| Archive for Our Scotland - www.our-scotland.org Scottish Politics Discussion Forum / Messageboard - Dedicated to online discussion about Scottish Politics and an Independent Scotland, as well as Scottish Society today. We also have a section dedicated to Banter, Sport and Recommended Sites. |
| Scott2006 |
BBC News (Poll) Video: British voters 'support Union'http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsol...mp;nbwm=1&nol_storyid=6265567The above is a 4 minute report by Nick Robinson examining the original documents in Edinburgh of the last Scottish Parliament in 1707 while commenting on a new poll by the BBC which fails to state who did the poll or the number of people questioned. The results of the poll were ENGLISH 73% TO KEEP THE UNION, 16% PRO-SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE. SCOTTISH 56% TO KEEP THE UNION, 32% PRO-SCOTTISH INDEPENCE. Douglas Alexander the Labour Scotland Office Minister gets his 30-second sound bite for his Pro-Unionist position at the end of the piece - typical BBC. I don't think these results are accurate at all. |
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| Aventinian |
Why on earth do they ask English people about Scottish independence?
If they want to measure support for the Union in England, they should bloody well ask about English independence. |
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| garye |
According to the PDF on the BBC site the Scottish sample was 543 folk.They are also basing there piece on the question being "do you think the Union should continue" as opposed to "How would you vote tomorrow if there was an independence referendum". | ||||
| garye |
I think the other thing which is of interest is the rising support for an English Parliament. The reason that both Labour and Tories are shying away from supporting that is that they realise that it would be a major step towards ending the Union. However at over 60% support in England how long before one of them start to identify it as enough of a vote winner that could swing things their way at the next UK General Election? And if one jumps (e.g. the Tories) I think the other one wouldn’t want to NOT support it. Can you imagine Gordon Brown seriously standing up with his Scottish accent arguing against David Cameron against the establishment of an English parliament? Total political suicide. | ||||
| SouthernJock |
The union is being debated in Parliament Hall Edinburgh tonight
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/6266797.stm |
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| Hendry |
Another propaganda exercise chaired by Kirsty 'Oh my God we're staring into the Abyss' Wark. | ||||
| Aventinian |
I don't see much of a difference...
The Tories have committed themselves to a "Unionist answer" to W. Lothian. I think the demand for an English Parliament is fairly fluid - I imagine most would be just as happy with some other solution to the problem. |
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| Economist |
There's a pretty fair analysis of the polls by the BBC's Brian Taylor, here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6264483.stm It seems to be the blunter the question is (about independence), the greater the support for it. Given today's analysis in the Scotsman, that the Union commands nowhere near majority support in Scotland (ie whether people think it is a good thing or a bad thing), you can draw lots of conclusions. The main one being, the UK is not stable, at the moment. The English Parliament thing is interesting. As I've said lots of times before, such constitutional tinkering would finish the UK off, without a referendum even being needed. I think most fairly intelligent and rational people can see that. This is no equitable federation! English Votes in Westminster is even more anomalous and would make Westminster completely impotent. It seems the only way to save the union is to abolish devolution and return to direct rule. And there is little support for that in Scotland. |
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| azzuri |
An embarassment to my home town. Wonder if she's been holidaying wth Shagger Jack this year?.... 
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| SLG |
It's pretty simple. People want Scotland to be independent, they want Scotland to run it's own affairs and they recognise that the present settlement isn't good enough. If you ask them would they vote for independence in a referendum, pretty much all the polls give a clear majority saying yes. However do people want Scotland to be isolationist and cut itself adrift from the international community and specifically our nearest neighbour England? No of course not. Call it a Union or whatever you want, there does need to be good cooperation between our countries and that probably needs to be formalised in some way. The debate, IMO, is not whether the Union as it stands is good enough. Most will tell you it's not. The question is whether we need independence first and then build a 'new Union' with England that way, or whether we can renegotiate the Union from within. When you ask the question 'how would you vote in a referendum', we get >50% in favour of independence. The difference between those polls and the one above is that a lot of these 50% recognise the desirability of the Union and would like to keep it, but equally, they recognise that it's not going anywhere and that we need independence to move Scotland forward. |
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| George |
And for me that is the point. It isn't about cutting ourselves off from anyone...or 'hating' those nasty English. It is about acknowledging that the Union has been failing for some time and moving on. However, even the most ardent nationalist must recognise the need to co-operate with our Southern neighbours, including Wales, and developing a healthy relationship. |
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