scot47

I watched. the Commons Debate on FFA yesterday. SNP voted for FFA. Tories and Labour came into the chamber after a long absence in the bars and overwhelmingly voted against FFA.

Is Formula living in an alternate universe where the Commons have debates are not the same as the ones I watch ?

As for Hazelnut's complaint about SNP being a minority, extremist group, is she aware of the results of the General Election ? The minority groups are Tory, Labour and Libdems ! 56 SNP 1 Labour 1 Tory and 1 Libdem !

formula

The SNP want FFA but only if the rest of the UK keep giving Scotland an 8.1 billion gift every year and if Scotland's welfare bill is still paid by the rest of the UK, but with none of the welfare cuts to happen in Scotland. That won't happen. An FFA Scotland will have to balance their own books, but you can't blame the SNP for asking, even if they know what the answer will be. They can vote all they like for the other union countries to still give Scotland money, but the answer will still be "no".


The SNP can take the offer which gives them more powers than they asked for, or they can leave it: they have decided to leave it. Hence why the SNP spokesperson said Scotland will have to wait for FFS until Scotland has a better economy (doesn't need England to give them billions every year).

To take FFA now, the SNP will need to make deep cuts straight away to fill the 8.1 billion black hole in Scotland's economy and they then risk being hated in Scotland. Sturgeon made some wild claims about Scotland sending more over the border then they get back (not true, as it's the other way around): that Scotland would be the 4th(?) richest country in the world (again, not true). A FFS Scotland can not afford the level of spending they have now.




The SNP are a minor party. There are 650 seats in parliament and a party needs to win at least 326 seats to be in the majority. The SNP are a small minority party with their 56 seats. They won't be shaking up Westminser as they claimed, nor doing any other claim they made to try to get votes, because they are a minor party with very little power, just sitting on the opposition benches behind the main opposition party.

A problem for the SNP is that England and Wales can balance their economy and they will now get the powers Scotland already has and will be able to take more powers for their countries. The SNP can't stop that as they want to do because this change gives the SNP less power, as they are only a minority party; nor can they balance the economy for Scotland yet unless they make deep cuts.

TravellerMan

They are all minor parties. The Tories were voted for by around only 25% of the electorate.

Hardly a resounding victory, helped only by an unfair system that won't be changed by the government voted for by a quarter of those eligible. It's just as if there are rotten boroughs again.

formula

It's the way it always works. Labour have never changed it either.

UKIP is the 3rd most popular party in the UK by voteshare, with 3.8 million votes (about 12% of voters) but only got 1 MP. Compare that to the SNP who only received a mere 1.4 million votes, yet got 56 MPs.

The Greens got nearly as many votes as the SNP did with their 1.1 million votes, but only got 1 MP.

TravellerMan

That was the only good thing about the way the system currently works - the UKIP nutjobs only got 1 seat.