Brexit

Emily Skarbek offers her thoughts in the immediate aftermath of the referendum result:

"The results of the referendum are in and the UK has voted to leave the European Union. The official campaign was littered with awful arguments that play to the public's worst sentiments - and the decision was likely driven by ignorance and the older voting population. As a foreigner in the country and someone who believes passionately in free trade, open immigration, and the principles of a free society - I am nervous.

The markets have slid and there is uncertainty over what this will mean for the future of the UK and Europe. David Cameron has resigned. No one knows just how this is going to play out. The longer horizon will depend on the course that is chartered in policy negotiations and positions adopted by the UK. 

Many of the people I have discussed this with in academic and policy circles want a freer, more open society. This led some to vote remain and others leave, based on divergent predictions about which course of action would lead to a more open society. I take this as one reason for optimism amidst the fear. 

The aftermath of this vote will require a broader coalition of liberals to push for an open trade and immigration policy. Trade policy that is crafted in the next few years will be crucial to the economic impact of Brexit. Britain desperately needs policy entrepreneurs, City of London, and leaders in Parliament to craft a solution that maximises openness to counter the populist, nationalist, and collectivist sentiments that may have got us here. It is hard to see this now, having just voted to leave the EU single market.

As my friend Sam Bowman points out, the biggest reason London is a great city is due to immigration. We want more of that, not less - from Europe and everywhere else. The voices for free trade must be louder than ever."

No Nicola, the SNP did not get the support of almost 50% of the population of Scotland.

In the aftermath of the recent Scottish Parliamentary election, a comment made by re-elected incumbent First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, reminds one of a recent post I made here emphasising the difference between INPUTS and OUTCOMES.

The comment comes from this story, where Ms Sturgeon is reported as confirming her intention to relaunch her party's campaign in favour of Scottish secession from the UK.  Fair enough; I don't think either Ms Sturgeon's or the SNP's position on Scottish independence comes as a surprise to anyone, and if she/they want to try and convince more people it's a good idea they should be perfectly free to do so.

But don't go about it by spreading blatant lies.

The lie to which I refer is this howler:

"When asked if Scotland can put an independence referendum to bed for the next five years, Ms Sturgeon said: 'No, the position I put forward in the SNP manifesto got the support of almost 50% of the population.'"

This is demonstrably false and so far off the mark as to be laughable.

The position put forward in the SNP manifesto did not get the support of almost 50% of the population.

The population of Scotland, according to the 2011 census, is 5,313,600.

The SNP received 1,059,897 constituency votes in the 2016 Scottish Parliamentary election.

1,059,897 divided by 5,313,600 is not even 20% of the population of Scotland.

Of course, not all of those 5,313,600 people are eligible to vote.  Many of them are children, for example.  The BBC reports the electorate of Scotland, for this election, as 4,099,407.

1,059,897 divided by 4,099,407 is 25.9% of the electorate.

I think what Ms Sturgeon meant to say, was that the position put forward in the SNP manifesto got the support of almost 50% of those who voted.

This is, at least, a more reasonable interpretation of events.  Turnout for this election was around 56% of the electorate.  There were a total of 2,279,153 valid constituency votes and 2,285,752 valid regional votes cast.

Of these, the SNP won 1,059,897 constituency votes and 953,987 regional votes, or 46.5% and 41.7% respectively.

However, there is an issue even with this statement.  That is that people vote for a particular candidate or political party for a wide variety of different reasons and considering a broad range of issues.  It's not possible to know for certain how many of those 1,059,897 people support Ms Sturgeons position on a second referendum.  Maybe some of them voted for SNP candidates due to their position on healthcare, or education or taxes, or defence, or any number of other issues or combinations of issues, or because they have a particularly good local MSP.

Pick any random person off the street and any random political party's manifesto and you are likely to be able to find some things in it which they agree with and some things in it which they disagree with.  Just because a person has voted for a particular party doesn't mean they support everything in that party's manifesto.  All it means is that, on balance, they support more of that party's stated aims, objectives and values, than that of the other parties/candidates.  Often times it's a case of picking the lesser of several evils.

In this particular case, I think it's pretty likely that most people backing the SNP are in favour of Scottish independence, but it is simply not possible to know that from the number of votes alone.

