UK: Conservatives predicted to win election with commanding majority

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Last I checked, you don’t get points and create policy by not being the majority party. I don’t recall any of our liberal E.U.phile friends in the U.K. defending the majority referendum vote in 2016, and many calls to revote the referendum, because surely everyone should have voted as they did and they only need to see sense.

Feel free to panic about the state of the country, but pulling out irrelevant stats like “well atchually, Remainer candidates won a majority of the vote” is, like I said, sour grapes. Just as in the US we have heard incessantly how Clinton actually won the popular vote, and that we need to completely redesign our system of government so that Democrats can win all elections for the good of the country.

Now, back to the regular programming of how anyone who supports Brexit can’t possibly know what they are talking about, how great the EU is, threats to support breaking up the U.K. because the E.U. has our best interests in mind, how Americans don’t know anything, etc. Please, continue.
 
FirstFiveEighth said:
Feel free to panic about the state of the country, but pulling out irrelevant stats like “well atchually, Remainer candidates won a majority of the vote” is, like I said, sour grapes.
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So what about the fact that in Scotland, my country, the SNP - running on a clear campaign message of “Stop Brexit dragging Scotland out of the EU through a second independence referendum on our membership of the UK” - won a landslide of 48 out of the 59 seats in Scotland, a bigger share (proportionately) of both the FPTP & popular vote than Johnson managed in England or UK generally?

Again, as in every past vote, there was no Tory or Brexit majority in Scotland. The SNP took scores of seats off our Tories up here, reducing them from 13 to 6 seats. They had a devastating night in Scotland, as did Labour for the meek neutrality of some of its MPs.

Take for instance my constituency. Traditionally Labour. Voted SNP by a small margin of 60 ballots in 2017.

Last Thursday, the SNP candidate campaigned fiercely against Scotland being dragged out of the EU by Brexit. The Labour candidate, by contrast, said zilch about Brexit in his campaign material. The SNP majority increased by 4,000. It was the same story across much of Scotland, a very different story from the one that’s obviously impressed you in England.

You would appear to have a clear partiality to the views of English Brexiteers, which is perfectly fine, just as I am an unrepentant Pro-EU Scot. But there are more nations in the UK than England. And two of them remain passionately pro-EU / anti-Brexit, whatever happens in England. The government of one those nations’ is intent on making good on our democratic exercise and the will of our people, which is not represented by the English parliamentary majority for Brexit and never has been nor will be.

That’s not sour-grapes. The SNP and their pro-EU agenda won in Scotland, and by a huge margin at that (the SNP’s 45% of the popular vote yielded 80% of the seats; the Conservatives won six seats and were runners up with their 25.1% of the vote netting them 10% of the seats. That’s a very distant second place indeed).
 
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More Project Fear in this thread. The German automakers and the French farmers are not all that interested in losing their biggest single export market. So they will most surely have something to say. Deals with countries/regions like Canada and South American could afford to be dragged out as they don’t mean that much to the EU in the greater scheme of things. But that can’t be said as much about the UK market. So look for cooler heads to prevail as there is too much money involved not to do that. Plus once past 2020, the UK is free to do its own deals and they won’t need the approval of 27 other countries for that.

It was recalled elsewhere that the UK once had good trade deals with its Commonwealth countries, but those deals were forced out when the UK accepted the EU authority over its trade. Look for those deals to come back. It will not take seven years to get a UK-Canada deal, for instance. Or a UK-Australia deal, for that matter.

The EU tried fairly hard to have the financial center of Europe functions moved to Frankfurt from London, but they never came close. It is true that the London financiers favored Remain, but it has to be remembered that London banking and finance long, long predates the old Common Market, let alone the EU so the culture and the history exists for the London bankers to continue to be predominant even without the tie to the EU.

