Bye, bye Scotland, we hardly knew ya!

Stockholm wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by having history on their side. Scotland has been an integral part of the UK for over 300 years and they were never conquered they asked to join With England to create the UK and no one has ever suggested that scots were oppressed or discriminated against. If anything Scots have pulled above their weight in the UK supplying numerous PMs etc...

No, not discriminatory at all... they're just hot-headed, don't know how to think rationally and can't afford an orthodontist.

And from a BBC quiz show:

Quote:

“To be fair the Scottish economy has its strengths - its chief exports being oil, whisky, tartan and tramps.”

http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/tv-radio/ray-winstone-calls-scots-tram...

What do you call the predictions that Scotland would never be able to make it, even though they have the rights to 90 percent of the oil, simply based on the notion that England is so much more stable and trustworthy? If they have truly pulled their weight then where is that scaremongering coming from? Really it gets to the root of the problem which is that the government is far more focused on the interests of those in the south than in the north.

And never conquered? Never oppressed? Asked for union? That's a pretty narrow reading that ignores the border wars, the highland clearances, the outlawing of Gaelic, and fairly strong history of oppression. I may agree with you that the Jacobite cause was pretty unrealistic, but to portray the relationship between Scotland and England as one of equality is not true.

Again, I'm not saying "No" might not be a good option, but if there truly is no problem, then why are they playing no cards other than threats, insults and fear?

latest (latest) polls:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-yes-49-no-51-in-icm-poll-1-3539815

and

some charts and figures about economic issues:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11084406/The-Scottish-economy-in-ten-essential-charts.html

Self-determination is not necessarily nationalism. And why is "nationalism" used to describe the nationalism of the oppressed, and not the oppressor nation?

And I'm an internationalist from a long way back.

I've never hated Gordon Brown the way I hated Tony Blair, but although I think he was a person with a far deeper grasp of social democracy, he lacked courage and followed the poodle in the March to Folly.

And regarding Brown:

http://www.answers.com/Q/How_many_British_prime_ministers_have_been_Scot...

In recent memory, Gordon Brown is about it. Blair is in the closet.

Good luck to the Scots if "Yes" wins. They'll need it, especially when the world turns away from fossil fuels and tax-paying businesses have left for England.

After what was depicted in the roles that Ray Winstone played, I am not sure I want to hear anything which comes out of his vile mouth. And I am not talking about Sexy Beast, either. Anyone who would not refuse to play the role of what he did in another movie has no judgement at all. Ray Winstone can go to hell.

Just thank the heavens you have not seen that movie. I would not say it by name.

Apparently Ruper Murdoch is endorsing the Yes side...what was that about Scottish independence being a 'socialist" cause? I guess the parallels between Rupert Murdoch and Pierre-Karl Peladeau become more and more apparent!

montrealer58 wrote:

If Scotland goes YES, the Trident nuclear missiles have to go somewhere else, which makes Scotland less of a target if there is a war.

Fallout will stop at the border?

Who wouldn't?

Stockholm wrote:

The polls now have the NO side back in the lead. It appears sanity has returned to Scotland after this brief flirtation with the idiocy of separatism.

What an incredibly patronizing and arrogant post that was.  

Scotland isn't debating independence because of some weird epidemic of madness...it's because they have real and massive grievances with the status quo in the UK.  And because it is the natural thing, for any progressive-and-egalitarian minded person living in a place like the UK, to want a chance to have some hope of being free of Thatcherism-a hope that doesn't exist in the UK as currently constituted.  If you want to persuade Scots to stay in, Stock, you have to respect what is making so many of them want out, you have to take them seriously, and you have to propose some kind of positive path for change.  None of those things have appeared in your posts in this thread...instead, you've sounded like the worst sort of latter day Colonel Blimp, expecting the "lesser orders" to know their place.  Strange  

The UK is the last vestige of the British Empire, so why would you as a person of the "center-left"(and therefore a person who is, at least in theory, anti-colonialist in orientation)be a passionate defender of something that had its origins in colonialism?  Are you nostalgic for the British North America Act, as well?  Do you wish the Raj still existed and that the Union Jack still flew over half of Africa?  Why would anybody who wasn't a reactionary be a supporter of the status quo in the UK...or really, of the continued existence of the UK as currently constitued at all?  It was all based on Anglo-Saxon subjugation of other nations, starting with the Celts and then extending to most of the planet.  How could you possibly be a defender of the largest EMPIRE in the history of the world?  

