You may underestimate the obstinacy of Scots. That may be unfair. I guess some people just don’t see the gaping maw of terror as a problem.
Thinking a little more… I’d like to contribute to the campaign in some way other than just talking to people but everyone is so afraid of being seen as being directly divisive that they wont even put Braveheart on the telly for fear of encouraging any twee, nationalist rhetoric.
But that kind of spirit actually seems to dampen any real national spirit right along with it. Probably a medium balance in there somewhere.
Last time there was a clear vote to stay in the UK which seemed to me to be influenced at least partly by the worry that independence would take Scotland out of the EU. Since the English then decided to do that to them anyway, I don’t see why Scotland would vote to remain in the UK.
If I had to choose between a union between the EU or rUK, I’d take the EU every day.
Particularly when you’ll be stuck with perpetual Tory rule and it seems like they want to roll powers back to Westminster, not give you Devo Max.
The attitude I most overwhelmingly encountered on the No side last time around was “Why on earth would we ever consider this absolutely absurd, unprecedented fantasy for even the most disturbed fever-dream of a second?” Just total and absolute imperviousness.
I don’t think the attitude that lost the vote last time is permeable to argument or circumstance. Perhaps the struggling oil industry will encourage the overwhelmingly european-friendly directors of the oil companies to dull their dismissive rhetoric in the annual general meetings which will all just so happen to fall on the day before the next vote.
Look at that polarisation. There are plenty of solid independistas and true-blue (well, orange, actually) unionists, but victory will go to the side that can corral the 4s, 5s and 6s.
With those numbers, Independence needs at least a few 7s in order to succeed. That doesn’t sound too likely.
Then again, that’s about what you’d expect, with a 28%:38% split between “completely support independence” and “completely support the union.” A 10 point margin at that level is difficult to overcome.
The Europe and Oil questions both loom large this time as I mentioned but what really struck me last time around was the way in which the no campaign managed to soak up the ‘middle’ voters as the default position, IMO mostly because of the tidal wave of fear-driven propaganda that drowned the process.
A Kind of dismissive vitriol permeated the media. The question was treated as childish, unthinkable, apocalyptic, comedic, “If we all just hold our breath and do the adult thing, this silly, childish fantasy will all be over in the morning”. And it was.
Virtually every corporate media outlet ramped up the heat in unison. Any vestigial traces of doubt I had concerning the permeation into that media of unhealthy influence were expunged. I always knew it was a shitshow but I had never really grasped quite how completely until the rhetoric of doom and gloom was regurgitated back at me so perfectly every time a discussion was attempted.
Fully the first three minutes of any conversation would be spent convincing the other person that you didn’t just want to have a dismissive shouting match with them, and some of these were people that I know and respect.
Everybody is so fearful of being seen as being divisive in their discussion here that their attitude is reinforcing a lack of willingness to acknowledge the bias that’s crept in to most of the popular media. If people are not willing to admit their opinions on something like immigration can be at least partially fabricated by the popular media’s influence on their peer group, then so very much less likely must it be that they will accept the existence of some insidious art form that they see every day but don’t notice.
The middle ground is the most dangerous group to deal with. They are the people who were convinced last time to vote no by the poisoned environment of corporate media but who were also probably the percentage of people for whom the Europe argument was the convincing point.
People who saw this:
For those people there is a slight chance that further attempt to propagandise to them will fail because of the specific failure of the previous no campaign to deliver on what that group saw as the most important argument. We need a 7% swing, I think, and they are out there in this group.
But what I am trying to drive at here is the in group behaviour that’s dividing the country here. I think the majority of those middle ground people are already sold on whatever it is they are going to do and have been already conditioned by the events leading up to now. Perhaps a few percent can swing back and forth but, barring a very different environment, or some incredibly savvy media campaign that totally usurps the conversation from the doom-sayers the question is probably already decided.
I think the fear of leaving Europe will not outweigh the fear of leaving England. All that has to be done is to turn up the tension again and the biggest fear will win out.
I laughed heartily reading “Made in the EU, outside of the UK”. If May is able to follow her timetable the second half can be striked in a ittle bit over two years.
I’ve been saying that for nine months now. I still can’t get people to understand that most of the same arguments for Brexit can be used for the breakup of the UK.
Except maybe the immigration ones, because Brexit wasn’t about that, it was about taking back control /s
I really shouldn’t be surprised that so many people in favour of Brexit have had a logic bypass.
I suppose this will quickly sap his interest from the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ concept that he didn’t believe in, in power and only clung to for influence out of power.
So there’s that.
Now he’s becoming safely ensconced in a position of influence in London again, he gets to be able to stop playing withignore them again.
I read that the ES job was a platform for a massive amount of petty revenge against May, after being ignominiously sacked by her as almost her first act as leader.
And it’s always nice to cheer on a split in the nasty party.
The number of EU nationals registering as nurses in England has dropped by 92% since the Brexit referendum in June, and a record number are quitting the NHS, it can be revealed.
Only 96 nurses joined the NHS from other European nations in December 2016 – a drop from 1,304 in July, the month after the referendum.
At the same time, freedom of information responses from 80 of the 136 NHS acute trusts in England show that 2,700 EU nurses left the health service in 2016, compared to 1,600 EU nurses in 2014 – a 68% increase.
