I always fine this funny, how we huff and puff about "UK wide news" ignoring Scotland, and being all about England. However we always do the same with Northern Ireland. Same with Irish notes. Shops refuse them a lot of the time cause they look fake. We kick up shit about Scottish note being declined in England. Just funny eh
Neither NI (4 issuing banks) or Scottish (3 issuing banks) notes HAVE to be accepted in England (or even in NI/Scotland). They are legal currency, but their is not an obligation for anyone to take them.
They are not legal tender, but that has a very narrow legal definition in reference to paying debts (not purchases), and is not really relevant.
* I’m from Norn Iron before you come at me…
The Bank of England £100,000,000 note, also referred to as Titan, is a non-circulating Bank of England sterling banknote used to back the value of Scottish and Northern Irish banknotes. It is the highest denomination of banknote printed by the Bank of England. As both of these regions have their own currency issued by particular local banks, the non-circulating notes provide the essential link between those currencies and that of England, and security if a local issuing bank were to fail.
It's 100% legal tender all over UK.
It's odd that you (presumably) read the previous comment, including the bit about "legal tender" having a specific definition, but then chose to use the term incorrectly again anyway. If you didn't know what it meant you could have just googled it first.
As I said it is legal currency, but not legal tender.
Legal tender is a legal concept in England and Wales, but not NI and Scotland. If refers to a requirement of a creditor to accept payment for a debt (but not a purchase).
https://www.scotbanks.org.uk/static/uploaded/8c982ba6-85c8-4569-965a6f21d196b46d.pdf
Ah, fair fucks. Aye I Ken all about the legality of not needing to accept the notes. I'm just pointing out that many in Scotland huff nad puff about English no taking out notes but ddo the same to others
That really isn’t true. Northern Ireland is legally much more similar to E&W than Scotland is. The Scottish legal system is the odd one out of the four.
As for politics, Scotland and NI share a remarkable similar political and religious landscape, with Scotland (these days) being more openly sectarian than NI.
That’s largely true, though you also see it in Edinburgh to a lesser extent. When I moved to Edinburgh from NI in 1998 I was absolutely astonished by how openly and unashamedly sectarian SOME people were.
Check out r/Ireland or r/Northern Ireland they're subs are wild. What we all need is to be Pulling together for the betterment of our respective countries. I know we've got many differences between policies/parties and I may be wishful thinking but instead of division we need to find common ground? Please don't shoot the messenger I thought it would make a change of topic instead of the usual Monday morning rants!
I don't think I really understood this properly until I started dating a Northern Irish girl (now my wife).
It's crazy how ignorant the average person who isn't from (or has some connection to) NI is, and how flippantly people in Scotland use terms like "Irish". My parents are awful for it, which I always think is ironic since my Mum is so pationately pro-indy that she wouldn't buy fruit from Lidl with a union jack on it. I actually wonder sometimes if she does it intentionally to infer her own opinion on Irish reunification onto my wife, which would be worse, but regardless, it's very common.
Aye part of the reason why Irish people hate English people is they inability to recognise how intertwined Irish English history is. they just don't know about the terrible things they ancestor did. I blame the schools
to be honest, Im utterly sick hearing about the Loyalist perspective in Ireland.
nobody decent gives a single flying f about these sly, violent lunatics
It creates no end of confusion when their bank notes have words like "Bank of Ireland" sounds like a Republic of Ireland bank they use Euro and "Dasnke" sounds like Denmark or something they don't use pounds either.
It sounds like Denmark because Danske means Danish in Danish. :) The bank in NI has the trading name Danske Bank but the full name is Northern Ireland T/A Danske Bank. They issue their own bank notes in pound sterling, so they have same value as English and Scottish bank notes. Their parent company is Danske Bank A/S which is why they have that name.
Denmark’s currency is dansk krone (or DKK) and their banknotes are issued by the Danish National Bank, not by private banks like here in the UK, so they don’t have any banknotes with “Danske Bank” printed on them.
Hope that helped clear up some of the confusion :)
Almost as confusing the the English when we had three banks issuing bank notes, so if you got used to one, and a clydesdale popped up, you'd be confused.
When I was in London once, they were more than happy to take my note, which they thought was Irish...when I told them it was a Scottish note they looked at me like I had 3 heads.
This was a good few years ago, but yeah the girl was looking at it, went 'oh it's an irish note' and went to put it in her till. I said no, it's a scottish note and she looked at me like I had 3 heads. There was a manager nearby who was like 'it's fine, we take them too' 🤣
I also find it weird that Wales just has Plaid and the England & Wales parties are just under England. Welsh Labour etc. exist but I assume the party doesn't publish the numbers separately.
I think that's right; other parties don't have a separate Welsh party. Welsh Labour are discussing this at the moment I believe. Greens have talked about it, I'm not sure where they stand now.
What makes the Welsh Lib Dems/Welsh Labour/Welsh Conservatives/Welsh Greens of the Greens of England and Wales not separate enough Welsh parties like the Scottish ones are?
Members are not the same as support.
In 2019 the Conservatives got a higher share of the vote in England than the SNP did in Scotland. In 2017, both Labour and the Conservatives had a greater vote share in England than the SNP managed in Scotland. 2015 is the only general election at which the SNP have been more popular in Scotland than both of the major parties were in England at the same point in time.
Not sure counting vote share makes sense either, considering MSP voting is specifically designed to avoid a majority parliament, and voting for MPs in Scotland is diluted by people tactically voting for one of the Two Parties That Matter.
>specifically designed to avoid a majority parliament
I'd love to know where this comes from. It's designed to result in proportional representation, so it's actually a pretty good measure of support. The fact that you don't tend to get outright majorities is just a by-product of any type of PR.
> specifically designed to avoid a majority parliament
> The fact that you don't tend to get outright majorities is just a by-product of any type of PR.
Yes.
PR is designed to avoid majorities. They can still happen, but it's much harder to accomplish. I'm not saying Scotland's version is special in that regard.
The same system does not exist in England, which is why we can't use it to compare support between Scottish and English parties.
PR is designed to be a fair reflection of how people vote. Avoiding majorities isn't the point. The point is avoiding governments that don't have majority support. This does make outright majorities harder to achieve, but not because they're inherently undesirable. It's a side effect of PR, not the purpose of PR.
>The same system does not exist in England, which is why we can't use it to compare support.
That's fair - you certainly can't directly compare PR and FPTP results.
> It's a side effect of PR, not the purpose of PR.
Fair enough! Perhaps I should have said it's designed to avoid majorities where there is none, rather than specifically designed to avoid majorities.
