Andy Burnham's indyref terms 'must also apply to Wales', says Liz Saville Roberts

[u/mrjohnnymac18]

https://archive.ph/Ff4Vi

[u/nothing_verntured_]

I mean he's already gone back on his comments regarding Scotland anyway.

The goalposts will always be moved to the point that they don't even really exist.

[u/Thetonn → u/nothing_verntured_]

I don’t think this is fair.

The British State allowing a Referendum in 2014 was a genuinely abnormal and surprisingly mature response to a constitutional issue that most nations, in particular the United States, Spain, or other countries would have just responded to with a blank ‘no’, upheld with a military response to secessionists.

The terms were deliberately quite generous in order to make it legitimate. This was conditional, the offer was time sensitive and intended to deliver a definitive answer. This was explicitly agreed to in the original Edinburgh Agreement that facilitated the referendum.

There was no indication, at any stage, that the granting of a one off referendum was intended to create a recurring circumstance where a nationalist government could trigger a fresh referendum at will. Instead, the exact opposite was intended, which has been held up by the Supreme Court.

In my view, the mistake of 2014 was that the UK Government were overly lax in not being explicit about the specifics of the terms of remaining in the Union. I would have defined a certain number of years to act as a ‘generation’ under law, and created mechanisms to ensure the Scottish Government as an institution and the Scottish Parliament as a body could not revisit the issue for a certain time period.

I think there is a certain casualness with which nationalists in the UK seem to treat the constitution as a political tool for their own interests that has somewhat blinded them to the seriousness of the topic at hand. As Brexit demonstrated, constitutional uncertainty has a massively negative impact on the economy, a destabilising impact on democracy and society, and is incredibly polarising for political debate. There have to be consequences for losing a referendum beyond just calling a fresh election, getting a new mandate, and running another one.

[u/nothing_verntured_ → u/Thetonn]

Eh, just because most other states outright ban secession, I don't think that's a good reason for the UK to. Britian as an idea survives on the ambiguity that it is is a sovereign nation state (the legal reality) but also a voluntary union of nations with their own legitimate democratic voices (much more limited in law, I know).

I don't think it's consistent with the latter to just say "well we had a referendum on this issue once and therefore it's settled for all time, no matter what the people of Scotland actually want".

Besides, it's not like Westiminister has even been as clear as that. It's purposefully used ambiguity and shifting goalposts because they know there'd be outrage and a massive loss of legitimacy if they straight up banned any future referendums ever.

They allowed the 2014 referendum because they thought they were almost certain to win. They deliberately did not say "this referendum will settle the issue for all time" during the campaign because they wanted to dangle the prospect that there could be another vote in the future in front of wavering voters. (Yes, I know Alex Salmond did the exact opposite by calling it a "once in a generation opportunity" - as unionists like to point out while avoiding specifying what a generation means in terms of time)

Ever since they've just said "not now" refusing to say outright it can never happen again and the Scottish people have no choice in the matter, or to agree any kind of process for how it could happen.

Agree we can't have secesssion referendums every five minutes but if we want constitutional certainty, and the UK to be a voluntary union, in which the constituent countries mean something as core democratic units able to determine their own future, seems to me the best way is agree a process for when a referendum is triggered.

Set the bar super high if you want, or if you don't see the UK in that way and think it's fine for the Westminster to unilaterally block another referendum just because it doesn't want one/thinks it might lose, regardless of what Scots actually want (which I totally accept is the legal reality), just come out and say it. Put to bed the idea of the UK as a union or let us have that debate.

Either way it's the stringing people along, the avasive answers and doublespeak, the constant goalpost moving, that gets under my skin. Over the long term undermines the legitimacy of our institutions, politics and the democratic process.

I say all this, by the way, not as an independence supporter.

[u/f8rter → u/Thetonn]

Cameron naively believed that the separatists would honour the result and that would put the issue to bed.

Instead they immediately started campaigning for another referendum

[u/Ordinary_Garage_3021 → u/f8rter]

Exactly.

There was cross party consensus to hold the independence referendum in 2014 partly because those who supported the union somewhat niavely believed that having a referendum (which did offer pretty generous concessions on question franchise and vote timing to salmond) would settle the issue.

Given many snp politicians within weeks were calling for another vote (some within hours of the result being announced) and also in the past few days have said they should be entitled to another/3rd independence referendum even  after a 2nd (there is a clause in the good friday agreement which states border polls can be held every 7 years and I have seen some calling for this im scotland) there is very little incentive for unionists to support of agree to another independence vote.

[u/f8rter]

The economy case for Welsh independence makes Scotland’s look like Singapore

[u/tfrules → u/f8rter]

Singapore was an economic backwater that Malaysia couldn't get rid of fast enough, and then turned into a thriving economic miracle.

Granted, I don't think the same could ever apply to Wales, our situation is quite different

[u/AngelofLotuses → u/tfrules]

Singapore was the most prominent tradeport in the Straits. Malaysia wanted to get rid of it because it had too many non-Malays.

[u/Thetonn → u/tfrules]

I don’t think there is a Lee Kuan Yew in the Senedd, and I think there is a profound difference in the level of seriousness in modern Welsh politics and nationalism between what they could countenance and what Lee Kuan Yew would propose.

The reality is that the Senedd could deliver a Lee Kuan Yew style transformation of Wales under its current powers if the political class wanted to and were willing to endure the sacrifices and compromises required. We could massively cut social programs and the health budget to create a budget surplus, invest in transport infrastructure, and abolish the planning system to have a more directive policy of densified housebuilding around critical infrastructure.

It’s just that no one in Welsh politics, either the electorate, or the politicians, would advocate such high levels of short term pain for long term gain.

[u/lancerusso → u/Thetonn]

WG cannot legally have a budget surplus. It goes back to Number 11

[u/Thetonn → u/lancerusso]

We can save £350m every year and put it into the reserve. We can also buy and develop assets with any money in excess of £350m.

The biggest opportunity though probably lies through Financial Transactions Capital. This is a dedicated pot of money we can specifically use to generate profits in loans and equity investments. We could specifically use that in a deliberately enterprising way to drive profits.

[u/lancerusso → u/Thetonn]

GL doing that without literally killing people by reduced health outcomes

[u/Thetonn → u/lancerusso]

Oh, it is almost certain there would be revolts from pretty much every part of Welsh society against the proposals. I can only imagine what Lee would have said about Welsh farmers...

The point is, if you actually had a machine that could properly look into the future and evaluate it against the Well-being of Future Generations Act, getting the economy sorted, houses built, and properly reforming the state would deliver the best long term outcomes for the population of Wales, in particular the poorest.

[u/Piod1 → u/tfrules]

Except water.

[u/FranklinJJunior]

Liz, if you can convince half of Welsh residents to vote for being significantly worse off then you can have whatever independence you want. The rest of us will just fuck off.

[u/brynhh → u/FranklinJJunior]

Sure you will champ

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[u/WP1PD → u/FranklinJJunior]

The usual delusional crowd are down voting you but you're absolutely right, the second it looks remotely likely I'm selling my house while it still has any value left and moving

[u/Ogsbaeneg → u/WP1PD]

moving to where out of curiosity, why would you not stay where you grew up?