Scotland to vote on secession from rest of United Kingdom.

[RIPPA]

David Beckham is anti-seperation just in case you were wondering

[Dolfan in NYC]

David Beckham is anti-seperation just in case you were wondering

That son of a bitch Yoko'ed the greatest band in the world, so don't talk to me about him being anti-separation. 

[Bustronaut]

Of course Beckham is anti-separation. He's Mr. Posh, after all.

[Kuetsar]

From the BBC:

 

Queen Elizabeth II has thrown her royal weight into the fray surrounding the Scottish independence referendum. “I hope people will think very carefully about the future,” the queen warned, while speaking to a public well-wisher on Sunday who joked about not bringing up the referendum. Officially, Elizabeth is not supposed to be publicly involved with the independence referendum and has dismissed any rumors that she is worried about the outcome. “Any suggestion that the queen would wish to influence the outcome of the current referendum campaign is categorically wrong. Her Majesty is simply of the view this is a matter for the people of Scotland,” said a statement issued last week by Buckingham Palace. The referendum vote is set to take place Thursday.

Read it at BBC

 

 

Yeah that's not inappropriate at all. . . NOPE.

[RIPPA]

The best part of Beckham's reasoning is apparently he is concerned about all the athletes Great Britian would lose for the Olympics

 

 

David Beckham does not want the United Kingdom to break up. He’s urging Scottish voters to say “no” to independence on Thursday, when the country, which is home to some of Britain’s best Olympic athletes, is set to vote on the matter. He pointed to some of those athletes as reasons why he hopes the union will remain whole.

 

“I took as much satisfaction in seeing [scottish cyclist] Sir Chris Hoy or [scottish tennis star] Andy Murray win gold as I did watching [british runners] Jess Ennis and Mo Farah do the same in the Olympic Stadium,” Beckham wrote in a letter accompanying his signature on the “Let’s Stay Together” petition, the Daily Mail reports.

[Cristobal]

This is probably an American perspective, but if you're taking advice on a referendum for national independence from your current monarch, you probably weren't voting "Yes" anyway.

[muhammedboehm]

What did she say that was over the line? How would that statement be any different then the President being asked about an election?

[Kuetsar]

What did she say that was over the line? How would that statement be any different then the President being asked about an election?

Except the Queen is not supposed to say anything at all, EVER on politics, the way I understand it. . . 

[The Nature Boy]

What power does the Queen still have? I always thought that the whole "staying out of politics" thing was something the QEII herself started and that if say William and Kate wanted to be political, they could. 

[AxB]

 

“I took as much satisfaction in seeing [Scottish cyclist] Sir Chris Hoy or [Scottish tennis star] Andy Murray win gold as I did watching [british runners] Jess Ennis and Mo Farah do the same in the Olympic Stadium,” Beckham wrote in a letter accompanying his signature on the “Let’s Stay Together” petition, the Daily Mail reports.

 

 

Jessica Ennis is from Sheffield, England. Mohammed Farah is from London, England (technically he was born in Somalia. But he's not Somalian. He's English). But suddenly they're British, where Hoy and Murray are Scottish? Nah.

 

Although the Monarch is technically running the Country (after a General Election, the head of the winning party is invited to Buckingham Palace where the Queen asks him or her to form a Government; In the event of a tie she could technically pick the winner herself), we fought a Civil War to make sure that they would never have any actual power. It ended when the King was beheaded for Treason.

 

British History, it's very interesting. There's a lot of it.

[odessasteps]

[Red is Dead]

I've bit my tongue long enough on this subject. If I had the option, I'd vote yes.

 

Points on currency, economy, autonomy and standards of living are very well raised by the better together campaign.

 

Points of safety, taxation, spending budgets have also been put to the better together campaign and havent been properly answered.

 

There's also a fuck ton of self-centered inanity.

 

Not only from Beckham traipsing out the sports stars bit. They really thought having great forward thinker David bloody beckham would sway votes to no? Famed english football player who fucked off to spain and the USA at a moments notice. Nice.

 

Not only the government rushing through the third Devo Max option (which was initially turned down by said narrow minded power hungry idiots)

 

But also Milliband right royally fucking up his chances of ever getting into power by getting into bed with Cameron and Clegg, those chinless wonders, to pass "the vow" through before the end of parliament next year? The no campaign has been backed into a corner and realised they're going to potentially be the cause of the breakup of the united kingdom. Heads on blocks, lads. you're not going to see the year through.