To determine that you have to have a referendum.  Which we did, in 2014.  And in which we found that 1,617,989 people, or less than one third of the population of Scotland, were in favour of independence at that time (to use Ms Sturgeon's favoured way of expressing these statistics).

If she hasn't already, I think Ms Sturgeon should be obliged to make a full retraction of this statement and go on record to correct any misunderstanding that may have resulted.

Self-serving Bias: Confusing Inputs & Outcomes Since 1967

This post was borne out of a small debate I recently got into online with a couple of people, which highlighted to me what I think is quite a common cognitive error.  I have no data to back up my view that this error is particularly prevalent, this is entirely conjecture based on personal experience.

The error is this:
Confusing outcomes with inputs.

Or perhaps it would be better thought of as:
Disregarding the process(es) used to take us from inputs to outcomes.

This came up in the context of discussing elections and election results.  Specifically, I had two people independently assert to me something along the lines of:

“At the last election, country X voted overwhelmingly for party Y.”

I challenged this statement as highly misleading*, on the basis that party Y, whilst winning an overwhelming majority of parliamentary seats, did not win an outright majority of votes, rather the party won only a plurality of votes.**

Party Y actually received slightly less than 50% of the votes cast in the election in question.

I suggested that it is far more accurate to categorise this level of support as a ‘pretty even split’ than as ‘overwhelming support’.

The response I got from both of my online adversaries was (paraphrasing):

“They won almost all of the seats.  I’d call that overwhelming.”

And:

“They received more than twice as many votes as the 2nd placed party.  And they received more votes than the 2nd, 3rd and 4th placed parties put together.  Looks pretty overwhelming to me.”

Both of these responses have two things in common:

The factual statements made in them are entirely accurate.
The factual statements made in them are entirely irrelevant.

Both of these people have completely missed my point.  They have both made the mistake of confusing outcomes with inputs, or of disregarding the process(es) used to take us from inputs to outcomes.

I do not disagree that winning almost all of the available seats in an election is rightfully considered an overwhelming victory for any party.

However, this is a very different thing from the party in question having ‘overwhelming support’ or the electorate ‘voting overwhelmingly for’ them.

“The electorate of Country X voted overwhelmingly for Party Y.” is a statement about the INPUT to the election.

“Party Y won an overwhelming victory, taking almost all of the seats in Country X’s Parliament.” is a statement about the OUTCOME of the election.

These statement are talking about two very different things.  It is entirely possible for either one of these statements to be true and the other false simultaneously.

Statements about INPUTS do not directly translate into equivalent statements about OUTCOMES and vice-versa.

The link between INPUTS and OUTCOMES are PROCESSES.  In this case, the process is the particular voting system used: how people cast their ballots, how votes are counted, how the electorate is divided into constituencies, etc.

It’s not possible to turn INPUTS into OUTCOMES without PROCESSES.  Similarly, it’s not possible to turn a statement about INPUTS into a statement about OUTCOMES (or vice-versa) without considering the particular PROCESS(ES) that took us from those INPUTS to those OUTCOMES.

As an example, if a political party wins 100% of the seats, without receiving any votes (e.g. in an absolute dictatorship), it is correct to say that such a party has overwhelming power or authority, but an error to say that it has overwhelming support.

The reverse is also true.  If a political party doesn’t win any seats, despite receiving 99% of the votes, due to extreme gerrymandering or a rigged election say, most people wouldn’t argue against the notion that such a party has overwhelming support, but it would be an error to say that it had won an overwhelming electoral victory.

These examples are extreme to illustrate my point.  In modern democracies, things are rarely so one-sided.  This is probably for the best.

I think in these cases this error is a manifestation of self-serving bias.  The people I was discussing this with were clearly supporters of Party Y.  They like to think – as do we all – that other people mostly see the World the way they do (or would, if only the ignorant fools were better informed) and are broadly supportive of the same things, that their ideas are popular and that ‘their team’ is ‘winning’.

