Scottish independence
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- kingkong0
The Scots are being sold a false prospectus. Here are some of the falsehoods.
(1) We own the pound and CU is inevitable.
(2) The EU will accept us with open arms (without being obliged to sign away our sovereignty and adopt the Euro)
(3) Significant businesses are largely pro separation.
(4) Oil revenue is not falling and can only increase.
(5) The NHS is at risk if we stay in the Union.
(6) Taxes will not increase.
(7) Jobs are not at risk.
(8) Mortgages will not increase.
(9) Interest rates on borrowing will notincrease.
(10) The bitter divisiveness between the yes and no camps is not an issue either now or in the future.
(11) rUK will accede to all of our negotiation demands.
(12) Pensions are safe.
(13) The separation on offer is true independence.
(14) Salmond is not a disingenuous, blustering bully,
(15) Salmond does not wish to inherit the mantle of Robert the Bruce.
(16) Salmond has Scotland’s best future interests at heart.And the biggest lie of all perhaps:
(17) “Things can only get better” after separation!!
- rosko_picachu0
Scotland will get independence, England will get dependence. Dependence on Westminster. Dependence on America, dependence on blood oil.
The world's messed up in lots of different ways. It's gonna take huge changes to try and create a fairer system. It's not gonna be easy, but it's worth a try.
I can think of many reasons why Independence is good for both sides but from Scotland's point of view, where do you think all the excess ammunition was dumped after the first and the second world wars? That stuff still washes up on our beaches.
Having Faslane is wonderful, but who is the number one target for a nuclear strike? Where are Russia and China's nuclear weapons aimed at?
Now bearing in mind Faslane was set up during a time when Nuclear war was deemed as a threat, who and why was the decision made, that it would be OK for Scotland to take the first nuclear hit, should that unimaginable situation arise?
So don't give me that stuff about demographics, we love being who we are and we are no different to anyone else. Just a wee country wanting to look after ourselves and not have to waste money on an elite system with too much bureacracy that wants to flaunt itself as a major player, which i'm afraid it no longer is.
What England is presiding over right now, is the most disastrous administration since Thatcher. It's a puppet administration to take money out the public sector and give it away to the private sector.
It's a system that bleeds money and quite honestly anything would be better. Look at Cameron, Farage, Johnson. these are joke figures as is i gues Salmond to the English. Difference is, Salmond will turn around after this goes through and open up elections whereas Cameron wants to cling to power. English people don't know the first thing about Salmond. But i guess the media power in England is very effective. You only have to look at the sacking of people like Greg Dyke from the BBC to see what path they've went down. It's not a very impartial one, it's dismissive impartiality.
- Wolfboy0
This is my position on the independence and I'm an Northern English person but I prefer to think of myself as British and maybe that's why I've chosen to live in London (a bit more multicultural down here and all that).
My non-rational heart says the Union should stand. We're an island nation with many different places of local character all within a small area - for example I've lived for three years in Cornwall and I would say there is as much difference between the Cornish and the rest of the UK as there is between Scotland and the rest. I love the range of places and people in these islands and culturally it'll be a sadder place for losing some of them. I know Scotland is still there but it will be a foreign country and there'll be all the hassles of visiting any other country with a real border and different currency. Not a massive issue I guess, but again, we're not talking rationally are we?
From a rational point of view, I just don't see the positives of independence for anyone. I can't believe anyone trusts a word that comes out of Salmond’s mouth, he has no answers on any of the truly important questions. Currency, Europe; he just continually sidesteps the issues.
The risks are just too great - the Yes campaign want to keep a Sterling union and every political party down here says they can’t. But Salmond insists the UK will just cave in on this. Why would they cave in? Because he’s threatening not to take a fair share of the national debt with Scotland and I’m sure this would happen. But that has a knock on effect for the next point, the EU.
Salmond has already said Scotland would just stay in the EU like it is an automatic thing, but it’s far from automatic. For a start they’d have to wait for an official window for entry, just like every other Eastern European country who have entered over the past decade. Then every EU member has a right to veto their membership and many have very good reason to do so. Countries like Spain who already have smaller countries within their borders who also want independence can’t be seen to be backing break away countries elsewhere in Europe and maintain their stance at home. Also, this would be a country who’s first action would have been to default on a national debt! Why would any country in the EU trust them after all the bail outs during the recession?
