Scot Independence poll - would you leave?

[Freeforester]

From a real ‘independent’ source:

Currency options for an independent Scotland | Institute for Government

Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level.

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk

and

How would an independent Scotland borrow? | Institute for Government

The steps an independent Scotland could take to reassure investors and limit increases in debt interest costs.

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk

Can a country borrow in order to have reserves, in a central bank as yet neither built nor staffed, let alone with a currency as yet undetermined?
Elsie McSelfie thinks ‘och aye’, but doesn’t prefer to show the way this can occur.

Of 32 local authority areas in 2014, 28 voted by a margin of 2:1 or greater, to stay within the Union.
Those with mal intent to the United Kingdom give her and her like oxygen, but most of us simply laugh or scorn at their pitiful attempts to run anything more than a crèche for the past fifteen years. Take a good long look at their ‘achievements’, and ask yourself - who in their right mind and possessed with the gift an understanding of basic arithmetic would ever, ever entrust such a parcel of rogues to try to ‘build on their successes’…

 

[Apthorpe]

They moved over the west of Scotland to a smaller retirement house as they were both 70.

the estate has been in the family for 100 years now but most of it came from the steel factories of Glasgow way back in the day.


In order to get rich in most cases someone gets shafted! There’s always a causality of some sort along the way.

I think that rather depends on the level of innate entitlement you believe everyone has a priori. There are many people who seem to believe that all the wealth or assets ought to be belong more or less equally to all the people. I don't, because I don't think you can successfully ignore the fact that most of the wealth or assets were created by a small subset of people. Or to rephrase that, if you do reject that fact, pretty soon you find out that you're all wrong and poorer.
I don't believe that people engaged to work for a business or another person generally are being exploited because the employer is taking a slice, even a large slice, of the money their activity helps to earn. Employment is a voluntary activity. The only reason for a person to agree to work for anyone else is that they are offering a better alternative to self-employment.

People aren't being shafted, they are simply encountering the reality that in the absence of wealth generation and production, that there is less available. The large majority of people, sadly, lack some or all of the following: motivation, health, sufficient relevant and correct education, skills, intelligence.

 

[saddler]

Already left - not too lonf after the first attempt
Sick to death of Sturgeon & the other fishy-folk, plus the brain dead SNP supporters - just typical Marxist/socialist rabble rousers using empty rhetoric to promise a future they've got zero chance of making a reality

 

[paul o']

 

[del.gue]

We have friends in Scotland. Both (seperate) said they would leave.
Both have also mentioned the anti English undertone that seems to prevail with SNP supporters.

 

[tozzybum]

Lotsa family in Scotland and they really don't get the planet Sturgeon.
No central bank ,no currency, awfully bad on education and the NHS.
Only in power due to bribes ,free university, prescriptions etc .
And no real plans for an independent Scotland other than begging the Eu for a place.
But they ain't getting one as Spain doesn't want the Basque or other separatist regions leaving Spain.
And go on someone explain where the jobs come when she shuts Faslane as wee krankie cant/ won't.

 

[One on top of two]

If the Scott’s truly want independence you need to give the English a vote on it too . £20.00 says your be gone like a shot .

 

[Apthorpe]

If the Scott’s truly want independence you need to give the English a vote on it too . £20.00 says your be gone like a shot .

Could we not have a UK-wide referendum on Sturgeon and Drakeford being made independent and joining the EU permanently? It would even be worth ceding one of the smaller and nastier islands so they can have an independent territory too. Rockall perhaps ?

 

[Andy seatrout]

As a variation; I live in Wales, I’ve many English Scottish and Welsh friends…. I’m an Englishman born in Shropshire with sons born in Wales and Scottish ancestry ( surname Renwick) …

The sensible Welsh who are good at basic maths see that the Welsh government relies on a £12.5 Billion subsidy from Westminster to balance the books…. I’d not trust Drakeford to pop to the corner shop, he’s incompetent writ large and it’s what happens when you have a one party state ( for Welsh Labour read SNP).

Welsh labour pulled all the league tables for schools in wales as they performed so badly they didn’t want to face it, same with NHS… in Wales it’s far worse than England….

Wales was last independent at the time of Owain Glandwr, at the time they lived by subsistence agriculture and wattle and daube huts and the odd stone building with a thatched roof…. If they became independent again, that’s about the living standard that would be enjoyed.

I fear Scotland would be similar, perhaps not so damaged, but the Barney formula would cease to apply…. Yes the price of oil was the driver to the independent Scottish economy last time around in 2014, then shortly after the oil price fell…

I find it ironic that the SNP wanted to remain in Europe ( a large UK trading partner) but conversely want independence from Scotland largest trading partner- England……

It makes little sense to me, it doesn’t seem a risk worth taking for either of these proud nations…

 

[long_range_rob]

TBH if she got what she’s after it would ruin her/the snp as they’re a single policy party obsessed with reaching the promised land without any thought about what to do when they get there? With the greens in tow how would they pay for everything without any nuclear/oil. There’s only so much shortbread you can export.

