What if those rights are the rights of the minority to exploit the majority ?
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Like the right to be governed by Tories for decades when your country never votes for them?
You might be about to lose some rights of judicial review. If you do then the mechanism will be a simple majority vote in parliament, whose members were elected quite often by less than a simple majority in their constituencies. The British political tradition has not been for a super-majority in anything. It’s been more about getting stuff (right or wrong) done and then judging the perpetrators on the consequences.
VB
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Yeah I don’t like how our parliamentary system works, but that’s another thread!
Well I’ll be governed by Tories as well, despite never voting for them. My parliamentary constituency is no longer Tory, can we secede?
You’d like to think that would be absurd, but it’s just what everyone seems to have voted for 
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Now who is missing the point?
I’m just not convinced that disliking the outcome of a general election is a good reason to secede.
My larger point is that there are a lot of people that I feel no connection with, but I don’t think that erecting a border between us will achieve anything good. Most borders are quite arbitrary - in many cases the difference between urban and rural can be as great as the difference between English and Scottish.
I agree with much of what you say but it’s not a single GE, it is the vast majority of them throughout my adult life. The rise of English nationalism and the self destruction of the Labour party raises the spectre of the pattern repeating for the remainder of my life which is a singularly unattractive prospect.
I believe Scotland would be better served by controlling its own affairs especially when the alternative is to be subject to the whims of a Tory party unfettered by any viable opposition.
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Just tell the Scotch fekkers the price of Buckie will go up 20%.
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What was the turnout in 2014?
84.6%
That’s high but it’s still a good argument for requiring a super majority.
If 50.1% vote for independence on that turnout, that’s 42.4% of the eligible electorate.
And let’s not kid ourselves, there are many examples where super majorities are required to enact ballot results, such as strike action.
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Apparently it’s the highest turnout for any election or referendum in the United Kingdom since the January 1910 general election
My mate in Edinburgh voted for independence last time but said he would change to remain if there were another vote, having seen what a fuck up Brexit is. I think there’s some validity to that perspective.
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This did occur to me as well. Since the last referendum, the populace has had a grandstand view of what happens in negotiation terms when a single country leaves a larger block. Quite a bit of what was being claimed as possible in the last referendum probably couldn’t legitimately make the cut this time around. That’s not to say that I don’t thing Scotland should be entitled to vote on it but some of the finer detail- the tedious stuff that takes the gleam off the sunlit uplands- would probably be discussed more meaningfully in the run in to the next one.
Ich nichten lichten.
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The fact that Scotchlandshire elects ever-more foaming nationalists to parliament at each opportunity to vote should be taken as a significant bellwether as to national inclinations.
Last time they had the opportunity to express an opinion, they had not had their noses rubbed in the mess of Brexit, but having done so, I suspect a vote to secede is absolutely inevitable.
I personally DESPISE nationalism, and I am certain the SNP has only its own short-termist power-grabbing interests at heart, but we cannot ignore this - any more than we can ignore the equally vexing issues affecting NI, and we cannot apply “special” rules to a democratic vote. With the ill-feeling already generated being certain to grow as a massively divisive tory government (which nobody but a handful of farmers voted for) sets about dismantling all forms of social welfare, fairness, freedom and justice, I fear there is a risk of a slow slide into nationalist and sectarian agitation and unrest as frustration, alienation and anger grow.
I’m sure I’m missing something, because it beats me why the tories are not embracing Scottish nationalism with enthusiasm - seems like the removal of a thorn in their side, as a large pool of anyone-but-the-tories voters would be shucked-off, effectively cementing permanent tenure in government of England and Wales.
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It may be dangerous to generalise. Prior to the last indy ref I spoke to someone who convinced me that, at that stage, the Westminster government had the whip hand and importantly had a sufficiently competent negotiating team that in the event of a pro-independence decision they could play very hard ball with the Scots indeed. The effect would be to open the electorate’s eyes, force a second ref and reverse the decision. In the event this wasn’t necessary.
Soon afterwards “Eddy The Eagle” Cameron started off down the slope that led to the EU disaster in 2016. We found out on the morning after that the only people less capable than him were the ‘winners’ - Johnson et al - who turned out to have no plan whatsoever. None. Apparently they thought the grown-ups in No.10 would have one. The situation was such a heap of dogshit that Johnson bottled the option of standing for PM. In fact the person who looked best in the first week post-ref was Sturgeon.
The political clown-fest that followed has resulted in very significant degradation of capability in Westminster, both on the political side where Cummings and Milne not only look like the smartest people in their respective rooms, but actually are the smartest (heaven help us) and also in the civil service where many of the best, as always, have left and Cummings is about to hamstring the ones who remain (no pun intended).
If there were to be another indy ref Sturgeon, who knows what she’s doing, would still be there. But rUK would be represented by the people who achieved the near impossible - taking a very poor Brexit deal and making it objectively worse.
VB
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