Scotland And Independence.

[apelike]

On 17/12/2019 at 07:58, L00b said:

But you made the argument in post #55 -to which I was replying- that Scotland would weaker, because it would have no military.

True I did as Scotland would be weaker militarily.

 

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So does Ireland, and yet it's wielded a pretty big stick in the Brexit negotiations so far - arguably a bigger one than the UK (not the only example of Irish soft power projection by far).

 

Can you stop shifting the goalposts a bit? Please.

You have now introduced Ireland into the debate, which is immaterial as it does not matter how Ireland are doing only whether Scotland would be weaker by having no military. So who has moved the goalposts! 

 

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So, to get back at Janus question, you don't think that the UK losing 'ownership' and sovereign jurisdiction over  e.g. Faslane, not to mention potentially lose a portion of its MoD budget to a foreign country by way of lease payments (or functional equivalent, e.g. proxy 'Scottish' military) would weaken it militarily?

As already stated that would obviously depend on the Sovereign negotiations that would need to take place between the government of the UK and Scotland for independence to proceed. A bit like what is happening with the UK and the EU over Brexit as plenty of negotiations will be needed.

 

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Dunno about you, but a loss of asset(s) and/or control over them, strikes me pretty much as a weakening development.

As above as we don't know at this time what assets will be lost or kept by the UK.

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by apelike

[Westie1889]

7 hours ago, Janus said:

I hear what you are saying. 

 

I'm quite curious to know why Nicola Sturgeon seems to be so vociferous about the indyref2?  It does not sound like she is on the fence-it seems very personal to her. In 2014, I understand that over 55%  of the Scotttish people voted  against independence. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Janus said:

I hear what you are saying. 

 

I'm quite curious to know why Nicola Sturgeon seems to be so vociferous about the indyref2?  It does not sound like she is on the fence-it seems very personal to her. In 2014, I understand that over 55%  of the Scotttish people voted  against independence. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think Sturgeons personal motivation is more political than anti-English, she was a lawyer working in poor areas and believes socialism is the answer to cure all ills.

Alex Salmond was different, there is the famous story about when he was at university and had an  English girlfriend at the time. He was constantly criticising the English so she said to him ‘if you hate them that much why don’t you join the SNP’ and the rest is history.

[Janus]

That is an interesting bit of information Westie1889-thank you.

 Your post got me thinking about the backgrounds of individuals in political roles, and what makes them tick.

I do wonder why a person can have a 'blanket hate'  of any race of people. Hating so many people that you have never met.

 

[L00b]

11 hours ago, apelike said:

True I did as Scotland would be weaker militarily.

But that wasn't Janus question, was it? 

11 hours ago, apelike said:

You have now introduced Ireland into the debate, which is immaterial as it does not matter how Ireland are doing only whether Scotland would be weaker by having no military. So who has moved the goalposts! 

I introduced Ireland as a counterpoint to your strawman (answering a question which Janus did not ask), that Scotland would be weaker militarily: of course it is material, since Ireland doesn't have an army to speak of (so 'weaker' like Scotland would be under your logic), is around the same size as Scotland, and yet projects diplomatic plenty of diplomatic power, highly successfully so (keeping in mind that 'projecting diplomatic power' is usually one of the main pragmatic points of having an army, in peacetime).

 

If you didn't move the goalposts in the first place, I wouldn't have to adjust my aim, would I? 

Edited December 19, 2019 by L00b

[alchresearch]

On 16/12/2019 at 19:00, Baron99 said:

I've not seen or HEARD him in the past month or so outside Westminster, kind of missing him.  Wonder if he has any regrets about wasting the last 3 & half years of his life? 

 

A tv company aught to interview him & ask. 

He was in the Metro today.

 

https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/18/steve-bray-shouted-stop-brexit-bbc-news-finally-admits-defeat-11924503/

[bassett one]

give them a vote as with wales as they quite obviously dont want to be in the common,market,so why not?

