Re: Scottish Referendum : Sun Sep 21, 2014 5:22 pm  

LeagueDweeb wrote:

Scotland isn't a region, it's a country. It has it's own Parliament. Wales isn't a region, it's a country. It has it's own Northern Ireland isn't a region, it's a country. It has it's own Parliament. England is a country. It doesn't have it's own Parliament.

That is the answer. An English Parliament with English MP's voting on laws for the English.

Yes, I know they are all constituent p

Regional devolution is a Labour party tactic to deflect from the West Lothian question & to try & gloss over it's blatant self interest. Miliband talks of the political class & Westminster elite not working for the people, yet he is doing exactly that by denying the English the same as the Scots in order to keep at least 40 Labour MP's in Westminster.

he knows that the domino effect of England & then perhaps the Weslh following Scotland will decimate the Labour party. Self interest before democracy.[/quote]
What difference would it make to the north of England if there was an English parliament as opposed to a British one?

Re: Scottish Referendum : Sun Sep 21, 2014 7:12 pm  

Wellsy13 wrote:

What difference would it make to the north of England if there was an English parliament as opposed to a British one?

Maybe it's the English parliament that could repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act? As I'm reliably informed the UK parliament can't.
But then I don't know whether that's a fact or not.

Re: Scottish Referendum : Sun Sep 21, 2014 7:27 pm  

Wellsy13 wrote:

Yes, I know they are all constituent p

Regional devolution is a Labour party tactic to deflect from the West Lothian question & to try & gloss over it's blatant self interest. Miliband talks of the political class & Westminster elite not working for the people, yet he is doing exactly that by denying the English the same as the Scots in order to keep at least 40 Labour MP's in Westminster.

he knows that the domino effect of England & then perhaps the Weslh following Scotland will decimate the Labour party. Self interest before democracy.

What difference would it make to the north of England if there was an English parliament as opposed to a British one?[/quote]

What difference would regional devolution actually make? On what basis do you belive it's either democratically or intellectually acceptable for Scottish MP's to vote on matters that are nothing to do with the Scots?

The Labour activists pushing this are not doing so to benefit anyone but themselves.

As shown with the complete rejection of the suggested North East assembly, there is no appetite anywhere for this.

The No campaign who said Scotland going independent would create a race to the bottom if control of business rates & taxes were handed over are now proposing exactly the same for egions. How would the same thing not happen between the regions?

It's all a sham to try and make sure Labour retain as much control as possible and maintain the anti democratic West Lothian situation. They don't want an English Parliament because it's not goof for them.

The English should have the same democratic representation as anyone else, and if Labour policies aren't popular enough for them to win a majority in an English Parliament, well they will have to create policies that are.

Re: Scottish Referendum : Sun Sep 21, 2014 8:09 pm  

LeagueDweeb wrote:

What difference would regional devolution actually make? On what basis do you belive it's either democratically or intellectually acceptable for Scottish MP's to vote on matters that are nothing to do with the Scots?

The Labour activists pushing this are not doing so to benefit anyone but themselves.

As shown with the complete rejection of the suggested North East assembly, there is no appetite anywhere for this.

The No campaign who said Scotland going independent would create a race to the bottom if control of business rates & taxes were handed over are now proposing exactly the same for egions. How would the same thing not happen between the regions?

It's all a sham to try and make sure Labour retain as much control as possible and maintain the anti democratic West Lothian situation. They don't want an English Parliament because it's not goof for them.

The English should have the same democratic representation as anyone else, and if Labour policies aren't popular enough for them to win a majority in an English Parliament, well they will have to create policies that are.

I'm not even going to attempt to pick holes in that pile of barely-coherent shite.

It's beyond parody but at least I can handle the Quote function on here

Re: Scottish Referendum : Sun Sep 21, 2014 8:38 pm  

All this talk of people wanting more power at local level is somewhat surprising, considering the idea of regional assemblies was floated as recently as 10 years ago, and no-one was interested.

[DaveO]

Re: Scottish Referendum : Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:26 pm  

The Video Ref wrote:

All this talk of people wanting more power at local level is somewhat surprising, considering the idea of regional assemblies was floated as recently as 10 years ago, and no-one was interested.

That was 10 years ago. I think you might find what motivated many Scots to vote Yes was the idea they could rid themselves of the Tory yoke forever.

I think that was naive myself as I am sure a right wing party would rise eventually in Scotland but that is not the point. I don't think people have ever viewed the UK as so London and South East centric as they do now nor do I think people have ever felt more disenfranchised governed in effect by a minority Tory administration they did not give a majority to.

They can also see the effects of devolution in Scotland (and Wales) with some attractive policies that have arisen directly because the devolved administrations have been able to implement them.

Anyone campaigning for devolution in the North West promising not to privatise the NHS, reintroduce free prescriptions and so on would get a lot more support this time than when the country was prosperous and the Westminster government was actually quite popular in my opinion.

Re: Scottish Referendum : Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:42 pm  

DaveO wrote:

nor do I think people have ever felt more disenfranchised governed in effect by a minority Tory administration they did not give a majority to.

