medsec222 wrote:The Government should never have offered bribes and sweeteners in the first place. The Scots were given the opportunity of a Yes/No referendum. They should have been left to cast their votes accordingly. At least we would have seen an accurate reflection on how the Scottish people feel. Now we have Alex Salmond saying the vote would have gone the other way but for promises by the UK government.
Completely with you on that Medsec. They should have shut up and let the Scots decide. Instead of trying to turn the vote. Indications are that the 5% who changed their minds in the last few days are bitterly rueing the day they lost their nerve.
Kaz, consider this.
It’s 2022, we’ve had a Lab/Lib government from 2015 to 2020 because UKIP trashed the Tory vote and the Labour vote stood up. The Lab/Lib sold us down the river, we’re in the Euro, we have banking union, all the directives have been applied to the UK and our budget is scrutinised by the EU and Germany before we can present it to Parliament, just like the other UK countries. We’re in Schengen and have absolutely no control over our borders. North African immigrants are flooding in through Italy and nobody is doing anything to stop it, let alone the UK Government. UK Population is 78 million because immigration flooded in with the coalition shrugging their shoulders and saying “what can we do, that’s how Schengen works, it’s a benefit overall, you’ll see”.
Roll forward, 2020 elections and a truly massive backlash on Labour and Lib Dems. Both are crushed but the UKIP turnout is massive. Tories still need to coalition with UKIP who are now the 3rd largest party , just behind Labour.
2022. We get the referendum on the EU. We’ve lost our banking, FUD is all over the place, cost of refinancing to the £ is going to break the country, economy is going to be flattened, austerity is going to be applied, etc, etc, etc…
We get to two days before the referendum and the Great EU members panic. We’re going to tank the Euro by leaving. If we leave the rEU will lose 20% of their GDP and their credit worthiness, which they have been borrowing on for the last 5 years to the detriment of the UK who sees none of this money because they are net contributors, will tank and they will struggle to control their debt.
So the president of the council and the president of the commission and the president of the Parliament all run over to the UK. They get together with the Guardian and write out a “promissory note” that the UK will get “Devo Max”. Special treatment, special tax controls, special border controls even within Schengen, we can suspend HRA, we can do anything we damned well want, except leave the Euro, leave the EU and stop paying them money.
The vote happens. It’s a No vote by 10,000 people.
The three presidents (after all why have one President when you can pay for three), come out and make a speech. It’s wonderful, our good friends have decided to stay, it’s going to be so much better for them.
However it is an absolute requirement that the rest of the EU is reformed as well as the reforms promised to the UK. They’ll set up a commission to see just “what powers” it will be “feasible” to devolve. At the same time they will talk about how no one region can have that much power, how no one region can do this with their budget and have power in the ECB, that all the rules for all the regions must be changed to “re balance” the EU in the wake of the “concessions” to the UK.
You were a “Yes”. How do you feel?
Or
You were a last minute No because you felt that staying would be the safer option. How do you feel?
As the arguments and speeches and prattling carry on. As every “member state” goes on about how the UK region can’t possibly have this power without equivalent power for them. Even though they don’t produce a fraction of the GDP the UK does, even though they are getting more than they produce, even though the UK is subsidising them, they want “more”, to balance what the UK is “getting”.
How would you feel?
Now ask yourself how the Scots feel. The yes voters are enraged. The No voters are just getting on with it. The last minute Switchers feel like fools.
You think we have bigger fish to fry? Another Scottish referendum in 3 years with a guaranteed Yes vote at the end of it? That is the biggest possible fish for the UK to fry. 28% drop in the UK GDP and 30% drop in the value of the English £ plus another loss of credit rating again for England? Massive Austerity as England tries to balance a budget mortally wounded by the loss of Scottish GDP?
Bigger fish to fry? I don’t think so. Everything that the three stooges were afraid of back to haunt them. Except their biggest weapon is gone. Lie to them, it doesn’t matter, when it’s No, then it’s No for a generation. Right? Nobody will believe them. Nobody will trust them. Nobody will vote for them.
Now for my own personal take on it….. If We get a Tory win next year with UKIP as their coalition partners, then a referendum in 2017 and out. Scotland may again decide to go for a referendum on independence. Why? Because there are more Scots who want to be in the EU than there are want to be out. So they could join the EU again if the UK left.
Unless the current government shuts the hell up about English rights for English MP’s (which I note the promised to nobody and wrote no solemn promise down in a Newspaper and on TV), shut up about how the “region” Scotland should “Just wait for their reward”, then they are going to face a referendum again very shortly.
Why can’t people see that? Why can’t the English understand what they are saying? The Belgians got it in 60 seconds. “It’s not the same” they said. “There is no other Union like it in the world” they said. “Scotland is already a country” they said.
So what’s the problem with the English?
Bigger fish to fry? It’s like looking left at the bicycle cycling the wrong way down the road and stepping out in front of the 40 ton truck coming the other way.
