If you want to see Scotland become an independent country then you might want to be sitting down for this, I have some very bad news.
Tavish Scott and his Lib Dem party have decided NOT to back an independence referendum next year despite (allegedly) considering a U-Turn on their policy.
I know, I know, devastating stuff but Nationalists will somehow just have to soldier on. Incidentally, there is a dream to cling onto but it involves the Greens increasing their Holyrood representation by 400%.
Seriously (because the suggestion that Tavish could make the SNP's drive for independence swerve let alone crash is ridiculous), the Scottish Lib Dems have missed an open goal this weekend.
I had suggested they were in a lose-lose position but there was a third option ahead of them this weekend which they haven't taken.
If the Lib Dems had backed a referendum next year then it would be a lose because their leader's position would be untenable. Someone who has time and again voiced his strong objections to a referendum could not reasonably lead his party during one which he had just delivered.
Another lose would have been if the Lib Dems had stuck to the status quo of no referendum, seemingly ever. They would (or will, given this is the option they have plumped for) fade back into irrelevance and consequently still do not have a stand out policy that gives people a reason to vote for them.
How long is it before the Lib Dems see single digit polling figures? Surely not too far away...
The third option, the one that they should have opted for to cling onto their fading liberal and democratic credentials, is to promise a referendum in the 2011-2015 parliamentary term. I mean, let's be honest, rightly or wrongly the question of independence has dominated the political agenda and the media ever since 2007 and will continue to do so. We're going to have to have a decisive vote on this.
Tavish might as well get on the front foot, deliver the referendum sooner rather than later and win some Holyrood votes along the way.
(In related news, Mike Crockart has been selected to contest the safe Edinburgh West seat for the Lib Dems. Given Mike is the local party convener one could argue that he was always looking good but former MSP Euan Robson and party policy convener Siobhan Mathers will be disappointed to have missed out, though they did finish 4th and 3rd respectively.
So congratulations Mike Crockart. Or Mike Crockart MP as we should probably get used to saying.)
Salmond vs Trump
16 minutes ago
22 comments:
Jeff the mood in the room was that to vote on the SNP's Bill for an referendum as it is to be presented, as it is set out, was from the discussion ruled out. Though the feeling in the room was that should not mean never.
(Corrected to elemenate possibly misconstrued language)
Ah, the Calman approach, removing the tricky questions before you start the review.
(I didn't actually realise that the 2010 referendum was excluded from the review so thanks for pointing it out.)
Maybe we're not getting the full story in the press but today's debate looks like a disappointing affair after such a big build up.
"Scottish Liberal Democrats reaffirm their opposition to the SNP's plans for a referendum on Scottish independence." - Big deal.
And I can't imagine the majority of the party will be satisfied with that conclusion, yourself included.
Commenting on the special session at the party's autumn conference, shadow Scotland secretary Alistair Carmichael said: "The party overwhelmingly rejected Alex Salmond's referendum Bill. There was genuine and widespread anger at the rigged question put forward by the SNP."
I think we need a better explanation on how the question was, "rigged", though I suspect that it will never be an explanation demanded by the media or volunteered by the Lib-Dems.
If the Lib-Dems didn't like the question in the bill then the obvious course of action would have been a deal with the SNP to change the question in the referendum bill in order to get it through parliament.
Typical Lib-Dems. They don't like the question so they duck and weave to avoid answering it.
Like Karen Dunbar's, "Sniffer", in Chewin' the Fat, I smell shite.
I won't bother being hypocritical about this.
It is wonderful news for the SNP that the Lib Dems continue,indeed re-emphasise, their undemocratic and illiberal opposition to a referendum on Scottish Independence.
The Lib Dems cannot seem to grasp that the majority of Scots support a referendum.
The wonderful news is that everyone is now totally clear that they are the third and least important unionist party rather than a Home Rule Party.
They already have a pitiful membership in Scotland, and the majority of those who might have joined them will never now do so.
By the time they change their mind-as they will have to do so under some smokescreen or other-they will be an utter irrelevance as poltics will have moved on.
Let's be realistic, I don't think this will lose them a single vote.
#anonymous
So you don't think this will lose them a single vote?
I agree-it will lose them many thousands.
Jeff,
I do not think this is very bad news. I think the Liberals have shot themselves in the foot with this decision.
You could reasonably assume that this will move votes to the SNP...
Just like the addition of supremacist groups like the Orange Order into the fray. The Lib-Dem's continued stance that is so obviously prima facie at odds with what the electorate understand them to be. Only serves to widen the clear blue water that seperates those of us for Scotland and scotland alone, and those of us who clearly are not.
I know in the past the media have used just this message to frighten the electorate. Times have changed, messages need to be kept simple. Vote for those who's sole intention is to govern in the best interests of the Scottish people, or vote for various parties who's agenda's do not have the interests of Scots as a prime concern.
Good analysis Jeff, I agree, the liberals through indecision and and a certain attraction to short term diluted policy positions brought about by Tavish are receding in the public's mind.
This decision is as you rightly note is hardly surprising (or resolved for that matter).
What remains unresolved is that there is a clear split in the personalities & members of Lib Dems, what damage this decision has done to their grass roots activists will be untold for a wee while yet but I suspect that in some key areas for the SNP, it will be fatal.
"Let's be realistic, I don't think this will lose them a single vote."
Yes, thanks Tavish, keep clicking those red shoes.....
