On a Referenda Bender

[steepholm]

I wonder what position the SNP will take regarding the forthcoming EU referendum? They're a pro-EU party, so can hardly be seen campaigning to leave; and yet, if the UK votes to leave it will give them their best shot in the foreseeable future to demand a second independence referendum, which they will almost certainly win on a Scotland-stays-in-the-EU slate.

It's an interesting dilemma for them; but certainly a lot more pleasant than the corollary dilemma faced by the rest of us, which is that of how to live in a rump UK with no EU, no human rights and a permanent Tory majority, being governed by wankers for the benefit of bankers. But such is apparently the earnest wish of many.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

The problem with Plaid Cymru is that they aren't popular in the South, where a lot of people are anti-Welsh language and have always traditionally voted Labour. Of course most of the population is in the South, so therefore there are just 3 PC MPs, one of whom is our MP. More recently, Plaid have been playing down the language issue in an attempt to appeal to South Walians, but with limited success.

Wales is actually still Labour-ruled in the Cynulliad Cymru/Welsh Assembly, with Plaid Cymru as a supporting left wing party. We don't like the Tories here, but PC haven't made the leap to being the popular party of protest like the SNP have, partly that's because there is less appetite here for going it alone. However, we do very well out of being in Europe, so if the Tories try to take the UK out of the EU, the Welsh might get more uppity.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the SNP is fortunate, then, that trying to revive Gaelic would not be a practical proposition.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I think most of their energies in that department have gone into pretending arguing that Scots is a separate language from English.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Well, if things like Bislama are considered languages, I don't see why Scots shouldn't be. Even if it doesn't quite feel like one!

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

There are moves to revive Gaelic, but it's complicated by the fact that an awful lot of Scotland never spoke it. All of the North of England and the South of Scotland spoke what we now think of as Welsh, until it was supplanted by English. Gaelic was the language of the Western Isles and Highlands. There is a movement to campaign to have Scots accepted as a language rather than a dialect, but only time will tell whether anything will come of it.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Gaelic is being revived. (Not that it ever actually died out, but it did get pretty well endangered.) The number of speakers have been growing steadily, and a new Gaelic-language school that opened in Edinburgh about two years ago was booked solid before it even opened.

Language revival is a slow process and takes a lot of teensy, tiny little steps! Though I suppose I should say this only applies to Gaelic in Scotland--Gaelic in Canada is still apparently doing fine. :)

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

My uncle-by-marriage is a native Gaelic speaker; when I was a child he taught me a little, even less of which I have retained (I'm from about as south of England as you can get without falling into the Solent, so not an obvious candidate!) But he is in his 70s now, and my cousin is not a native speaker, so definitely part of the 'endangered' element. It is good to hear of revival.