robin1234

Attributing "if you think this, then you are deluding yourself" to BE members who have posted comments on this thread. I don't see a lot of delusionals on this thread, mostly thoughtful people with constructive comments .. Also the odd joke and less than serious take on the issue at hand.

A significant majority of a very high turnout voted "No." I assume the Scottish electorate are democratic enough and mature enough to respect that, and move forward with positive proposals for devolution, hopefully applied more equally to all four countries in the Union.

RoadWarriorFromLP

I would expect it to be more akin to the Quebec situation: a PITA that is used inappropriately for political leverage.

robin1234

Well, Quebec has been simple compared to the UK conundrum, since Quebec is one province in a Federation. In the UK they didn't create the federation yet. In hindsight, the British maybe should not have gone down the devolution route at all.

When Scotland and England originally created the union, both parties seemed happy with a united parliament.

Pulaski

Ireland did too, for over 100 years. Then some of them changed their mind.

Steerpike

lets.look on ,the bright.side;no more. oddly punctuated .posts from, Neilcumming!

If he'd only explained what impediment was causing this, I could cope, but without any explanation, my brain was all set to explode!

Sally Redux

There was a post from that
fuchs fellow the other
day and the weird
thing was I could understand it very
strange it was like I'd got a Babel
fish just for a minute.

Hotscot

42...duh...

robin1234

He was basically disconnected. He never actually replied or responded, just shot off random effusions. I blame it on those little phone-type devices the young people seem to carry everywhere these days.

Lothianlad

The Battle for Scotland is over....the Battle for ENGLAND is about to begin.....so, tin hats at the ready everyone.....prepare to take cover.....things could get hairy and scary....but keep calm and carry on.............and watch this space.

scot47

Let's see if they can deliver the new deal promised in "The Vow". I suspect not.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/po...d-nick-4265992

scrubbedexpat099

Hotscot

Did the rally happen?

RoadWarriorFromLP

The issue isn't so much about the specific affiliation between the big entity and the would-be breakaway, but with the disruption that comes from dredging it up and hashing it out.

It's like having a partner who always threatens divorce but doesn't leave or a wing of the Congress who constantly threatens impeachment when there's no chance of removing the president. It's about creating drama for the sake of taking power inappropriately.

Specific to Scotland, it's also telling that they made some fairly obvious efforts to skew the vote (the teen voters and exclusion of Scots who live in the UK outside of Scotland). And the idea that something of that magnitude could be decided by a simple majority instead of a supermajority is a bit hard to fathom, frankly; that's too important a decision to be made without greater consensus, in my opinion.

Pulaski

A post of yours I actually agree with, from start to finish. Strange times indeed!

robin1234

Yes, I completely agree with this.

Except, perhaps, your point about people of Scottish origin living elsewhere in the UK being excluded. It seems to me that was right and proper, otherwise you would be raising the specter of an ethnic definition of "who is a Scot."

You are right, the idea that a decision of this magnitude can be made by a simple majority vote in a referendum makes no sense, and is at the heart of the error made by the UK Government in agreeing to the process.