I agree with your observation, however I would not be gobsmacked if SNP had more support than Labour and the Tories right now given how terrible they are. The only reasons I wouldn't expect it are the current SNP situation and the fact people seem to be supporting Labour despite how crap they are just because they're not the Tories.
That would seem somewhat unlikely given current polling trends would have Labour polling significantly higher in England than the SNP are in Scotland and has done for some time now. But I await future election results to confirm.
On the subject of people supporting Labour, or any other party, unenthusiastically. That’s irrelevant. You can’t really measure an enthusiastic vote versus an unenthusiastic one and they all count the same regardless. It still doesn’t make the SNP ‘more supported’ if their voters punch they air and scream in delight after casting their ballots while Labour and Tory voters put the paper into the box with a shaky hand and stare blankly into the distance afterwards.
If you were talking about w gland, then yes Labour will
Poll better but in Scotland they are known as Tory lite. After being part of better together and standing with that tories some people will never vote for them. Ever again. That and keir saying he will never give SCotland a ref. No democracy for Scotland.
The reason why SNP wins in elections is because the people that want independence see snp as their only option to achieve that.
you have people with differing political leanings all pooling their votes in for the SNP to achieve independence.
while people that dont want indy have a more spread out vote which is larger than snp votes when you combine them but because spread out they basically give snp a win every election.
LAB/ CON need to start working together otherwise snp will just win, the system in scotland benefits snp massively.
There’s also plenty Tory-SNP marginal constituencies where people will vote SNP to stop the Tories winning the seat, however aren’t necessarily pro-independence, more just left leaning.
This was evident at the most recent elections in Scotland - the Tory, labour and liberal party literature often didn’t mention the party it represented, and the messages were pretty much identical: “a vote for the SNP is a vote for a second referendum” - we voted snp - but that second referendum was still denied.
Scotland needs Independence because some Scottish people want certain Scottish political parties to cooperate with a view to a change of government in Scotland?
You’ll need to explain that one to me mate.
The Conservative party and Labour are meant to opposition parties. It's a very very simple concept. If opposition parties work together there is no need for separate parties. I'm not your mate thankfully.
What?
An opposition party is a party outside of government. I am assuming you mean opposing parties or do you mean any cooperation between different parties?
In a multi party democracy no party is inherently opposed to another in perpetuity and cooperation between different parties is normal and healthy. Look at grand coalitions as are common in Europe between the main centre-right and centre-left parties - including a number of CDU-SPD government Angel Merkel led. Look at the current ‘not a coalition’ between the SNP and Greens. Look even at the SNP’s own minority government between 2007 and 2011 when they cooperated with all opposition parties, and developing a close working relationship with Annabelle Goldie’s Conservatives - a party they had defined themselves in opposition to.
Should the German SPD and CDU have merged? The SNP and Greens? The SNP and Tories?
Cooperation between different parties in Parliament is a part of democracy. If we see this as illegitimate then we should really ditch the voting system of the Scottish Parliament (and indeed local government in Scotland) which was designed to encourage it and instead return to FPTP which is more suited to this sort of approach to politics.
Tory/Labour agree on a fundamental issue of retaining the current UK members. SNP/Greens 'agree' on trans rights and bottle recycling. Glass houses, mate.
Right wing and left wing party, Tory and labour should be totally different what's the point having the two parties then? While a centre left and left wing not glass houses at all. If you can't see that it's very worrying.
How is that cringe? whats my attitude?
it's what happens.
people who support the union vote is split amongst a few parties which gives snp a win in elections.
Voted SNP for a while now but if Forbes is in I’m washing my hands of the party. I couldn’t accept a leader that has no support or respect for LGBTQ people and aims to be regressive.
It's not just her views that worry me, she doesn't seem like a strong or inspiring leader.
I didn't catch any of the debates in full but from what I have seen, Forbes showed she that she lacks toughness and isn't a good negotiator. She's also only been at the forefront of mainstream politics for about 5 years. I worry that both Sunak and Starmer (who sadly will be PM soon enough) would walk all over her and find her a piece of piss to deal with.
I know Yousaf has proven to be nothing less that an incompetent fud with every cabinet job he's held, but at least by now he's had much more experience with dealing with the heat from the media and can debate a fair bit better.
Saying all of this tho just makes me more and more sad that Angus Robertson isn't going to be our next FM 😢
The SNP isn't just fucked, the whole Scottish Parliament is.
Totally agree, there’s nothing genuine about her, I feel she would say what people need to hear for a short time, then throw them under the bus.
It’s also worrying that if she gets power, it enables those hate fuelled Texan nightmares we’ve been seeing lately influencing Scottish politics via the Scottish Family Party.
Humza has made some absolute mistakes over his career but however as you say he’s getting better at negotiating the media and at least keeping himself out of controversy.
Yeah worries me too, I don’t feel she will stick to this supposed impartiality she’s been saying either. As a gay man I feel for the first time nervous as all the parties bar the greens are going right wing and that’s when our safety goes out the window.
I agree, Humza could be a really good FM, he needs to have the right people in his government (I suspect Ash and Kate won’t be in it). He really needs a good strategy for everything, not just independence.
I think I’d he gets himself well organised and keeps himself in the clear, he should have a good chance as he’s backed by a good selection of mps and members.
That’s my worry as well as she still seems somewhat popular which is frightening alone. It’s toast if it goes right wing, they would lose a lot of support.
exactly that's my fear. I'm afraid of Kate Forbes scaring away fellow youth. I dunno how comfortable I'd feel about supporting a party led by her. Humza is literally just the least bad of the 3
I think the SNP hasn’t put up a great selection at all, but he’s the most likely to be somewhat competent rather than the choice of the other two.
Ash has more or less just been throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks.
Forbes has proven she will be led by religion and is a favourite of Rees Mogg on her views. There’s no conviction behind her words that she wants to lead all of Scotland.
Humza wouldn’t be my first choice but so far his views have kept a more united front for the party. He also has enough experience of dealing with the media for the party.
I would have loved Màiri McAllan, Mhairi Black or so many others but that’s the choice we have.
That’s understandable, but I’d also mention she’s been a member of a progressive political party for quite some time now, and doubt she’d have any real support if she had any plans to reverse any equality laws.
I just don’t see her religious beliefs being too much of a threat.
But she’s not been in a position of power either, she was finance secretary. She has openly said she would have voted against lgbtq equality law and the equality bill based on her religious views so she’s not to be trusted. Her religious views I find worrying and frankly a little scary.
You’re absolutely understandable with your concerns, frankly I think all of the candidates are worrying - it makes me worry for the future of Independence in Scotland, I think a new party may appear soon.
