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Narradisall t1_j8m8qr8 wrote

I did not see that coming.

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afcturn_ t1_j8m9vo6 wrote

Idgi is "first minister" not prime minister or what? Is it a big deal? I'm American btw go easy on me lol.

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Argon41 t1_j8mahor wrote

She holds the position of leader of the Scottish National Party, which makes her the first minister of the Scottish government, which is a devolved government from the UK government.

The devolved government's allow Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland autonomy over certain areas of policy, whilst certain aspects are reserved for the UK government (such as defence).

She is (currently) scotland's leader, but the position of first minister is not quite equivalent to the UKs prime minister as it's for the governing of just Scotland whereas the prime minister is elected by the whole UK.

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Beardwok t1_j8mm5hl wrote

*Scottish National Party

Scottish Nationalist Party is used mainly by Conservatives in order to make them seem akin to blood and soil nationalism, ala Nazis.

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Argon41 t1_j8mmbp1 wrote

Oops, i was typing while watching her speech!

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reverielagoon1208 t1_j8njj2e wrote

So it’s sort of like a premier of a province in Canada or an Australian state? With differing levels of scope of government I assume

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Argon41 t1_j8nr2wn wrote

Not entirely sure how it works up in the frozen north (frozen compared to us in Scotland anyway!), but the UK (or Great Britain) is the sovereign body most people would likely relate to and is represented internationally, and then each of the "countries" are individual states with their own laws within that.

To confuse matters, England is governed by the UK government, where Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland have their own local governments, whilst England does not. Some view this as unfair since anything decided at Westminster (which is the highest governing body of England) is impacted by those from parties outside of that country, so the SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein get input into England, but England (not Westminster) doesn't get input into them (although they do because England is the largest of the four and heavily influences the Westminster government).

Edit: spelling and punctuation are hard on a train!

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ttogreh t1_j8mkpio wrote

... That's federalism.

Well, OK. It's federalism with extra steps. But if I described what a state in America was, and then I described what a country in the UK was, an impartial observer would be inclined to say they are roughly equivalent.

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dukes158 t1_j8mqsyh wrote

Well the words state and country are subjective and are used interchangeably in different context so yes basically federalism

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nagrom7 t1_j8n19xc wrote

Except the UK is weird in that it kinda did it backwards compared to other countries. When other countries like the US or Australia federalised, they did it by unifying a bunch of independent states into one country. The UK did it by splitting their existing unified country into states that hadn't existed with any sort of real autonomy for centuries.

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Esuts t1_j8n2z2b wrote

It's definitely a form of [edit: resembles superfically] federalism, but not really equivalent to the US. For instance, England is a country in the UK, but it doesn't have a dedicated parliament or first minister. It's run directly out of the UK Parliament. Imagine the effect if the federal Congress and Presidency were merged with the state government of Texas as the supreme authority over the US but also Texas specifically.

You could still say they're roughly equivalent, but roughly is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

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AjaxII t1_j8nfyhp wrote

It's not federalism. Federalism builds it's power from the constituent states/provinces etc that grant power to the central government. The US is federalist as it's a collection of states, and power ultimatly comes from the various states. It's a bottom-up distribution of power.

The UK is a devolved unitary state. All power ultimately lies in the central government in Westminster, and some powers are granted to devolved government's for specific regions. It's a top-down distribution of power.

The easy way to see the difference is that the UK government could 100% legally dissolve the Scottish Parliament tomorrow and directly govern Scotland, they'd manage the impossible and become even less popular - but they could do it; because they are the ultimate source of authority. The US federal government could not dissolve Texas, because it does not have the authority to do so.

It's worth noting that a federalist country still recognises the federal government as supreme over the state governments, but that federal government is limited by the powers granted to it. Whereas a unitary country has no limit, it has ultimate authority in the country (to be kept in check by the judiciary ofc) to do what it wants.

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goodanuf t1_j8nke8v wrote

Thank you so much for explaining the system to us!

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Redpandaling t1_j8nccsa wrote

So England is the equivalent of Washington DC in that case.

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Esuts t1_j8neavo wrote

Kinda, except it's also 85 percent of the population and instead of having less representation than the states, it has more.

