Scottish independence

The biggest mistake the Scottish ever made was not voting Yes to Independence the last time they had the chance too.

Of course they could never have seen Brexit coming or the disasterus Governments and leadership or shall I say lack or leadership that the UK would have after Brexit.

If they could I am sure they would have voted for Independence then and be on there way to joining the EU.

I am really not sure how they are going to get out of the mess that is the UK now. Maybe they could do as another poster said and have a referendum anyway against the wishes of there London masters or they could go the IRA route if they were really that desperate for it. But that might not be seen as too good by the EU either

I think they will have to try and compromise with there masters in London someway.

Scotland is not an independent coun ry and the Scottish government gets their budget set by Westminster so your stance that the issues in Scotland only pertain to Scotland and have nothing to do with how Westminster runs things is wide off the mark

People had different lifestyles and expectations 100 years ago. I doubt that any Scot would be prepared for that, just for independence's sake.

If I would have lived in Ireland back then, I doubt that I myself would have stayed around or would have had anything to celebrate. Even in the DeValera years, Irish emmigrated in masses. Times were not that rosy in Ireland back then.

"How is Scotland to achieve independence"

To me, there is only one route open now and that is a scenario after a Westminster election where the SNP votes are needed to form a majority, and a referendum is the price of their support.

It might be the only route but it is incredibly unrealistic, Starmer has ruled out an SNP partnership due to the price being an indy ref and the tories will also be unlikely to agree to such terms, also I doubt the SNP would ever support the tories regardless of the terms.

But even so this is hardly a democratic path to independence if all they can hope for is for English voters splitting in such a perfect way that the lib dems arent a viable option and only the SNP can help with a majority.

I agree so no matter how well the SNP do and what kind of theoretical stalemate happens neither major party will ever give the SNP what they want in exchange for majority support.

I think we will see an act and Westminster will stipulate that Yes will need a majority of the electorate, just like they did in 1978

Also considering Jack is about to be appointed to the House of the unelected

English nationalists keep on saying that there isn't a hope in hell Scotland would vote to leave the union. Why aren't they (the English nationalists) begging for a referendum then? A referendum defeat would kill off the issue for years, maybe decades.

Wasn't there an effort to set up devolved regions under Blair which failed after they put it to a vote in the North of England?

It's a very sensible idea for the UK's long-term future, but Britain is a very idiosyncratic, intransigent state when it comes to its political system. Even the act of holding a referendum is quite rare for them. Never mind all the other overdue measures like transforming/abolishing the House of Lords or drafting a codified constitution. They have their own arcane mess of a system and they're very proud of it.

So something as revolutionary as full federalisation seems very unrealistic to me. Even though it would actually put Scotland on an equal footing with the rest of the country - which so many British nationalists pretend they already are.