I heard that Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales leaders are planning to meet to break up UK. Is it really true? Anyone from UK here who can tell me what is actually happening there?
I heard that Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales leaders are planning to meet to break up UK. Is it really true? Anyone from UK here who can tell me what is actually happening there?
Yankee here. If you have the time, I’d like to know a little bit more on what’s actually been happening over there. Honestly, with everything going on, it’s been hard to keep up. It’s been a lot of noise and very little information.
Sure, what would you like to know?
It hasn’t really changed since the 2014 referendum. For/against Scottish independence still hovers around 50:50, usually more on the pro-union side.
Problem is all the dollars flowing across the Atlantic to right-wing causes. Ten years ago Scotland was predominantly left-leaning. The culture wars and brainwashing on social media have lead to a lot of people being preoccupied with things like trans women and immigrants. Immigration is a funny one - we aren’t affected as bad with that as, say, the south of England. We actually need immigration to keep society functioning.
Right-wing parties are now something like 30% and is predominantly for remaining in the union, but the lefty vote is split between pro-independence and unionist parties. The majority in Holyrood (the Scottish parliament) is mostly members of Independence supporting parties, but the overall popular vote is for the Union.
Because independence support is not definitive the UK gov’s position is ‘no’ to more referendums. As long as support for independence is split down the middle it’ll keep going round in circles and continue to dominate Scottish politics.
What factors do you feel are the predominant drivers of independent sentiment on the left? I know Brexit and rejoining the EU are close to the top, but what makes the right want to stay with the union?
Many factors but probably the biggest is the parade of Conservative governments since and including Margaret Thatcher.
The Conservatives (or ‘the Tories’) have been wildly popular south of the border but not so much up here. Scotland was very much Tory country at one point but that changed with Thatcher. Her economic policies absolutely devastated many of the poorer parts of the UK but Glasgow and the west of the country were arguably the worst hit. Glasgow has come up a lot but the deprivation there compared to places like London is obscene. Until recently it was one of the poorest areas in Europe (its possible it still is).
Thatcher was followed by Cameron (caused Brexit and ‘austerity’), Johnson (Brexit mouthpiece, covid spending), and Truss (50 days in power and managed to crash the economy) amongst others.
The way Westminster works is that every MP is supposed to have roughly a similar number of constituents. Because we have a smaller population than England we have far fewer MPs. So typically the SNP or Labour clears the board in Scotland, while the Tories take England. This leads to a feeling that the Tories are ‘imposed’ on Scotland as a consequence of the union. Thus, if we were independent we’d be rid of them.
There’s other factors, like sectarianism (protestant unionism vs separatist Catholics), wealthy (ie conservative) landowners, etc but the Tories is where most of it comes from.
The right… farming and fishing. There is (or used to be) a feeling that the Tories looked after the farmers and fishermen. Thats largely been trashed since Brexit (both groups lost lots of European grant money). The wealthy landowners have always exercised their power via the Tories and the print media - they worry their land will be taken off them in an independent Scotland (highly likely). Then theres that old chestnut of foreign influence via social media, exacerbating the immigration debate. The right is predominantly Unionist, thus if you’re right-leaning you’re typically unionist.
Sounds a lot like how things are going over here, too. You have my sympathies. Thank you so much for explaining that, I appreciate it.
No probs, and yeah you’re right. Culture wars funded by the ultra-wealthy to distract us from a class war. Same all over.