In terms of a future economy there is so much propaganda and counter propaganda surrounding the oil fields that it strikes me as way too dangerous to base an economy on them and in terms of other business there already appears to be panic at the idea that independence might actually happen. Sterling took a hit yesterday and various CEOs have questioned staying in Scotland.
Also, I see the Scots moaning about their lot at the moment, but the current devolved powers (and if the No vote wins the further devolved powers) actually have given a great deal of autonomy with the safety net of being a part of the UK. So why remove that safety net? After all Salmond wants to keep Sterling so it’s almost a glorified devolution anyway.
(A side note on this subject: the MPs up there are already using those powers to sell off parts of the Scottish NHS to foreign investors at a rate that would even make the 'Etonian scum' down here embarrased - so much for the political utopia).
That’s all from the Scottish side of the potential split, but from the other side there would be a political unbalancing below the border that could take a generation to sort itself out. Who knows what that would do to the state of the UK. I would hate to be a in a country where someone like UKIP got a real foothold because of a change in the make up of Parliament. Or even if the country just became a Tory stronghold for the next decade. Urrgh the very thought.
Ah, fuck it. It’s not like I’ve got a vote. But hear this my Scotch friends, Andy Murray was British when he won Wimbeldon and that victory stays with us.
- agreed. i wouldn't trust salmond eitherlowimpakt
- The Spain EU vote point gets overlooked and its so obvious they will say no.sem
- Good pointsbabaganush
- kingkong0
The reason I think a currency union would be inevitable is that what is happening to Sterling is really very bad for the whole UK not just Scotland.
The inevitable answer will be we will cover Scotland until they work out what they want to do just to ease market concerns and stop a dump of UK PLC shares and Gilts, which started happening yesterday.
If 4 million scots fuck up the economy, after everything that has happened since 2008, there would be hell to pay. In that regard they are right to say that Westminster would have to capitulate, or see plunging the UK into a deep recession.
It's amazing it has all come to this.
http://www.independent.co.uk/new…- That's a scary article, a lot of speculation of the extremes. Quite a bit of it doesn't feel too far fetched though.Wolfboy
- lowimpakt0
If voting for independence was voting for Salmond and the SNP, as opposed to a total reimagining of Scotland, i'd vote no.
- hans_glib0
i still think it all boils down to
for: anything is better than what we have right now
agin: better the devil you knowneither argument is convincing (or rational, as others have pointed out). so arguing over it is pointless and destabilising. let's have the vote and be done with it. and then we can start clearing up the mess from whatever the result is.
- rosko_picachu0
It's normal for people to underestimate the knowledge base in Scotland. Since the 70's we've been testing renewable energy and it's getting there. The thinking up here is we'll be able to sell the oil (we might not actually have to use it) to build a sustainable future. Sustainable in a number of ways.
One thing is guaranteed, wind power, sea power etc will be more than enough to power Scotland given time.
The oil is used to build that infrastructure, so we can sell oil when the price is suitable and sit on it if we decide to.
What happens if a no vote goes through? Well all the oil contracts get signed the day after and it goes to the deficit to keep the powers that be ripping through other countries natural resources.
Resources that we have in plentiful supply. Things like water.
Sure London has a very cool scene, but the Commonwealth games have just given us an idea of what a multicultural society in places like Glasgow would look like.
We've got the Universities to compete with anyone. We've got space for expansion.
What we also have is a lot of people promoting Yes and it makes for a new generation of politicians to come through in Scotland, better politicians than Boris Johnson and David Cameron, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
We can potentially tailor our education system, NHS system to be far more efficient than it is now. That's not gonna happen otherwise, it's gonna be slash and burn otherwise.
The currency has already been devalued by the sale of the gold, which was an enormous mistake. You lend money based on credit. Credit is determined by assets a major one being gold. If anything puts the currency at risk it's that.
While England has been worrying about Salmond, the clever/creative minds up here have got deeply involved in a lot of the issues and this next generation has a new chance to really look at things like education and completely begin to rip up the rule book on that one.