With the disastrous negative interest rate regime promulgated by the ECB, the euro can no longer be taken seriously as a possible reserve currency and the UK is better off separating itself from the EU bank issues (think DB, for instance). The latest exchange rates between the EU, the UK and the US reflect this.
 
Zzyzx_Road said:
More Project Fear in this thread.
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Aaargh, always annoys me that they stole that tagline from us! 😉

Scotland invented the “project fear” tag during the 2014 independence referendum. The Brexiteers stole it during the 2016 Brexit referendum:

Project Fear - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
" Project Fear " is a term that has entered common usage in British politics in the 21st century, principally in relation to two major referendum debates.

It first appeared during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, and then again during and after the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership.

The phrase has been used to characterise claims of economic and socio-political dangers–primarily those that would result from a change to the existing political status quo–as scaremongering and pessimism.[1]

It was originally intended as a joke, “an ironic suggestion for Yes Scotland – a handy name it could use in its constant complaints about Better Together’s alleged Unionist scaremongering”. However it was subsequently adopted by Scottish nationalists after Shorthouse used it in conversation with journalists at the Scottish Conservatives party conference in June 2013 and it entered print. Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond used it to taunt unionist campaigner Alistair Darling during a televised debate.[[2]]
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Scots should reclaim our ownership of the IP of “Project Fear!” 🤣
 
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Vouthon . . .
. . . is intent on making good on our democratic exercise and the will of our people, which is not represented by the English parliamentary majority for Brexit and never has been nor will be.
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Why trade English parliamentary rule
for Brussels telling you what to do and calling that
independence or “the will of our people”?
 
Vouthon said:
Scots should reclaim our ownership of the IP of “Project Fear!” 🤣
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Thank you for the reminder.

I can’t speak for the 2014 Scottish vote as I didn’t follow it that closely, but I do recall it failed by 45-55%. A bigger margin than passed the Brexit referendum. But as with the Brexit referendum, it seems the losers want to keep voting until they get the “correct” result.

I’m not opposed to Scottish independence, but they’ll need to figure out how they’re going to go without the annual block grant from Westminster. They’ll also need to assure themselves that the Spanish won’t oppose their application to the EU. I don’t think that is a sure thing given Spain’s own issues with Catalonia.

Back on the topic of Project Fear in the UK: the Remainers laid it on rather thick starting in 2015 when it became obvious that the ground had shifted drastically by then. A substantial amount of that was hysterical in tone. But nothing like that happened, just three years of very messy politics that included skulduggery on both sides. In the end, the message the voters sent was that the 2016 result should be honored.

I can’t seem to find the actual breakdown totals by region, but they are already out by constituency and I notice that for all the SNP crowing about the seats they won, I don’t think they polled over 50% for all of Scotland. Same as with Tories in England and Wales. So I think a new vote for Scottish independence would not be a sure thing. Closer than last time, yes for sure, but close enough to win? I don’t know.
 
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@Zzyzx_Road

Polls before election tended to show that independence was 50/50. But…
a number of polls had also shown that support for independence would shift above 50% if Johnson were to win an election and implement Brexit
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Pre-election, I’d have answered “against” independence in a poll but for independence if Brexit goes through under a majority Johnson government.

This is the decisive factor for many Scots Remain unionists and what turned me.

Even in North East Fife, the one seat where the SNP lost an MP to the (similarly ardent Remain) Lib Dems, the SNP’s Stephen Gethins added almost 5,000 votes to his 2017 total.

The referendum margin in 2014 was won by the Unionists on the basis of a “fear” project that if Scotland voted “out”, we’d lose our EU membership and not be re-admitted. Unionist campaigners told voters that voting for the UK was the only way to assure EU membership. So this swung the polls against the SNP at the end. In other words, people like me - I was a passionate unionist back then, as my posts on this forum attest.

Then 2016 happened. England votes out, Scotland (unsurprisingly) votes by a 60% margin to Remain.

