Scottish independence

Labour are the nasty wing of Unionists in Scotland. Hard line, sectarian, angry.

The Scottish Tories by comparison are people that can be talked with. Even if not agreed with.

That is still on Labour imo. Though I would say none have managed it within 3 weeks of taking office and had such an obviously attributable decision causing this.

The SNP issued their economic case for independence yesterday and it is a bit underwhelming

8 years since the referendum defeat, they still propose sterlingisation as the currency answer. They discuss customs borders as well which immediately gives the 'independence will mean border checks' impetus to unionists and the media.

Fair to say the return of Boris Johnson would be the best outcome for the Scottish independence campaign?

2022 is a big argument for independence no matter who is pm. However a pm who has vocally stated that they don't see this as a union and someone from Scotland should not be able to rise to the highest office in the land is a nice cherry on top.

The more likely an independence referendum is to succeed, the less likely they are to get one.

The Tories will not give them another one. The most that they could hope for would be a Labour government, needing seats for a majority, to have one as part of a deal. If the economic situation does not improve greatly in the next two years, Labour won't need their support.

If Sunak ushers in a new era of austerity as many are predicting, then it will be vital for the SNP to put forward a credible economic alternative. They got these policies wrong in 2014, and the latest proposals on keeping the pound don't seem to be winning anyone over. If the newest polls on independence don't show movement to yes, I would imagine it's due to concern over the economy.

8 years is very short but the years havent exactly been light with change and societal issues, specifically brexit and absolute tory mismanagement to name but 2. And considering one of the main points the English establishment campaigned for them to reamin was EU membership and many then voted remain for that reason a new Ref in such a short time would be entirely reasonable. The Irony of course that if Brexit had been remain by a similar margin to the indy ref its most ardent supporters would have been pushing for a rerun a lot sooner than 8 years, they opf course are some of the most loud opponents to another scottish indy ref.

"Sovereignty for me but not for thee"

It's not a short time.

In democratic politics, seven years is generally considered long enough to be a reset of pretty well anything. Scandals that are more than seven years old have negligible traction on voting decisions today; likewise triumphs of more than seven years ago. Mandates conferred at elections more than seven years ago have expired - no democracy has parliamentary or executive terms of longer than seven years, and for good reason. Etc.

Of course people will point out that this or that referendum was supposed to settle some question "for a generation", or some such language. I think there's two answers to that:

• If this was a prediction as to the political effect the referendum would have, it was a mistaken one. A referendum can end debate on a particular matter for a prolonged period - see e.g. the UK referendum on EU membership in 1975. But it does this not by some magical force, like a Harry Potter spell, but by showing that there is in fact a substantial national consensus on the question - the 1975 referendum gave a 67% vote in favour of continued membership, and it's that result which laid the question to rest. A referendum may achieve the very opposite effect by showing that there is no settled consensus, and that in fact opinion is very closely balanced. (I'd argue that the UK's 2016 referendum on EU membership had precisely this effect.) On this view, if a politician predicts that a referendum will settle some question for a generation, that prediction may simply turn out to have been wrong.
• What if we understand the politician to be promising or decreeing that a referendum will settle a question permanently, or for a prolonged period? Well, I'd argue that such a politician is exceeding his authority. David Cameron, famously, said that the 2014 Scottish independence referendum would settle the question for a generation. But the Prime Minister has no power to make or enforce such a decision. The most he could say was that he would not promote another referendum. He could not bind the policy of another Prime Minister, of his own or another party. And he certainly couldn't bind Parliament; Parliament can legislate to conduct another referendum whenever it wishes and - the seven-year rule - what David Cameron may or may not have promised more than seven years ago will have no traction.

I think you're on the wrong board, PT. Ireland is the one country that has experience both of being governed from Westminster as part of the UK and of being a member state of the EU in its own right. The difference is dramatic, and this board is full of people who know that.

I agree. Whatever the justification for the Tory refusal to allow a referendum, it doesn't become any more unjustifiable because of the fake referendums conducted by Russia in parts of Ukraine.

But on a wider level there is a looser connection. Russia is refusing to recognise the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination. Obviously, what they are doing as a result of that - the invasion of Ukraine - has no parallel in the Scottish case. But, essentially, Westminster is seeking to keep the UK together and one of the tools that it claims to have, and that it seeks to use, is simply to deny that the Scots have a right to express an opinion on whether they want to stay in the UK or not.

That's not, as I say, the invasion of Ukraine, but it's also not a sustainable basis for holding the UK together, both on a practical level (that strategy failed to keep the UK together in 1922; why would it work now?) and on a principled level (all nations have a right to self-determination; on what basis can the UK deny that the Scots do?).