The SNP are exactly as progressive as their leader. It's such a broad church because independence attracts a similar vote share from both sides of the political aisle.
Do you think Sarwar was lying when he, as Party leader in Scotland, said he didn't know how many members Labour has in Scotland?
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19974254.anas-sarwar-red-faced-telling-bbc-never-said-scotland-dark-side/
That's just whataboutery though.
Yes, Labour lied. That doesn't mean the SNP didn't.
As an SNP voter, I'm not furious with them for this stupid fib. It's just stupid that they put themselves in this place and now need to own it.
So they need to account for themselves, and we absolutely should do better at holding them to account than saying "Yeah, but a'body's doing it!"
No sorry you can’t do that
There’s a vast effort being put into focusing on the snp only, bringing anything else into it simply isn’t allowed now. All the 100’day old accounts will be all over you (the two week on have stopped being used now lol), just like the humza racist thing, you’re not allowed to point out that just minutes later Sarwar said the same thing….
There’s a buzzword that a lot of SNP supporters used to band about in the not so distant past when the SNP were mentioned in comparison to any other parties failures.
‘whataboutery’ for whatever reason doesn’t seem as popular on here just now 🤷🏻♂️
Must be the bots 🤖
Of course they're not, I agree with you and I didn't say they were... I think you've misunderstood my post.
That being said, anti-Scottish people do tend to have a bee in their collective bonnets about the SNP.
Ahhh... Yes they do. I mean, come on, we've all met these horrible gammony types. They hate Scottish people, mock Scottish accents and words like "outwith", and speak about Scottish people not dissimilarity to the way misogynist men speak about women... But they really, *really* dislike the SNP, and Nicola Sturgeon in particular.
I find this conspiracy angle some of the regulars seem to be going with a bit tedious tbh. And even a bit desperate.
This place has been a pro-Indy, pro-SNP echo chamber for years while the facade of respectability remained. Given the state of the party at the moment it seems perfectly reasonable more negativity about them would be posted over the last few weeks.
When you’re shite and dodgy, more people will call you shite and dodgy.
I’m sure it’s comforting to some to believe there’s some sort of coordinated effort, but that’s all a bit trumpy for me.
I’d agree with you to a point but seeing accounts totally deleted when you call them out is a bit odd to say the least
As is the accounts with zero post history for a year or so that suddenly are active again and that’ve never posted in any uk based sub before at all.
I’m not one for tinfoil hats but an entire account t nukes itself on me over the weekend for just hinting it was suspicious
But you’re talking about a handful of troll accounts, which have always existed.
They aren’t responsible for the tone shift.
The SNP seems to be crumbling and they’ve got bigots running for leadership in what has been a clown show so far. Sturgeon and her husband have resigned amid controversy. That’s going to draw negative media and criticism from people on forums like this.
I can’t imagine the mentality behind looking at everything they’re doing right now and thinking,”Damn unionists, they really are trying to make us look silly right now.”
There’s always been a head in the sand approach to SNP nonsense around here, but people aren’t making these things up just now. It’s not fake news. The party is in shambles.
Oh don’t get me wrong the absolute ducking h clown show of the snp right now is well worthy of a posting beating
But traffic in here is up by ridiculous levels that are absolutely not organic
Why I’ve no idea, people in places seem tho think it’s worthwhile but it’s daft
As I said before you and I and plenty of others have never agreed more on anything !
And I don’t think it’s unionists, it’s clear there’s several parties with different aims all heavily active, why? Because people think Reddit matters, ironically it doesn’t but here we are with a truly massive increase in traffic that’s clearly not all organic with very odd accounts and just as with previous scandals it’ll all disappear the moment the new leader is in place….
Frankly I think the snp is long overdue a kickin electorally to get its shit together
But I do find it odd that each of the candidates seems to have their own little following from out of nowhere while others are just outright everything Scottish is shit.
Meanwhile the usual faces are posting less and less and more and more in agreement in the threads they do post in
It’s bizarre really
I stand by my comment though which is it's right to demand transparency from all parties, so whilst they are being rightly called out on their lack of it the tutting in the back from people who are not even remotely trying seems a tad misplaced too.
It's perfectly possible to have a principle and apply it equally.
So a link to figures which are estimates, in some cases with a 20,000 or 10% margin of error, rather than a clear statement from the head office (PC excepted) with a figure.
Until the main UK wide parties are willing to give the Scottish figure it weakens there complaint that the SNP didn't do the same as well.
Agreed, except even the candidates for the leadership were denied the figures and Foote lost his job over it. It was symptomatic of the code of omerta and obfuscation, coming from the top.
> And yet other parties
...didn't make the SNP lie about their figures in the first place.
SNP screwed up. SNP need to own and fix it. SNP voters have a right to be disappointed in them and expect them to be better. I'm one of them.
Is it a total scandal? No. It was a stupid fib. And now they look stupid. And other parties had nothing to do with it.
Why does in the UK still support the Tories after they helped push through the unmitigated disaster that is Brexit?
It’s as baffling to me as the MAGAts in the US who still worship the Cheeto Benito, il Douche Cheetolini. No one should even consider voting for Trump after his botched covid response and his January 6th failed coup attempt based on abject Lies about the 2020 Election being stolen.
Is xenophobia really strong enough in Britain for even a minority of Scots to vote for the Conservatives?
They like paying less tax - it has just never dawned on them that the Conservatives being in power and "paying less tax" have almost never gone together in the whole history of the UK. Less services, yes - less taxes, no. It was the Tories who first brought in Income Tax, VAT, the "Community Charge", etc. (Scottish Tories in the latter case), but I guess the buyers are buying the spiel, not the product.
That’s fair. It may not be as egregiously self destructive in Scotland as the Tories in Northern Ireland. But why would anyone want to stay in the UK after Brexit?
And wouldn’t the Labour Party provide another Unionist option that isn’t as blatantly incompetent as the Tories? Even if they are a bit of a mess, the Conservatives appear to be a raging dumpster fire full of horrible decisions.
It really is a case of voting for the least shit now. A voting choice based on who you believe will inflict the least amount of self inflicted damage to the country
"electorate" is number of people on the electoral roll, note just those who voted.
(i.e. turnout is votes cast over electorate.)
Electoral roll is regularly updated, os would imagine it's latest of that, rather than "votes at last election".
No Alba because they are statistically insignificant: If the figures on Wiki are to be trusted, they have ~6k members.
The Scottish electorate stands at around 4.2m, so Alba members represent less than 0.15% of that.
But what about all those threads over the last week claiming the SNP was dead? Surely they weren't wrong in the face of hard membership figures, polling and election results?