Between 2016 - 2019, there seemed genuine hope that a change of heart might transpire in the UK (in England), prompting a revisiting of the issue which would mean Scotland staying in both the UK and EU (which had been my, and a majority of Scots, preferred option).

That’s now impossible. The UK is leaving and Scotland faces a Tory majority that will take at least a decade or more for the Labour Party in England to surmount. A Brexit Tory government - the very thing Scots have voted against, again and again and again.

A poll of Scotland by YouGov for The Times last month, found that 70 per cent of Scots hate Boris Johnson. Johnson was described as “utterly toxic” on the doorstep. It was no surprise that he was kept away from the Scottish campaign and they still lost by a massive margin to the SNP. In other words, Johnson is no Cameron 2014 (then in a coalition with the Liberals, not a Tory majority gov).

The long-term survival of the union rested upon the Unionists keeping people like me “in”. Count me as a bellweather of sorts. My type of voter is now liable to be for independence - literally as of last Thursday in my case. Had you asked me on Wednesday, I’d still have been a unionist though voting SNP, as I thought we had a viable plan going with the peoples vote movement. We don’t now.

We know where we’re at now, a position we’ve never been in - the moment we, perhaps, deep down knew was always coming but didn’t want to face (well, at least I didn’t - the independence supporters always have).

(continued…)
 
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In terms of the popular vote, Johnson won 43.6% of the UK total and the SNP won 45% of Scotland. FPTP makes both ‘landslides’ (as they are in UK terms) even more inflated, with the SNP taking 80% of available seats.

Support for the SNP is not the maximal limit of support for independence (however). The Green Party in Scotland supports independence, as do many individual Labour voters.

I very much doubt it will be a knife-edge now with the collapse of Remain in England. Note - that didn’t happen in 2016. Its has now.

We’re on our own. And that changes the picture hugely.
 
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Well now you know how my friends and relatives back in California feel about a state government that has clearly moved a long way away from them and nothing they do with their votes will change that anytime soon as the state is very firmly in the hands of progressive insanity. Good luck with that as you have just a bit more hope than they do. I moved out of California rather than keep putting up with it, but of course Scots don’t have that option.

But I will comment that part of the big picture during the Scottish independence campaign was that the rebellion in Catalonia was in full view at the time and hence Spain was deeply opposed to Scotland’s referendum and potential EU application, thinking that it would provide too much encouragement to the Catalonians. Then the Catalonians did stage their referendum in 2017 and it was bitterly and strenuously opposed by Madrid. So opposed they sent out their army and national police force to suppress it. Then they sentenced the movement leaders to prison. Now it seems the situation in Spain is calmer today, hence maybe the Spanish will allow themselves to be strong armed by Macron and Merkel into approving the Scottish application. Maybe. I would not call that one a given.
 
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The facts surrounding the ‘Spanish veto’ issue:

fullfact.org

EU membership: Spain vs Scotland - Full Fact

It’s often assumed that Spain, with one eye on the independence movement in Catalonia, would stop an independent Scotland from joining the EU. Would it?
fullfact.org fullfact.org
The independence movement in Catalonia, a region of Spain, means that Madrid doesn’t like encouraging nationalist movements in other countries. That’s why it’s often assumed that the Spanish government is committed to vetoing an independent Scotland’s EU membership.

But there’s a possible misunderstanding here. There’s a difference between staying in the EU and rejoining it.

Essentially, Spain says that Scotland would have to exit the EU in the event of an independence vote, and then apply to join as a new member. (That’s also what the central EU bodies say.)

“Were Scotland to become independent… the country would be treated as a third state and would have to get in line to join the EU.” That’s from Spanish newspaper El País, summarising the position taken by the country’s foreign minister this week.

That’s not, however, a threat to veto an independent Scotland’s membership application. Spain’s Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, refused to get into that when pressed on it shortly after the referendum last summer. Various analysts say that Mr Rajoy would cross that bridge when he comes to it.
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In other words, the “Spanish veto” is kinda moot post-Brexit.

