Friday, June 5, 2015

The Tomkins teaser

Our old friend Adam "IT'S THE LAW!!!!" Tomkins is someone who has, paradoxically, benefited tremendously from the SNP's brand of open, inclusive, civic nationalism. Thanks to Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, he didn't have to jump through any hoops at all to be a full part of our national debate and decision on independence last year. He didn't, as someone from beyond our borders, have to commit his future to Scotland to vote (just as well, because he indicated he might well have left if there was a Yes vote), and nor did he even have to acknowledge that Scotland is a country (just as well, because he didn't and doesn't acknowledge that). It's entirely right and proper that he and others in a similar position were given their democratic rights automatically - I think all of us on the Yes side are much happier that we lost narrowly on an inclusive basis than we would have been if we had won narrowly on a more exclusive franchise.

But I do find it interesting that Tomkins, in his trademark self-satisfied manner, observed the other week that Yes had "deservedly lost" the referendum. This implies that the arguments put forward were losing arguments, but of course in one sense they weren't - on a more exclusive franchise, of the sort that the UK government wants to use for the EU referendum, those arguments prevailed decisively. According to Edinburgh University research, 52.7% of the Scottish-born population voted Yes, and only 47.3% voted No.

Tomkins has now taken up employment as a constitutional adviser to the UK government. Can that decision be taken as an endorsement of the plan to deny a vote and a voice to citizens of most EU countries, no matter how long they have lived here and no matter how many roots they have put down? I've heard it suggested that "they can become British citizens if they want to" - which is exactly the sort of ridiculous hoop that Tomkins DIDN'T have to jump through to make his baleful contribution to the independence referendum.

To avoid hypocrisy, perhaps he should say in future that Yes "undeservedly won" the argument last year.

43 comments:

  1. How does that research make you feel ?

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    1. What an odd question. It doesn't really make me 'feel' anything - it's just interesting information.

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    2. Maybe it's just me then. Does it not make you feel vindicated that Scots born voted Yes? But on the other hand confused about how we go and win at the next referendum?

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    3. Well, either we need a bigger Yes majority among the Scottish-born population, or we need to turn things around among the other groups. Either will do (or a bit of both).

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    4. Of course! I'm away to bed. Sleep deprivation is never a good thing.

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    5. It is often the case that you can subset groups in society and conclude but if not from them then X but doing that is a dangerous first step towards discrimination and then bigotry. It is not also true that without the franchise in the over 55 age group we would also be independent now? The same might be true if we gave up the Borders to England, denied the franchise to Tory voters of whatever colour, members of the Orange Order, the list goes on. So I find the desire to sift and release this subset a bit disturbing.

      And besides it quite possible suggests that the debate over whether we would be in Europe or not disquieted a lot of Europeans here, but by no means all as my own experiences show. But the coming Brexit debate should concentrate minds as to which polity in these Isles they feel more securely European in. If I were European and living in Scotland I would increasingly be considering Yes purely on personal interest reasons.

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    6. @muscleguy. I totally agree. However, it is fun to rub in some faces that 'Scots' (Scottish born) voted Yes. You are right though about picking out groups. If 47% of Scots vote No, you could blame them for example. Surely they are guilty of the most betrayal etc...

      The civic franchise in Scotland made me proud. The ethnic franchise for the UK EUref disgusts me, not least because I live in a half EU household.

      Why does Dave want to potentially make my daughter need a passport to visit her granny?

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    7. I'm happy that eligibility to vote wasn't based on birthplace and was consistent with civic nationalism.

      I think the rUK born vote will change. From memory it was around 72 or 73% of the non scottish born voters who voted No. But 43% of non scottish born, non rUK born voters voted Yes. So more than 73% of rUK born voters voted No.

      I'm guessing rUk born voters are also more likely to be middle class and older, and so may not differ as much from scottish born voters as these figures suggest.

