Will Scotland Leave the UK?

[nashville]

I will never vote Yes. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. We are far safer together. People seem to think it is between Scotland & England. I have family in England who had to leave Scotland to get work , It is a pity they cannot get the vote. and like me they would vote NO

... because nothing says "FREEDOM!" quite like surrendering your fiscal sovereignty on day one ...

[Jimi]

Originally Posted by Chris

So, the "devolution unit" is acting in the interests of devolution, rather than separation? Doing exactly what it says on the tin, it seems to me. Good.

By the way, do please keep up the crude English caricatures. The more the ugly heart of separatism is revealed, the more people will be turned off it.

---------- Post added at 16:04 ---------- Previous post was at 16:01 ----------

Originally Posted by nashville

I will never vote Yes. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. We are far safer together. People seem to think it is between Scotland & England. I have family in England who had to leave Scotland to get work , It is a pity they cannot get the vote. and like me they would vote NO

Then again,most unionists support Rangers,would you be so kind to tell me which club you support?

---------- Post added at 16:06 ---------- Previous post was at 16:04 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

... because nothing says "FREEDOM!" quite like surrendering your fiscal sovereignty on day one ...

Originally Posted by Jimi

Then again,most unionists support Rangers,would you be so kind to tell me which club you support?

What a moronic statement. Have you really lived in Scotland as long as you claim to have?

[Kabaal]

Then again,most unionists support Rangers,would you be so kind to tell me which club you support?

Would you like to know whether he prefers jammy dodgers or chocolate digestives too? It's about as relevant.

[Jimi]

Originally Posted by Chris

So, the "devolution unit" is acting in the interests of devolution, rather than separation? Doing exactly what it says on the tin, it seems to me. Good.

By the way, do please keep up the crude English caricatures. The more the ugly heart of separatism is revealed, the more people will be turned off it.

Originally Posted by Chris

What a moronic statement. Have you really lived in Scotland as long as you claim to have?

63 years and 4 months tae be precise.

Originally Posted by Jimi

63 years and 4 months tae be precise.

63 years and 4 months of learning nothing except how to make yourself sound like one of Paw Broon's speech bubbles. Still, it at least gives some context for your poor caricatures of the English. Your caricature of a Scotsman is if anything worse.

[Jimi]

[Chad]

Alex Salmonds fantasy ends 18/9/2014

Not sure if I should post this, it hasn't been leaked to the press yet, but I have obtained an exclusive picture of Alex Salmond after today's speech was made.

Spoiler: 

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Chris

63 years and 4 months of learning nothing except how to make yourself sound like one of Paw Broon's speech bubbles. Still, it at least gives some context for your poor caricatures of the English. Your caricature of a Scotsman is if anything worse.

Well that sort of thing is what desperate and insecure folks cling onto. It says a lot about them and the paucity of their argument.

I think the SNP have only made matters harder for themselves. They're promising too much and skeptical Scots aren't going to be won over by hearing that there won't be any problems, that there will be lower taxes, better pensions and better public services. If they were more honest then they would be easier to trust. Instead Salmond is coming across as a dodgy salesman making claims that are too good to be true, because they are.

He also doesn't seem to have great confidence in the Scot's desire to be Independent. A lot of his white paper is based on the idea that things will remain the same, same monarchy, same currency, fee movement back and forth and so on. If the Scottish want these things they can already have them, it's called the United Kingdom.

Their whole prospectus for Independence simply reads like a particularly disingenuous manifesto for a General Election rather than a vision for a new country.

That's the whole idea. He knows the Scottish electorate won't go for what his activists really want - not now, not ever - so he's trying to sell separation by making it fluffy and friendly and really no different to the way things are now, except without nasty Westminster.

Had the Eurozone not blown up he might even have got away with it. Unfortunately for him, just across the channel we have a real, live example of what happens when economies that share a common currency without common fiscal control get out of kilter. He cant sell Scotland independence based on the Euro, because brand Euro is badly tainted. And, irony of ironies, he can't sell independence based on a Sterling zone because, again, of the Euro.

The refrain we will hear Better Together repeat endlessly between now and September is this:

"In short, a durable, successful currency union requires some ceding of national sovereignty." - Mr M. Carney, Governor, Bank of England.

Any independence built on a shared currency with England is not really independence at all. So why vote for it? If we're going to keep the currency, we might as well keep our influence over the way it is run.

If the land of my birth gains independence in September, will the Orkneys and the Shetlands go back to Norway?

Originally Posted by Hugh

If the land of my birth gains independence in September, will the Orkneys and the Shetlands go back to Norway?

Their constitutional position is slightly muddier than the seps would like to admit. They were, IIRC, eventually ceded directly to the Crown as a possession, giving them a status unlike the mainland or the Western Isles. Their law has for many years now been accepted to be under the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts, but if they vote clearly and decisively negative in the referendum, I really wouldn't put it past the local authority up there to try to open negotiations to remain in the UK.

I would personally love to hear Eck forced to explain why Shetland should not have independence from a remote Government it has little influence over or stake in.