This was illustrated when I brought up another vote on which one of my debating partners was on the ‘losing team’ by a relatively narrow margin.  They were unwilling to characterise this as ‘overwhelming opposition’ to their position.  The lack of symmetry is striking.  They are happy to characterise a mite under 50% support for their position as ‘overwhelming support’, but refuse to refer to 55% opposition to their position as ‘overwhelming opposition’.  The cognitive dissonance is immediately obvious to anyone not emotionally invested in their ‘team’.

I knew I’d won the argument when I got a response to this point that began:

“Whatever…”


* Put aside for now the fact that a country, as a collective, has no agency or ‘will’ of it’s own and so cannot be said to vote for/against anything (unless the vote is unanimous, and even then there are caveats), as if the views and opinions and wishes of the entire populace were homogenous.  For our purposes here ‘Country X’ is convenient shorthand for ‘The electorate of Country X’.

** I’d go further than that and say that even if a party wins 50% + 1 votes, it’s still highly misleading to describe this as ‘overwhelming’ support.  However, reasonable people can and will disagree about exactly where to draw the line between what constitutes ‘overwhelming support’ and merely ‘support’.  Some people may draw that line at 66.7%, some at 75%, some maybe at 90%, or even higher.  However, something I do not think is at doubt is that the point at which something can be considered to have ‘overwhelming support’ is definitely somewhere north of 50% (i.e. at minimum has a majority behind it).

Democratic Crisis? Really?

Oh, and I'd just like to add the following in addition to my post on Wednesday regarding compulsory voting:

Describing this as a "democratic crisis" is extremely melodramatic.  It is nothing of the sort.  A democratic crisis would be an accurate description only if there had been a coup and we were now being governed by a military junta or something of that magnitude.  Do these people have no sense of perspective and proportion?

Just look at the "balance" given by the BBC:

"Historically Britain has a tradition of resistance to radical reforms to the constitution. But campaigners say dramatic solutions may be required to tackle what is often described as a democratic crisis. 

Critics question whether changes to mechanics of the voting system will address this crisis."

It's just taken as given that both proponents and opponents of this proposal view this as a "crisis".  I suspect the reality is that the vast majority people, including politicians and the media, understand fine well that it's nothing of the sort.

Questions from the BBC which we can answer

"Should voting (or actively abstaining) be compulsory?"

No.

To extend that answer:

No, voting* should not be compulsory in a modern liberal democracy.  Contrary to what David Winnick may believe, voting is not a "civic duty".  It is more important that people have the option to vote and the free choice whether or not to exercise that option.  It is more important also that the people who do choose to exercise that option to vote, do so in the most measured, best informed and fairest manner possible.  In short, there is no civic duty to vote, but if you do vote there is a civic duty to vote well.**

Fining people for not voting* is not necessarily conducive to anything positive in terms of "democracy", "political engagement", "civic participation" or indeed getting the most out of the political process.  Indeed, it seems likely to be counter-productive in some regards - what advantage is there in forcing people, who otherwise would not bother to vote to do so?  If 16 million people either do not care enough or actively do not want to vote, what benefit is there in forcing these people to vote?  Do you think that the majority of these 16 million people are likely to be particularly well informed on politics?  Do you think they'd be able to tell you the difference between the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats?  Could they tell apart David and Ed Miliband, or Ed Miliband and Ed Balls?  Could they name the current Home Secretary?  If not, then what is there to suggest that these people would all vote in a fair, measured and informed manner?  I fail to see how introducing to the process an additional 16 million ill-informed votes improves our democratic process.

As briefly noted in the BBC article, a high turnout does not indicate a politically engaged electorate when it is mandatory to turnout to vote or face a fine or worse.  Surely no-one is fooled by this, which is as transparent as the fact that sticking "Democratic People's Republic of" in front of your country's name does not make said country either democratic or a republic.  Ultimately what is being proposed here is government mandated violence against those who refuse to vote.  Some readers may think that "violence" is being a bit melodramatic, it's only a fine after all, but if you don't pay that fine you will be taken to court and probably lumped with an even bigger fine, which if you continue to leave unpaid will lead to you eventually being imprisoned, and if you resist being imprisoned, well then things can get really nasty.  This is not a road that any modern liberal democracy should be in any rush to go down.