      A majority north and south of the border believe Scotland will become independent. With those in charge of the set up in England heading ever rightwards, and Scotland's goin scandi leftish, from now until independence, more of the rUK born people who retire to Scotland, and who come for work and decide to stay, will be people who're comfy with living in a small independent, peaceable, social democratic, green or socialist country.

      There'll also be some who come to Scotland primarily because it is going to leave the UK. The "fuck this I'm off to Scotland" people who're seeking refuge and the chance to vote to live in a country that's becoming more, not less democratic.

      I want Scotland independent now, but if Indyref 2 isn't for another 10-15 years, the problem of the high rUK born No vote might partly sort itself.

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    8. "So I find the desire to sift and release this subset a bit disturbing."

      Oh, for the love of God. In the run-up to the referendum, we expended heaven only knows how much time talking about how women were going to vote, how 18-24 year olds were going to vote, how affluent people were going to vote, etc, etc. Are you saying we should never make any attempt to analyse these numbers, so as not to offend your sensibilities?

      Incidentally, if we hadn't started looking at the figures for Scottish-born people, one of the key inaccuracies in the polls would never have been addressed. It turned out that YouGov in particular had far too few Scottish-born people in their samples, which was skewing the headline numbers in favour of No.

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  2. ComRes sub sample dire for Kezia's tribe:

    (Westminster VI)

    SNP 47%
    Con 22%
    Lab 16%
    LD 9%
    Grn 3%
    UKIP zero
    Oth 3%

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  3. Forecast is for rain all day in Glasgow. Blawin a bit of a hoolie too.

    #rainonparade

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    1. LOL

      The pathetic wee orangemen and bigots on Stormfront Lite must be furious. :D

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  4. Aye, the hypocrisy of the British eurosceptic right...

    It's ok for e.g. English people to migrate to Scotland en masse. You know, 'putting pressure on housing', 'taking [Scottish] jobs', indulging in 'benefits tourism' (tuition fees, free prescriptions), voting in in/out referendums on unions... but when it comes to other EU migrants exercising the same right in the UK...oh no no...

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  5. The selection of Tomkins as an advisor on constitutional affairs, is on a par with Murphy selecting McDougall & McTernan to run his campaign to reach out to yes voters. The people most responsible for the dilemma labour found itself in, repairing the damage by basically repeating the damage they had done earlier.

    Tomkins is "British" chintz personified. A professional gloater extolling the virtues of bland unionism. Regardless of what damage is done, that fool will be there with an idiotic smile on his face waving a union jack at us and saying its brilliant.

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  6. I don't know how I feel about people who see themselves as only being here temporarily having a vote in the referendum. However, as someone pointed out, the reason we had to do it the way we did is simply that Scotland is not yet independent. There is no Scottish citizenship, and no list of who would be eligible to vote and who wouldn't, on that basis. Certainly not as regards people who are British citizens at the moment. So there was no choice anyway and there's no point in getting one's knickers in a twist about it.

    There were injustices anyway. A friend of mine has lived in the same house in a small hamlet of less than 50 houses in the Borders for over 40 years. She's married to an English guy, who has lived there for the same time. They've brought up a Scottish son there (though he's living in England now). She has no intention of going anywhere. None at all. She's more local than I am.

    But she doesn't get a vote, not ever, because she's an American citizen.

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    1. "However, as someone pointed out, the reason we had to do it the way we did is simply that Scotland is not yet independent. There is no Scottish citizenship..."

      It was me that pointed that out. Those practical obstacles, however, do not absolve the likes of Tomkins of the charge of hypocrisy. I'm sure it would never occur to him to argue that he should have been denied a vote last year if only it had been practical to do so.

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  7. Give up the Borders to England? You'll have to go through me first!! We've just elected an SNP MP. We'll get there! Yes there are fairly large numbers of comfortable frothing reactionaries down here - you can read their thoughts in the letters pages of the local papers. A number of them will explode before the next referendum. I'm quietly confident.

