Referenda are binding forever, anything else is undemocratic - where have you been for the last 3 years?
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Sorry, I’ve been ill 
I think it is just political bad timing, Brexit has cast a long Shadow and the Tories will not want to be seen as the party that acheives brexit for England alone. Give it five years or so.
Once the Tories have re-set some of the English constituency boundaries and tinkered with the Constitution, then I think they will grant Scotland that referendum. NI will inevitably reunite and Wales and England will be all that is left.
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The even split was the best reason for requiring a super majority. That’s not rigging anything it’s making sure we avoid what’s happening in England over brexit.
A fanatic wouldn’t understand I suppose.
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It’s also making sure that Trump won’t get what should be coming to him. The requirement for a super majority is a mature and thoughtful thing when it means that I win. It is a vile and repressive thing when it means that I lose. As long as one vote can make the difference between result A and result B where we set the decision point (simple majority, 60%, two thirds) is just a measure of how change-resistant we want to be.
VB
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The idea that 51% of the vote gives someone 100% of the say is repulsive to me.
How about the idea that 66% of the vote gives someone 0% of the say ?
In a perfect world you’d grade the outcome. So something like
<40% Scots don’t even get to mention independence for 20 years
40-45% They can talk about it but don’t get another shot for 10 years
45-50% They get another vote in 3 years
50-55% They’re let out on licence but have to ask the population in 2-3 years whether they want to stay out
55-60% They’re out but if, in the next 10 years, 20% of the electorate sign a petition requesting one, there has to be a vote about coming back
60+% They’re gone until either they come begging or we invade them
VB
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That reads as a bit of a cheap shot.
FWVLIW I think that the failure to impose a super majority and to treat an advisory referendum as binding were huge mistakes. I very much doubt the Scotch and Norn Iron folk will choose to repeat those errors if or when they have their referendums. Without quoting Parnell at you, it should be for the people of those countries to determine where, when and how any referendum happens.
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Then you have to decide the question of scale. How small a group should be allowed to secede ?
This is actually a good watch
And what if they’re taking a disproportionately large share of the national assets with them when they go (would have been an issue at the height of the North Sea oil boom in Scotland, and has been an issue leading to bloody wars in other places) ?
VB
Having the right to revisit the referendum is fine as long as that principle continues. I suspect that if leave is successful it will suddenly become a once in a lifetime decision.
The only thing I’m fanatical about is Celtic football club.
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With all due respect, Pimlico is a vastly different proposition to that faced by Ireland or Scotchland. In many ways the Scotch position is easiest. Leave UK, set up as independent country then join EU. Norn Iron might be more complicated by historical issues concerning the Republic of Mickistan south of the border. The probability of a shooting war is quite high. Anyhow, both of those are a doddle compared to the issues faced by the Basques, Catalans or Kurds where new states would need to emerge from 2 or more countries.
It wasn’t until we moved out here that I discovered that “Basque Country” runs almost as far north as Bordeaux. I had no idea it wasn’t just a Spanish thing.
I thought it included Cornwall.
VB
And the Catalans are in France on the other coast and on the Pyrenees…
I spent a few summers working in France but very close to the Spanish Border.
On the way back one year I couldn’t understand why the Parisians were all being aresholes (Although this is a standard fallback position) and not helping when I was asking for stuff.
Until someone pointed out that I was speaking very bad French with a strong Catalan accent 
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Can’t have spent much time in Paris at that point in your life then, cos arsehole-with-an-unshakeable-superiority-complex is the default setting IME.
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As much as I love French France, Parisians are exceptional cunts of the highest order.
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