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Scottish Independence - If Yes Has A Small Victory
nessyfencer
Posts: 9,195 Forum Member
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I have been thinking about something and just wondered if I am way off or what your thoughts are. Imagine the vote came back something like Yes - 51% No - 49% then would that carry as a Yes vote?
The No campaign are simply saying no, we don't want to change. The Yes camp though are the ones actively looking to make massive changes and therefore have to convince the majority of the country to agree to it.
Is there any set percentage that Yes has to get in order to be carried?
In the event of a marginal scrape through would Westminster have the power to veto any constitutional changes and would they do it?
The No campaign are simply saying no, we don't want to change. The Yes camp though are the ones actively looking to make massive changes and therefore have to convince the majority of the country to agree to it.
Is there any set percentage that Yes has to get in order to be carried?
In the event of a marginal scrape through would Westminster have the power to veto any constitutional changes and would they do it?
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As far as I recall, 50% +1 is enough.
No set percentage (as per '79), 51% vote will takes us down the road to independence, but I would hazard it will be acrimonious (both UK wide and within Scotland).
How is a draw settled? A penalty shootout, a sing off or Salmond and Darling going 3 rounds in a boxing ring?
In such a scenario I would not be surprised if there was a huge move towards separation between the north and south of Scotland. I just cannot see how the north of Scotland could ever live with being forced into divorce from the UK by the votes of central Scotland (as would be the case in a 51/49 result). There is enough animosity under the current arrangements as it is.
Is there much difference in general opinion between north/central/southern scotland? Its not something i have seen mentioned?
If, as it is looking like its going to be, the vote is very tight, its certainly going to be massively divisive. I hope its just pre-vote posturing like we have seen many times before and when it comes down to it people choose to stick to what they know and the there is a substantial no victory.
It will certainly be interesting to see what the regional breakdown is. I full expect Glasgow, despite being a Labour heartland, to support independence but Edinburgh and the more rural areas are harder to predict. Edinburgh has quite a high "ex-pat" English population with the vote and has closer business ties to the rest of the UK because of the financial sector.
A very unhappy and divided country.
It's going to be divided anyway. Having directed their vitriol at Westminster, The Tories, Labour and anyone who puts out figures that don't support a particular argument - once the vote is over the infighting will kick off in fine style and continue for years to come.
It was a similar story in Wales - the north being quite isolated from Cardiff and looking more to Liverpool/Manchester as their local "big cities", and so not relishing rule from a distant Welsh assembly.
I was speaking to Anwar Sarwar, Labour MP for Glasgow Central back in July, he was out on the campaign trail, anyway his view, which I've heard repeated many times, was that the North and North East are rock solid No, as are the Borders and Edinburgh, its Glasgow that's hard to predict and as the Greater Glasgow area is home to about half Scotland's electorate its really hard to predict what the final outcome will be.
Without being funny the vast majority of Scotland actually has low levels of unemployment and welfare dependency, with Gordon in the NE having the lowest unemployment in the entire UK, Glasgow is the exception and its for this reason the SNP have made such a big play about welfare and the NHS in this debate.
There has already been a lot of animosity create by the fact that local authorities in the North get back far less of the business rates than they generate, the surplus subsidising the central belt, infrastructure spending north of the Tay has been non-existent since devolution, and more recently the efficiency drive of the SNP has seen hundreds of jobs in the police, ambulance and fire services transferred from controls in Aberdeen, Inverness etc to locations in the central belt.
Unlikely as the SNP have been pulling power to the centre like they have with the nationalisation of the police and fire services.
Indeed you have to remember that the north of Scotland along with Edinburgh is defacto where the Scottish economy is located. Aberdeen generates 28% of Scotland's GDP thanks to the oil and wider energy industries while the rural NE, Highlands and Islands bring in the tourist revenues and indeed are the hub of the food, drink and agriculture industries. Its a well known and undisputed fact that the rest of Scotland massively subsidises the central belt, thus devolution for the north is simply never going to happen.
I wouldn't rule it out and I think such an organisation would gain votes quite quickly.
And this is the problem. If I was a betting man I'd say the NO vote will take between 53-57% of the vote
You end up with a increasingly divided country which suits the SNP in Scotland as they will try and tie themselves inextricably with the new "dolchstoss" legend which will say that they should have won the referendum if only for the lies, dirty tricks, false information, fraud etc. etc. by the Westminster government.
It's deeply devisive and will wreck Scotland's political discourse for years
Flick a coin. Actually that solution could've saved a lot of time and money;-)
Toss a caber?
Either that or Scotland can be independent on alternate weeks.
that almost sounds like salmond's plan anyway ;-)
Would that be a £1 Sterling coin or a 1 Euro coin? Alastair Darling needs to know (and also what is your plan B, if a currency union isn't feesable?)
Toss of a coin is the usual method, in national/council elections anyway. Very unlikely to happen in this, as there are so many voters and it's not divided into seats.
It's happened before in other elections though.