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    1. It's the Scottish government which is restoring the Waverly line - expected to bring an economic boost to the Borders - whilst the UK Tory government won't be extending HS2 to Scotland, so Borders should reflect on whether unionism is serving them well. A bit hypocritical of them, since they threatened us with 'if you vote Yes you won't get HS2 coming to Scotland'.

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  8. Just as a point of clarification, as a Yes voter, I'd have preferred to win in a more exclusive vote than lose like we did in an inclusive vote.
    This is one of the few things I really couldn't care how we won, as long as we do. Anything deemed untoward or unsanitary would be nothing compared to the shenanigans of the Molestminster (tm) establishment.

    Mandela

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    1. I can't help but agree. I'm not bellyaching about what actually happened, but I don't think I'm quite saintly enough to prefer a loss with the wider franchise to a win with a more restricted franchise. If we'd won, we'd be negotiating to be an independent member of the EU right now, with control over our own assets and economic decisions. Instead we're having our pocket-money stopped and are in danger of being dragged out of Europe against our will. I find it hard to prefer the latter simply on the basis of us being magnanimous enough to allow a bunch of people who were only visiting to vote against our independence.

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    2. If my wife had been excluded from the franchise because she wasn't 'real ethnic Scottish' I'd have probably voted No.

      Be careful what you wish for.

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    3. I'm not wishing for anything. I'm just doubting whether I'm saintly enough to have been regretting a Yes vote right now, in the event that it had been won on a more restricted franchise.

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    4. SS : Ethnicity is a completely separate issue anyway - strictly speaking I'm not ethnically Scottish, even though I was born here. If your wife was Mexican rather than French, she wouldn't have had a vote last year - not because of the SNP, but because even the most inclusive register available still excludes non-EU and non-Commonwealth citizens.

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    5. I need independence now for all kinds of reasons. Being happyish with the eligibility criteria, even though we lost, isn't saintlyness. If there'd been a way to restrict eligibility to scottish born voters and that'd been chosen, then the way the Yes campaign was characterised as ethnic nationalism, nazis etc, wouldn't have looked so dishonest to lots of people, and the Yes vote might never have grown. They're still making our case for us this way.

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    6. It's not just about saintliness (or even fairness). If we'd won narrowly, we'd have had to jump through all sorts of hoops for it to be properly recognised. Some peers had already proposed simply ignoring a potential Yes vote. If a huge number of Scots had been disenfranchised because of their place of birth, it would have given the UK government a further argument to deploy in claiming the result was illegitimate.

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    7. I'd rather have won narrowly and be fighting our way through those hoops than be stuck in the union as we are now.

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  9. "I've heard it suggested that "they can become British citizens if they want to" - which is exactly the sort of ridiculous hoop that Tomkins DIDN'T have to jump through to make his baleful contribution to the independence referendum."

    I actually support extending the franchise in an EU referendum to EU nationals, but I don't think you can really compare the two situations. The independence referendum was unique and, given the lack of any legal concept of Scottish citizenship, there was no clear cut way to define who was Scottish and who wasn't. Angus Robertson? Tommy Sheppard?

    On the other hand, that isn't the case regarding the EU referendum. There is a solid legal concept of British citizenship and the franchise is the same as for the general election, so it's not like this is some sort of uniquely monstrous injustice. Nor is this franchise (As Scottish Skier suggested) an enthic franchise, given that British nationality is in itself civic rather than ethnic. A naturalised British citizen from Pakistan will get the vote, while an Australian of British descent won't.

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    1. As I've just said to Rolfe, I acknowledge the practical problems (and first did so long ago), but that doesn't absolve Tomkins of the charge of hypocrisy. I'd like to hear him say that he should have been denied the vote if it had been practical to do so, because that's the logic of his position - if he supports the exclusion of EU citizens from the franchise for the EU referendum. If he doesn't support their exclusion, what the hell is he doing working for the Tory government?

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    2. "A naturalised British citizen from Pakistan will get the vote, while an Australian of British descent won't."

