LIVE: EU referendum count from Clickimin
Keegan Murray
The polls have closed and ballot boxes from around the isles are now on their way to Lerwick to be counted. Local results are expected to be announced at around 2.30am, with the larger picture forecast to become clear by 7am. To see whether Shetland has voted to embrace its European ties or ditch the bureaucracy be sure to refresh this page for regular updates as The Shetland Times reports live from the count at Clickimin.
22:30 – The first boxes have arrived from Lerwick. Early indications suggest Remain in the lead nationally.
22:53 – By 5pm today 43 per cent of Whalsay’s postal votes had been received. This is a rise of 18 per cent from last month’s Scottish Parliament elections.
23:17 – Boxes have arrived from all areas but South Nesting, Lunnasting, the North Isles and Symbister. No official word as yet but Remain appears to have a comfortable lead.
23:43 – ADAM GUEST has been talking to spectators at the Clickimin to gauge their opinions.
00:10 – Orkney votes 63 per cent to 37 per cent in favour of Remain. This follows wins for Remain in both Newcastle and Gibraltar.
00:14 – Counting officer Jan Riise has just announced the turnout figures for Shetland. 12,231 votes have been cast from an eligible electorate of 17,375. Turnout 70.4 per cent.
00:52 – Speculative mutterings suggest Remain could win Shetland by around 7 per cent. Results expected just before 2am.
01:10 – ADAM GUEST has been talking to high school students who have come to spectate but were unable to vote.
01:13 – Shetland has voted to remain a member of the European Union. 6,907 (56.5) votes were cast in favour of remain while 5,315 (43.5) voted to leave.
01:20 – Interestingly, there are suggestions that the Whalsay vote was as much as 82 per cent in favour of Brexit.
01:50 – Reaction to Shetland’s declaration.
For further analysis and to see how Shetland’s vote impacted on the national picture be sure to check the Shetland Times website, Facebook and Twitter later today.
Ali Inkster
Is there any truth in the rumour that the sic bought up the stock of erasers from Shetland office supplies when they went bust? 🙂
John Tulloch
So, the fishing grounds will be coming back to Britain. We must now ensure that they are not frittered away in some negotiation.
And the charitable trust can kiss Viking Energy goodbye. If Scotland is going to become independent and rejoin the EU, the rUK government is hardly likely to force English and Welsh consumers to pay for VE – three times the current price of conventional energy, plus a £1billion for a submarine cable – simply to underpin the SNP’s economic prospectus for independence.
Robin Stevenson
John
I’m sorry but what do you mean by ‘So, the fishing grounds will be coming back to Britain?’.. Britain have ALWAYS been in control of them? They haven’t been anywhere else? They were traded off BY the UK Government to benefit London.
Shetland voters must be congratulated for managing to see beyond the scare stories and rhetoric coming from the MSM, and the one issue posters on this forum. Scotland and Shetland have both unanimously voted to ‘Remain’ within the EU, we are now being dragged out against the will of the people of Scotland and indeed Shetland.
Now, is a good time to ask yourself a serious question John, Who do you trust more? The UK Tory government [under Boris] – who have systematically sold off Shetland fishing grounds since the 70’s? OR an independent Scottish government, who have chosen to stay within the EU?
Ali Inkster
Here we go Again, it is all londons fault in 1975 there was a referendum on membership of the then EEC, Scotland had the vote same as everybody else, and with full knowledge of the CFP they voted very much in favour of trading away wir fishing grounds. Shetland and the western isles did not vote for this travesty. And now that we are going to get them back you want us to just hand them over to the EU again.
Robin Stevenson
More recently than 1975 Ali?…. We had yet another vote on membership with EU just a couple of days ago. You may have noticed but this time Shetland voted to STAY within it [as did every constituency in Scotland] Why would you think that is? When [as you say] the EU has been such a bad thing?… Perhaps it may have something to do with more than one industry? Perhaps it may have something to do with voters managing to see the bigger picture? Perhaps the people of Scotland and Shetland are now witnessing the catastrophic effects of being dragged out of the EU by the rest of the United Kingdom, while watching the meltdown of our UK government, and are now thankful that they chose wisely?..