* or actively abstaining

** When I say people have a duty to vote "well" I emphatically do not mean that they should necessarily all vote for the same candidate or political party, in particular I do not mean that everyone should vote the same way as I do (people interpret things differently and even when furnished with all of the same facts there is still ample room for differences of opinion on the relative importance of various issues and there are always differences in different persons value judgements).  All I mean to suggest is that prior to voting, citizens seek to ensure that, within the circumstances, they are as well informed as possible on the key issues, politicians, parties, etc. such that they are able to make a reasoned decision.

Thoughts on the Scottish Independence Debate

Warning: This post is very long and somewhat wonky.

I realise that I'm quite a bit behind here, but I only had the time to watch the debate last weekend and then had to find the time to write all this down during the last week.


General thoughts:
I found Alex Salmond to be relatively weak, particularly on the issue of a formal currency union with the rest of the UK.  He was evasive of questions that obviously made him uncomfortable.  He quoted Darling out of context and several times referred to obscure documents rather than answer questions directly.  I find the case for independence to be lacking, particularly of any really good, practical reasons for why we should want to be independent.

Alistair Darling's performance was perhaps slightly stronger, although he missed a few tricks.  His best moments were when he quipped to Alex Salmond that "I didn't vote for you." and with his observation that a formal currency union between Scotland and the rest of the UK would require agreement on both sides.  I think Darling was needlessly evasive when questioned by Salmond on whether he thought that Scotland could be a successful independent country, probably out of fear of how it would look of how he might be later quoted out of context (judging by this debate, most likely by Salmond himself).


Opening Statements:

Alex Salmond opened by citing figures of 49 out of 71 Commonwealth countries and 12 out of the 28 EU countries are the same size or smaller than Scotland [pop. 5.3 million]; presumably by way of example that there are plenty of successful small countries and that therefore Scotland could be as well.  The 49 out of 71 Commonwealth countries figure is disingenuous, since not all 71 of these 'countries' are independent states - for example England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, St. Helena. and the Cayman Islands to name but a few which are not.  There are 53 independent states in the Commonwealth, 31 of which are smaller than Scotland, one - Singapore [pop: 5.4 million] is about the same size and another one - Sierra Leone [pop: 5.8 million] is not much bigger.  I'm absolutely baffled as to why Salmond would present these figures like this, since the reality doesn't weaken the point he was making anyway.  The 12 out of 28 EU countries figure is perfectly reasonable; there are 9 EU countries smaller than Scotland and 3 of roughly the same size: Slovakia, Finland and Denmark.

He mentions the large number of food banks in Glasgow and rhetorically asks how there can be people reliant on them in this prosperous country [Scotland].  The implication presumably that it is due to failings on the part of the UK government in Westminster.

He then alludes to the Trident nuclear weapons at Faslane and states that £100,000 million (i.e. £100 billion) is planned to be spent on them "over the next generation", of which £8 billion is "Scotland's money" (by which he means is the equivalent paid in tax by the people of Scotland in order to cover this expense).  This is a drop in the ocean compared to other government expenditure, something I've already covered in another post here.

He mentions that for more than half of his life Scotland has been governed by parties that "we" didn't elect at Westminster and that these parties have given us the "Poll Tax" and the "Bedroom Tax" (which of course is not a tax).

Salmond ends his opening statement by stating that: "No-one, absolutely no-one will do a better job of running Scotland than the people who live and work in Scotland." this is a very reasonable point taken in isolation, but it strikes me as somewhat ideologically inconsistent to support Scottish independence on this basis whilst simultaneously expressing a desire for an independent Scotland to remain within the EU.  He's essentially taken polar opposite positions regarding the UK and the EU.

Alistair Darling's opening statement contained exactly what you would have expected it to, he stated that he was proud of Scotland and wants it to prosper, but doesn't believe independence is the best thing to do and cited the strength of the UK.  He advocated a "best of both Worlds" approach.


Economic Prosperity & Social Justice:
The debate began with the themes of economic prosperity and social justice, which were bizarrely lumped together.  Economic prosperity is self-explanatory enough, but the definition of "social justice" is more difficult to nail down and I suspect many people understand it to encompass various different things.  The reason I find it odd that these two things are lumped together is that certain things which some people would consider part of the definition of "social justice" I view as being at odds with economic prosperity.

