We in the Blog Team thought it might be interesting to know our readers thoughts on the possibility of Scottish independence and whether you think it could impact on our small part of the Derbyshire Peak District.
Is Scotland significant in your personal or work life (eg Are you from Scotland? Have you lived there or plan to live there in the future? Do you have property or investments in Scotland? Do you have family there? Is your work linked to Scotland? … … …)
If Scotland votes ‘Yes’ to leaving the United Kingdom, do you think it will make any difference to our life here in the Peak District?
How would you cast your vote if you could take part in the Scottish referendum?
PARWICH.ORG 
I was quite interested in this snapshot of the views of local people about the Independence issue and the impact on our own local life here in the Peak District. I myself struggle to recognise what the impact would be.
However, I don’t feel that this snapshot poll remotely reflects the local views any longer now the total number of votes for the last question ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’, is double that of the total number of votes for each of the previous 2 questions. Surely the total number of votes for each of the Q’s should be (almost) the same? Or can anyone explain why the big difference?
Or perhaps someone is submitting more than 1 vote per person in the last Q box? That would be a real shame.
Saskia, I’d imagine that many who responded to this informal poll didn’t feel impelled to express their opinion on the other two questions, and wanted instead to vote on the BIG question, namely, “should Scotland be an independent country” – a loaded question to begin with: “no” always being on the back foot from the word go. And on a technical point, I don’t think it’s possible to vote multiple times because the polling organisation tracks IP addresses, thereby excluding this possible abuse (unless VPN is being used as an exploit, but I think that would be unlikely in the context of this poll!).
On a wider point, I do find it unacceptable that the only people allowed to vote on the constitutional future of our United Kingdom are residents of Scotland. The reckless manner in which the very body-politic of our islands has been placed in danger astonishes me. The other day, Alex Salmond posed for photo-opportunities with immigrated non-UK-born people currently living in Scotland, holding up placards stating “Yes” in their various ethnic languages. On the scale of history, these people have lived in the UK for a matter of minutes. It can’t be right that the rest of us in the UK, most of whom have a family history in our land stretching back hundreds of years, are denied any say whatsoever regarding the future of our own nation.
People should not be able to vote more than once (without using multiple computers and internet providers). However we can not say where people are voting from.
The larger number of votes for the independence question, suggests that the people voting here are not interested in the poll as a whole as it relates to our part the Peak District, but just the issue of Scottish independence. This in turn suggests that the extra people voting for this third question are voting from outside our area. This is reinforced by the first two questions retaining more or less the same percentages of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses, as the number of votes has increased, but the indepence question percentage was overwhelmingly in favour of ‘no’ until there was this surge in people answering only this third question.
It is possible therefor that the responses to this third independence question has been skewed in favour of ‘yes’ by people voting from outside the area. When the Blog Team was planning this poll, I have wondered if something like this might happen, but dismissed it as unlikely that it would generate any interest outside our area.
We will be able to see if there has been any increase in the number of people visiting the Blog and whether there is any difference in how many pages those visitors look at, in today’s stats. I will check these figures at the end of the day, though so far today people visiting are on average looking at slightly fewer pages than normal, which would be consistent with more people looking at just one post.
As you say Saskia, this is unfortunate as it makes any interpretation of these poll results very unreliable.
Thanks to Anthony and Peter for your observations and explanations. I had dismissed the possibility of people ‘skipping’ Q’s 1 and 2 as highly unlikely and not in such numbers, as I presumed that anyone taking the trouble to (informally) vote, would wish to complete ‘the whole picture’ by answering all 3 Q’s.
At least it’s good to know that it should not be possible to vote more than once for this informal poll (other than by using different IP addresses).
Peter, I had noticed that there had been a clear swing from the ‘no’ vote being in favour in the first few hours of the vote being posted, to the ‘yes’ vote. Did that surge coincide with people skipping Q’s 1 and 2?
I would have really liked to know what the general feeling locally was, whatever the outcome, but will regrettably accept the outcome of the poll with a very big ‘pinch of salt’ (or should that be ‘haggis’?!)