Brian Smith
I wonder who will be in charge of ‘some negotiation’. Maybe Boris himself? Brian Nugent?
I note that people in Cornwall, where the MPs were all pro-Brexit. have suddenly realised that there might be danger to their EU funding. As in Shetland, it might have been a good idea to think about that a while ago.
John Tulloch
Brian,
It’s over, we’re leaving the EU. Never mind telling the Cornwall folk what they should have thought about earlier, what’s the best thing we can do now?
Brian Smith
Who will be in charge of ‘some negotiation’? Mr Gove? Mr Inkster?
Brian Smith
I am keen to know who will be leading what negotiations about fisheries. I appreciate that Mr Tulloch got carried away during the campaign by the rhetoric of Johnson and Farage, but we now need to know what the plan is.
John Tulloch
Brian,
Many negotiations will take place, notably, regarding trade with the EU and also, other countries. These will be conducted by the new UK government, whoever that may be, and will involve the risk of our newly restored UK fishing grounds being traded off for whatever perceived benefit may seem expedient.
Worse, if SNP Holyrood manages to drag Scotland back into the EU and IF they manage to drag Shetland with them, our fisheries will go straight back to the EU, except that as Magnie Stewart has pointed out more than once, it will be on even worse terms than now as we will lose the benefit of the UK’s derogation on quota.
Those Shetland council and parliamentary politicians who supported the Remain campaign but previously supported Better Together will now face a choice of either supporting Nicola Sturgeon’s aim of keeping Scotland in – or rejoining – the EU, or to support remaining in the United Kingdom.
I look forward to hearing their arguments, that should be entertaining.
ian tinkler
Well Brian Smith, it is a bit soon to say, but one thing you can be absolutely certain about, it will not be anyone remotely attached to or affiliated with Jeremy Corbyn. His absolute lack of rhetoric handed labour voters over to Boris and Farage and their chums by the hundreds of thousands. Very sad to see the Labour movement in the UK sink so low, not even Scargill and Foot did so much damage to the working man, quite an achievement.
Brian Smith
You’re pretty vague, boys. I thought you would have all these details at your fingertips. I have a feeling that you were seduced by Boris and Co. I note on the Wir UKIP site a praise-poem by a Whalsay resident for Nigel Farage, based mainly on the fact that his shoes are well-polished.
Laurence Paton
Good Day Brian ,
You should read John Pilgers analysis – why-the-british-said-no-to-europe.
Looking forward to hearing back with your agreement that the British Leave win was the best outcome, without that it would just be ” business as usual” for the corrupt elite of the E.U. & U.K.
Best Regards and Good Luck .
ian tinkler
“And the charitable trust can kiss Viking Energy goodbye. ” And a break is put on the SNP/SG begging EU funds to finance “the lunny’s” Green energy moves to ruin rural Scotland, at least for the time being.
John Tulloch
I don’t trust either of the pair of them, Robin. SNP Holyrood is worse, if anything.
Why would Shetlanders trust SNP Holyrood more than Westminster? Holyrood who have short-changed Shetland by over £100 million since 2008 by stealth under-funding of education and ferries?
Why would Shetlanders trust SNP Holyrood with our biggest industry with a track record like that?
No, Robin. The people who should look after Shetland’s vital interests are Shetlanders themselves.
ROBERT SIM
I’ll just remind you yet again, John, in the interests of accuracy and balance, that “underfunding” is all relative – it was the SIC that built up an unsustainable education system. There was never a problem when the approach was to merrily spend from the reserves to keep it going. I say that to refute at least part of your line that Holyrood “can’t be trusted”. While I have no doubt that COSLA’s education formula could be improved, it certainly isn’t the sole or even a major cause of the SIC’s woes; and the idea that all national government is all bad and local government is all good just isn’t true.
