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Scotland Votes No To Independence
An anonymous reader sends this news from the BBC:
Scotland voters decided to remain part of the United Kingdom on Friday, rejecting independence in a historic referendum. The decision prevented a rupture of a 307-year union with England, bringing a huge sigh of relief to the British political establishment. Scots voted 55.3 percent to 44.7 percent against independence in a vote that saw an unprecedented turnout. "Like millions of other people, I am delighted," Prime Minister David Cameron said in a speech outside 10 Downing Street on Friday morning. "It would have broken my heart to see our United Kingdom come to an end." Cameron promised new powers for Scotland in the wake of the vote, but also warned that millions of voices in England must also be heard, calling for a "balanced settlement" that would deliver more power to England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
(Somewhat related: according to a Reuters poll, one in four Americans want their state to secede from the union.)
They vote for members of the Parliament in London
Except for the members of the House of Lords, which nobody votes for. If I had a Parliament like that and got to vote against it, I would.
and have their own Scottish Assembly
Which doesn't have all the powers that many people want it to have...
I'm not quite so sure 16-17 year olds can be written off as a horde of yesbots. I recall NPR reporting yesterday that the teenage demographic surprised most with how 'No' they were, and they interviewed a couple who made clear they were decently informed of the issues. Expanding the voter pool to include more rightful citizens, who are going to spend the rest of their lives affected by this decision, is not 'rigging the game'.
It's not Scotland that'll keep them in line, it's Northern Ireland and Wales. If they renege, then perhaps there won't be another Scottish referendum to worry about, but it'd certainly fire up the seperatist movements in the rest of the union. The only way to avoid that is to both keep their promises to the Scots, and to make similar offers to the other nations.
Federalism's coming.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The house of lords arguably has a stabilising influence though. The MPs in the commons have to get voted in. That tends to mean they promise the world, and then find they can't live up to their promises. It also means they follow the most popular policies with short-term views. The lords have secure seats, so they get to focus more on the long-term impacts. It's not ideal, but it's not a terrible system.
Actually, there's quite a lot of history in various parts of the world when parts of a political entity split off. Sometimes this is done peacefully, sometimes it involves serious fighting and wars. An interesting recent case was in Switzerland, where in 1978 the Canton of Bern split, with the northern part forming the new Canton of Jura. You can read a lot about it online, including a couple of wikipedia articles. It's fairly well encoded in Swiss law, where similar votes happen every few years, typically involving a municipality with a large population that wants to secede from its canton and join another. The typical reason for such splits is as in Scotland, where the people in an area feel poorly served by the government, and think they can do better as part of a different county/state/whatever, or perhaps as an independent unit as Jura did.
Here in the US, we had a similar vote in 1863, which resulted in the new state of West Virginia being formed. This is often presented as part of the Civil War split off of the Confederacy. Historians tend to interpret it as more of a case of the western population feeling poorly treated by the remote state government in Richmond, which collect taxes in the mountains, but provided few government services in return. West Virginia did apply to the federal government for statehood, which was ratified after a few years. Unlike the Southern secession, this was done without (further) warfare. A funny aspect of the story is that now, several counties in the northeast of West Virginia have openly discussed seceding and joining either Virginia or Maryland, for pretty much the same reasons. Unlike Switzerland, though, the US doesn't have much in the way of official laws that deal with such political reorganization and redrawing of political boundaries.
The story in Scotland may work out as it often does in Switzerland, where many of the votes for secession fail. The reason is that the referendum functions as a "wake-up call" to the government. It's typical for a lot of public discussion to happen, and the government(s) make promises to fix the problems that triggered the referendum. Sometimes, as people have suggested here, the government reneges on its promises. This will be followed by another vote a few years later, which will often succeed. Or the government may fix many of the problems, which will satisfy the voters and repeated votes will fail.
The Scots would probably do well to continue discussing the issues publicly, and keep the London government aware that they can't continue to get away with everything without repercussions.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
This is also a good argument that applies to the United States, too. It explains why the 17th Amendmennt was a mistake.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I live in CA too, and pay similar taxes. I don't have a problem with the taxes.
When I came to the USA, I was taken aback by just how money-orientated the churches are. I'm irreligious, but I attended church as a kid, and it was actually about the message, about community, and definitely not about the money. Church officials (rectors and curates) are pretty poor in the UK, at least where I grew up - they have housing provided for them, and they live on a meagre salary. They are expected to work long hours for low pay. I don't get that sense when I drive past a church in San Jose that has acres (literally) of parking space, flashy electronic signs, and is located in prime real-estate area. It's very different, trust me.
I've lived here in CA for almost a decade, as I said, it's been great. There's been a couple of local school-shootings in the last year or so. Understand that from a Brit's point of view *anyone* getting shot *ever* is big news. National, prime-time TV news, possibly for days. For it to be sufficiently commonplace that it doesn't even make it past local headlines is ... disturbing.
Your point about talking to people is a good one: if I talk to people from outside the US, our views tend to resonate, but if I talk to people who are US-born, there's way less agreement. I'm not sure if it's because this is "normal" to those born here, that they just haven't experienced anything else, that they think somehow "it couldn't happen to me", or what (sometimes it's definitely a case of USA! USA! USA!). Definitely there is a difference in outlook between natives and foreigners.
One more thing: I'm not trying to paint the UK as some sort of panacea - it's not, by a long chalk. Neither am I US-bashing for the sake of it - the above is just my observations over time. The UK has it's own issues no doubt, but bottom line: even as a white male living in an affluent area in the USA, I feel safer in the UK. And I definitely feel my son would be safer at school there. This is the fact that's weighing on me more and more.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!