I prefer not to tread in the muddy waters of ‘who is allowed to vote’ as someone who was born outside the UK. I personally decided to become a British citizen, almost solely to grant me the right to vote. I agree with Anthony that there is something about the time having lived in and contributed to a society, but this is so relative.
Going back to the local perspective of the poll, as it no doubt was meant to be, I would be interested in examples of the impact of an independent Scotland on the local community / economy..
The Blog stats are not showing any abnormal patters. The number of visitors is well within the usual range and the number of page views per visitor, though slightly below average, is also well within the normal range. Visitors are also coming via the usual links and search engines. Most particularly the search terms used by visitors to the Blog over the last day or so relate to locally relevant terms (eg ‘Parwich’, ‘parwhich.org’, ‘school newsletters’) and does not include any terms relating to ‘Scotland’, ‘independence’ or ‘referendum’.
Further the apparent surge in pro-independence votes at the same time as the increase in the number of people responding just to the third question has turned out to be a temporary phenomenon.
Consequently it would seem that the poll is being completed by the normal range of visitors to the Blog. There is no evidence for my previous suggestion that the poll was being distorted by an increase in visitors from outside our area specifically targeting posts on the Scottish referendum. It is more likely that Anthony C is correct in suggesting that more people have answered the third question because they see it as more important. Given we have a normal pattern of visitors to the Blog, the high number of people responding to this question, higher than in previous polls and represent nearly 1 in 2 of the visitors to the Blog, reinforces this being an issue our readers see as important.
So Saskia it would seem that these poll results so far are as ‘valid’ as any other poll here at parwich.org.
Though I understand Anthony’s sense of frustration that the Union could be dissolved, without us here in England having any say, if Scotland votes ‘yes’ to independence, whatever we in England feel is ultimately irrelevant.
However I want to strongly distance myself from any hint that ethnic origin and number of generations one’s family has lived in a country is relevant in deciding who votes. It would be ludicrous to suggest that ethnic origin be considered, and ultimately would mean no one could vote in the UK, as we all originate in Africa. To suggest the length of time one’s ancestors have lived in a county is in anyway relevant is also a nonsense. I could clock up over a thousand years of ancestors in Dumfries and Galoway, who are likely to have originated in Ireland, but who came to England via a Dutch colony in the Caribbean, none of which, quite rightly, qualifies me to vote in Ireland, Scotland, Holland or the Dutch Antilles. Then this is only one 32nd of my ancestry, so it would only be one 32nd of a vote.
Should Gealic speakers have more say than Scots speakers as that language has older roots in Scotland, similarly should Scots speakers have more say than speakers of standard English? Perhaps we should all defer to Welsh speakers as that is the oldest surviving language on mainland Britain.
Would we do DNA tests and give people with genes that have been here since Neolithic times more say than those with Viking or Norman genes? Should the Basques have a say in British votes as they are the modern humans most closely related to the aboriginal settlers of Britain before the last Ice Age? Presumably those with Neanderthal DNA should have the most say in the referendum, as this is the only hominid species to have originated in Europe.
I applaud Peter’s response to Antony on the issue of who should or shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I found Anthony’s comments offensive.
Peter,
Thank you for spending the time to unravel the web-stats and to establish that my suspicions of a hijack of the poll appear to be unfounded. Much appreciated.
(It’s interesting to think that Peter’s ancestors could possibly have greeted my ancestors across the road in the Dutch Antilles….).
Fiona, I personally didn’t feel that Anthony’s comments were ‘offensive’ but they certainly gave ‘food for a lot of thought’. I myself chose to become a British citizen, mainly to enable me to vote, very soon after coming over to England when I obviously knew little about (national, regional, local) politics, but so do first-time voters, people who have moved to another part of the country etc. There will always be people at either end of the scale: from no – plenty of experience. Surely, it is vitally important that everyone is encouraged, even expected, to take an interest in local and national issues & politics that could affect them. Having the right to vote is such an intrinsic and symbolic part and encourages people, who for-what-ever reason legally reside here, to engage, and not relegate them to a second-class citizenship status.
Offensive? Hardly. I thought that Anthony C’s comments were measured and to the point; he raises substantial constitutional points, which weigh on our democratic processes. It is a sad day when we have to censor ourselves with the simplest of comments when we are worried that someone, somewhere will take exception to them. Re-read it and realize it isn’t racist, I rather agree with him.