We can begin to look at where the future lies, and if the knowledge base gets educated in Scotland and moves to England, what happens when they begin to move back if England votes to leave the EU? What happens if Scotland turns around and legalises Marijuana. What happens if the green party actually take over government in Scotland. What happens if people from England get educated in Scotland and stay because it's a multi-cultural society with a cool scene, with good jobs and living conditions.
scottish people will invite business in, we'll bring in good minds from around the world. Don't blame us for the mess the economy is in.
Believe what you like in the media. I can see this is already transferring from media to people, without looking into it in nearly enough detail. The banks made the mess and were allowed to do so, from government deregulation.
Scandinavia they actually put the right people in jail. What did westminster do, bailed them out and let them continue as if nothing had happened.
It might actually suit business power and Cameron to turn the blame on the scots for a vote they've been given.
What would be the point in a vote if we weren't allowed to vote in the way we were? Because some look thinks that the scottish people aren't educated enough to vote? Well it's multiple coice and it's not so hard. The geeks have unravelled the truth up here and the message has got out and shared. We probably know a hell of a lot more about how the country works than the average person in England. This is change. Crazy change, radical change maybe, but i doubt it will be.
Rather than you guys letting us borrow a currency we invented, a banking system that worked and was hijaked, we'll use it until we can set up our own. If that's the euro, if that's our own currency then fine but like i said the pound without Scotland is on a shaky pedestal with the sale of the gold so it's quite bizarre such a big deal about it being made.
It is however a metaphor for the attitude of Westminster to think it would be ok for people within it's own country to think they should not have one because they say so.
- Good luck getting that "guaranteed" energy of yours finished in time without the UK http://www.theguardi…sem
- Jesus...Come back to Kansas Dorothy...babaganush
- kingkong0
^ all sounds great but this from Credit Swiss this morning. Internal report and nothing political in it's creation.
In our opinion Scotland would fall into a deep recession. We believe deposit flight is both highly likely and highly problematic (with banks assets of 12x GDP) and should the Bank of England move to guarantee Scottish deposits, we expect it to extract a high fiscal and regulatory price (probably insisting on a primary budget surplus).
The re-domiciling of the financial sector and UK public service jobs, as well as a legal dispute over North Sea oil, would further accelerate any downturn.
In our opinion, as North Sea oil production slows, we estimate that the non-oil economy would need a 10% to 20% devaluation to restore competitiveness. This would require a 5% to 10% fall in wages, driven by a steep rise in unemployment.
- detritus0
Where oil money's concerned, Scotland should've gone independent in the 70s, when oil and gas reserves where still massive, then they could've gone the Norwegian route and built up a global powerhouse of a sovereign wealth fund with which to invest in its future.
It's too late for that and so oil revenues can only be, as they are now, frittered away on short-term social investment and loan percentage pay-offs.
- The same Norwegian's they stole the Shetland Islands from in the first place ha.sem
- detritus0
I was up in Edinburgh recently, as my Dad's recently bought a wee flat there. I must admit, my heart got carried away with things as I looked around and I saw the earnestness with which her youth appeared to support independence. I thought, for the first time "well, why not?".
That was two weeks ago. I've since read up as much as I can and am now back thinking "it's too late, it's a bad time and it's a terribly-unconsidered and mostly reactionary stance".
The economics are grim and the sad fact is, the young earnest supporters of the Yes! camp would be the most-fucked by its outcome. It'd be a generation or so before the dust settled and the benefits reaped, and in the mean time, Scotland's youth would be left with even less opportunity than which they are faced with now.
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My family's wholly Scottish, but I'm from the North East of England, where I've lived for a good 15 years of my life - like wolfboy, I consider myself more 'British' than English or Scottish.
The problems faced by Scotland are the exact-same as those faced by The North, by Wales, by Cornwall or Northern Ireland. Christ, by the Midlands, by Manchester and the middle belt - by Birmingham.
London and its city are a quasi-city state that at once acts as an all-consuming cancer, sucking away at the lifeblood of the rest of the country... as well as, perversely, resulting in a hugely inordinate share of the entire country's income.
The solution to Britain lies not in its dismemberment, rather in a greater involvement and cohesion.
