Scottish IndepenDENce YES or NO?

Re: Scottish Indepence YES or NO?

gerryattrick":1edeg0jb said:

I have no issue against Scottish independence but Scots have been part of the UK and its decision-making for 300 years, including having a fair number of Prime Ministers, and cannot now conveniently absolve themselves of all responsibility for the current state of their country and act as if it was all the fault of the "English". Not that you mean the English of course.

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This.

Whichever way the vote goes if you conveniently revise history to suggest the Scots were all " Quisling's" and it was an English empire not a British one you are basing it on a very convenient interpretation, calculated to avoid your responsibilites and refuse to acknowledge the horrors of the past.


And Mr Bats you're very fond of dishing out the insults whilst conveniently ignoring the fact that the Scots have been screwing over the Scots before you even had a national identity and well before you had the English as an excuse. By all means carry on lying to yourself. Good luck if you manage to build a new Nation on a foundation of those lies. The truth has been and will continue to be messier.

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The whole mess is certainly heating up. Two of my best friends firmly NO have just turned to YES, but I get the feeling fear will win the day. Not sure I am going to be too unhappy with that.

A YES result would give us the chance to demonstrate that independence need not mean separation, but may just mean renegotiation and more mutual respect. You can change policy, taxes and even currency, but people will still have cousins and such in each other's home countries.

We will still share the same island.

If anything, that is what truly identifies us as people, rather than any national boundaries, imagined or real.

Re: Scottish Indepence YES or NO?

I'm boycotting porridge

Re: Scottish Indepence YES or NO?

I am concerned the price of the Full English at the local café will hit the roof.

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It's high time we had devolved parliaments that make decisions based upon local needs and that sadly means lots of unemployed Scottish MPs leaving Westminster of course only the ones who didn't make lots of nasty decisions that only benefit the English !

Re: Scottish Indepence YES or NO?

secret_squirrel":1pz7cul9 said:

Whichever way the vote goes if you conveniently revise history to suggest the Scots were all " Quisling's" and it was an English empire not a British one you are basing it on a very convenient interpretation, calculated to avoid your responsibilites and refuse to acknowledge the horrors of the past.

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What? So it was the ordinary population of Scotland who went and thought Empire was a cracking idea? That's a bit odd, considering we're not yet at a hundred year's worth of democracy by any reasonable measure. (Hello there, working class and women's rights to vote)

Describing the Scottish upper classes who were happy to go along with England's evil empire as Quislings is entirely apt. And it was England's evil empire; Westminster isn't in Edinburgh and neither is the throne.

secret_squirrel":1pz7cul9 said:

And Mr Bats you're very fond of dishing out the insults whilst conveniently ignoring the fact that the Scots have been screwing over the Scots before you even had a national identity[1][2] and well before you had the English as an excuse. By all means carry on lying to yourself. Good luck if you manage to build a new Nation on a foundation of those lies. The truth has been and will continue to be messier.

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Well there's a few things you seem to be missing:

[1]I've referred to "scotand", but not "us" or "we", because I'm English.
[2]People of a nationality can't oppress their own nationality if it doesn't exist yet.
I've got a sodding Lenin avatar, It's pretty obvious what my opinion on the treatment of the lower classes by the upper classes is. It generally strikes me at least a bit more democratic if the government isn't the other side of the border.

Pointless historic rant

The pre Roman and Medieval history of the island of Britain is one of power struggles between tribes. The Picts, Scots, Gales, Britons Angles etc. And through war and alliances these grew in size. Even by the time of the Scottish wars of independence Scotland was still divided, with the Western Isles, Orkney, and Shetland in Norwegian hands, and Moray and Galloway still separate from the largest kingdom of Alban. And even within these tribal areas there where estates owned by Norman barons, one of whom was Robert the Bruce. Whilst Scottish patriot William Wallace's family came from Wales.

It's a paradox that what actually united Scotland were the attempts of Edward the 1st and 2nd to annex those lands for England. And having eventually defeated the English Robert the Bruce (Le Bruce in Norman French) then set about his Scottish neighbors and annexed them in turn. Unfortunately, upsetting the English did mean that he lost his ancestral lands in Surrey.

Before these events Scotland as a united country under one government did not exist.

And that James V1 of Scotland peacefully inherited England and Wales on the death of Elizabeth the 1st, despite centuries of England trying to take Scotland by force is brilliantly ironic. James wasn't even closely related to Elizabeth, but just the closest relative who wasn't a Catholic.

I don't think this proves anything apart from that the histories and peoples of Scotland, Wales and England are one and the same. And will remain so whatever the outcome of this vote.

The history the world is that of peaceful coexistence spreading as small tribes amalgamate to form larger ones. To reverse this natural process is going to be painful and will have many unintended consequences.

Its also bizarre to want to do this whilst the rest of Europe moves inextricably towards closer union and international law.

Sorry for this. I just like the chaotic nature of Scottish History and so fancied a bit of a rant.

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Little significance to the Scotland voting in this referendum.

This is not about history. This is about opportunity to change.

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A number of polls saying 52 to 48 against a yes vote. I cant help thinking that the No vote will get stronger. Got my fingers crossed for a yes! Politics in this land is so stale needs a shake up.

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Do the No or Yes voters get to have a referendum in a few years time because they don't like it? Say every 4 years.

And continue that till there is a good significant majority?

What's the swing between the two Cities?