gazmac

As Thursday 18 September 2014 slowly approaches I thought it would be worth starting a tread to gage opinions.

Personally I like being British.

If I were allowed to vote, I would vote 'NO'

The United Kingdon should remain exactly that.

I think the wording of the question is terrible and is very misleading.
"Should Scotland be an independent country?"

Alex Salmond would like to the people of Scotland to buy into his own vision, which I beleive is rather skewed and based on a lot of uncertainties for which he provides a lot of blanket "We Beleive" type statements.

Allowing 16 year olds to vote on the future of a country is also something I do not agree with. After all we say that they are not responsible enough to consume alcohol, smoke tobacco or even drive a car but voting on the econimic future of a country appears to be different.

Does anybody have a view?

What happens to the UK should Scotland gain independence?

I have no doubt that there will be quite a lot of anglophia in the weeks leading up to the vote.

I can imagine there will be a lot of negative spin in the media and have no doubt Braveheart will be played in the week leading up to the vote.

Tom1983

If it means no Scottish Mps in Westminster, then from my experience - i'd beg the Scots to vote yes for Independence

It's a publicity stunt anyway, it won't happen. Especially now Salmond sees that they may not qualify for the euro

Plus the Scots have to be very careful. If they do vote yes, they best hope Uncle Sam doesn't have a republican president. Since 2015 will see Miliband in No 10, him and a republican president would soon be eyeing up Scotlands oil. I'm sure they'll make up some story that Alex has got a nation destroying toy gun of some sort

Hazelnut

Scotland is currently haemorrhaging business investment and contract awards as companies are worried about how the vote will go. Some big employers based within other EU countries have already said they'll pull out if the vote goes yes, creating mass unemployment.
The question of oil income is very tricky, it will not all belong to Scotland and I am sure the companies will happily continue with their UK agreements and ignore the muling coming from the new upstart.
Some of the major employers (thousands of jobs) in the two biggest cities rely very heavily on EU contracts and money from abroad - much of this would go as an independent Scotland won't be party to EU or UN agreements.
The NHS in Scotland spends more money per year than the entire estimated income an independent Scotland would have.
I won't type my opinion of King, sorry, Alex Salmond as the mods would probably ban me, suffice to say the words racist, bigoted, delusional and arrogant are the polite words in it.

gazmac

Brilliant. I agree with pretty much all of this and love the King Alex remark, nail on the head... He is an egomonster, reminds me of jabba the hutt also.

Dont forget our share of the national debt and the cost of demolishing the nuclear program, but hey the important thing for the YES campaign as stated in the white paper,

Your benefits will remain the same...

Charismatic

It's not going to happen, polling shows this to be a mile wide favouring the 'No' vote.

SNP where set up to fail. Their best bet would have been to allow the rest of the UK to vote because it would have been a much easier sell to get the rest of Britain to cut Scotland loose. Keeping oil revenue is a pipe dream (see what I did there!) unless they can organise a Navy, if the world can do business for oil with horrific dictators and warlords they won't blink at buying stolen Scottish oil from the British. Similarly switching to Euro, even if the EU lets Scotland their economic cycles are very out of kilter with Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Actually there are a lot of parallels with UKIP and the EU in a way.

luvwelly

JUST VOTE NOOOOOOO people, on behalf of all the Scottish-born people living in the rest of the UK who are denied a vote.

English-born people living in Scotland are faced with being made foreigners in their own country and Alex Salmond should be ashamed at the waste of public money, massive economic uncertainty (make sure your funds are in English accounts in case he imposes Exchange Control and auto-converts to SNP Pound overnight) and complete unnecessary duplication of resources potentially involved.

Scottish friends assure me it will never happen and I really hope they are right about this. The polls are too close for comfort but surely it is just too risky for canny Scots to go for it.

Population too low like NZ to be able to provide decent public services long-term after Independence.

JaneRiley

But Alex has the party organised; caterers, booze, banners - the lot....what will he do if it's a No?

gazmac

Take it to his place for a wake, commiserate the end of his career

TommyLuck

I don't have any particularly strong views about this and am neutral about this. But I think even the notion of Scottish independence is lunacy.

Socially speaking Scotland already take more than it should proportionally speaking across the UK. This alone leads me to believe that independence is doomed to fail if a yes vote prevails.

They just have too much going against them from the off to keep their heads above water.

On entering independence it seems to me that Scotland would immediately be in a worse position that it is now with little chance of recovery and next to know chance of performing better than it does now.

There will be knock on effect that haven't even been thought of yet, none of which are likely to be positive.

Imagine the potential for all the Kiwis and Aussies with Scottish heritage not being able to use this as a tool to get a UK visa for their OE, or even a longer or indefinite stay in the UK. The ramifications are endless.

My best man is a proud Scot, he'll vote no is will leave Scotland if a yes vote comes in to fruition.

Either way, in time it'll be an interesting addition to the history for the UK!!

gazmac

(Devils advocate) There are statistics to suggest Scotland actually puts in more than it gets out of the UK.

Although statistics can be manipulated to say whatever the author wants.

I hope common sence prevails, I guess time will tell.

Im trying not to care but its not as easy as I would like.

Hazelnut

The positive thing is that all this stupidity is causing us to look at moving to NZ very, very seriously before we become illegal aliens in our own country. I'm sure Scotland won't miss the money and jobs that husband brings into the country via contracts awarded to where he works.

Someone who works for the parliament told me I apparently won't need a new a passport and that nothing will change with regard to my right to work or live here. I fail to understand how it can NOT need to change

Charismatic

Much akin to UKIP saying "...of course the UK can leave the EU yet remain part of the schengen area, enjoy the free trade area, trade under EU external free trade agreements, apply ECHR rulings or EU mandates as we see fit, influence european state affairs and avoid paying fees." When you think about the full implications of what they're proposing they just have no idea how a country or union actually works, they may actually be as deluded than Alex Salmond .

gazmac

But... by even posing these type of question we are, according to the YES campaign being overly negative and attempting to scaremonger and hold back the hopes and dreams of the 16 year old ChavNed who wants to paint his face blue and spout cliche's about his right to choose his own destiny, while waiting in the dole queue to sign up fir his next giro.

Im actually better off being this far away from it...

Hazelnut

Believe me, I'm sticking my head firmly in the sand and trying not to look. I either become really angry or really panicked if I think about it too much.