 

[HonestJohn]

TBH if she got what she’s after it would ruin her/the snp as they’re a single policy party obsessed with reaching the promised land without any thought about what to do when they get there? With the greens in tow how would they pay for everything without any nuclear/oil. There’s only so much shortbread you can export.

Sounds a bit like Brexit!

 

[Andy seatrout]

Sounds a bit like Brexit!

Yes but worse for Scotland if they did. This isn’t a Brexit thread but it’s clear that many of tte advantages of being out of Europe haven’t been realised - also trading with Europe could be more seamless but the EU are still harbouring hurt pride and don’t want to encourage any more ‘exits’…

The issue is one of scale, if you’re bigger you can roll with the economic punches…. The picture attached shows the relative GDP of England Scotland and Wales…

 

[Malxwal]

TBH if she got what she’s after it would ruin her/the snp as they’re a single policy party obsessed with reaching the promised land without any thought about what to do when they get there? With the greens in tow how would they pay for everything without any nuclear/oil. There’s only so much shortbread you can export.

This is the thing, it's the same clueless idiots who would be there to run a newly independent Scotland; there's not a container full of competent economists and politicians just waiting in the shadows. Leap of faith, blue sky(literally) thinking.

 

[User00035]

Dumfriesshire,I’m only 20 miles off being English if the truth be told

I probably went past your house yesterday. Greetings from the neighbours over the border. Slainte mhath! (Dalwhinnie Winter's Gold on this occasion).

 

[Apthorpe]

Yes but worse for Scotland if they did. This isn’t a Brexit thread but it’s clear that many of tte advantages of being out of Europe haven’t been realised - also trading with Europe could be more seamless but the EU are still harbouring hurt pride and don’t want to encourage any more ‘exits’…

Very much the case. Also worth mentioning that it is far from clear that the UK is measurably worse off from Brexit, although having realised the downsides and thus far the state has failed to make any use of the possible upsides. Brexit followed a previously agreed exit process. Scexit doesn't have one of those. Given that most Scots were not keen on Brexit, you'd think they'd have noticed the downsides of not being very clear precisely what independence involved. Strangely, the SNP seems to have shown no interest in how they would execute this process, nor in persuading floating voters that their policy is credible.

The issue is one of scale, if you’re bigger you can roll with the economic punches…. The picture attached shows the relative GDP of England Scotland and Wales…

I don't think this matters all that much. Small countries are often very economically successful.....so long as they have sane political and economic environments. Scotland is utterly deranged on both counts.

 

[Ade8mm]

Speaking as one who has mostly worked overseas for the last 15 years, I am yet to meet a Scott (not living in Scotland) who thinks independence is a good idea.
They of course are not living on benefits, just working hard and sending money home to their families.
I leave each to draw his/her own conclusion from this simple obsevation.

Aye
Ade

 

[User00035]

Yes but worse for Scotland if they did. This isn’t a Brexit thread but it’s clear that many of tte advantages of being out of Europe haven’t been realised - also trading with Europe could be more seamless but the EU are still harbouring hurt pride and don’t want to encourage any more ‘exits’…

The issue is one of scale, if you’re bigger you can roll with the economic punches…. The picture attached shows the relative GDP of England Scotland and Wales…

Comparisons between Indie and Brexit don't really stand up. It's comparing apples with pears. The UK, however badly governed, as a whole is a fully formed country with everything in place to function as such. It has it's own currency - one of the oldest and most stable in the world - and a national bank that is capable of acting as lender of last resort. It has a well established national defence capability with internationally recognised borders and territorial waters. It is the founding member of the Commonwealth, a senior member of NATO and has a permanent seat at the UN and the G20. The UK has an indelible international footprint, where Scotland does not, and repatriating limited areas of sovereignty from Brussels, tricky though it has been, is a piffling undertaking compared with forming a brand new nation from scratch, which is the prospect an independent Scotland would face. It's a task on an entirely different order of magnitude.

 

[spanj]

If the Scots vote for independence then let them have it, border, passports and all. Also import/export tariffs just like any other "foreign" country and definitely no financial support from the rest of the UK. It would be interesting to see how the SNP would deal with the economy without the "We want independence" shouting to distract from the real problems of running a small country of just over 5 million. Well there's 5 million or so now, but how many would remain in a post referendum Scotland? As for joining the EU, well that would take years.

The EU would never accept them other than to give two fingers to the rest of Britain. The Spaniards would 100% veto them

 

[Freeforester]

It’s amazing that all those economic migrants want to risk their lives to flee from their homelands, but not into the loving bosom of the EU, but across the channel to our shores. Maybe the BBC World Service didn’t let the rest of the world know the result?

 

[Len the dog]

The EU would never accept them other than to give two fingers to the rest of Britain. The Spaniards would 100% veto them

Exactly this. Spain has categorically stated that they WILL veto any application by Scotland to join the EU, if they don’t then they are being seen to support the cause of splinter countries and this would open the floodgates to protests from the Basque and Catalan regions.
This has been the case since Brexit was first mooted but has been repeatedly denied and swept under the carpet by the SNP. Sturgeon knows that Scotland don’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of being allowed to join the EU but she has lied to the electorate to further her aims.