Dear Peter, Saskia, Fiona, and Don,
Make no mistake, this is a matter of the utmost gravity for all of us who have the privilege of living in the United Kingdom. Even though the damage has already been done, to be followed possibly by the the ultimate death-blow to our country next Thursday, I felt I should respond, if only to address the basket-case position the political class have placed us in.
Let me begin by stating this simple fact: NON-British Citizens (repeat, NON-British citizens) from anywhere in the EU and the Commonwealth, lawfully resident in Scotland, have a vote on the potential dismantling of Britain. By contrast, British Citizens in England, Wales and Northern Ireland do NOT have any say in this whatsoever. This may seem surreal, but it is true. Even the Nazis couldn’t have accomplished this.
Peter T, as to “distancing yourself” from my earlier comments, I am troubled: you inferred a racist element on my part. moreover, last night I saw several re-edits of your original post, including one (now removed by a moderator, possibly yourself) implying that the Scottish “Yes” campaign was targeting this survey in order to skew the results.
Unlike you, I do not have editing rights, so please allow me to make myself very clear, lest either knee-jerk Political Correctness (PC) or misrepresentation, wilful or otherwise, obscure the issues at hand.
Fiona H finds my comments “offensive”, but she does not explain why. “Offensive” is a popular word in PC-English as a kind of scatter-bomb, intended to silence reasoned opinion, so let us consider this matter in detail.
First, in my original post, I was contrasting two extremes as an illustration of the counter-democratic nature of the Scottish referendum, whereby less than a tenth of the population of our entire nation have been permitted to determine its future – a good number of whom are not even British Citizens. At no point did I assert that people lawfully resident in Scotland, let alone elsewhere in the UK, should be excluded from voting in any democratic process. Let that be understood please.
In this instance, Peter, you might have saved yourself a lot of typing time had you not inferred, erroneously, racist sentiments from my original post. Heck, my partner is a United States citizen with Mexican ethnicity who (until gaining British Citizenship next year) does not have any kind of vote here in the UK, yet is as nonplussed as I as to what is happening here. And it is emphatically not “irrelevant”, as a matter of principle and good governance, that only people resident in Scotland have a vote in this matter (except post facto, but it doesn’t invalidate the force of the argument, unless your point was a mere “live with it”).
Second, the central part of my case was that the citizens resident in the rest of the United Kingdom have been denied any say whatsoever on a constitutional matter of the greatest importance – a matter that will affect us all, for ever. Let me be even more clear and repeat:
You don’t even have to a British Citizen to be able to vote in this referendum on the future of the United Kingdom, provided you live in Scotland – that is to say, anyone lawfully resident from the EU and the Commonwealth.
This referendum does not have the consent of the British people, it has been imposed upon us by the political class, with zero democratic mandate. Is there any other sane nation on the planet which would have allowed this to happen?
On a final note of no less importance, I feel we must be vigilant about the dangers of Political Correctness, which pervades our ideas and behaviour today. It has become a tyranny – a Stalinist kind of censorship in public discourse (look at what has happened in Rotherham). As one commentator on this subject recently observed: “I’ve been feeling more and more oppressed by this culture of hyper-sensitivity to the point that now I find myself turning into a lawyer whenever I speak. Afraid to offend. Afraid to discomfort”.
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life” (Winston Churchill).
If contributors wish to amend their comments they can ask the Blog Team to do it for them. The Team are happy to do this within a reasonable amount of time, in response to a subsequent comment not intended for publication (often people will send an immediate second comment requesting an amendment, which means any ‘correction’ takes place before the comment passes moderation) or an email to parwich@hotmail.co.uk or direct communication with a member of the Team.
Usually when this happens it is either a minor alteration or a request for a comment be retracted. We do not usually add an editor’s note to say this has been done, though we would probably discuss within our Team adding a note if it was a significant change or it was more than a few hours after the posting of the comment.
I must admit I will sometimes post my own comments and then amend then, as the Word Press software allows more control when editing than when originally placing a comment. I probably do this more often than I should, as it easy to underestimate how quickly people might read a comment after it has appeared.