Wardog and Jeff the point of yesterday wasn't to resolve the matter finally but to get the discussion moving. Therefore to argue that it didn't resolve anything is ludicrous that wasn't the point of it.
As for short term deluded politicaal positions, how long have the SNP wanted a referendum. Err since the 2007 manifesto, before that they said when Scotland gives a majority of nationalist members Scotland will have sppoken. So the aim for next year is 30 MPs right? No it is only 20.
Douglas, this post is dripping with rare sarcasm. It's not a setback for the SNP at all. Indeed if the rumours are true that Salmond etc preferred a 2012 referendum to a 2010 one then it's perfect. The Nationalists can take a perfectly fair grievance to the electorate and win votes.
As for the Lib Dems losing votes, I agree to an extent but it depends what you mean by losing votes. They're only polling at 12% or so so they don't have many votes to lose.
BUt they missed out on an opportunity to define themselves, to give the party a clear narrative between now and 2011 and, given that, they have lost potential votes which is foolish.
WHo are they trying to win votes from with yesterday's decision? The Tories? I don't see it. Undecided potential Lib Dems will be flocking to the SNP.
Stephen,
if that's the case then your party's media management needs some work as it's being reported as a final decision.
I'm pretty sure the SNP would have been equally happy with a referendum pre- or post- 2007 but given they weren't in power at the time, the former would be a little tricky.
Either a majority of MPs or a referendum are plausible routes to independence. The latter is, of course, more likely in the short term and purer given that people vote for a myriad of reasons at elections, not just on the question of independence.
If we want a clear answer and resolve the issue, we need a plebiscite. If we want the issue to rumble on and on and on then we can take the Lib Dem stance of holding debates without any conclusions.
Jeff don't just take my word for it, this letter writer in the SoS puts it well.
'Independence this time – Yes' in '74
'Free by '93' in 92
There was of course also
'Heaven in '97'
Oh yeah all implying a vote for the SNP was enough go get voters on the road to independence.
Stephen, you're adopting a very strange position of being in favour of a referendum while also seemingly saying if people want a say on independence then general elections are sufficient mediums to state such aspirations. Which is it? And are you not even a little bit annoyed at Tavish for having to face two directions at once?
What? The y should have promised a referendum in the next Parliament, irrespective or whether support for independence parties rises or falls in 2011??
You come back with 50% of the votes in 2011, or of the MSPs, and then tell us who has the better option.
The actual "question" is consistently given terms like "rigged" or whatever from the unionist spokesperson, be it the labour/tory/libdems, and yet the one proposed is the only question that can be asked within the current powers of the Scottish Parliament.
I have seen more than a mere question, important as it may be, being "rigged" because I saw the narrow minded political confines of the dreadful "Calman Commission", the one that the Libdems have now realised wasn't such a good idea as it will go for Devolution Minimum.
We would have got Devolution Minimum (after Devolution Status Quo for a few years, had we voters allowed the dreaded Labour lot to win the right to run our parliament, so this unionist coalition is a disaster for all, the parties involved and of course the Scottish people; the last consideration as far as Calman was concerned.
Stephen Glenn has forgotten the many bills that went through the Westminster Parliament at the end of the 19th and beginning of the twentieth century as he named the titles used by the SNP before they gained more votes than any other party in Scotland.
These are actual bills, not slogans to take a cheap shot at.
The last one was courtesy of a person called Winston Churchill (going through his Liberal phase ironically) and in 1913 the paper had made great headway and was based on Scottish Home Rule....until Churchill was called to the Admiralty as the Great War broke out and it was shelved.
There was a Scottish Covenant in the 1950's that had 2 and a half million signatures from the Scottish electorate to have Home Rule, and that still took another 50 years!
I am a patient individual, the likes of Tavish Scott will have his unionist mind changed for him, though the Libdems let themselves down with their secretive closed meetings used to rubbish the SNP (they hope) rather than represent the number of Libdem at grassroots level (those that are still left that is) who are for a referendum on Independence.
The Libdems will have a far tighter time should the SNP win the 2011 Scottish Elections, and they cocked it up for themselves and their party the last time-no wonder most Scots are unaware of the Federalism alleged to be a Libdem policy when the leadership always play to the union.
That is unrealistic and the libdems will be seen as a laughing stock after this daft exercise in how to reverse PR. (Public Relations)
"........yesterday wasn't to resolve the matter finally but to get the discussion moving. Therefore to argue that it didn't resolve anything is ludicrous that wasn't the point of it."
Again, this smacks of desperation because no reasons were given, the comments from Tavish Scott after his secret meeting were identical to the utter tosh given out publicly by the outrageous political minion Ian Gray of labour, all that nonsense about a "rigged" question has actually been spouted by Scott before this meeting behind closed doors.
The Libdems don't have the bottle to allow the minutes of that meeting into the public domain, but if that were possible the betting is that it would be as embarrassing to them as this non even was.
The liberals are destined and seemingly determined to be waving at the boat as it leaves the shore, never on that boat.
I suspect it won't amaze you to learn that there are a lot of young Scottish Lib Dem activists who feel the same way.
Actually Kinghob I haven't forgotten the many Bill that went through Westminster in the late 19th and eraly 20th century. I even wrote about one over on Malc in the Burgh. But clearly you misunderstand the concept of Home Rule (ie devolution) as stipulated in such bills and independence that the SNP seem to want to advocate.
Only in Ireland was mere home rule not enough and we all know the fall out of that.
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