John Tulloch
No, Robert, it is nothing to do with an unsustainable education system. It is to do with taking inadequate account of actual ‘needs’ when COSLA is allocating money for grant funding to councils.
It is a shortfall versus actual needs for provision of an adequate education service in a remote island community – £10 million per year, every year since 2008 – which had to be made up from council reserves or cuts to other services.
Don’t take it from me, though, ask the new education minister John Swinney, he knows all about it – in 2014, he gave COSLA his personal approval to continue doing that.
Robert Sim
John, the formula is one thing and if it is revised for all rural authorities, that’s great. But that is quite a separate thing from the actual needs of authorities. You say that Shetland requires £10m more per year to meet the “…actual needs for provision of an adequate education service…”. What you mean is that the budget requires that amount extra every year. That’s a quite different thing. Unless of course you can demonstrate to me in detail the present and future needs of Shetland education. And that can’t be done in a few sentences on here.
John Tulloch
Robert Sim,
I do not have to demonstrate anything to you. As you well know, since I have told you before, repeatedly, it has already been demonstrated, in 2014, to the former SNP finance minister, now education minister John Swinney, that Shetland (and others) is underfunded versus actual needs.
All local authorities should be funded according to their needs, otherwise you get a two tier education system.
SIC cut education spending 20 percent and your esteemed former colleagues, SIC officials, warned that further cuts would damage the quality of education. So where we are now is the minimum we “need” and we are receiving £10Mpa less.
Ask John Swinney or Gary Robinson what the assessed monetary “need” is, they both know as Mr Swinney sent the figures to councils.
If my estimate of £10Mpa is too high then why not publish the actual assessment and let’s see what it really is – maybe it’s more than £10Mpa?
Robin Stevenson
John
I’m not sure if you noticed, but the good people of Shetland have decided they’d rather STAY within the EU? Surely even you must accept the democratic wish of the majority? ‘Scottish Lib Dems back Sturgeon in EU negotiations’, meaning, that in the event of Scotland managing to remain within the EU – possibly having picked up the UK’s membership – what might be the Lib/Dems and WS position? I’d imagine that only IF they agree on the condition that Scotland becomes an independent nation [because quite frankly ‘regions’ cannot be member states]? Sadly for the Lib/Dems, Labour and Tory parties, each one is NOT an autonomous Scottish party – each one HAVE to take their orders from London – therefore, can ANY of them really support independence for Scotland? And IF not then none of them can really support membership of the EU, whether it’s best for thing for the people of Scotland or not?
John Tulloch
Robin, what are you rambling on about?
Didn’t YOU notice the people of Shetland voted in considerably greater numbers to remain with the United Kingdom – 64 percent For the UK versus 56 percent for the EU?
Perhaps, you haven’t seen Jim Sillars’ excellent article in the National?
http://www.thenational.scot/comment/jim-sillars-lets-not-be-naive-the-political-and-legal-basis-for-early-indyref2-is-not-in-place.19274
ian tinkler
“all pro-Brexit. have suddenly realised that there might be danger to their EU funding.” All pro brexit were perhaps aware, Brian Smith, their EU funding was a tiny proportion of their EU contributions. Too many fat cats and commissioners in Brussels to pay. One would begrudge the poor nothing, but that was not the EU way, just look at Greece and what the EU did for them. J C Junkers pay and perks, a colossal £1.8million, that even makes a Union General secretaries perks look a little lean.
ian tinkler
Yet again Robert Sim you remind us all “that “underfunding” is all relative “. Relative to what exactly, you are making less sense than you usually do. That is quite an achievement!
Robert Sim
I understand your confusion, Ian – I posted a lot of other words after that opening bit and you need to read them too. Anyway, to save you the bother, the answer is: relative to the position one is taking on the matter.