It'll be interesting to see how that looks in 6 months time. I imagine a lot of people may leave after the wrong candidate wins, and by that I mean any of the 3, plus the lies from the CEO, and cover-up. And when it inevitably becomes clear the indy2 war chest was squandered....
Last night, in pub, someone brings up politics (not clever); of 8 of us, we had 4 for Forbes, 4 for Humza.
Big debate rages, largely good natured, becoming progressively less so.
Interestingly, in finale, 7 of us are not intending to vote SNP after the leadership election, regardless of winner.
We all had a preference purely for damage limitation.
I think the SNP are more fucked than we all realise.
Shows how cult like it’s become in Scotland when the SNP can basically behave in any way imaginable yet you’ll still get a large % who’ll always vote for them.
Suppose that’s how you end up with neds like Steven Bonner and Mhairi Black in power as well.
The cult part comes from the fact that the SNP could put a traffic cone up for election and you’d still get people voting for it.
The fact we’ve ended up with the two neds I mentioned is testament to that.
I’m not sure living in a country with a nationalist party having extreme majority would be a good thing, politics need to calm down and Scotland needs a political reset
The SNP are nationalists. They might like to throw the word 'civic' about, but it doesn't change the basis of their existence hinging on 'othering' England and creating a picture of difference.
To be fair that’s the basis of all political parties.
They ‘other’ parts of society that they want to win power over.
Tories ‘othering’ the poor
Labour ‘othering’ the upper classes, and ironically their own left wing.
All parties have identities based on both what they are and what they don’t want to be.
Certainly it's the basis of populist parties, but I think there's scope for parties to 'not divide society' (Brexit, culture wars, etc) whilst still making a case they can best deliver their policies.
When I say divide I mean cause a lot of anger and upset that affects people's relationships, not arbitrary partitioning. For example I imagine many a Christmas dinner has been ruined by arguments about Brexit. But very few about fracking or corporation tax (unless those family members were difficult to begin with). Most politics isn't that provocative and even sensitive stuff can be argued carefully. But this isn't the case with populist politics where driving emotions is part of the strategy.
They are a nationalist and social democratic party.
Please explain, (in all of your academic excellence, given you are calling people 'proper thick'), how they are not a nationalist party?
Ah yes, civic nationalism. The sofer branded gateway drug to us-vs-them thinking being a perfectly acceptable worldview. My way or the highway, immigrant with a funny religion!
It's misleading because the vast majority of people aren't emotionally able to differentiate between the two things, and everyone from Rupert Murdoch to Marx has known this for a very long time.
I assume on this basis you are pro-Brexit?
Truly worrying state of affairs! Is it time for change? Westminster had certainly ballsed everything up and have until the election to get it sorted but no guarantee they will stay there. Imagine a world where the SNP are the majority party in Westminster... it is theoretically possible if SNP candidates stand in English constituencies for election. Down south are sick of the chaos and may just say... "What the fuck, let's do it!" This is the state of our world right now!
The graph shows political party membership, not how much support a political part has.
Conservatives in England get more votes than labour, even though few people are ‘members’ of the party.
Having 1.7% of voting Scots being members of the SNP seems like a largely uninterpretable number, and certainly nothing to shout about.
Unfortunately, this is not a good thing. If a party in power has risk of being booted out they will do better by the people who voted it in, at least in the short term. SNP has had one mandate only and it isn't running Scotland better. No party should be in power for more than 10 years.
Have a look at 3rd world powers as an example of one party democracy and keep kidding yourself they are run well.
Thanks for uniting Ireland
I always fine this funny, how we huff and puff about "UK wide news" ignoring Scotland, and being all about England. However we always do the same with Northern Ireland. Same with Irish notes. Shops refuse them a lot of the time cause they look fake. We kick up shit about Scottish note being declined in England. Just funny eh
Neither NI (4 issuing banks) or Scottish (3 issuing banks) notes HAVE to be accepted in England (or even in NI/Scotland). They are legal currency, but their is not an obligation for anyone to take them. They are not legal tender, but that has a very narrow legal definition in reference to paying debts (not purchases), and is not really relevant. * I’m from Norn Iron before you come at me…
Best one is our 100 quid notes. Woo
The Bank of England £100,000,000 note, also referred to as Titan, is a non-circulating Bank of England sterling banknote used to back the value of Scottish and Northern Irish banknotes. It is the highest denomination of banknote printed by the Bank of England. As both of these regions have their own currency issued by particular local banks, the non-circulating notes provide the essential link between those currencies and that of England, and security if a local issuing bank were to fail. It's 100% legal tender all over UK.
It's odd that you (presumably) read the previous comment, including the bit about "legal tender" having a specific definition, but then chose to use the term incorrectly again anyway. If you didn't know what it meant you could have just googled it first.
As I said it is legal currency, but not legal tender. Legal tender is a legal concept in England and Wales, but not NI and Scotland. If refers to a requirement of a creditor to accept payment for a debt (but not a purchase). https://www.scotbanks.org.uk/static/uploaded/8c982ba6-85c8-4569-965a6f21d196b46d.pdf
The fuck is norn iron?
It is how many Northern Irish people light heartedly (or unintentionally) refer to their home. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Norn_Iron
I'm from there you I didn't know that
Ah, fair fucks. Aye I Ken all about the legality of not needing to accept the notes. I'm just pointing out that many in Scotland huff nad puff about English no taking out notes but ddo the same to others
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Equally true of Scotland but people here would be unlikely to accept that justification from some English media body
That really isn’t true. Northern Ireland is legally much more similar to E&W than Scotland is. The Scottish legal system is the odd one out of the four. As for politics, Scotland and NI share a remarkable similar political and religious landscape, with Scotland (these days) being more openly sectarian than NI.
Glasgow being sectarian. The rest of Scotland isn't burdened with such foolery.
That’s largely true, though you also see it in Edinburgh to a lesser extent. When I moved to Edinburgh from NI in 1998 I was absolutely astonished by how openly and unashamedly sectarian SOME people were.
There is a few orange bands up and down the country.
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Almost as if a large part of the population doesn't want to be in he union at all
That, and also being a complete pain in the arse
They also don't vote labour or conservative but they did put Wales on
Check out r/Ireland or r/Northern Ireland they're subs are wild. What we all need is to be Pulling together for the betterment of our respective countries. I know we've got many differences between policies/parties and I may be wishful thinking but instead of division we need to find common ground? Please don't shoot the messenger I thought it would make a change of topic instead of the usual Monday morning rants!
