Scottish Labour’s Michael Shanks has won the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection in an overwhelming victory over the SNP that the party leadership declared “seismic”, and a clear demonstration that Scotland could lead the way in delivering a Labour government at Westminster at the coming general election.
In a result that exceeded Scottish Labour expectation, Shanks beat his closest rival, the SNP’s Katy Loudon, by 17,845 votes to 8,399 – a majority of 9,446 and a resounding swing of over 20%.
A strong interest, yes, but not an overwhelming desire for it. There does actually seem to be a proportion of people who vote for the SNP based on other policies they agree with, or because they like the idea of independence but don’t strongly support having it right now. And polling on the matter over time suggests support for it rarely tops 50% - with strong fluctuations based on what’s happening in Westminster. This suggests that support for independence has an anti-Tory/protest vote component to it. And as we know from Brexit, making a massive change based on a slim majority amongst those who actually voted, many of whom are protesting against austerity rather than making a rational decision, doesn’t always turn out well.
I’d be more convinced by Scottish independence if support for it was consistently above 60%, and the people who support it were making a rational decision, rather than a “I hate Tories!” or “I hate the English!” position. Like, I get it. I’m a Cornishman, and some days I think it’d be really nice to build a wall along the Tamar and keep all those pesky English people out. But I also make a distinction between something said out of frustration and something that’s intended to be serious policy.
I do agree there are solid arguments for a reform of the union, though! Not just for Scotland’s sake, but for Wales, Ireland, and various neglected regions of England as well. Pretty much all of the union would be better off if different regions had more power and money to decide for themselves what they need. Running the whole place from London, while London gets all the investment, just isn’t working.
I know what you mean. Big decisions being made by 50%+1 votes are definitely messy. But the alternative is that a minority wins. e.g. 60/40 or whatever. That’s even worse.
Maybe there should be a series of referendums and you need a majority 3 times in a row? But those might all be 50%+1 again.
Like it or not, people can even be found guilty of murder on the basis of a single person deciding one way or another.
Scotland isn’t just a region, it is still a country in its own right. Would we have been okay with the EU refusing us a Brexit referendum, or telling us we can only have one every X years? Of course not.
And, to be honest, people get tired of voting. If anything, frequent independence referendums would only put people off.
To be honest it’s all hypothetical. The UK government will never allow another independence referendum. And nor will Labour. Cameron only allowed one because he thought there would be no chance of a Yes vote. There is no getting out, no matter what percentage of the Scottish population want one.
Unless you have 100% of the population voting in a referendum, then you never know for sure that a minority hasn’t won with 50%+1. The general assumption is that people that don’t vote support the status quo, because if they supported a change, they’d vote for it. That’s why 60% is a good minimum to aim for, because it means support is overwhelming, not just slightly halfway over the total that cared enough to vote. It indicates a strength of feeling that 50%+1 on a 75% turnout does not.
I know what you mean, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume every non-voter is a vote for the status quo. There will be lots of sick, incapacitated, and (most of all) apathetic people out there.
To count those as the status quo is plain wrong IMO. It also gives motivation to those in power to make it difficult to vote for certain demographics, like we’ve seen recently with voter ID.
You can’t count those who don’t vote as being a vote for a massive change, though. If they were strongly in favour of it, they would have gone out and voted. If they’re apathetic on the issue, by definition that means they don’t support a change.
I have the same opinion about Brexit, by the way. When you factor in all the people who didn’t vote at all, only about 25% of the population voted for Brexit, and making such a massive constitutional change based on literally a vocal minority is a terrible idea. I believe you said you were opposed to the will of a minority being imposed on everyone else? An independence referendum with a sub-100% turnout is, by definition, not a majority vote in favour of independence unless substantially more than 50%+1 vote in favour. As soon as one person doesn’t vote, that 50%+1 is no longer guaranteed to represent the will of the majority, and the more people don’t vote, the more you need to go above 50% to prove that it is the will of the majority.
Yeah I would never count non-voters as for, or against, something. But I disagree that apathy (or ignorance) equals a vote for the status quo.
I didn’t vote at all until I was about 28. Not because I was happy with the incumbent party, but because I knew I hadn’t researched any of the options well enough to vote for them.
On making sure it is the will of the majority by requiring >50% of the population, it makes it remarkably easy to prevent change. If the media are on your side, they can simply downplay any vote. Or, like I mentioned previously, make voter registration difficult/biased.
I do get what you say about ideally being >50% of the population. But I think it’s far too easy to subvert such a rule, leaving us stuck with >50% of votes registered as the most practical (if not ideal) option. Even though I also hate to see outcomes from really low turnouts. (Local election turnouts are embarrassing.) I’d love to see a minimum turnout requirement but I do just think it would be abused.
At this point, btw, I’m not even sure how we got to discussing turnout. :) It does seem like we fundamentally disagree on what’s acceptable though.
Yeah, a fundamental disagreement on what’s acceptable seems to be the issue here. I think there’s enough people with extreme, minority views that no massive change should be decided unless it’s absolutely clear that it’s supported by a majority. For every “good” change you can theoretically get 30-40% of the population to vote in favour of, you could also very easily get bad changes that 30-40% would vote in favour of.
For example, if a referendum was offered on whether trans people should forcibly detransitioned, there are enough apathetic people and enough vocally anti-trans people that such a referendum would likely result in a “yes” result. Doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do, or that it would represent the will of the majority of the population. Referendums on issues only a vocal minority care about are a recipe for changes being imposed against the will of the majority.