Darling claimed that as part of the UK, Scotland enjoys unimpeded access to a much bigger market.  This would be a good point were it not for the existence of the EU, which provides the same benefit across all 28 member states.  He also observed that Scotland enjoys additional security as part of a bigger country.

Alex Salmond stated he had a "vision for Scotland" which includes a prosperous country/economy and a 'just' society; at no point did he define what he meant by 'just'.  He referenced over 30,000 children in Scotland in poverty due to social security changes (he wasn't specific on what social security changes specifically).  He also mentioned the "bedroom tax" (a misnomer since IT IS NOT A TAX!) affecting 80,000 families in Scotland.  He didn't offer any discussion on how these issues would be any better/worse in an independent Scotland.

Salmond went on to cite a "risk assessment" by a "major accountancy company" completed "last week" which ranked Scottish independence as the 6th risk behind the UK leaving the Euro amongst other things.*  The whole point was rather incoherent - how do you compare such a diverse wide array of potential risks that may or may not affect a nation and rank them.  Even if you can do so, the 6th biggest risk is really high up the list of all possible risks (which is an infinitely long list).

Asked about the risk that the Union will keep pensioners poor Alistair Darling noted that being part of a bigger, stronger economy spreads the risk.

On Salmond's point that an independent Scotland would always get the government "it" voted for Darling quipped that he didn't vote for Alex Salmond.  As I mentioned here this was more than just a joke, it highlights an important fundamental truth about democracy.

Right at the end of the first part of the debate a gentleman in the audience asked Alex Salmond how ending peoples reliance on food banks is to be achieved in an independent Scotland, whether it is by encouraging people who are able to make a contribution or whether by raising taxes and paying out more in benefits.  Unfortunately ITV cut back to their "spin room" immediately after this excellent question was asked and they never returned to it for the rest of the debate, so Salmond got away without having to detail any specifics of his proposed means to this end.


Cross-Examinations:
Darling pointed out that a formal currency union between Scotland and the rest of the UK would require agreement on both sides.  Darling was very persistent in trying to get an answer out of Salmond on what is his plan B if an independent Scotland is unable to negotiate a formal currency union with the rest of the UK?  I found Salmond's response to be very weak, he repeatedly avoided the question stating only that a currency union was in Scotland's best interests and that he would therefore push for that.  When pressed on the issue he refused to give any clarity on any alternative arrangements.  A casual observer could easily take this as an admission of not having a plan B.

Salmond referenced the Fiscal Commission Working Group Report, which you can read in full online here.  Salmond referred to page 4 of the report, but that's just part of a Foreword, the actual bit we're interested in here is Chapter 7 (pp. 121) and the "Technical Annex - Assessment of Key Currency Options"

In a nutshell, the report sets out 5 potential options for currency in an independent Scotland:

1. Formal monetary union with the UK
2. Informal monetary union with the UK (sterlingisation)
3. Join Euro
4. Set-up new Scottish currency (floating exchange rate)
5. Set-up new Scottish currency (fixed exchange rate)

Salmond quoted Darling speaking on Newsnight Scotland describing a currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK as "logical" and "desirable" for both countries.  This is selective quoting by Salmond who has cherry-picked these words specifically to make it look like Darling has either backtracked (Gasp! Someone changing their mind? - How awful!) or is being disingenuous now.  In fact, if you watch the clip you'll see Darling has been remarkably consistent in his views on a potential currency union - he states that it makes sense within the context of political union (and points out that this is what we have now!).  Watch the clip here and get the full context of his comments for yourselves.

Salmond then quoted David Cameron saying that Scotland could be a successful independent country and pressed Alistair Darling on whether he agreed with this statement.   I think Darling was needlessly evasive of this question.  I think Salmond was probably correct when he stated that Darling probably does agree with the statement, but just doesn't want to say so for fear of how it will look (or possibly for fear of how it will later be quoted out of context by Salmond).  I think this was a waste of an opportunity for Darling, he could have said something along the lines of:

"Yes, I do, but I think that Scotland can be even more successful as part of the UK."

Or, he could have asked Salmond to clarify exactly what he meant by "successful"?  There are all sorts of different criteria by which we could reasonably measure success.