      On a point of pedantry, that is not correct. All Australian citizens resident in the UK will have a vote in the EU referendum. Citizens of most EU countries who are resident in the UK will not have a vote. That makes sense, huh?

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    3. Stick it up your arse.

      Scotland remains an enslaved colony because a whole lot of foreigners voted NO. That's the fact.

      Now YOU don't want the same thing to happen to your beloved england so change the rules.

      Are you Abies Roza tomkins under another of his many pseudonyms?

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    4. No, Stoat is not Adam Tomkins. He's far too likeable for that.

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    5. "On a point of pedantry, that is not correct. All Australian citizens resident in the UK will have a vote in the EU referendum. Citizens of most EU countries who are resident in the UK will not have a vote. That makes sense, huh?"

      Ah, my mistake. It's hard to remember all the bizzare little hangovers of empire.

      "No, Stoat is not Adam Tomkins. He's far too likeable for that."

      Aww, that's very nice of you to say so!

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    6. High praise indeed!

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  10. I get the impression Call Me Dave wants to stay in. He is sufficiently confident of winning a yes that he is going along with the voter roll restriction because he wants to kill the question.

    If there was any feeling in England that the "foreigners" or even those defectors living in the Costas had denied them their "English" right to secede then the issue won't go away. He is way more clever at this politics game than you give him credit for.

    Many people forget that in Scotland there is mass distrust of the BBC. Not in the rUK. The tirade of propaganda they tested here in project fear is going to be unleashed on them next. I suspect he is likely to try to get the vote in sooner than 2017. The long Scots phony war led to sites like Wings and to a very informed electorate here. He won't be wanting that. Farage looks daft (-er) right now - its a good to strike him when he is in a weak position. Apart from Nige, who has charisma on No?

    He is making sure he wins with none of this SNP uprising stuff after the vote.

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    1. "If there was any feeling in England that the "foreigners" or even those defectors living in the Costas had denied them their "English" right to secede then the issue won't go away. He is way more clever at this politics game than you give him credit for."

      On the contrary. With every single sop the weak Cameron gives to his rabid anti-immigrant backbenchers he makes the task of the winning his referendum (and the minor matter of stopping the tory party utterly dissolving into John Major style anarchy and splits) that much more difficult for himself.

      You want a preview of the No side, when it's back is against the wall? Here it is..

      Immigrants, immigrants, immigrants. And did we mention IMMIGRANTS!!

      There will be no nuance. What there will be is a reckoning for every tory tabloid that has foamed at the mouth about the EU and immigration along with every tory who follows the official party line to stay IN and stupidly thought they could safely use immigration as a weapon in the past without consequence.

      Well not this time chums. Now YOU are on the other side of the argument with half of your own party vehemently against you along with some of the most rabid right-wing tabloids. They will also be using all those arguments you used trot out against immigrantion against you.

      Cameron will be leading the pro-immigration case for Europe and staying IN come the referendum.

      There is no way to sugar coat that fact when his opponents will hammer him with his own words and deeds on the subject. It's actually quite amusing how few tories yet realise this. But, sooner or later, they will, and when they do...

      Chaos.

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    2. A million immigrants voted Conservative. Their party elected the first ethnic Chinese MP last month. The race issue plays more in Northern English Labour seats. Its a very complex picture. The Conservatives may not appeal to many Scots, but they have form at maintaining power. Its the official Labour position that is going to be interesting. Tories get the reputation for banging on about immigration, but its Labour it hurts electorally.

      Dave is not weakened by the election result. He is likely to rid his party of UKIP when he wins the EU reffy on his terms. He will get his boundary changes through this time. The Libdems are spent for years - they lost anybody good. Labour doesn't know what it wants. Those were/are not all just luck. And where are the calls to replace him if he is weak?

      The Conservatives are in for at least 2 terms I'm afraid.

      Incidentally, we underestimated those bast@rds. If we had anticipated their total duplicity maybe we could have won last year. Who anticipated the currency and pensions being the big issues on the day?

