Slashdot Mirror
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.)
Everyone seems to have lost here. The Scottish will get screwed when the politicians renege on all the promises they made, and the rUK will get screwed when the politicians half deliver those promises at their expense. The question won't go away and will come back round in 15-20 years. The UK will as a whole remain very conservative and averse to change.
I'm not Scottish but I feel very sad today.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
In any other part of the world the next step would be riots followed by civil war.
Mostly the reaction seems to be a big "oh well" and a "let's move on".
But nobody is taking my Whiskey from me!
(Somewhat related: according to a Reuters poll, one in four Americans want their state to secede from the union.)
Didn't South Park point out that 1 in 4 Americans are idiots?
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
You know that jus primae noctis has been abolished, right? Scotland is already free. They are part of the free country which is the UK. They vote for members of the Parliament in London and have their own Scottish Assembly. The YES vote blew it by failing to have any plan for the currency and stubbornly insisting they could join the EU when the message from Brusells was quite clearly ... no, you can't, not for years, and not until you renounce all the special treatment the UK squeezed out.
I wonder if this will silence or encourage the separatists that want Quebec to leave Canada?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Seriously, England said that they would do better. Hopefully, they will mean it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
For the UK - they remain united.
For Scotland - they get greater autonomy without the pain of going it alone.
For the Scottish people - their heritage and nationality received much attention (hell I didn't know there WAS a Scottish flag before this). They proved them selves to be paragons of peaceful demonstration and democracy.
For the Britons - the Welsh and Irish nationalities in the UK benefit from greater recognition as well. The English too!
The UK is an amazing and interesting union - and all should be proud to be a part. And who knows... maybe the next generation will decide Yes.
Such is the take of this American anyway.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
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...
The whole theory behind it being 'rigged' was some numpty seeing a pile of ballot papers on a table marked 'No' on Sky News when you could see they said 'Yes' and jumping to conclusions. The yes campaign in Dundee (where the video was taken) even went on twitter to clear it up, but the tin foil hat brigade are having none of it: https://twitter.com/YesDundee/...
FFFRRRRREEEEEDDDDDOOOOMMMM!
As a Scot living through the referendum, it has been a sea of optimism and YES flags and events. Many people, including myself woke up this morning very disappointed but also wondering how did this happen:
One of the biggest revelations was that The over-65's swung it for No whilst all age groups from 16 to 55 voted for independence. one of the key elements of the YES campaign is that none of the media TV channels or daily newspapers supported independence and so Scots could only get information from the internet. Twitter, websites such as Bella Caledonia, Wings over Scotland have been on the only places to find real information that hadn't been skewed heavily in favour of the No campaign.
The over-65's are the least internet connected and the most trustworthy of the BBC, even though the BBC has been accused of bias in an academic study from a survey of their entire news output over a 6 month period.
Also, the over-65's have the shortest time stake in this. plus have had the trappings of gold plated pensions that the generation behind them cannot look forward to. It's a disgusting state of affairs and as a Scot I am embarrassed for my country.
45% x 85%(the turnout) x 95% (voter registration) = 36% - that's only just over 1/3rd of the population voted for independance. Lrn 2 Math.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Clever of them to rig all the opinion polls too.
They could have told the EU to get out. After seeing what lack of control of your own currency did to Greece, Italy, and Spain I've come to the conclusion the tight economic binding which is the EU is a bad idea. There are also no firewalls. It creates a situation where a country as small as Greece, Italy, or Spain can threaten to take down the entire global economy.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
You know that jus primae noctis has been abolished, right?
It actually hasn't been abolished because, you know, it's kind of hard to abolish something which most likely didn't actually exist.
It is not just that "jus primae noctis" (otherwise known as "Droit du seigneur") was abolished
it in fact never existed in the first place!
Taken from wikipidia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur
from the section -- Literary and other references
Braveheart (1995); ius primae noctis is invoked by Edward Longshanks in an attempt to breed the Scots out. This was one of the many inaccuracies cited by critics of the film.
Oh, it's binding alright. Westminster ceded the necessary legal powers regarding the nature of the union through the Edinburgh Agreement.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The US has plenty of attorneys with experience representing plaintiffs in contested national elections, going back at least to 2000.