Audience Questions:
Alistair Darling pointed out that public spending per head in Scotland is higher than in the rest of the UK - something that he supports.  I disagree that this is necessarily something to be supported in and of itself.**  That being said, I think Darling's answer touched on two important points: firstly, that Scotland is financially better off as part of the UK; secondly, and more importantly, even if Scotland would be financially better off if it were independent from the rest of the UK, using this as a justification for independence is on shaky moral grounds.  An analogy: the 10% of richest people in the country could be financially better off were they independent from the other 90% as they then wouldn't have to subsidise or support poorer members of society - does anyone seriously think that's a good justification for the richest 10% to secede from the rest of the UK and declare themselves independent?

It's interesting that there's a general narrative amongst the nationalists that the Scottish people would be better off financially if Scotland were independent from the rest of the UK (since they wouldn't be subsidising others in other parts of the UK on average), but at the same time they pursue statist policies, including taxpayer funded higher education, taxpayer funded medical prescriptions, etc. and that they don't seem to see a contradiction in these positions.  The whole nationalist narrative is full of contradictions and seems to be based around a general xenophobia or misplaced feelings of oppression rather than based on any fundamental principles as such.

Darling references this IFS report and suggests that in the event of Scottish independence, in the early years of independence circa £6 billion of cuts would be required.  I'm assuming Darling has estimated this from the figure of £6.4 billion reported in Table 1 (pp. 19) as the budget deficit of Scotland in tax year 2010-2011 (the most recent year covered in the IFS report) based on a geographical share of North Sea oil & gas revenue (the most realistic, but also the most optimistic case).

Darling described "free" (read: taxpayer funded) higher education as a "theoretical right" in reference to cuts of 130,000 college places.  I don't like this - basically because it is an outright nonsense.  "Free" higher education cannot possibly be a right for anyone because it costs resources to provide.  This is the distinction between negative rights and positive "rights".  If there were a right to receive education without paying for it directly that would put an obligation on someone else to pay for that education - who is that someone else and why should they be paying rather that the person receiving (the vast majority of) the benefit of the education?  This blog post is already far too long to get into a detailed discussion of such concepts, so I'll save any further comment for another day.

Alex Salmond answering questions on the issue of pensions referred to Scotland's declining working age population.  He referred also to 37,000 young people leaving Scotland each year and spoke about retaining these skilled people within Scotland and ensuring they are allowed to stay here.  He gave no details about how he planned to achieve this or how it would be any easier/better within an independent Scotland.

Darling attempted to emphasise the additional economic opportunity that comes with being a part of the UK.


Closing Statements:
Darling's closing statement was a narrative of not introducing any new borders or boundaries to increasing wealth and opportunities and the additional security that comes from being part of a larger country such as the UK.

Salmond's closing statement was a reiteration of the points he made in his opening statement.  He emphasised that Westminster governments have often not reflected the votes of the Scottish population, that Scotland is a wealthy nation with abundant natural resources and that this can be used as a basis for a more 'just' society and that no-one will govern Scotland better than the people who live and work here.


* It would have been helpful if he'd mentioned the name of the company that carried out this "risk assessment" - the cynic in me suspects that no such document exists and it's all rhetoric.
** I'm in favour of public spending being as low as possible - after all, the goal is not to spend as much money as possible, it's to get the best and most cost-effective results possible.  Put another way - we want to get as many public goods/services as possible for the lowest possible cost.  One is also reminded of the law of diminishing returns as well as the fact that one will never spend others money so carefully as they would spend their own.

An Open Letter to Alex Salmond: Democracy & the "Will" of the People

Mr Salmond,

During the recent Scottish Independence Debate between yourself and Alistair Darling,you made the statement that for more than half of your life Scotland has been governed by parties that "we" (by which you mean the people of Scotland) didn't elect at Westminster and that these parties have given us the "Poll Tax" and the "Bedroom Tax" (by which you are referring to the under-occupancy penalty, which of course, you know as well as I do, is not a tax).

I would like to point out, that for my entire life I have been governed by parties that I didn't elect at either Westminster or Holyrood.  This is part of the nature of democracy - sometimes you get stuck with some politician or some party that you didn't vote for (most of the time if you happen to be a libertarian or a true liberal).  Your adversary Mr Darling observed as much when he quipped about not having voted for you.  This was more than a joke, he clearly understands this important truth concerning the nature of democracy.