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    3. Around a million black, asian and ethnic minority voters plumped for the tories UK wide which is still 50% less than Labour got while the turnout tells it's own story.

      "Their party elected the first ethnic Chinese MP last month."

      Then perhaps he should be in the cabinet since Cameron's chumocracy still looks like an Etonian/Oxbridge old boys club of multi-millionaires.

      "Tories get the reputation for banging on about immigration, but its Labour it hurts electorally."

      The tories DO bang on about immigration. They just can't help themselves.

      Fact is it wasn't Labour or the lib dems or even Farage who boosted UKIP from their almost complete irrelevance to May's 12.6% and 3.8 million votes. It was the weak Cameron and Osbrowne.

      They did so by endlessly banging on about immigration and Europe early on after the 2010 coalition was formed in a futile effort to appease their lunatic backbenchers. Turns out the fops were the ones doing the underestimating of the strength of the anti-Europe and anti-immigrant feeling in their own party. As they shall see again soon enough.


      " The race issue plays more in Northern English Labour seats."

      While the immigration issue plays everywhere and the amusing irony of it playing very big in safe tory seats in the shires where there is very little immigration is not lost on some of us.

      "the Conservatives may not appeal to many Scots, but they have form at maintaining power."

      Well since the last time they maintained power was with one John Major I think it just might be pertinent to point out what happened the last time all the tories finished congratulating themselves for scraping through with a small majority with the help of ashamed tory voters fooling the pollsters.

      Utter chaos focused on the EU.

      Yeah, the form on the tories losing their minds on that one goes back even further to Thatcher, never mind just Major. So there is no chance whatsoever they will not do the same this time around on the most significant EU vote and issue of the tory Eurosceptics lifetimes.



      "Dave is not weakened by the election result."

      Of course he is. Had he won a thumping majority he could do as he pleased and not worry about the Eurosceptic headbangers ready to plunge his party into a civil war.

      Fact is he didn't, so he is already trying to appease them with stuff like this voting restriction.

      "And where are the calls to replace him if he is weak?"

      Cameron's already thrown in the towel by saying he won't stand for leader again but, rest assured, those calls will still come the deeper the tories plunge themselves into the inevitable coming EU infighting and chaos.

      "The Conservatives are in for at least 2 terms I'm afraid."

      I remember quite a few tories saying the same thing after Major scraped his win in 92. Didn't hear them saying that very much in 97 as it turned out. ;-D

      All three westminster establishment parties are in a dire state so stating with certainty whichever the voter finds least shit this far out is unconvincing to say the least.

      "Who anticipated the currency and pensions being the big issues on the day?"

      They weren't.

      On the day and in the most crucial days in the run up to the first Indyref the big issue was "the vow" because after months of scaremongering on currency and pensions all it did was narrow the vote in our favour. The most telling last panic move of the No campaign was a promise by Brown for more powers. It sure as fuck wasn't the cowardly Cameron making that promise which swung the vote at the last minute.

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  11. "I get the impression Call Me Dave wants to stay in. He is sufficiently confident of winning a yes that he is going along with the voter roll restriction because he wants to kill the question."

    I've always had that impression too, which is why I've been quite perplexed at this decision to exclude EU nationals from the referendum. I would imagine that EU nationals are more likely than anyone to vote to stay in the EU

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    1. The previous poster has given a possible explanation. He wasn't the victory to be unambiguous, and not tainted by accusations that Yes only won because citizens of other EU countries swamped the poll with Yes votes.

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    2. He WANTS the victory to be unambiguous, obviously.

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    3. Of course, but I'd be surprised if he wouldn't take any victory, whether unambiguous or not.

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    4. For electoral reasons, he needs to bury the question. It has to be a decisive ringing, English endorsement. The EU propaganda machine will be fully on board too. UKIP hurt Labour, but they force the Conservatives sufficiently further to the right that they have to be careful of their electability.

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  12. I bet he becomes an absolutely regular darling at the Brit Nat Brainwashing Corporation.

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