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StairheidCritic t1_j8npxzk wrote

More like a two state USA where Texas politics rules Connecticut on major issues without the protection of a Written Constitution, equal Senators, the much criticised Electoral College system, or even the prospect of 'Texas' having its powers curtailed by an interventionist Supreme Court (when its not 'packed' by partisan numpties that is). :)

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StairheidCritic t1_j8np11l wrote

> It's definitely a form of federalism

No it's not. As one Conservative Politician said decades ago "Power devolved is power retained" (by the central government). That has been proved recently with EU powers that should have been automatically returned to Scotland following the Brexit shit-show were 'grabbed' by Westminster, the ignoring of the mandate the Scots Electorate gave to the SNP & SGreens to hold another Independence Referendum and the outrageous decision for to block Scottish Legislation on Gender Recognition which would bring Scotland into line with another civilised countries.

We were, however, perfidiously promised Federalism (or near to it) during the No Campaign in 2014. Needless to say that was reneged upon.

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Esuts t1_j8nrg1q wrote

>No it's not. As one Conservative Politician said decades ago "Power devolved is power retained"

Well taken, edited.

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notoyrobots t1_j8mai43 wrote

She is first minister because Scotland isn't a full sovereign country, it's local matters are "devolved" from the national government in Westminster. She is (was?) the highest seat in the devolved government though.

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[deleted] t1_j8majjk wrote

[deleted]

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Ksh_667 t1_j8mh4lr wrote

Then I'm going to declare myself First Cat Minister of Scotland. Never been there in my life but I've always wanted to. And I'm good at cats :)

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Bodach42 t1_j8nlwsj wrote

Yea she was the only leader the UK had that was competent what do we do now?

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millionreddit617 t1_j8o76rw wrote

She literally had one policy, which she failed to achieve. Everything in Scotland that the devolved government has control over is a shitshow.

Are you mad?

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Bodach42 t1_j8ohofv wrote

Everything is a shit show in England as well and all the policies the English government is most proud of just took away our rights and freedoms and made us all poorer. And they keep trying to take even more rights and freedoms away when people protest and strike so even if she didn't gain independence she is still far better than a decade of conservative policies.

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millionreddit617 t1_j8ooobx wrote

None of your rights have been taken away, total hyperbole.

Have a look into the state of the Scottish NHS and education systems, an absolute shambles.

How do you think they pay for free University places? By stripping out the rest of the education budget.

How do you think they pay for free prescriptions? By bleeding the rest of the NHS dry.

All the SNP have done is make populist promises funded by cuts elsewhere, and push for their ultimate agenda of small minded nationalism at any cost.

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Think_Application t1_j8ow4fe wrote

Scotland has had one of the most consistently underperforming economies in the UK under the SNP.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sturgeon-s-war-on-business-is-strangling-scotland-s-economy/

I don't know what rights you are referring to? Freedoms? Are you sure you aren't getting confused with the SNP's utterly draconian 'hate crime' laws? The SNP are one of the most staunchly anti-free speech parties in the UK. This is the sort of policy I expect in Putin's Russia or Xi's China.

https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2021/11/08/scotlands-new-hate-crime-act-will-have-a-chilling-effect-on-free-speech

Their management of the Scottish education system has been extremely poor, verging on disastrous.

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Bodach42 t1_j8qxgn2 wrote

Rights and freedoms to live and work in any country in the EU, they can now arrest you if you make any noise during a protest and are trying to make it harder to protest they also want to take away our European human rights just so they can send people to Rwanda but we all lose those rights.

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Think_Application t1_j8sctar wrote

The ECHR is one of the worst organizations in Europe and arguably far worse than the EU itself. I have absolutely zero issue deporting illegal immigrants who have no right to asylum. Everyone knows the asylum system is being abused on a massive scale. If you actually look up the 30 articles of the UN Declaration on Human Rights you may be surprised by its limitations and how little of it is actually adhered to.

Just a piece of advice from someone with property in the UK, US, and Germany. If you have relevant skills you should have no problem getting into and living in an EU member state. The unrestricted movement of people brings with it serious problems. Having a system that allows for people to move to say Germany if they have in-demand skills is still very possible and a much better way to maintain things. Before you hurl the usual responses, I speak German, I've lived there on and off for years, some of my best friends are German, my wife is not from Europe and we all have zero issues with leaving the EU. The only trouble we've had is with Covid restricting travel.

Given the feeble response of policing to protesters illegally blocking roads I don't agree with you. The only thing the British Police seem to do anymore is harass and threaten people guilty of 'thought crimes' on Twitter. Free speech is absolute, there's no half way free speech option and unfortunately the UK is falling down the road to tyranny with the SNP leading the way with their horrendous hate crime bill.

I will be surprised if the EU still exists 10 years from now.

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Bodach42 t1_j8tormr wrote

You sound like a qanon conspiracy theorists.

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