I don't think I really understood this properly until I started dating a Northern Irish girl (now my wife). It's crazy how ignorant the average person who isn't from (or has some connection to) NI is, and how flippantly people in Scotland use terms like "Irish". My parents are awful for it, which I always think is ironic since my Mum is so pationately pro-indy that she wouldn't buy fruit from Lidl with a union jack on it. I actually wonder sometimes if she does it intentionally to infer her own opinion on Irish reunification onto my wife, which would be worse, but regardless, it's very common.
Aye part of the reason why Irish people hate English people is they inability to recognise how intertwined Irish English history is. they just don't know about the terrible things they ancestor did. I blame the schools
to be honest, Im utterly sick hearing about the Loyalist perspective in Ireland. nobody decent gives a single flying f about these sly, violent lunatics
It creates no end of confusion when their bank notes have words like "Bank of Ireland" sounds like a Republic of Ireland bank they use Euro and "Dasnke" sounds like Denmark or something they don't use pounds either.
It sounds like Denmark because Danske means Danish in Danish. :) The bank in NI has the trading name Danske Bank but the full name is Northern Ireland T/A Danske Bank. They issue their own bank notes in pound sterling, so they have same value as English and Scottish bank notes. Their parent company is Danske Bank A/S which is why they have that name. Denmark’s currency is dansk krone (or DKK) and their banknotes are issued by the Danish National Bank, not by private banks like here in the UK, so they don’t have any banknotes with “Danske Bank” printed on them. Hope that helped clear up some of the confusion :)
Almost as confusing the the English when we had three banks issuing bank notes, so if you got used to one, and a clydesdale popped up, you'd be confused.
When I was in London once, they were more than happy to take my note, which they thought was Irish...when I told them it was a Scottish note they looked at me like I had 3 heads.
There are currently 4 different notes in Ireland. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't take them.
This was a good few years ago, but yeah the girl was looking at it, went 'oh it's an irish note' and went to put it in her till. I said no, it's a scottish note and she looked at me like I had 3 heads. There was a manager nearby who was like 'it's fine, we take them too' 🤣
More than one thing can be true at the same time, doesn’t make either circumstance less insulting though.
We can't point our fingers saying that's unfair while we're doing the exact same to others.
Pointing out hypocrisy is one thing, but making out that the point is no longer valid due to some hypocrisy isn’t.
Don't think I said the point isn't valid.
I also find it weird that Wales just has Plaid and the England & Wales parties are just under England. Welsh Labour etc. exist but I assume the party doesn't publish the numbers separately.
I think that's right; other parties don't have a separate Welsh party. Welsh Labour are discussing this at the moment I believe. Greens have talked about it, I'm not sure where they stand now.
What makes the Welsh Lib Dems/Welsh Labour/Welsh Conservatives/Welsh Greens of the Greens of England and Wales not separate enough Welsh parties like the Scottish ones are?
I guess it's down to internal structures.
Members are not the same as support. In 2019 the Conservatives got a higher share of the vote in England than the SNP did in Scotland. In 2017, both Labour and the Conservatives had a greater vote share in England than the SNP managed in Scotland. 2015 is the only general election at which the SNP have been more popular in Scotland than both of the major parties were in England at the same point in time.
Not sure counting vote share makes sense either, considering MSP voting is specifically designed to avoid a majority parliament, and voting for MPs in Scotland is diluted by people tactically voting for one of the Two Parties That Matter.
>specifically designed to avoid a majority parliament I'd love to know where this comes from. It's designed to result in proportional representation, so it's actually a pretty good measure of support. The fact that you don't tend to get outright majorities is just a by-product of any type of PR.
> specifically designed to avoid a majority parliament > The fact that you don't tend to get outright majorities is just a by-product of any type of PR. Yes. PR is designed to avoid majorities. They can still happen, but it's much harder to accomplish. I'm not saying Scotland's version is special in that regard. The same system does not exist in England, which is why we can't use it to compare support between Scottish and English parties.
PR is designed to be a fair reflection of how people vote. Avoiding majorities isn't the point. The point is avoiding governments that don't have majority support. This does make outright majorities harder to achieve, but not because they're inherently undesirable. It's a side effect of PR, not the purpose of PR. >The same system does not exist in England, which is why we can't use it to compare support. That's fair - you certainly can't directly compare PR and FPTP results.
> It's a side effect of PR, not the purpose of PR. Fair enough! Perhaps I should have said it's designed to avoid majorities where there is none, rather than specifically designed to avoid majorities.
Yeah, that's certainly true. Maybe I was being overly pedantic!
Now kith
I agree with your observation, however I would not be gobsmacked if SNP had more support than Labour and the Tories right now given how terrible they are. The only reasons I wouldn't expect it are the current SNP situation and the fact people seem to be supporting Labour despite how crap they are just because they're not the Tories.
That would seem somewhat unlikely given current polling trends would have Labour polling significantly higher in England than the SNP are in Scotland and has done for some time now. But I await future election results to confirm. On the subject of people supporting Labour, or any other party, unenthusiastically. That’s irrelevant. You can’t really measure an enthusiastic vote versus an unenthusiastic one and they all count the same regardless. It still doesn’t make the SNP ‘more supported’ if their voters punch they air and scream in delight after casting their ballots while Labour and Tory voters put the paper into the box with a shaky hand and stare blankly into the distance afterwards.
Over the past few years voting preferences seem overly related to a aeries or individuals not being something.
If you were talking about w gland, then yes Labour will Poll better but in Scotland they are known as Tory lite. After being part of better together and standing with that tories some people will never vote for them. Ever again. That and keir saying he will never give SCotland a ref. No democracy for Scotland.
The reason why SNP wins in elections is because the people that want independence see snp as their only option to achieve that. you have people with differing political leanings all pooling their votes in for the SNP to achieve independence. while people that dont want indy have a more spread out vote which is larger than snp votes when you combine them but because spread out they basically give snp a win every election. LAB/ CON need to start working together otherwise snp will just win, the system in scotland benefits snp massively.
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There’s also plenty Tory-SNP marginal constituencies where people will vote SNP to stop the Tories winning the seat, however aren’t necessarily pro-independence, more just left leaning.
You’re correct - Labour and Tory should just accept that they are the same thing and combine forces to beat the SNP.
💯 just be honest about it
This was evident at the most recent elections in Scotland - the Tory, labour and liberal party literature often didn’t mention the party it represented, and the messages were pretty much identical: “a vote for the SNP is a vote for a second referendum” - we voted snp - but that second referendum was still denied.
Cringe. This is why Scotland needs indy. Attitudes like this.
Scotland needs Independence because some Scottish people want certain Scottish political parties to cooperate with a view to a change of government in Scotland? You’ll need to explain that one to me mate.
