Posted on 08/26/2019 2:17:36 AM PDT by Cronos
The SNP government hopes a motion making the parliament's opposition to no deal in all circumstances could be agreed unanimously.
...The motion is expected to say: "That the Scottish Parliament agrees that the UK should in no circumstances leave the EU on a no deal basis".
Scottish Brexit Secretary Mike Russell said the UK government appeared to be "actively pursuing" a "catastrophic no deal".
"It is essential that the Scottish Parliament has the opportunity to have its say while there is still time to stop this disaster from happening," he said.
...Donald Cameron, a Scottish Conservative MSP, said they agreed that the best way to leave the EU was with a deal.
"That's why all 13 of our MPs backed a deal, and are continuing to back the prime minister's efforts to get another deal secured," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
This will be ignored by Westminster of course.
Sturgeon will then leverage the anger against this ignoring to win an indyref2.
We are living in interesting times - the breakup of the UK after 100 years.
Given that Scotland has 59 seats in Parliament out of which 13 are Tory, I’d expect its exit to be a great boon to the Conservative Party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Westminster_constituencies_from_2005
If the 59 seats of Scotland go away (meaning Scottish independence), then parliament would theoretically be reduced to 580 seats out of which (again assuming everything else remains the same):
Tories: 311-13 = 298 seats
Labour = 247 - 7 = 240
LibDems = 14 - 4 = 10
298 seats out of 580 = 51%
you are correct, it would benefit the Tories.
There were historically two big reasons to control Scotland. One reason was to prevent it from allowing some foreign power to land there and invade England. Given the massive disparity in population size, any war with a power outside the British Isles would involve the monitoring and possible occupation of Scotland.
The other reason was to keep a lid on Scottish raids into England. These days, the only raids in question involve soccer hooligans, who are annoying, but no real reason for England to rule the wastelands of Scotland. They’re all very picturesque, but wastelands is what they are.
The chances of a war between England and another power is very, very low right now for the next 20 foreseeable years.
And yes, it would be economically beneficial for England to cut off Scotland and Northern Ireland.
If they do so now, they can traipse into a Brexit-fantasy-land with no strings
An independent Scotland will wind up someplace between Cuba and Venezuela on the world political spectrum.
Apart from a brief period under Edward 1st at the end of the 13th Century, Scotland has never been ‘ruled by England’. England and Scotland have equal status within the United Kingdom.
[Apart from a brief period under Edward 1st at the end of the 13th Century, Scotland has never been ‘ruled by England’. England and Scotland have equal status within the United Kingdom.]
Consent of EU required for deal. One party can’t unilaterally say there is a deal if there isn’t.
The eu i.e. the 27 countries of the eu signed off on the deal that the negotiators negotiated. The UK didn’t.
Note the deal process - after the UK invoked Article 50 in March 2017 the deadline was 2 years to agree on the withdrawal procedure.
the other 27 countries sat down, agreed on the boundaries for the negotiators on their side, got agreements from their parliaments and proceeded
the UK didn’t agree with parliament what it would negotiate, primarily because the referendum was so close and there wasn’t majority opinion on anything.
Net result - at the end of the negotiations (which was led by a prime LEAVE advocate, David Davis on the UK side - the withdrawal agreement was brought before 28 parliaments.
27 agreed, 1 didn’t.
The ball is and always has been in the UK’s court.
The UK set the deadline of March 31, 2019.
The UK begged for a postponement to May
The UK begged for a postponement to October 31.
Everything is in the UK’s side - it is now asking to renegotiate a deal that took 2 years and giving
1. No idea what they want to change in the existing deal
2. No information on how they will get the renegotiated deal through the UK parliament.
In no sense is it true, whether constitutional, legal, political or practical. If we only look at the last century or so, Scotland has more representation per capita than England in the UK Parliament, has a greater share per capita of public spending, fixed by the Goschen and Barnett formulae, is over-represented per capita in heads of government, cabinet ministers and other high offices of state, and now has its own devolved Parliament and government, which England does not.
Further, your hypothetical example would have force only if parties within the united legislature were organised on national lines, so that an American party were perennially outvoted by an Indian party. But that is not the case in the Westminster Parliament. There is no English National Party. The dominant parties are (with the exception of Northern Ireland) trans-national. Since the emergence of the party system the United Kingdom has been governed by whichever of the two largest trans-national parties has won a majority, with the small nationalist parties on the fringes.
It’s true that since the 2015 general election the SNP has had a substantial presence at Westminster, and it’s obviously in the SNP’s interests (despite the notorious ‘West Lothian Question’) to cast Westminster as an ‘English’ Parliament. But for all the reasons I’ve cited, it isn’t and never has been.
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