So would the Scottish peers* get kicked out of the House of Lords? The Scottish Law Lords? Would Brown, sitting for a Scottish seat, no longer get the Prime Ministerial Earldom? Retiring Scottish MPs no longer ascend to the Lords (ie, Darling, if he sat for a Scottish seat)?
That is, in part, are Alexander, Darling and Brown all against independence because they can feel the ermine slipping away?
Would Scotland be unicameral or would they create some sort of upper house?
*I believe, but am not sure, that most modern creations are in the peerage of the UK but that some of the older ones are still in the Scottish peerage.
I believe they keep their sreats in the HoL if they live in England, but I may have this all arse/face.
The reason Brown etc want the union is the same reason they wanted to be MPs rather than town councillors. They’d be in charge of the world if they could.
More importantly. No vote (boo), followed by devo max.
Will anyone actually have the courage to stand up and address the West Lothian question? Will it be possible to continue to ignore it?
Really don’t understand why they’re dangling Devo Max in front of the Scots as some sort of prize.
I don’t believe any rational person can have watched the illiberal, hectoring inadequates of the Scottish Parliament over the past 15 years and think “more powers for those idiots, please!” If they’re already of the nationalist persuasion, they’ll vote yes. If not, telling them you’ll further empower the failed social workers and professional busybodies at Holyrood is confusing the issue, not to mention pissing off the rest of the UK.
It’s bad tactics as well. They should be defending the Union, if they want it to survive. Getting into a bidding war with the SNP over who can offer the most goodies is a terrible mistake, because the SNP has already promised every adult Scot a free moon rocket and a hand job.
Not sure they still give out Earldoms for being Prime Minister.
And pretty sure Gordon Brown wouldn’t want one.
Steve
Isn’t point about devo max that the Scots go from whinging about the “pocket money” they get from Westminster and actually have to stand on their own fiscal feet and fund their generous welfare utopia themselves. And suddenly realise that £2-3bn in oil revenues a year isn’t enough to pay for much more than 2 months of NHS expenditure.
I would have thought most readers here would approve of such fiscal responsibility.
@Shinsei1967: exactly. What pisses me off is that the usual suspects are happy to give Scotland, Wales and NI devolution, but want to split up England into “regional” fiefdoms which they can gerrymander. Devo-max for England 🙂
Shinsei1967 – that might be the point, if they hadn’t started talking about it so late in the campaign.
Bringing it up just weeks before the referendum makes the No camp seem desperate.
If the government wanted the referendum to be about Devo Max versus what the SNP smirkingly calls independence, they should have put it on the ballot.
Would Devo Max make the Scottish Government fiscally continent? I have my doubts. It could just lead to greater bunfights to come over petroleum tax and Scotland’s contribution to the UK treasury for defence and other UK-wide expenses.
In any event, David Cameron has shat the bed on this one. Through his cowardly failure to seize the initiative after the SNP unexpectedly won a majority in 2011, he has allowed the SNP to build momentum.
Had Cameron insisted on a swift referendum, a convincing No vote would have been delivered in 2012 and the SNP would have torn itself apart by now.
Obviously members of the Scottish peerage should lose any possibility of a seat in the Lords. I imagine that a new Scottish parliament might be unicameral: the old one was.
This referendum is two one-legged men in an arse-kicking contest! Neither has addressed the essential nationality issue (which must determine whether one can sit in the HoL or any other rUK institution).
I’d suggest all who vote in the referendum are automatically defined as Scottish (GCHQ has the voting rolls). And all the gray area types like Brown have to opt for one or the the other, no subsequent switching.
I pray that some part of the UK administration has the residual intelligence to run armed cordons round rUK’s Scot-based assets on Referendum Day+1,
Surely Lord Smith of Bannockburn would leave the Lords, while Lord MacTavish of Tunbridge Wells would remain?
Can anyone help me? If Scotland says “get lost, we’re not taking 1p of the national debt”, what is the effect?
Do the famous bond vigilantes say:”Not good chaps, but they have no debt, and every incentive to prove they’ll be good chaps in future, let’s lend cheaply”.
Or do they say:” not good chaps, let’s not lend.”
Or other way round, if Scots do take a fair share, do bond vigilantes say:”good chaps, let’s lend cheaply”, or “good chaps, but have shedloads of debt, lend at top price or not at all.”
@Steve,
but they are all illiberal, hectoring inadequates, all of them in all countries, counties, town councils, supranational bodies and so on. Which set of illiberal hectoring inadequates you have running your life (and to some extent how many layers of them there are) really doesn’t make that much difference. At least it’s better than life under an unhinged nationalist or jihadist regime.