Scotland Watch

[UndercoverElephant]

At the end of the day, it's all just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic anyway. A facebook friend who lives on the north coast of Scotland posted this today (his own work):

No Trident
No university fees
No prescription charges
No austerity
No UKIP coalition
No new Labour
No Euroscepticism
No immigrant bashing
No imperialistic wars
No 51st State
No London centric government
No London centric media
No more Tories
No rescinding Human Rights act
No city fat cat crime
No anti union legislation
No greenhouse gas u-turns
No Little Englandism
Yes on September 18th

And everybody will live happily ever after.

[RenewableCandy]

Can we have a referendum in yourkshire so we can vote "yes" to joining the newly-independent Scotland? And, if our "Yes" vote wins, will Westminster refer to it as "the Scots annexation of Yorkshire"?..

[Tarrel]

Can we have a referendum in yourkshire so we can vote "yes" to joining the newly-independent Scotland? And, if our "Yes" vote wins, will Westminster refer to it as "the Scots annexation of Yorkshire"?..

Yes, and it'll be followed by sanctions, which means no more Single Malt!

[RenewableCandy]

We'll still have it in Yorkshire, because we'll be part of Scotland. We just won't be able to import stuff from England. Like, errr, mmm what do they produce in England that there isn't in Scotland? The only major one I can think of is wheat. And I prefer oats anyway.

[Tarrel]

We have wheat. Fields of it next to our woodland. Plus barley of course, most of which goes to the distilleries.

We don't grow / make wine up here, whereas they do down south and, AFAIUI, the quality is improving all the time. (By wine, I mean the proper grape stuff - not other fruit-based wines, not that there's anything wrong with those.)

Can't think of much else. Asparagus maybe? Cherries don't do to well up here either.

[Catweazle]

My wife and I have voted for our house to be an independent country too.

100% voter turnout and a 100% majority. How's that for democracy in action !

Now, does anyone know the procedure to get the neighbouring country of "Wales" to recognise our status ?

PS/ Will NATO have us as a member ? We don't have a naval base, but the bottom field is big enough to land a helicopter.

[vtsnowedin]

My wife and I have voted for our house to be an independent country too.

100% voter turnout and a 100% majority. How's that for democracy in action !

Now, does anyone know the procedure to get the neighbouring country of "Wales" to recognise our status ?

PS/ Will NATO have us as a member ? We don't have a naval base, but the bottom field is big enough to land a helicopter.

Best to begin negotiations with the other principalities around you. You'll have to band together to fend off the Londoners invading forces after the crash. Have you settled on a name and flag yet.

[kenneal - lagger]

If Scotland has enhanced Social Security payments we may be able to relax the restrictions on immigrants at Calais and just bus them straight through England to the Scottish border. Problem solved for France and England!

[Mr. Fox]

What problem?

[Little John]

The reasons cited in that report for why immigrant workers contribute more than they cost are erroneous;

Many of them are short term migrant workers who work in industries like agriculture and other seasonal sectors. these sectors previously employed low skilled British workers. Those people are, by virtue of the the way our society is set up, required to have permanent address, send their kids to school etc. This means that they are subject to costs of living that are more or less inescapable. Things such as rent, council tax water rates and all the rest. This means that the wages on offer by farmers and other seasonal employers simply do not meet those costs. Any employer who chooses to employ indigenous British workers alone on decent wages that meet such costs will be firstly immediately economically disadvantaged by other employers who choose to employ low paid migrants and, secondly, he/she may well be subject to EU anti-discrimination employment laws. And so, all employers are dragged to the party of low pay and conditions for workers whether they like it or not.

Even when such workers are not short term migrants, it is hardly uprising, if they have come from an economic basket case of a country, that they will put up with shitty pay and conditions and keep their mouths shut and not complain. The UK, as it happens, had a booming economy during most of the Victorian Era. The lot of most workers during that period consisted of hard lives that were considerably shorter than had been the case in the period immediately prior to the industrial revolution. Only when unions formed and pushed for better pay and conditions did things change. Even then it took a couple of wars and thousands of men marching home having been trained to kill people with guns, before our elites finally were scared enough to give some ground. It's only surprising it has taken the bastards 70 odd years to begin to seriously claw it all back.

Stating bald GDP-esque figures and how they relate to migrants' economic "benefit" to the UK is a pernicious nonsense and addresses nothing of the real concerns of real people on the ground. It's a bullshit economist's answer. What the F--k are you doing citing this shite?

[Tarrel]

If Scotland has enhanced Social Security payments we may be able to relax the restrictions on immigrants at Calais and just bus them straight through England to the Scottish border. Problem solved for France and England!

Carlisle becomes the new Calais?

[Mr. Fox]

Fair points, Steve.

I was, however, addressing the post that preceded mine, which appears to imply that people migrate here for the 'Social Security payments'.

In my area we have a high number seasonal migrants. Anecdotally, I can tell you that local employers prefer them because they are much more reliable and work a lot harder than the 'natives'.

If it weren't for the Poles and the Lithuanians, there'd be no daffodils - have you ever done a day daff picking? It's horrible. No wonder few locals are prepared to do it.

Anyway... enough of a derail. Let's get this 'Scottish thing' out of the way so we can turn our attention to more pressing matters.

[UndercoverElephant]

Fair points, Steve.

I was, however, addressing the post that preceded mine, which appears to imply that people migrate here for the 'Social Security payments'.

Some of them do. But to highlight those cases at the expense of telling the bigger story (as explained by Steve) just feeds ignorance and xenophobia while ignoring much bigger and deeper problems. It's all too easy to have a go at "benefit scrounging immigrants". Much harder to point the finger at the de-facto ruling classes in this country who don't give a toss what happens to those at the bottom, provided they themselves continue to get richer.

[another_exlurker]

Steve, most of those agricultural workers aren't married and don't have kids. Also, the farms usually provide accommodation of some kind (usually static caravans). As far as I'm aware, agricultural accommodation that is located on the farm doesn't attract council tax if it's for farm employees. There usually isn't any rent to pay either (hence why the wages are lower).

One of the reasons why the farms have to rely on immigrant workers is because, traditionally, those jobs were done by migrant workers from within the UK. Thanks to Maggie destroying the traveller community, that whole way of life was (to all intent and purpose) completely destroyed.

[biffvernon]

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
...