To those of you in Scotland, feel free to take as many as you want. Return is not necessary. Special volume discounts available.
There has never been a referendum on independence in Scotland before. There were two referendums on devolution: the one in 1979 was narrowly in favour but failed because it did not reach the required 40% of the electorate, and the one in 1997 succeeded, establishing the Scottish Parliament.
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.
People want to live in a country without paying for its upkeep. What's next, city-states?
What's your point? That Scotland won't be "contributing" when it remains a part of the United Kingdom, somehow?
Your comment on "city states" sounds far more reminiscent of the direction in which London is heading. It's already approaching an entity in its own right within England, increasingly unbalancing the United Kingdom and heavily influenced by tax-dodging multinational companies.
The "City of London" (a historic title which refers only to the financial "square mile" rather than the other several hundred square miles of London itself) is notoriously undemocratic, prominent way, *way* beyond its nominal area, and interferes on behalf of its corporate paymasters in the working of the UK in general:-
http://www.theguardian.com/com...
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Special treatment. I know it's a cliché but that was really quite Orwellian.
The reason the EU would be reluctant to accept Scotland - at least in the short term - is it would encourage a whole load of other separatist movements across Europe and would further fragment an already highly fragmented demos.
The Lords is just a revising chamber. The Commons has primacy and even if the Lords reject a bill the Commons can invoke the "guillotine" to pass it anyway. There are advantages and disadvantages of course. The main advantage is that the Lords cannot challenge the commons as they have no democratic legitimacy. All they can do is discuss and argue over the various provisions and amendments to the legislation that comes their way.
Technically speaking, it is impossible for a Lord to sit in the House of Commons of even vote.
While the prime minister does not have to be a member of the House of Commons, or be a commonor at all, he is chosen by them and they are unlikely to choose anyone but one of their own, meaning no lord has been Prime Minister for well over a century. Walpole who founded the post three centuries ago was a commoner and most of his successors have been too.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Oh.
Wait.
Too soon?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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
Most importantly the Parliament Act allows the Commons to force a bill through Lords if it's been sent back twice already, regardless of what the Lords want. Therefore the most the HoL can do is slow things down.
Given this fact it's probably not surprising that nobody cares much about reforming it. It's another check/balance and all it can ultimately do is throw sand in the wheels, it has no real power.
An independent Scotland would already be in the EU, the message from Brussels was yes, they can, and the Euro or the Pound would work fine. The London-centric media is intensely unionist and propagated blatantly untrue FUD, backed by Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Microsoft, Accenture, IBM, Bayer, Daimler, EON Energy, Thyssen, XL Group, Alliance Trust, Bilfinger, and BMW, to scare Scottish voters into voting no. I'm English and have no particular affiliation to Scotland but it was shamefull how the English media, corporations, and Westminster politicians behaved during the referendum. Because of the hysteria, exaggerations, and lies implying increased crime and disorder as a consequence of the Independence Referendum, at one point Brian Docherty, Chairman of the Scottish Police Federation felt that they had to make the following public announcement:
“The Police Service of Scotland and the men and women who work in it should not be used as a political football at any time and especially so in these last few hours of the referendum campaign.
As I have previously stated the referendum debate has been robust but overwhelmingly good natured.
It was inevitable that the closer we came to the 18th of September passions would increase but that does not justify the exaggerated rhetoric that is being deployed with increased frequency. Any neutral observer could be led to believe Scotland is on the verge of societal disintegration yet nothing could be further from the truth.
Scotland’s citizens are overwhelmingly law abiding and tolerant and it is preposterous to imply that by placing a cross in a box, our citizens will suddenly abandon the personal virtues and values held dear to them all.
At this time it is more important than ever that individuals be they politicians, journalists or whoever should carefully consider their words, maintain level heads and act with respect. Respect is not demonstrated by suggesting a minority of mindless idiots are representative of anything. One of the many joys of this campaign has been how it has awakened political awareness across almost every single section of society. The success enjoyed by the many should not be sullied by the actions of the few.
Police officers must be kept free from the distractions of rhetoric better suited to the playground that the political stump. If crime has been committed it will be investigated and dealt with appropriately but quite simply police officers have better things to do than officiate in spats on social media and respond to baseless speculation of the potential for disorder on and following polling day”