Scottish Independence and the UK State

[AhabsOtherLeg]

No exit polls , BBC wouldn't spring for one apparently, don't know about why the polling companies themselves won't.

It's not happening in London.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I think a great many of you are being staggeringly naive.
- which surprises me.

Speak more, O sage!

I'll have a guess...

The economic trauma of national separation will give the transnational elites an excuse to impose even greater austerity on both sides of the newly-re-officialized border, while giving the public on both sides a ready-made hate group to blame all their new and ongoing woes on (rather than having them wise up and blame it all on untrammelled corporate power and the undemocratic influence of global capital)?

Or the EU secretly wants to break up established European nation-states so that they can be more easily absorbed and controlled as smaller (weaker) economic regions?

I think we covered both things earlier in the thread.

Colour revolutions were also mentioned.

All these things are possible, I suppose. Still couldn't vote No.

[zangtang]

can't bring myself to call it brave - tho if not naive, brave it be.
wish i could see anything other than massive destruction
- and not a Shiva-tastic regenerative destruction at that.

I find the panicking a bit demeaning.
we'll see by breakfast.

[solace]

The first results are coming in for the referendum to decide whether Scotland should stay in the UK or become an independent country.

Clackmannanshire was the earliest to declare, with "No" winning 19,036 votes and "Yes" on 16,350 on an 89% turnout.

Counting will be carried out through the night, with individual results announced for each of Scotland's 32 local authority areas.

The final national result is expected after 06:30 BST (05:30 GMT) on Friday.

A YouGov on-the-day survey published shortly after polls closed suggested "No" was on 54% and "Yes" on 46%

.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-sco ... s-29263022

[seemslikeadream]

Everybody Turns Into Scotsmen tonight!



none of us have control over our own destiny

[RocketMan]

Well, Scotland, you gave it the good college try...

[semper occultus]

.....really sorry Ahab / Mac.....bitter to make it to the final and watch the other side lift the Trophy...but you've basically got the devo-max booby prize anyway (?).....certainly no time for triumphalism nor indeed any of this crap about being a laughing-stock for bottling bla-bla-bla....after inflicting a political near-death-experience on the establishment I don't think anyone thinks this was a vote for the status quo or business as usual...historic ramifications will follow I'm sure....

[gnosticheresy_2]

Arse. Still I suspect we'll be doing this all again in a few years time ....

[semper occultus]

....Salmond couldn't get all the SNP voters on-side....

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Oooooft, sair yin. I'm gutted.

I suppose people who are even vaguely to the left in politics soon get used to being regularly kicked in the teeth by the electorate, and often have to watch their dreams and ideals take a vicious shoeing in the gutter, but this one really hurts.

Haven't really had time to fully process the result yet, and I was up most of the night so won't be able to offer much analysis. Throughout the campaign I was pretty sure we'd lose in the end, but of course you don't admit that while campaigning - so the No vote isn't a surprise. I hoped we'd get up to around 48% though - that number would've sent a very clear signal indeed, and might even have been enough to deliver a long and lingering death blow to the Union.

It didn't happen. Looking at the map Semper posted, it's pretty clear that the No vote held a pretty comfortable sway over the country as a whole. The Yes enclaves (principally made up of the poorer major cities - Glasgow, Dundee) are actually so small-looking on the map that it makes you wonder how we reached 44.7% of the total vote at all, especially with the unexpectedly low turnout in those areas.

Ha! One undeniable good effect of the referendum is that we can now count Glasgow's 75% showing at the polls as a low turnout.

....The Labour and Tory apparatchiks on the BBC are already gently rowing back from defining the further powers we were promised. Cameron's virtually announcing a federal UK, but the rest of them are saying nothing. You can see their brains working behind the eyes. Think I'll move out to West Dumbartonshire. They know what's up.

Thanks for not being triumphalist about it Semper, you would've been well within your rights to have a wee jab at least, lol.

It's bad for all of us that a campaign as shambolic and ugly as Better Together actually won the vote. They'll learn a terrible lesson from this - fear and lies are the most effective tools of governance. Positivity counts for shit. But I suppose they learned that lesson long ago.

Semper's right, those prosperous rural areas which nowadays vote SNP for Holyrood (Moray, Perth and Kinross, Argyll and Bute, even Angus) just voted No to independence.
Hope the UK leaves the EU in 2017 - where are all your agricultural subsidies now, eh? lol

I look forward to paying the House of Lords expenses for Lord Alistair Darling, Lord Jim Murphy, and Lord Gordon Brown over the next twenty years. Hell, possibly even Lord George Galloway - for services rendered. The renewal of Trident will also fill me with joy and pride over the coming decades.

Our soldiers will soon enough be on their way to Syria (and Iraq again). Christ.

Time for a drink.

[semper occultus]

Time for a drink

.....mmm....although you have quite alot of those times eh Ahab....

...and yes, the vermin in the ermine.....Lord Galloway of Notting Hill..that has a certain...gravitas

[AhabsOtherLeg]

you have quite alot of those times eh Ahab....

Can ye blame me?

Westminster funds terrorists, murders and tortures British citizens both at home and abroad, colludes with foreign powers to illegally surveil it's own populace, drives "Go Home" vans through immigrant areas, and starts illegal wars at it's whim. It is also a massive nest of pedos.

All of this is revealed, publically, and what do the Scottish people do?

Give it a renewed mandate to govern them. FFS.

And if you think I'm bitter, I can tell you that Alex Salmond isn't taking the result very well either. He's really let himself go since the announcement:



Ach, I'm really struggling to find anything funny about this at all, tbh. Disengaging entirely from politics in 3... 2... 1...

[coffin_dodger]

Disengaging entirely from politics in 3... 2... 1...

Aha, the plan is revealed.

[Basement Jack]

No wonder Scotland has a red face...I personally am desperately disappointed in the sweaty sock party poopers...

[IanEye]

i would prefer to see a "purple" representation of this voting outcome, instead on the binary red/blue.

also, i don't know enough about Scotland to know which one of these territories is the "Florida" or the "Ohio".
Is it possible to flip just one of these in terms of population/votes to get a different result?