All posts tagged England

Posted:
October 19, 2012
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Och aye the No..

The Economist

Scotland ponders whether independence and separation are the same thing

SHOULD Scotland be an independent country or not? In negotiations concluded on October 15th, David Cameron secured the single in-or-out question that he wanted. But the choice facing Scottish voters in 2014, and the campaigns to influence them, will not be nearly as simple as the words on the ballot suggest.

John Curtice, a psephologist at Strathclyde University, says that Scots divide into three roughly equally-sized camps. The first lot want independence. The second prefer the status quo. A final group, accounting for about 30% of those polled, would like to stay in the union but also want more powers for Scotland. In effect, they are the swing voters. With two years to go until the referendum, the campaigns are already converging on them.

The separatist Scottish National Party (SNP) will try to woo them by making independence seem trivial. The party has already underlined its enthusiasm for the queen, the BBC, the pound, the Bank of England’s interest rates and British opt-outs from irksome European Union rules. Its leader, Alex Salmond, talks of a “social union” between England and a newly-independent Scotland. But he will have a hard time convincing Scots he can deliver these things. Independent Scottish participation in sterling, EU opt-outs and the BBC are not, and will never be, in his gift.

Read more at The Economist

Posted:
September 17, 2012
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British Social Attitudes survey..

Every year the British Social Attitudes survey asks over 3,000 people what it’s like to live in Britain and how they think Britain is run.

Since 1983 the survey has been tracking people’s changing social, political and moral attitudes. It informs the development of public policy and is an important barometer of public attitudes used by opinion leaders and social commentators.  

The section of the report, Scottish independence, The state of the Union: public opinion and the Scottish question includes some interesting facts. These can be viewed at the British Social Attitudes website, or downloaded here.  

Highlights include:

Only a minority of people in Scotland support independence. People’s willingness to back the idea depends more on whether they think it would make Scotland’s economy stronger than on whether they have a strong Scottish identity.

Around a third of people in Scotland favour independence, and there is no consistent evidence of an increase in support over time. At 32% support for independence is up 9 points on 2010, when it was at a record low of 23%, but is still lower than in 2005, when it stood at 35%.

Only just over half (53%) of those who say they are “Scottish, not British” support independence, compared with over three-quarters of those who say that Scotland’s economy would be a lot stronger if the country left the UK. But at present only 34% in Scotland think the economy would be stronger.

Although less than half (44%) of people in England think that Scotland gets more than its fair share of public spending, that is double the proportion who were of that view little more
than a decade ago.

26% of people in England now believe Scotland should leave the UK compared with 14% in 1997. Conversely, support for Scotland remaining part of the UK but with its own Parliament has declined from 55% in 1997 to 44% in 2011.

Posted:
September 4, 2012
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Scotland’s business hat..

Martin Alderson | Technical Consultant

Scotland - England FlagScotland depends highly on its cross border links with the rest of the UK for business, education and jobs.

There are countless examples of English companies with a major presence in Scotland, and vice versa across the rest of the UK. For me those links need to be of the highest priority going forwards, whether Scotland wins its independence bid or not.

To set the scene a near majority of my business’ clients are based in England. We depend on the physical transport links to visit, and to do business with them. The knowledge that the Scottish banking, currency and tax system are completely compatible significantly improves Anglo-Scottish business relations from the perspective of someone in London, and England as a whole.

Any barriers placed here by a lack of standardisation would seriously affect our ability to compete south of the border. For example, public sector tendering is completely separate in Scotland to England. This means small companies need to have people with two skill-sets to successfully bid and win business through public sector procurement – a needless duplication and waste of resources.

Do you target local public sector bodies in Scotland, or target the larger contracts south of the border? If these procurement systems were standardised, small Scottish companies could compete more effectively. This trend of separation will most certainly accelerate if Scots vote yes in the Referendum.

Furthermore, we already see a substantial proportion of the brightest and most talented Scottish graduates leave Scotland for London and other large UK cities. I vehemently believe that if Scotland were to leave the union then the rate of this brain drain would increase as Scottish firms struggle to grow and compete against those south of the border. How can this ever be described as a positive?

The arguments of more localised political and economic decision-making are convincing. But on the flipside, the more these decisions are made locally, the more chance – either by design or side effect – that barriers will be put up for businesses to collaborate and flourish across the border.

As the world becomes increasingly globalised and integrated, Scottish independence seems almost oxymoronic to what is happening with the world’s economy at large. 

What do you think? Comment below

Posted:
August 31, 2012
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What Happens if Scotland Becomes Independent? The Butterfly Effect!..

Eddie Bone | The Huffington Post

On Friday, the Independent published the following article:- “We’re rewriting the nations future. Here’s how it looks…”

In response, the Campaign for an English Parliament has its own take on the possible future of the UK…

Imagine it is autumn 2024! It’s 10 years after the SNP won their independence referendum. It’s also 10 years after the Glasgow Commonwealth games which was widely credited as the time when public opinion swung in favour of Scottish independence.

King William V of England is making his first state visit to Scotland and is scheduled to unveil a statue of Gordon Brown, Donald Dewar and Alex Salmond locked in warm embrace, under the title ‘The Scottish claim of rights’. A newly formed Republic of Scotland wants to highlight the problems being experienced by the break-up of the United Kingdom.

During the visit Alex Salmond, the Scottish prime minster representing a coalition between the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish nationalists complains about the new border controls as the countries of the former UK now have different agreements with Europe. England (having re-incorporated Wales) left the EU in 2020, whilst Scotland voted to become part of the new European fiscal union. Tension is noticeable along the border, as new detention camps for illegal immigrants have been set up in Gretna and Carlisle. England insists that international borders apply even though the revamped Scottish Labour Party insists it is having a detrimental effect on the economy of Scotland. Having re-established its own Territorial waters, England started in 2018 to rebuild its fishing fleet and is demanding that Scotland complies with international law over its fishing rights and that Scottish fishing vessels do not enter the waters around the newly established English oil and gas fields. 

Read the full article at The Huffington Post’s website

Posted:
August 7, 2012
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Referendum must be legally and morally watertight, says Scottish Affairs Committee..

www.parliament.uk

Scottish flagIn a report published today, Tuesday 7 August 2012, the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee says the overwhelming weight of evidence shows that the Scottish Parliament cannot presently legislate to hold a referendum on separation, and that agreement should be reached between Holyrood and Westminster to create the necessary legal powers. Otherwise Scotland risks indefinite legal and political wrangling and uncertainty over its future.

Scotland can only separate from the UK if the Scottish people make that decision in a referendum. The Committee says any such referendum must have an unchallengeable legal and moral basis, to avoid delays and challenges to the legitimacy of the process and its result. The Scottish Parliament can legislate only on devolved matters, and the Union between Scotland and England is a reserved matter.

The Scottish Government has argued that Holyrood is legally competent to set up a referendum but the Committee can find no evidence for this and the Scottish Government has provided no legal justification for this view. Given that it is clear that the result of a referendum will decide Scotland’s position, in or out of the Union, it must have an unchallengeable legal and moral basis. It cannot be described as simply “advisory”.

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