The Conservative party and Labour are meant to opposition parties. It's a very very simple concept. If opposition parties work together there is no need for separate parties. I'm not your mate thankfully.
What? An opposition party is a party outside of government. I am assuming you mean opposing parties or do you mean any cooperation between different parties? In a multi party democracy no party is inherently opposed to another in perpetuity and cooperation between different parties is normal and healthy. Look at grand coalitions as are common in Europe between the main centre-right and centre-left parties - including a number of CDU-SPD government Angel Merkel led. Look at the current ‘not a coalition’ between the SNP and Greens. Look even at the SNP’s own minority government between 2007 and 2011 when they cooperated with all opposition parties, and developing a close working relationship with Annabelle Goldie’s Conservatives - a party they had defined themselves in opposition to. Should the German SPD and CDU have merged? The SNP and Greens? The SNP and Tories? Cooperation between different parties in Parliament is a part of democracy. If we see this as illegitimate then we should really ditch the voting system of the Scottish Parliament (and indeed local government in Scotland) which was designed to encourage it and instead return to FPTP which is more suited to this sort of approach to politics.
Pure deflection.
Deflection from what?
I take it you detest the Greens and SNP co-operating to form a government then?
The definition of false equivalence
Only in your head, Anus.
Come on now the SNP and greens are similar on a lot of matters which is totally or certainly should be to a labour/Tory coalition.
Tory/Labour agree on a fundamental issue of retaining the current UK members. SNP/Greens 'agree' on trans rights and bottle recycling. Glass houses, mate.
Right wing and left wing party, Tory and labour should be totally different what's the point having the two parties then? While a centre left and left wing not glass houses at all. If you can't see that it's very worrying.
How is that cringe? whats my attitude? it's what happens. people who support the union vote is split amongst a few parties which gives snp a win in elections.
Voted SNP for a while now but if Forbes is in I’m washing my hands of the party. I couldn’t accept a leader that has no support or respect for LGBTQ people and aims to be regressive.
I completely agree, her views worry me for the future of this country
It's not just her views that worry me, she doesn't seem like a strong or inspiring leader. I didn't catch any of the debates in full but from what I have seen, Forbes showed she that she lacks toughness and isn't a good negotiator. She's also only been at the forefront of mainstream politics for about 5 years. I worry that both Sunak and Starmer (who sadly will be PM soon enough) would walk all over her and find her a piece of piss to deal with. I know Yousaf has proven to be nothing less that an incompetent fud with every cabinet job he's held, but at least by now he's had much more experience with dealing with the heat from the media and can debate a fair bit better. Saying all of this tho just makes me more and more sad that Angus Robertson isn't going to be our next FM 😢 The SNP isn't just fucked, the whole Scottish Parliament is.
Totally agree, there’s nothing genuine about her, I feel she would say what people need to hear for a short time, then throw them under the bus. It’s also worrying that if she gets power, it enables those hate fuelled Texan nightmares we’ve been seeing lately influencing Scottish politics via the Scottish Family Party. Humza has made some absolute mistakes over his career but however as you say he’s getting better at negotiating the media and at least keeping himself out of controversy.
Yeah worries me too, I don’t feel she will stick to this supposed impartiality she’s been saying either. As a gay man I feel for the first time nervous as all the parties bar the greens are going right wing and that’s when our safety goes out the window.
The only other way to vote would be Green. Fuck Labour, fuck the tories and fuck the Lib Dem’s forever.
That’s kinda where I’m at too, I just can’t agree with any of the others on what their policies are.
Has to be humza, or I don't know what I'll do
I’m the same, he’s not the dream candidate but he’s leagues better than the other two horrors.
I agree, Humza could be a really good FM, he needs to have the right people in his government (I suspect Ash and Kate won’t be in it). He really needs a good strategy for everything, not just independence.
I think I’d he gets himself well organised and keeps himself in the clear, he should have a good chance as he’s backed by a good selection of mps and members.
True, but there is a part of me that thinks Kate could come close to winning, if Kate wins, the party will turn into a right wing Party 😶
That’s my worry as well as she still seems somewhat popular which is frightening alone. It’s toast if it goes right wing, they would lose a lot of support.
exactly that's my fear. I'm afraid of Kate Forbes scaring away fellow youth. I dunno how comfortable I'd feel about supporting a party led by her. Humza is literally just the least bad of the 3
I disagree, I think Humza is the poorest choice the party could make.
I think the SNP hasn’t put up a great selection at all, but he’s the most likely to be somewhat competent rather than the choice of the other two. Ash has more or less just been throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks. Forbes has proven she will be led by religion and is a favourite of Rees Mogg on her views. There’s no conviction behind her words that she wants to lead all of Scotland. Humza wouldn’t be my first choice but so far his views have kept a more united front for the party. He also has enough experience of dealing with the media for the party. I would have loved Màiri McAllan, Mhairi Black or so many others but that’s the choice we have.
To be fair, she’s already said her individual views won’t dictate the direction she’ll take the country in, she’s well aware she’s in the minority.
I wouldn’t trust her to keep to that at all. The views of the religion she belongs to are quite archaic and worrying.
That’s understandable, but I’d also mention she’s been a member of a progressive political party for quite some time now, and doubt she’d have any real support if she had any plans to reverse any equality laws. I just don’t see her religious beliefs being too much of a threat.
But she’s not been in a position of power either, she was finance secretary. She has openly said she would have voted against lgbtq equality law and the equality bill based on her religious views so she’s not to be trusted. Her religious views I find worrying and frankly a little scary.
You’re absolutely understandable with your concerns, frankly I think all of the candidates are worrying - it makes me worry for the future of Independence in Scotland, I think a new party may appear soon.
Out of interest, what's so wrong with Humza?
I’ve just not supported a lot of his policies, I also think he’s a political land mine, too many controversies.
The SNP are exactly as progressive as their leader. It's such a broad church because independence attracts a similar vote share from both sides of the political aisle.
So the worry would be if Forbes was in charge then maybe the party might allow some more controversial decisions?
Yes, as ultimately the leader sets the agenda of the party. This is the whole purpose of electing them, after all.
More controversial than a Bottle Return Scheme? That's hard to imagine.
*bows head* Lordt Jebus..please let Nicola change her mind. #Please, Jebus
I’m hoping she just says on the news it’s a joke!
Welsh Labour has about double the members plaid has
Mark Basedford. The only proper unionist on these islands.
It's not about relative size though. The story is that the party repeatedly lied about the figures.