How did they feel from 2005-2010 under a Labour government who got more than a million less votes and less % of the vote than the Tories did in 2010? Were they concerned by the disenfranchisement of others?

[DaveO]

Re: Scottish Referendum : Sun Sep 21, 2014 10:00 pm  

LeagueDweeb wrote:

All 3 parties made the vow. Gordon Brown was the one to make all the promises in the days before the vote.

It is impossible on an intellectual or democratic basis to devolve further powers to Scotland without a reduction in the influence they have on matters that do not concern Scotland. Or without a more formal parliamentary set up for the English.

You have this completely the wrong way around.

We have just had a No campaign that argued that Britain was an inherently cohesive structure. If you seek to limit the real power of Scotland by excluding them from a democratic process you have just argued they belong to, what was the point of arguing "No" for?

In any case there are very few English only issues that don't affect Scotland as part of the UK. For example large infrastructure projects such as HS2 or Crossrail that occur entirely in England affect how much money is available to be spent elsewhere in the UK including Scotland. So anything that uses money from the UK treasury is by definition a UK wide issue. If we privatise the NHS in England which if it meant it costs more to run thus also reducing the money available elsewhere is an English issue that would have a direct effect on Scotland also impacting on the funds available to it.

The only way this can work is if we go for a federal option whereby each country is given a budget and it can do what it likes within that budget without affecting the others ability to do what they want and central government has very little power. That is not what Cameron is offering.

Cameron has rightly thrown the English, Welsh & NI'ers in to mix post result. It's a card no one expected him tp play & really does leave Labour & the Lib Dems in an awkward position. He can now push to get more powers drawn up for Scotland & really play on any delays by Labour & the Lib Dems in agreeing. Each of the three are not in agreement about what powers should be handed over.

This will play into the hands of the pro-independence & SNP.

What will play into the hands of the SNP is attaching conditions to a promise that when made didn't have any. Or have you missed Salmond making hay with this already saying the "No" voters had been lied to?

With just 1 MP in Scotland, he has nothing to lose from being even more unpopular. If the other two don't go along with him, they have plenty of seats to lose in 2015 & MSP's in 2016.

Cameron does have to be seen to give something away to the English & address the West Lothian question. He has a real double pronged threat from UKIP to blunt & has to be very careful.

Other than what is in the 2012 Scotland Act, there is nothing to say what will be drawn up for future devolution, and it is a massive job to get anything done before purdah.

Fascinating times.

The idea you can work out how to address the issue of what further devolution for Scotland means for England and address the issue before the election is crazy. Even if Cameron said the answer is English votes/English MP's I wouldn't actually expect that to happen. I would not put it past him to suggest this in his manifesto but I think he'd be lying if he did. Or fundamentally stupid. It is as I said earlier a sure fire way to break up the Union. Exclude the Scots from the UK democratic process and you are telling them to push for another referendum.

[DaveO]

Re: Scottish Referendum : Sun Sep 21, 2014 10:12 pm  

The Ghost of '99 wrote:

How did they feel from 2005-2010 under a Labour government who got more than a million less votes and less % of the vote than the Tories did in 2010? Were they concerned by the disenfranchisement of others?

How does that affect anything I posted? It's a fact the Yes campaign was predicated a great deal on the basis of the Westminster government not representing Scottish views. Back in 2005-10 we didn't have a government introducing things like bedroom taxes or privatising the NHS.

There is nothing like hard times to see Nationalism on the increase and so whether or not the 2005-10 government had a low percentage of the vote is irrelevant to the political landscape today and whether or not people see federalism or regional devolution as a way to escape what Scotland was told it could escape. The fact many in the regions were not bothered about Labour being elected on fewer votes in 2005 as it suited their political views doesn't make any difference to how popular federalism or regional devolution might be now.

Re: Scottish Referendum : Sun Sep 21, 2014 10:18 pm  

LeagueDweeb wrote:

What difference would it make to the north of England if there was an English parliament as opposed to a British one?

What difference would regional devolution actually make? On what basis do you belive it's either democratically or intellectually acceptable for Scottish MP's to vote on matters that are nothing to do with the Scots? [/quote]
Why is it unacceptable for Scottish MPs to vote on issues that has nothing to do with the Scots, but ok for southern MPs to vote on matters that have thing to do with the South?

LeagueDweeb wrote:

The Labour activists pushing this are not doing so to benefit anyone but themselves.

As shown with the complete rejection of the suggested North East assembly, there is no appetite anywhere for this.

The rejection of a NE assembly does not mean there is no appetite. It just means the conditions weren't right. A different result may happen in Yorkshire, or the NW or the Northas a whole.

LeagueDweeb wrote:

It's all a sham to try and make sure Labour retain as much control as possible and maintain the anti democratic West Lothian situation. They don't want an English Parliament because it's not goof for them.

Or perhaps they think that it's better that regions govern themselves and that an English parliament will be much of the same?

LeagueDweeb wrote:

The English should have the same democratic representation as anyone else, and if Labour policies aren't popular enough for them to win a majority in an English Parliament, well they will have to create policies that are.

Or perhaps if each region had more power, they could all vote for the way they'd prefer to be governed and not all have to put up with the "one size fits all" policies that don't fit everyone?