Two referenda

Welp.

So. I'm an Irish immigrant living in Scotland.

Traditionally, every time Ireland has an EU referendum we do it again six months later. That's not what this post is about.

Irish is a pretty sweet nationality to have, as they go; Ireland is in the EU and not likely to leave, so I've got that going for me, but I've also got all the rights of Commonwealth citizens in the UK (due to the Ireland Act 1949, passed by Parliament in response to Ireland leaving the Commonwealth as a sort of "nuh-uh!"). This means I can vote in UK general elections, and participate in other ballots that use the general election franchise. Such as this referendum. Citizens of other EU countries in the UK do not have that privilege.

There are nearly 3 million non-Irish EU nationals living in the UK. Most of them have been here for years. Probably long enough to apply for citizenship, if they were inclined to pay thousands of pounds, take tests and have to travel to London repeatedly. Sounds like a pain in the arse, so I can see why you wouldn't bother. I certainly haven't.

They couldn't vote in this referendum to decide the future of the place they have built their lives. And Leave won by just over a million votes, on the back of a campaign largely waged around kicking out the foreigners.

In 2014, Scotland had a referendum. It had an expanded franchise compared to general elections. EU nationals can already vote in Holyrood elections (because it's considered a "local" rather than "national" assembly), and 16-17 year olds were also able to vote for the first time. The Scottish Government were quite explicit that they wanted to reject the narrow ethnic nationalism of "where were you born?" in favour of including as many people as possible who call Scotland home.

The Leave side lost that one. If David Cameron had enfranchised the EU nationals living here for this referendum, Leave would almost certainly have lost this one as well.

Better Together had some good arguments in 2014. I was sympathetic to them at the time.

They said that there was a risk that by becoming independent Scotland would end up outside the EU.

They said that we shouldn't risk giving up the pound - look how badly the Euro was doing.

They said that we should show solidarity with working class people in the north of England and Wales who have more in common with Scottish voters than with voters in the Tory southeast.

They also said some stuff about oil prices, but whatever, we shouldn't be drilling that stuff up in the first place. Much happier to have an economy that doesn't resemble Venezuela's.

Above all else, this referendum has demonstrated that the people who run England, and by extension the rest of the UK, are dangerously incompetent. That includes Cameron, it includes the Leavers, and it would appear that it even includes the current Labour party. And clearly, we cannot rely on the massive English electorate to elect anyone competent any time soon.

So, I was on the fence in 2014. I'm not now. This Union, we need to get out of.