" over and over sheds no light. Control over immigration and land use was not invented by 17th century european diplomats if that's what you think. To the extent nations failed to control their borders in the past they were simply unfortunately weak nations.
- ghaff 12y ago
  Note however that EU != Schengen zone. (Though there's more to control of borders than simply crossing borders without immigration checks.) In fact, UK border checks are relatively strict even for other EU citizens.
  - jsnell 12y ago
    The strictest UK border check I've gone through in a few years was putting my (EU) passport into an automated passport reader and looking into a camera for 5 seconds.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
The UK has a government that spends tax revenues raised in the UK on stuff people in [some parts of] the UK don't want. A new country called Scotland will it seems have a government that spends tax revenues raised in Scotland on stuff people in [some parts of] Scotland don't want. If you lived in a tax raising city state then your city would do the same thing. If you didn't want an extra tier of government then why vote for one? We could have saved £414 million in one swoop on that.
- wisty 12y ago
  The main problem is, revenue and spending are rarely done by the same people. The UK can blame the Scottish Parliament on reckless spending, and be forced to raise taxes. A local government can recklessly spend (or neglect infrastructure), and force the Scottish to bail them out. Should a state government fight to create jobs (even if it annoys special interest groups), or just rely on welfare from the federal government? If there's a government that is in charge of major infrastructure, health, education, social welfare, and taxes, then there's far less buck passing. States spend the big bucks, so states should be responsible for raising the big bucks. The other problem is that people only care about the highest level of government. Probably because it's more efficient for news organisations to only report on the Federal level (since the story will be more widely read). Look at the US. It seems that virtually everything gets blamed on Obama or the House, despite the fact that the real decisions are generally done at the state level, with far less scrutiny, because it's cheaper for the newspapers to just send a single correspondent to Washington, and report on what's going on there. I don't even know the current Premier (governor, in US terms) of my state. Not since a "memory lapse" in front of a corruption inquiry forced the last one out a few months ago, after the previous party lost a string of premiers also due to corruption - I just can't keep up. So there's two problems - no-one cares about anything other than the top level of politics (since the papers are all national now, and it's more efficient to just look at what happens at the Federal level), and there's too much buck passing between the level of government that has the money, and the level of government that spends it.
- smsm42 12y ago
  One could argue that the smaller the government is and the more local the taxes are, less is the percentage spent on the things inhabitants of this locality do not want. Example: if you raise taxes on city level, then spending decisions are influenced only by people living in your city, and the chance it would be spent on building an airport in the next county that nobody flies from, to suit some politician, are much less. OTOH, if all the taxes are collected by a huge central government, the chances that you will disagree with a lot of its spending are much higher. Of course, the hybrid model is possible - with only taxes that are needed specifically for big things - like national defense - collected on hight level, and taxes needed for local things - like police, roads, schools, etc. - collected on the lower levels. That's how the federalism works.

baddox 12y ago

As opposed to being part of the UK, which is part of the EU nation?

sentenza 12y ago
Not for long. As a continental European, I'd be quite surprised if the UK voted to stay in the EU in the 2017 referendum. There is just so much hatred for the EU coming out of the UK that by now, its leaving almost seems a forgone conclusion.
- Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
  As a Brit (English, living in Scotland), I'd say that there is a way to go before that and would make two points: 1) there is only one party promising that referendum and they're behind in the polls 2) current polls say that we'd vote to stay (http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/06/17/eu-referendum-record-lead/ http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/06/17/eu-referendum-record-lea...), even before any renegotiation. There are other polls which have said otherwise but YouGov provide an on-going tracker which I think shows that, while the level of support has changed, broadly we still support EU membership. Obviously all very uncertain (and until a couple of weeks ago polls were sure Scotland would stay in the UK) but I'd say that you shouldn't confuse the volume of some of the negative views on Europe with them being a consensus - most people are quietly happy with the status quo.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Smaller nations sounds nice but in the intermediate term reality Scotland would become a minor province of the EU nation. If it's admitted at all, which is far from certain.

SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
> If it's admitted (to the EU) at all, which is far from certain. I don't see why it would not be admitted. The EU is not in the habit of turning down that kind of country: wealthy, peaceful, of Christian heritage and adjoining several EU countries. And if you want to play that game, it's not certain that England will remain in the EU. An independent Scotland could well end up the only part of Britain left in the EU. Yes that would be a crashingly stupid thing for Britain to collectively do. But it's not impossible.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > I don't see why it would not be admitted. Inability to come to mutually agreeable terms -- Scotlands wants (1) essentially automatic admission without the normal new state process, and (2) to keep the UK's special exemption for using the sterling, and (3) to get part of the UK's rebates. AFAICT, much of the rest of the EU is opposed to all three of those. Spain is particularly opposed to the first (and possibly to Scottish admission at all), because an independent Scotland getting into the EU, especially on fast-track process, is seen as encouraging Catalonian independence. > The EU is not in the habit of turning down that kind of country: wealthy, peaceful, of Christian heritage and adjoining several EU countries. First, I think you are considering the wrong category: the category of interest is "states having recently broken away from existing EU member-states", particularly as the UK isn't the only EU member with regions that have some pro-independence sentiments, and admitting such a breakaway state is something that states that have their own aspiring breakaway regions are likely to see as providing encouragement to those breakaway regions. Also, an independent Scotland would be adjoining exactly one other country (the UK), and one of the reasons that seems to keep being cited for it leaving is that, even with Scotland still in the UK and exerting pro-EU pressure, the future of the UK in the EU is locally considered less than certain, so I'm not sure where you get that "adjoining several EU countries" is a fair description. > And if you want to play that game, it's not certain that England will remain in the EU. Of course its not; I don't dispute that at all.