Scotland to leave the UK?

[the2real4mafol]

trashleg said:

DanneSandin said:
Anyways, anyone wanna explain fast and simple why the Scots wanna be independent all of a (not so) sudden?

I'll tell you why.

The population of the UK is divided into constituencies (represented by seats in the House of Commons - a total of 626). Since Scotland has ~8% of the UK population, you can't expect us to ever have an effective vote in Westminster (UK) government. In the last general (UK-wide) election, there was one constituency in Scotland that had a majority vote for a member of parliament (MP) from the Conservative party.

The party with the most seats in Parliament forms the cabinet (basically the leading party provides the guys "at the top"). 

Last election, the Conservatives didn't have enough constituencies (seats) to form a simple majority government. Since the chances of them forming a coalition govt with the Labour party were sliiiiiiim, it was up to the centre-ist party (the Liberal Democrats) to choose, basically, which other party to form a coalition with. They had pledged to side with Labour but went with the Conservatives instead.

And so it came to pass that Westminster has a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition led by David Cameron, Conservative extraordinaire. Now, for the UK as a whole this might seem representative, or fair. But for the 5.3ish million people in Scotland, this did NOT represent our political intentions. 

So politically, having a local government that is more closely aligned with the policies and the representation that we actually desire, seems functionally more appropriate than being at the mercy of a government that has more important priorities, and a different political ideology.

Scottish people in general tend to lean more left than English people do. And they really likely and benefitted from the post war consensus social democracy Britain used to have until Thatcher got in 1979. 

Thatcher's policies tended to cause mass unemployment and deindustrialisation. This hit every part of the country even London quite badly but London has recovered since. But places like Scotland, Wales and the North haven't really. While stuff like the very unpopular poll tax made the Scots hate Tories (now they only have 1 tory MP) yet have to put up with the governments policies (a tory led coalition). As you said, the Scots have been badly represented by westminister but this has been going on since 1979 at least.

The current government isn't really that popular anywhere but especially hated in Scotland.

But anyway, this is probably why the independence movement grew despite Labour hoping devolution to be enough. Only the Scottish can run Scotland best, no one else. so it's about time 

Whether they seize the opportunity is another matter. Either way British politics will never be quite the same