 

Theres also the request from Milliband for English town halls (local seats of power) to fly saltires in solidarity with our scottish cousins. I honestly thought at the beginning of the campaign, Eck the fish would be handing out the blue paint and longswords, not the english.

The funniest part was yesterday - the better together campaign wanted to show the scots how much they were valued.

 

By holding a rally.

 

In London.

 

And please, dont take the bbc's word for it. they've been shown to have a "no" bias. Nick robinson should be ashamed of himself.

[RIPPA]

Funnily enough - and very slightly related to this topic - DC has it's first hearing with Congress in like 20 years in regards to the District of Columbia becoming a state.

 

Now back on topic - my dumb American question - if the vote is no, is that going to end the talk forever? Or is this something that is going to happen again in say like... 5 years?

[Red is Dead]

Not a stupid question rippa; a lot of people have asked the same thing.

 

My understanding of it. It's a one time deal. Cant go back on it in 5-10, irrespective of outcome.

 

Scotland is (was) a massive stronghold for Labour. Cameron has said that the vote shouldn't be used as a "Fuck the Tories, Fuck Thatcher, Fuck our living standards, ya boo sucks" yes vote.

 

Regardless of the outcome, the deal has been put forward by the Westminster parties for more power to be devolved to Holyrood in the result of a no vote. The scottish papers have called it "the vow". However, that constitutional change has to go through both house - parliament and lords. Lords can basically turn around and symbolically wipe their arses on it and tell Scotland to do one. Which is the massive fear of the yes movement.

 

The really interesting thing is to see the breakdown of votes - I would love to see the results of that. For the first time ever, voters as young as 16 (18 being normal voting age for anything else political) can vote. I think a lot of them will vote yes; this austerity is all they've seen. They see the massive gulf in quality of life between the rich south east of england and the rest of the country and they're wondering how and why this has happened.

 

Whether this will mean the federalisation of the UK as we know it...who knows. one things sure, if Scotland votes yes, Cameron has to leave. His job is fucked.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

I think it would probably settle the question for 10-20 years, but there's nothing to stop a referendum happening again and if you have the Scottish Nationalists getting an ever increasing share of the vote then I don't think you can prevent another vote. Given the Scottish attitude towards Labour, LibDems and Tories seems to be going ever more universal antipathy, then this looks pretty likely to me.

[Ramsey]

I picture the American equivalent would be if Rand Paul was elected president and congress had a Republican majority and the west coast said "fuck it, we're leaving."

[Red is Dead]

It'd be sarah palin wanting to make alaska its own independent country, yet still keeping close physical and economic ties with the mainland.

 

Kinda sorta what it's like now, in honesty.

 

www.clickhole.com/article/should-us-deploy-troops-scotland-1016

[RIPPA]

[Brian Fowler]

BTW, if you haven't seen John Oliver's take on it from Last Week Tonight...  track it the fuck down.

[Red is Dead]

[Red is Dead]

Scotland will win independence, but will lose it in the next match 2-1 to costa rica.

[RIPPA]

FiveThirtyEight has a nice write up

 

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/a-rough-guide-to-watching-the-scottish-independence-vote/

 

EDIT - one interesting thing in that article is that supposedly there are a bunch of people who voted via mail and have since said they changed their mind. That is... something....

[J.T.]

I picture the American equivalent would be if Rand Paul was elected president and congress had a Republican majority and the west coast said "fuck it, we're leaving."

 

California should never be allowed to leave the union.  I wouldn't be upset if we gave Alaska to the Canadians so long as we got to annex parts of British Columbia in return.  It would be nice to be able to visit Vancouver without a passport.

[Red is Dead]

FiveThirtyEight has a nice write up

 

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/a-rough-guide-to-watching-the-scottish-independence-vote/

 

EDIT - one interesting thing in that article is that supposedly there are a bunch of people who voted via mail and have since said they changed their mind. That is... something....

Postal votes sure are a thing here.

 

I prefer to use them so I dont have to wait in line for ages at the pissant school hut that gets turned into a polling station for the day.

[Dewar]

 

I picture the American equivalent would be if Rand Paul was elected president and congress had a Republican majority and the west coast said "fuck it, we're leaving."

 

California should never be allowed to leave the union.  I wouldn't be upset if we gave Alaska to the Canadians so long as we got to annex parts of British Columbia in return.  It would be nice to be able to visit Vancouver without a passport.

 

 

We will not trade our weed-smoking Pacific coast hippies (and more importantly, Mad Dog Marty Sugar) for Sarah Palin. EVER.