[Baron99]

1 hour ago, bassett one said:

give them a vote as with wales as they quite obviously dont want to be in the common,market,so why not?

Agree.  Then they could stand on their own two feet in the world. 

 

Also an additional benefit for the rest of us is that Scotland would no longer receive around £11k per head of population for services from The Treasury, compared with around £9k per head that's allocated to England under the Barnett Formula. 

 

Think of the savings or extra monies to spend south of the border.  I'm sure with all the revenue from their oil & JK Rawling's earnings, they'd get by? 

Edited December 19, 2019 by Baron99

[apelike]

3 hours ago, L00b said:

But that wasn't Janus question, was it? 

No it wasn't but I gave an valid answer and pointed out why its that Scotland would be weaker from it because it would not affect the rest of the UK militarily and make the UK weaker.

 

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I introduced Ireland as a counterpoint to your strawman (answering a question which Janus did not ask), that Scotland would be weaker militarily: of course it is material, since Ireland doesn't have an army to speak of (so 'weaker' like Scotland would be under your logic), is around the same size as Scotland, and yet projects diplomatic plenty of diplomatic power, highly successfully so (keeping in mind that 'projecting diplomatic power' is usually one of the main pragmatic points of having an army, in peacetime).

Ireland does not have an army to speak of?  It may have a neutral military stance but has 7,300 men and women in it and 1,600 reservists. Despite it being neutral it has a formal relationship with Nato and although not a full member it has signed up to the NATO Partnership for Peace programme. According to wiki it also participates in the EU Battlegroups. It also has roles of defending the State and internal security within the State.

 

Ireland can, as you put it, project their diplomatic power because it is a single member of the EU in its own right which makes a big contribution in trade and taxes. Now compare that with a Scotland that has just left the UK and not a member of the EU and you will see the difference.

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by apelike

[L00b]

56 minutes ago, apelike said:

No it wasn't but I gave an valid answer and pointed out why its that Scotland would be weaker from it because it would not affect the rest of the UK militarily and make the UK weaker.

"Scotland would be weaker because it would not affect the rest of the UK militarily and make the UK weaker"?

 

Have you ever heard of the expression 'non sequitur'?

 

Now then, weaknesses. 

 

Do you agree that, in the case of Scottish independence, and thus Scottish territorial sovereignty, ownership of the Faslane base (the land it sits on, let's keep this simple and not bring fixtures and hardware into the equation) would pass from the UK to Scotland, and thus Scotland would gain the authority to either tell the UK to do one over Faslane, or to lease the place to the UK for the sake of continuity?

 

If not, why not?

 

If yes, do you agree that Scotland therefore gaining a full and permanent veto over the continuity of the UK's main strategic SSBN site, amounts to weakening the UK militarily (since the UK could then be made to relocate from Faslane -to wherever and at whatever required costs- on the Scottish government's say-so)?

 

If not, why not?

 

And no, Ireland doesn't have an army worth speaking of, when the context of Janus' and others' posts was the UK army: no airforce, barely any airlift capacity, next-to-nothing in the way of a navy, zero anti air or ASW capacity, etc, etc. That's why a comparison with a notionally-independent Scotland (and it's notional military capacity, which you brought into the conversation first) is worth making: because a freshly-independent Scotland likely couldn't afford even as much as Ireland, by way of an 'army'.

 

For the rest of it: much of Ireland remembers in what socio-economic state it joined the EU, and what the EU has done for it in that respect. Including post-2008, and more recently post-2016. That 'big contribution'? It was a few decades in coming, and again for some years after the GFC hangover. Not much difference to how it would be for a freshly-independent Scotland there, I think.

Edited December 19, 2019 by L00b

[Minimo]

I can't see how Scotland would be better off independent from the rest of the UK. They would presumably lose the income from the Barnett formula. How would they fund free uni tuition, prescriptions etc? Would they expect the EU to step in?