Remember New Labour, before the Fall? Anyone recall how it was referred to as the ‘Scottish Mafia’, because of the large percentage of Scots who ran it and thusly, the whole country?
Times may have changed, but the Scottish core of New Labour didn't work in Scotland interests back then, merely fobbing Her off with a diluted version of devolution — what makes anyone think an independent Scotland's politicans of tomorrow will be any more self-interested?
Who was it that lost Scotland to the English in the first place? The English did their thing, sure — but it was our own who fucked things up for everyone else.
Self-interest fucks things up for everyone, everywhere.
Always has, always will.
- yurimon0
Scotland aint going to get shit but a bunch of stupid politicians replacing a stupid system for another one. the New generation is dumb as fuck compared to those who understood what freedom was in the past times who fought the British. independence is anarchy... /<end>
- sem0
"London and its city are a quasi-city state that at once acts as an all-consuming cancer, sucking away at the lifeblood of the rest of the country... as well as, perversely, resulting in a hugely inordinate share of the entire country's income"
Here is that thing or Northern folk ignoring facts again. Population = Priority. But feel free to just keep putting your opinion based points out there.
For our American friends, this is like Detroit moaning that NYC gets more money. Maybe because it generates more?
- Funny, I thought I was putting across both sides of the coin?detritus
- And, by the way, that inordinate share comes from ‘The 1%’ not the mass of over-population in London.detritus
- money from nothing= printing pressesyurimon
- Without Oligarchs and rich twats around the world investing in London, England has zip...god knows about Scotlandbabaganush
- detritus0
I'm sorry, Why Should a self-enforcing entity such as London dictate to the rest of the motherland? Its existence and enterprise comes at the cost of that across the rest of the country - questioning that outwith base population terms is very much a valid enquiry!
Its population is still less than the rest of the country's put together, so it should very much be brought to heel.
- You do know you have a local council right? you know they are responsible for your town, city etc also.sem
- From a centrally-attributed allotment, sure. But hey, I live in London - I'm part of the problem here...detritus
- Also rather than youtube here is a better source for you http://www.bbc.co.uk…sem
- And I'm just saying that the amount of tax London gets from its huge population is relevant.sem
- And that its contribution is very significant so can't be look at as if its just taking from everywhere else.sem
- This video is from the Office for National Statistics, which sort of trumps the BBC here.detritus
- Sorry you're right I didn't check the source on youtube. More fool me I'll give you that good sir.sem
- sem0
"So don't give me that stuff about demographics, we love being who we are and we are no different to anyone else. Just a wee country wanting to look after ourselves and not have to waste money on an elite system with too much bureacracy that wants to flaunt itself as a major player, which i'm afraid it no longer is"
Haha, you basically just said "Don't give me them facts and statistics!" you did see that my points linked to sources right? Please take some time to read them.
As for your World War point of dumping ammo...you poor guys, tell me more about how you suffered in that horrible war.
- detritus0
By your logic, sem, Germany should be free to continually aggregate Herself through population and industrial might, at the expense of all other Euro partners.
That being the case, why on Earth should Italy or Spain be part of the EU? it's certainly not to their advantage or reason.
- sem0
I understand what you're saying and agree fully that everyone should have a say in what goes on etc. And I agree that Scotland might get overlooked on certain things.
But they get free education, don't have as big a population, housing, unemployment problem as other places and its just ridiculous to make out they should be such a huge priority over other places needing attention.
- sem0
Also just for the record, I love it up North and don't mean to sound like I'm all about the south.
Like you I believe unity is best, but a unity with a bit less blame culture please :)
- rosko_picachu0
It's a move towards a fragmentation of the nation states which is going to upset capitalism.
Look at the EU, a centralized system where policies become less localized and therefore not so relevant to a specific areas needs.
This is what we've had from Westminster and this is the problem.
- lowimpakt0
the london centric nature of UK is a problem and the severity of the issues is worse in the UK Than anywhere else in Europe.
This chart shows the spread of wealth between regions in a country - It shows just how divided the UK is.
One root of this massive inequality was the rapid deindustrialisation of Wales and North England and shift towards financial service sector (localised in London). This shift in policy and focus was decided in London.