Scotland, when it applies, will already be outside the EU now anyway.

And Spain has never explicitly said it would veto its application as an independent country (and Germany and France will make sure it won’t).

What it did say was that it would veto Scotland “inheriting” the UK’s membership, just as for Catalonia if it became independent.

But now that the UK is about to leave, Boris Johnson has inadvertently solved that issue for us.

But expect “Project Fear” regarding it to kick up full-steam again under Johnson, now the shoe is on the other foot 😉
 
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www.thetimes.co.uk

Never mind Brexit — Boris Johnson’s biggest battle is Scotland trying to take back control

Even as it celebrates a mighty triumph, the Conservative Party should recognise that its election success comes laced with danger. Boris Johnson has won a tremendous victory — but only in England and Wales. Scotland is a different matter and, increasingly, a different country too. He now faces a con
www.thetimes.co.uk www.thetimes.co.uk

Never mind Brexit — Boris Johnson’s biggest battle is Scotland trying to take back control​

Even as it celebrates a mighty triumph, the Conservative Party should recognise that its election success comes laced with danger. Boris Johnson has won a tremendous victory — but only in England and Wales.

Scotland is a different matter and, increasingly, a different country too. He now faces a constitutional impasse that may yet become a crisis, the resolution of which will go a long way towards determining the success or failure of his time in office.

Delivering Brexit is one thing; ensuring that he is not the last prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland quite another.
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But what can Johnson realistically do?

He can’t give us EU membership or citizenship, so what lesser bribe does he think will buy our allegiance? I mean how exactly is he going to win me over?

Saying “no” to an independence referendum is precisely what Nicola Sturgeon wants him to do.

She doesn’t want a referendum immediately, needing time to plan and consolidate a majority for independence (along with, no doubt, many overseas trips to Brussels and other EU capitals). Seeming refusal of the democratic right of the Scottish people from a hated English Brexiteer Tory PM in Westminster is exactly what she wants in the intervening period to whip up the home crowd.

So, I’m interested to see how he plays this and how they both try to outfox each other.

I’m expecting some brutal, dirty politics in the coming years.
 
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Interesting:

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Also @Zzyzx_Road from last year:

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Spain would have no objection to Scotland rejoining the European Union as an independent nation, as long as the secession process from the United Kingdom was legally binding, Spanish foreign minister Josep Borrell said on Tuesday.

During a fiercely fought referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom in 2014, one of the potential stumbling blocks for Scotland to rejoin the European Union was perceived to be the potential veto of EU member Spain, because of worries about its own secessionists in northeastern region Catalonia.

“If Westminster (Britain’s national parliament) agrees, why should we be against it? (…) I think the United Kingdom will split apart before Spain,” he told Politico in an interview before a live audience.

Scotland’s pro-independence Scottish National Party, the biggest party in Scotland, welcomed the comments, saying they destroyed a “favoured unionist scare-story”.
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Vouthon. It still does not seem to me you understand what I am alluding to.

To me at least it looks like you are saying . . . .
We NEED to be DEPENDENT on the EU

Why?

So we can be INDEPENDENT.
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Your dependence upon the UK or as you put it, English parliamentary rule, is dependence.

Your dependence upon Brussels to substitute for English parliamentary rule, is merely just a other form of dependence.
 
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Cathoholic said:
Vouthon. It still does not seem to me you understand what I am alluding to.
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It is for Scots, and none other, to decide our future as a nation.

The EU, as Brexit demonstrates, is a voluntary politico-economic union in which ultimate sovereignty remains with the member state, even as certain powers are pooled / shared with the supranational institutions.

Whether one likes it or not, this:

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Wins landslides in Scotland.

Not this:
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We had a clear choice in this election i.e.

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I didn’t say it was “like this” in Scotland.

You know full well elsewhere, I am the one who pointed out Scotland deviating in the election.
 
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