Indeed, by your standards the UK has been governed by parties that "we" (by which I mean all of the people of the UK) didn't elect at Westminster for my, and indeed your, entire life.  Not for eighty-three years, since the 1931 UK General Election, has any single party won an absolute majority of votes.  That is to say, for every single one of the 19 UK General Elections held since 1931, the majority of voters in the UK have voted against whomever was in power at Westminster.

Furthermore, implicit in your statement that "we" the Scottish people didn't elect those parties in Westminster is the idea, to borrow Don Boudreaux's words, that a "multitudinous and extraordinarily complex and diverse group of individuals" (i.e. "the Scottish people") can have "anything reasonably called "a representative" or an agent or agency that carries out its 'will'."  I completely reject such a notion - "[g]roups of people have no 'will'.  It is mistaken anthropomorphism to imagine otherwise."

The distinction which you implicitly draw between "we" the Scottish people and "we" the British (and Northern Irish) people is completely arbitrary.  When politicians move political boundaries to their own advantage we call it gerrymandering.  This argument which you put forward during the debate is nothing more than an argument for gerrymandering on a national scale.

I assure you that I feel more kinship and national identity in common with my English wife and with many English friends, colleagues and acquaintances I have known throughout my life than with you or any of your nationalist party colleagues.

Sincerely,
Ally

If you don't vote you can't complain!

I was inspired to write this post after turning on my TV this morning to be greeted by the image of Ian McMillan (who I had no idea who he was until today) on BBC Breakfast talking about the Newark by-election.  Quite apart from the fact that he also seemed to believe (erroneously) that a single voter could make a difference (even in a closely contested by-election, how often does it come down to a single vote?), he also made the following declaration:

"If you don't vote, don't complain.  If you don't vote it's nowt [sic] to do with you."

This seems to be a ubiquitous sentiment amongst people of various political leanings.  It is also something with which I happen to completely disagree.

Firstly, the fact that a person has (correctly) concluded that their vote has a negligible chance of making any difference whatsoever and therefore (rationally) decided that there are better uses of their time* than reading through flyers, manifestos, propaganda and other policy documents does not in any way make their opinions and preferences carry any less weight than someone who has made the alternative choice to vote.  Every single person is equally entitled to their opinion and equally entitled to complain, campaign, support or protest in whatever (peaceful) way they see fit, this extends to those who either could not or chose not to vote.

Secondly, refraining from voting can itself be a form of protest.  Admittedly, the problem with protesting in this way is it isn't possible from voting turnout figures to distinguish those who didn't vote out of protest from those who were apathetic, lazy or indeed simply had better things to do*.

One could argue that those who don't vote out of principal or in protest actually have more of a right to complain that those of us who do.  If you happen to have voted in favour of the candidate/party/policy which wins an election/referendum you have implicitly given your consent to be governed/represented/constrained by said candidate/party/policy and legitimised the use of certain powers and constraints over you and those you care about.  Even if you vote against the eventual winner, by participating in the election/referendum process you accept that process as legitimate and therefore implicitly accept the outcome of that process.

Say that you voted for the Libertarian Party at the last General Election.  Since the Libertarian Party have no MPs you would feel that your views have little to no representation in Parliament.  Chances are high that your representative in the House of Commons is either a Conservative or Labour party member (possibly a Liberal Democrat).  Whichever of the major parties they represent, you didn't vote for them.  You think that this therefore gives you the right to complain about them, their party and everything they do and stand for.  However, you still participated in the process which saw them elected.  You just don't like the outcome in this particular instance, in other words you don't like the choices that most other people have made.  But, you agreed to participate in the process which resulted in that outcome!

I say free speech to all.  This means it doesn't matter whether you vote or not you still have every right to express your opinions in whatever peaceful ways you see fit.  Let the non-voters complain if they've got something they think is worth complaining about!


* Some examples of better uses of ones time than voting include: spending time with ones family / friends / loved ones, working to provide for oneself and ones family, spending time at a hobby, doing some DIY/redecorating to improve ones home, enjoying a good meal, enjoying a music concert, etc.