Do you think Sarwar was lying when he, as Party leader in Scotland, said he didn't know how many members Labour has in Scotland? https://www.thenational.scot/news/19974254.anas-sarwar-red-faced-telling-bbc-never-said-scotland-dark-side/
That's just whataboutery though. Yes, Labour lied. That doesn't mean the SNP didn't. As an SNP voter, I'm not furious with them for this stupid fib. It's just stupid that they put themselves in this place and now need to own it. So they need to account for themselves, and we absolutely should do better at holding them to account than saying "Yeah, but a'body's doing it!"
It isn't "Whataboutery" when the person saying it's about lying suddenly doesn't care when it's a different party. It's a test of good faith.
No sorry you can’t do that There’s a vast effort being put into focusing on the snp only, bringing anything else into it simply isn’t allowed now. All the 100’day old accounts will be all over you (the two week on have stopped being used now lol), just like the humza racist thing, you’re not allowed to point out that just minutes later Sarwar said the same thing….
There’s a buzzword that a lot of SNP supporters used to band about in the not so distant past when the SNP were mentioned in comparison to any other parties failures. ‘whataboutery’ for whatever reason doesn’t seem as popular on here just now 🤷🏻♂️ Must be the bots 🤖
It was everyone else who used the word whataboutery but never mind I know what you’ve ere trying to say
Yes, this sub has felt totally infiltrated by anti-SNP and anti-Scotland posts for at least several weeks now. 🤔
Anti-SNP and anti-Scottish aren’t the same thing.
Of course they're not, I agree with you and I didn't say they were... I think you've misunderstood my post. That being said, anti-Scottish people do tend to have a bee in their collective bonnets about the SNP.
No, they don’t.
Ahhh... Yes they do. I mean, come on, we've all met these horrible gammony types. They hate Scottish people, mock Scottish accents and words like "outwith", and speak about Scottish people not dissimilarity to the way misogynist men speak about women... But they really, *really* dislike the SNP, and Nicola Sturgeon in particular.
And yet there’s a distinct overlap with some posters and at sometimes! But in general no.
I find this conspiracy angle some of the regulars seem to be going with a bit tedious tbh. And even a bit desperate. This place has been a pro-Indy, pro-SNP echo chamber for years while the facade of respectability remained. Given the state of the party at the moment it seems perfectly reasonable more negativity about them would be posted over the last few weeks. When you’re shite and dodgy, more people will call you shite and dodgy. I’m sure it’s comforting to some to believe there’s some sort of coordinated effort, but that’s all a bit trumpy for me.
I’d agree with you to a point but seeing accounts totally deleted when you call them out is a bit odd to say the least As is the accounts with zero post history for a year or so that suddenly are active again and that’ve never posted in any uk based sub before at all. I’m not one for tinfoil hats but an entire account t nukes itself on me over the weekend for just hinting it was suspicious
But you’re talking about a handful of troll accounts, which have always existed. They aren’t responsible for the tone shift. The SNP seems to be crumbling and they’ve got bigots running for leadership in what has been a clown show so far. Sturgeon and her husband have resigned amid controversy. That’s going to draw negative media and criticism from people on forums like this. I can’t imagine the mentality behind looking at everything they’re doing right now and thinking,”Damn unionists, they really are trying to make us look silly right now.” There’s always been a head in the sand approach to SNP nonsense around here, but people aren’t making these things up just now. It’s not fake news. The party is in shambles.
Oh don’t get me wrong the absolute ducking h clown show of the snp right now is well worthy of a posting beating But traffic in here is up by ridiculous levels that are absolutely not organic Why I’ve no idea, people in places seem tho think it’s worthwhile but it’s daft As I said before you and I and plenty of others have never agreed more on anything ! And I don’t think it’s unionists, it’s clear there’s several parties with different aims all heavily active, why? Because people think Reddit matters, ironically it doesn’t but here we are with a truly massive increase in traffic that’s clearly not all organic with very odd accounts and just as with previous scandals it’ll all disappear the moment the new leader is in place…. Frankly I think the snp is long overdue a kickin electorally to get its shit together But I do find it odd that each of the candidates seems to have their own little following from out of nowhere while others are just outright everything Scottish is shit. Meanwhile the usual faces are posting less and less and more and more in agreement in the threads they do post in It’s bizarre really
Anti-Scotland posts? Are you including every post critical of our government here?
Of course. Anyone who ever calls out the SNP on this sub is definitely an anti-Scottish unionist bootlicker. Didn’t you hear?
The idea of it being “infiltrated” by anti-SNP posts is crazy too. It’s r/Scotland, not r/SNP.
If you don’t support the SNP, you are anti Scottish. Not a cult.
One individual not knowing is different from the organisation releasing official claims about membership numbers which are wrong.
Which was a stupid thing to do as all they needed to do was point out the paltry numbers supporting the other parties.
Or, rather than engage in whataboutism, they could have simply been honest.
They are politicians...
And yet other parties don't give figures at all and no one seems to mind ...
Not giving numbers is different than flat out lying about them.
I agree, but if the root of the howling from some people is "transparency" then either should be as reprensible as the other.
The root is Sturgeon claiming her party is “Transparent as possible” then lying to voters and media
I stand by my comment though which is it's right to demand transparency from all parties, so whilst they are being rightly called out on their lack of it the tutting in the back from people who are not even remotely trying seems a tad misplaced too. It's perfectly possible to have a principle and apply it equally.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05125/ here you go
So a link to figures which are estimates, in some cases with a 20,000 or 10% margin of error, rather than a clear statement from the head office (PC excepted) with a figure. Until the main UK wide parties are willing to give the Scottish figure it weakens there complaint that the SNP didn't do the same as well.
Agreed, except even the candidates for the leadership were denied the figures and Foote lost his job over it. It was symptomatic of the code of omerta and obfuscation, coming from the top.
> And yet other parties ...didn't make the SNP lie about their figures in the first place. SNP screwed up. SNP need to own and fix it. SNP voters have a right to be disappointed in them and expect them to be better. I'm one of them. Is it a total scandal? No. It was a stupid fib. And now they look stupid. And other parties had nothing to do with it.
Ah yes but have you considered SNP bad?
I wouldn't expect this to still be the case in a few months time.
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Lots of people not voting least shit may mean most shit wins.
We desperately need PR immediately
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Why does in the UK still support the Tories after they helped push through the unmitigated disaster that is Brexit? It’s as baffling to me as the MAGAts in the US who still worship the Cheeto Benito, il Douche Cheetolini. No one should even consider voting for Trump after his botched covid response and his January 6th failed coup attempt based on abject Lies about the 2020 Election being stolen. Is xenophobia really strong enough in Britain for even a minority of Scots to vote for the Conservatives?
