UK/Scotland Spags

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Opinions about the vote?

[Suu]

It isn't looking good right now, but the big population centers haven't been tallied yet.

Either way, this is fascinating for a dumb American historian.

[The Johnny]

Eh, preliminary samples of voting, at least in my country's experience, is a way of slanting the undecided population towards a certain decision by peer pressure; i read in some article that around 40% of the voters were "undecided" as of yesterday night or todays morning.

[Junkenstein]

No decision is hardly a surprise to anyone, though I was expecting it to be a little closer than it turned out to be.

Personally, I've hated most of it, for the entire time it's gone on. Mainly because of Nationalists. It has seemed to me that if you're not dealing with a petty one (and the SNP share more than a few traits with, say, UKIP) you're dealing with a slightly differently petty one who really cares about the size of their home nation state.

But as always when you give an aging population the choice between the dickheads they know and the dickheads they don't, they choose the familiar idiocy every time.

One thing it did highlight was how much the main political parties share in common, i.e - being rather conservative. Not that I'm implying the SNP are somehow magically more competent (they aren't) but at least they've got a relatively progressive idea of society. I'm reasonably confident that one of the main reasons for a no vote was Salmond himself. He was never the best choice for something like this, but like many things in life shit isn't done by the best, most suited and competent person, it's done by the clown with an ego and power issues.


Anyway, it's all over now, everyone can go back to not giving a shit about Scotland, Ignoring Wales and getting twitchy when those Irish fellas ask about their referendum.

[P3nT4gR4m]

On the plus side, close result suggests the media is losing control of our minds. Back in 79 we obeyed almost unanimously.

On the negative side - Fracking the entire central belt and those WMD's are still in the clyde

Glass half full/empty - next round of austerity cuts will mean no healthcare but also less police so I'm a bit more free to have fun

[Cain]

If I had to choose between staying in a United Kingdom run by Cameron, or joining an indepenent Scotland run by Salmond, I'd choose to punch myself in the balls for all eternity.

It'd have much the same result as either of the other choices, but at least I'd be stripping myself of the illusion of a meaningful alternative to the experience.

[Junkenstein]

That's not a million miles away from my eventual stance.

I wasn't actually eligible to vote but I had have been, I doubt I could have brought myself to actually vote either way.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Indy vote would have meant I had some say in which glove puppet spewed corporate agenda at us every four years.

At least this means I don't have to vote any more. First time yesterday and it was boring as hell. Would need a free bar and some strippers to keep me interested in democracy 

[Suu]

On the bright side, here in America, prices on Scotch aren't going to change. However, if we can coax you with statehood, we can promise an exit from insane right wing nationalist parties, because yours make the Tea Party look like kindergartners.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Not really any incentive, given that we don't really engage with the nazis down south. They may be dumb but that doesn't mean they don't know exactly what would happen if they were to set foot on our soil. All the rest is just laughing at EDL skinheads on teevee and taking sweepstakes on how long it'll be before they set up death camps for all the brown people then starve to death because there's no one left to cook their staple diet of kebabs and biryani.

[BadBeast]

Anyway, it's all over now, everyone can go back to not giving a shit about Scotland, Ignoring Wales and getting twitchy when those Irish fellas ask about their referendum.

This, totally. But what is a "Wale"?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Anyway, it's all over now, everyone can go back to not giving a shit about Scotland, Ignoring Wales and getting twitchy when those Irish fellas ask about their referendum.

This, totally. But what is a "Wale"?

That's the guy in the pub that sometimes starts barking and trying to bite people.

[Cain]

It probably seems kinda funny to an outsider, given the reputation of Scotland and Northern Ireland...but as a rule, skinheads, fascists and nazis tend to be unionists (and Protestants), and do not flourish well in such climates.  Combat18 once tried setting up cells in Belfast, but, well, the Provos got wind of them and that was that.  The play-believe stormtroopers generally do poorly against anyone who can actually fight back, be that Celtic fans or Republican terrorists armed with drills.

[BadBeast]

It probably seems kinda funny to an outsider, given the reputation of Scotland and Northern Ireland...but as a rule, skinheads, fascists and nazis tend to be unionists (and Protestants), and do not flourish well in such climates.  Combat18 once tried setting up cells in Belfast, but, well, the Provos got wind of them and that was that.  The play-believe stormtroopers generally do poorly against anyone who can actually fight back, be that Celtic fans or Republican terrorists armed with drills.

Totally, this. Britain may have it's totalitarian political biases, but fascism isn't one that ever sat well with people. It may be something to do with the way we stood virtually alone against the Nazis in the early years of WWII, but I think it goes further back than that. It's possibly got something to do with our decision to re-instate a constitutional Monarchy after Cromwell, rather than take the option of being a Republic. Even the symbolism and iconology of our Heraldic heritage is decidedly lacking when it comes to double headed eagles, lightning bolts, fasces and other such revered symbols of fascist movements. It might even go back to our breakaway from Catholicism under Henry VIII. Or even further, the last fascist rulers of Britain were the Romans, and even they had trouble keeping the population in order. We were the only Roman province where Rome felt the need to keep a constant Military occupation throughout their "rule" here.   

[Cain]

Cameron is playing a hell of a blinder here.

He's managing to use Scottish "devo max" options to purse an English only Parliamentary option...basically, only English MPs can vote on English issues.

For non-Brits, what this means is that the staunchly left-wing Scotland, and its MPs (mostly from the Labour Party) will have no say over English votes, giving the Tories a de facto Parliamentary majority on all English political issues.

If this passes, Cameron will effectively turn England into a one-party state.  And that party will be the Tory Party.