Oh, and you were wrong about Norhern Ireland being "quiet" for fifty years.  It wasn't quiet as much as it was, for the persecuted Catholic/Nationalist minority, repressed beyond belief.  That community was denied virtually all rights for that half-century, was reduced to virtually no representation in the supposed "Northern Irish Parliament", usually electing only 1 or 2 MP's(for a group that represented at least 33% of the population, thanks to your beloved "first-past-the-post" electoral system, a system that may have given Tommy D. one last term to get single-payer healthcare started in Sask. but has produced no positive results anywhere since then and isn't likely to produce any anywhere again),subject to massive discrimination in housing, education, and employment opportunities, and constantly subjected to violence, harassment and abuse from the majority population in the hopes that they, the Catholic/Nationalist minority would leave the lands where they had always lived.   There was resistance to this...ineffective yes, but under that type of rule no form of resistance had any hope of success at all...and before you get sanctimonious about the lack of a "Northern Irish Gandhi", you should know that there WAS a mass nonviolent resistance movement, the Northern Irish Civil Rights Association, which was brutally crushed by the British on Bloody Sunday, 1972.  It was that crushing(which ended up leading, ironically, TO the restoration of direct rule of Northern Ireland by the British Parliament)that did more than anything else to fire up "The Troubles", and which also made most Northern Irish Catholics decide that the nonviolent path was essentially futile.  Have you ever condemned the Brits for what they did on Bloody Sunday?  Or for anything else they allowed to happen in the North for that whole horrible era?  

I'm sensing an authoritarian and Anglo-supremacist tone in your posts on matters like this and Quebec that is really discomfiting.  Deeply inappropriate for a progressive, pro-multicultural and anti-imperialist discussion forum.

Hmm. UK.

Constitutionally:

- Non-elected hereditary head of state, who can still give Royal Prerogative to the Prime Minister as was done for the sake of the last Iraq war.

- Non-elected upper chamber called the House of Lords

- FPTP Parliament run by toffs.

Economically:

- Based on the City of London, which is a den of thieves. Speculation and rent instead of manufacturing and service.

- Corporation of the City of London ("The Square Mile") not subject to Royal or Parliamentary Authority. Run as a dictatorship of the Livery Companies.

- Manufacturing: Gutted by Thatcher, and if still present, foreign-owned. The British Leyland plant I used to live near is now owned by BMW.

- Inequality: One of the worst in the G7

Socially:

- Disabled people forced to work for benefits.

- Media promotes social division and xenophobia.

- Ridiculous rents for shabby accommodations.

- Everything really expensive in the shops

- Public transport crowded and unreliable

Environment:

- Huge swaths of land owned by Royals and Aristocrats such as Prince Charles and the Duke of Westminster. "Oh it has such lovely countryside" while 60 million English are stuck in 2-up 2-downs.

- City (note above) very keen to finance fracking, not to mention the privatization of YOUR water, no matter where you live in the world. One of my mates at school learned how to be a toff and works at BNP Paribas. This is the game now, and all eyes are on Canada! Fracking of course will make water a more expensive commodity. It is deliberate, mark my words.

Though if they want a common currency, the economy will still be run from London.

Bravo, Ken. Funny how anti-Québécois sentiment has seeped into the issue of the Scottish referendum. The outcome of the Québec election is nothing any progressive should applaud, though. The fucking PLQ is barrelling ahead with "austerity" measures, including a "consultation" that provides a forum for misogyny and hatred of poor people. http://www.pressegauche.org/spip.php?article18894

I certainly wouldn't have voted PQ in the most recent elections here. Fortunately incumbent Françoise David was leading in my riding and won handily over the PQ's xenophobic candidate.

Will do!

"Philip Davies, MP" wrote:

For the record, I will not be voting to maintain an unfair funding settlement for Scotland whatever Messrs Cameron, Miliband and Clegg say...In the event of a No vote, I will be doing all I can to stop MPs from Scotland voting on issues in Parliament which don't relate to Scotland

Fewer powers are coming on the heels of a No vote.

Ah yes, the old "we love you so much that if you try to leave we'll carve you up". How'd that work out in Ireland?