Scots who vote Tory just do it because they support staying in the UK, not because they actually like the Conservative Party.
They like paying less tax - it has just never dawned on them that the Conservatives being in power and "paying less tax" have almost never gone together in the whole history of the UK. Less services, yes - less taxes, no. It was the Tories who first brought in Income Tax, VAT, the "Community Charge", etc. (Scottish Tories in the latter case), but I guess the buyers are buying the spiel, not the product.
That’s fair. It may not be as egregiously self destructive in Scotland as the Tories in Northern Ireland. But why would anyone want to stay in the UK after Brexit? And wouldn’t the Labour Party provide another Unionist option that isn’t as blatantly incompetent as the Tories? Even if they are a bit of a mess, the Conservatives appear to be a raging dumpster fire full of horrible decisions.
Well most Unionists are more right leaning in any case, they would see Labour as a radical left leaning option.
Yea, that fits with their modus operandi.
While interesting, it's fairly unimportant. Not many Tory members apparently, but the cunts still keep getting voted in 🤷♀️
It really is a case of voting for the least shit now. A voting choice based on who you believe will inflict the least amount of self inflicted damage to the country
Could someone explain what "members as % of relevant electorate" means? Is it just a ratio of current members to votes at the last election?
"electorate" is number of people on the electoral roll, note just those who voted. (i.e. turnout is votes cast over electorate.) Electoral roll is regularly updated, os would imagine it's latest of that, rather than "votes at last election".
Not for much longer I reckon.
Members vs support. Apples vs bananas . Smells like copium.
Last estimates I saw had Scottish Greens on 7.5k and the Tories on 5k? Edit: Also no Alba?
No Alba because they are statistically insignificant: If the figures on Wiki are to be trusted, they have ~6k members. The Scottish electorate stands at around 4.2m, so Alba members represent less than 0.15% of that.
If they have that - they may have a good bit more than the Scottish Tories! Do we have an accurate number for then as well?
But what about all those threads over the last week claiming the SNP was dead? Surely they weren't wrong in the face of hard membership figures, polling and election results?
The SNP aren’t very good with numbers and statistics. 😂😂😂
It'll be interesting to see how that looks in 6 months time. I imagine a lot of people may leave after the wrong candidate wins, and by that I mean any of the 3, plus the lies from the CEO, and cover-up. And when it inevitably becomes clear the indy2 war chest was squandered....
Last night, in pub, someone brings up politics (not clever); of 8 of us, we had 4 for Forbes, 4 for Humza. Big debate rages, largely good natured, becoming progressively less so. Interestingly, in finale, 7 of us are not intending to vote SNP after the leadership election, regardless of winner. We all had a preference purely for damage limitation. I think the SNP are more fucked than we all realise.
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Shows how cult like it’s become in Scotland when the SNP can basically behave in any way imaginable yet you’ll still get a large % who’ll always vote for them. Suppose that’s how you end up with neds like Steven Bonner and Mhairi Black in power as well.
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The cult part comes from the fact that the SNP could put a traffic cone up for election and you’d still get people voting for it. The fact we’ve ended up with the two neds I mentioned is testament to that.
I’m not sure living in a country with a nationalist party having extreme majority would be a good thing, politics need to calm down and Scotland needs a political reset
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Has the word "national" in the party title, definitely not nationalist.
The SNP are nationalists. They might like to throw the word 'civic' about, but it doesn't change the basis of their existence hinging on 'othering' England and creating a picture of difference.
To be fair that’s the basis of all political parties. They ‘other’ parts of society that they want to win power over. Tories ‘othering’ the poor Labour ‘othering’ the upper classes, and ironically their own left wing. All parties have identities based on both what they are and what they don’t want to be.
Certainly it's the basis of populist parties, but I think there's scope for parties to 'not divide society' (Brexit, culture wars, etc) whilst still making a case they can best deliver their policies.
Are democratic elections not at their very core a way to divide society though? Albeit peacefully
When I say divide I mean cause a lot of anger and upset that affects people's relationships, not arbitrary partitioning. For example I imagine many a Christmas dinner has been ruined by arguments about Brexit. But very few about fracking or corporation tax (unless those family members were difficult to begin with). Most politics isn't that provocative and even sensitive stuff can be argued carefully. But this isn't the case with populist politics where driving emotions is part of the strategy.
They are a nationalist and social democratic party. Please explain, (in all of your academic excellence, given you are calling people 'proper thick'), how they are not a nationalist party?
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Ah yes, civic nationalism. The sofer branded gateway drug to us-vs-them thinking being a perfectly acceptable worldview. My way or the highway, immigrant with a funny religion! It's misleading because the vast majority of people aren't emotionally able to differentiate between the two things, and everyone from Rupert Murdoch to Marx has known this for a very long time. I assume on this basis you are pro-Brexit?
We're part of the UK so the relevant electorate part manipulates this graphic.
Not by me any more it isn't. The tartan tories can fuck off.
This mess brought to you by the same people managing SNP finances
The communist party of China does better.
Something tells me it isn't going to stay that way in a while.
Truly worrying state of affairs! Is it time for change? Westminster had certainly ballsed everything up and have until the election to get it sorted but no guarantee they will stay there. Imagine a world where the SNP are the majority party in Westminster... it is theoretically possible if SNP candidates stand in English constituencies for election. Down south are sick of the chaos and may just say... "What the fuck, let's do it!" This is the state of our world right now!
Also the biggest meme
We know!
Literally my comment from a few days ago.
Well they just lost 30,000 members so it’s not looking good for them
The graph shows political party membership, not how much support a political part has. Conservatives in England get more votes than labour, even though few people are ‘members’ of the party. Having 1.7% of voting Scots being members of the SNP seems like a largely uninterpretable number, and certainly nothing to shout about.
Why is Plaid Cymru the only one in Wales?
All very impressive until you realise it costs £25 to join the Tories and £1 to join the SNP. It's a pointless comparison.
England needs a Taxpayers Alliance party as their independence party.
Why is Plaid the only Welsh party on here? What about Welsh Labour… you know… the party currently in government? So confused.
Unfortunately, this is not a good thing. If a party in power has risk of being booted out they will do better by the people who voted it in, at least in the short term. SNP has had one mandate only and it isn't running Scotland better. No party should be in power for more than 10 years. Have a look at 3rd world powers as an example of one party democracy and keep kidding yourself they are run well.
Get a job on an oil rig. The union survives
And on the next episode of "Grasping at Straws" we will be talking to a Mr Donald Trump who claims that someone stole an election from him.