61–70 of 745 posts
I'd be very interested to see a breakdown of the economics behind this ever happening. Anyone got a decent link/article they can share?
I voted no last time round as I was not convinced on the economic side of things. Truthfully I'm still not convinced but I'm finding it hard to justify staying on the sinking ship of the UK. I'd rather fail as a country by our own decisions rather than the Scottish government always being able to point to Westminister for failure. I wish more world wide economists took time to write arguments for/against Scottish ind…
It seems very obvious to me that when decisions are made locally they are made in the interests of the people who are local. Being on the periphery of a country is not ideal. Ireland had suffered for it in the past and became very poor as a result of colonization but has rebounded very significantly. Scotland, despite having massive resources is a very very poor and depressed country. If the oil wealth from the North Sea had stayed in Scotland, you could be having a Norway style moment but instead that wealth has gone south.
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For non-UK people: There are four nations in the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland). But England has roughly 90% of the population of the UK. So what England votes for in an all-nations referendum, the rest of the UK gets. England voted for Brexit by a narrow-ish majority. But Scotland voted against Brexit by a huge margin -- 62/38, or approximately 3:2. Ironically, the year before the Brexit referendum…
> stronger far left I’m not sure there’s any significant ‘far left’ in Scotland. What groups are you thinking of? There’s also of course a very large nationalist component.
How far left do you want to go? Cenfuegos press was Scottish, that's a former angry brigade member.
One quite important issue is the border. English and Scottish people will almost certainly never tolerate any kind of friction at that border. We've been moving across it seamlessly for centuries, families are mixed, businesses straddle the border, etc. If the Northern Ireland debacle has shown us anything, it's if Scotland were to leave and then join the EU that border would become an absolute political nightmare. T…
And do you have an opinion about UK position on border integrity?
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As a Brit who voted for Scottish independence last time, against the wishes of many of my family and those around me, if this happens again then I'll vote against the SNP's wishes. They said it was a once in generation vote. I made my case, as did everyone else, we all had the chance to vote on it, and my side lost. Democratic votes need the consent of the loser, not I didn't get my way so let's have another vote . B…
And that, as they say, is why we vote the Prime Minister and parliament for life, instead of having repeated elections every 5 years.
It's just the same.
As a Brit that didn’t want Scotland to be independent last time around: good luck to them. Brexit has shown very clearly that Scotland wants to chart a different path to England and IMO they should be allowed to do it. …just be generous to English folks seeking asylum from Tory rule, yeah?
> …just be generous to English folks seeking asylum from Tory rule, yeah? As you know, UK asylum policy is horrific at the moment. The UK is sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, copying Australia's repugnant offshore policy. I hope we (Scotland) do better. In 2014, the independence white paper had a points based immigration policy. I want a much more open immigration policy this time round. Scotland is enriched by migra…
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Because fracturing your country and making it poorer and smaller probably isn’t desirable?
A non Yugoslavian, I regret the breakup of Yugoslavia immensely but I do wonder if any of the former constituent states would agree with you regarding Scotland or me regarding Yugoslavia? Note that it's an open question if the Scots economy would remain worse per capita, not disagreeing there is/was pain ahead in transition.
The best thing is that Slovaks had to stand on their own feet and their nationalists slowly had stop blaming everything on Prague. This kind of whiny nationalism embodied by then-prime minister of Slovakia Vladimir Meciar is somewhat disgusting and I can see its softer version in Scotland right now.
The worst thing is that yes, our international weight has gone down significantly.
But there was customs union between CZ and SK even after the split. I cannot imagine the economic pain if the former federation was suddenly divided by a hard border, as Scotland and England would be.
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As a Brit who voted for Scottish independence last time, against the wishes of many of my family and those around me, if this happens again then I'll vote against the SNP's wishes. They said it was a once in generation vote. I made my case, as did everyone else, we all had the chance to vote on it, and my side lost. Democratic votes need the consent of the loser, not I didn't get my way so let's have another vote . B…
I am not British or Scottish and have no skin in the game, but what is the harm in revoting if things seem to have changed? Either things didn’t change and everyone votes the same anyway, in which case it was a waste of time but reconfirms the status quo, or things actually are different and then you know and can act on it. Is there a special history or feature in UK democracy where things are only ever voted on one…
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> As a Brit that didn’t want Scotland to be independent last time around Not judging, I'm honestly curious why you didn't want them to be independent and thought that, "as a Brit" it was your position to have an opinion on Scotland's independence other than "whatever they want"? Me, Australian living in England.
As another Brit, a Londoner, who didn't want Scotland to go. 1. Because I enjoy living in a country that has the Scots in it - without Scotland the country would be diminished, less interesting and more insular. 2. Generally, I think fracturing is a bad thing. I wanted to stay in the EU for similar reasons. This isn't to say that I don't think that Scots should have self determination, just that I would be sad if the…
I don't see why not. The whole leaving the EU thing is a reasonable cause for independence. In general I like smaller units of government too, and it's not as if they can't cooperate with the UK in areas where they agree. I do have a horse in this race as I have Scottish family who'd have more choices with an EU passport.