English Scots for YES

At last, an honest post about the incompetence of the SNP and the state of the country's NHS and education - thank you varian.

I fail to understand why your relatives suddenly feel unwelcome here, when previously they presumably have been.

Your failure to understand this, nn doesn't invalidate what they are feeling. It just says volumes about your inability to emphasise.

I do have niggly. I have a brother and a nephew living and working in Spain, and a niece in Ireland.
They feel sorry for us.
What do you think May is doing if not blackmail?

" "It's outrageous to use bureaucracy like this," said one senior official from an EU government who participated in the meeting of advisers, known as sherpas. Another said several had spoken of demanding London ease such "administrative burdens".

Applications for lifetime residency status have soared since Britons voted in June to leave but many have been rejected and others complain that the 85-page form and demands for copious proof of earnings and movements during the five-year qualifying period make it hard to claim their legal rights. "

From an article in Reuters yesterday.

How can requesting a reciprocal agreement be blackmail? The only blackmail is coming from the EU's procrastination!

Ana I hope you do not think I am anti-Scottish. I am Scottish and I love Scotland - but not the SNP.

Like most Scottish people, I am proud to be Scottish but I am also proud to be British. I am a UK citizen and I hope I will always be.

I am also proud to be a citizen of the European Community, and I am happy with my red passport. I do know it is unlikely that I will be able to keep it and I will miss it if it goes, as will so many Scottish/ English/ Welsh/ Northern Irish people who valued the advantages we may lose.

For me, and I suspect many others, the threat of brexit is bad enough, but the threat of destroying the United Kingdom is even worse.

No, of course I didn't think you were anti-Scottish varian.

It's just that most of the SNP-supporting Scots who post on this thread seem oblivious to any possibility that there might be something amiss with the actual government by the SNP.

Yes, we do hear ( though not on GN usually) that the SNP are running things badly.

DJ Pot kettle black.Sorry cant find your reply to my question.

Disastrously is the whisper!! My DH is a Scot so we've had many wonderful Scottish holidays (apart from the midges!!) Arisaig has a fantastic beach, and you can almost feel the history. I don't think anyone on here feels anything but perhaps frustration and potential sorrow at the loss of Scotland from the UK just as we would if it were Wales and NI. Also I think we feel trepidation for an independent Scotland. But if that's what they want, however narrow the majority, all we can do is wish them goodbye and good luck.

Such an important and permanent decision should never ever be made on the basis of a narrow majority of those who turn out on a single day. Voters are fickle and change their minds, as they should be allowed to do.

We are not talking about electing a government for the next five years but destroying the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future, possibly forever.

You make it sound as if Scotland is going to go floating off into the Atlantic.
If they do vote for independence, it might make May take Scotland more seriously. She might realise that she has to think about tariff-free borders and free movement of people.
After all, with the rest of the UK being the bigger population, with the bigger vote, that's the part that will have to decide how to treat the Scottish people, along with the rest of the EU.

At the moment it's easy to say we can take control of our borders because the only land border with the EU is in Ireland. Scotland as well will bring it closer to home.

My take is that Scotland should of course have another referendum if it's clear they want one, but for all the SNP scream "democracy" they ignore the democratic right of the UK govt. to say fine, but not at a time when such a vote would be clearly against the interests of the UK as a whole. We are, at the moment, one country with one, overarching, democratically elected govt. in Westminster whose job it is to protect the interests of all the people of Britain. We need to sort Brexit properly - i.e. all the detail, which will take a lot of time and effort- and then we can have a Scottish independence referendum and follow that with the lengthy, detailed negotiations around the separation, which, on the rUK side, will be dealt with I assume by pretty much the same people as will be needed to negotiate Brexit , but who won't be available until the Brexit deal is fully finalised. Surely it won't be in any way practical to attempt to allow the two to overlap?

They won't overlap as the Scottish referendum is intended to take place in late 2018 / early 2019, once the details of Brexit are known and just before the UK leaves the EU.

If that's the case then fine, but I doubt it is the case. Article 50 provides for a two year notice period, but negotiations on the detailed arrangements will take as long as they take, and that might well be a lot longer, with stopgap arrangements agreed in the interim. I just don't think we can assume anything about timing right now, other than the notice period itself.

[like] on both Fitzy's posts

they ignore the democratic right of the UK govt. to say fine, but not at a time when such a vote would be clearly against the interests of the UK as a whole.

Firstly, I'm not sure that 'democracy' has anything to do with this at all. It is a political decision, not a 'democratic' one.

Secondly; I find it ironic that you cite the 'interests of the UK' as justification for this decsion when the UK government are blithely steaming ahead with a decision, Brexit, which is entirely inimical to the 'interests of the UK'

And, I would remind people that 'the UK' is not a country, it's a union of three and a bit countries (a bit like the EU, really, which many people on here feel absolutely no compunction about splitting up)

Mazie, The UK is a country. Quite daft to say otherwise. On your analysis even England isn't a country, being the union of a number of earlier kingdoms. Is Spain a country or just a union of earlier countries? I could go on but have better things to do.
And I don't see your references to irony, Brexit and steam as having any relevance at all to the discussion.

I can't help it if you fail to see (or prefer to ignore) the similarities between some Scotsl desire to leave a union and some Brits' desire to leave a union.
Or that our representatives in Parliament are supposed to act in the interests of 'the nation' which Brexit most clearly isn't.
Or that England, Scotland, Wales and NI are distinct countries.Being 'united' under one government doesn't make them any less so.

I see the similarity but don't see anything you actually said as relevant.

I guess what I should have simply pointed out was that your description of the UK being a union of countries was right, save that you neglected to include the final two words, which are of course "into one".

Mazie do you really believe that the European Union is a country with one overriding government and is the same as the United Kingdom? I think there's a lot of Europeans who would disagree!

You put your finger on it NfkD. Overriding government. Nuff said.

Here's a long article about GERS, which all makes perfect sense to me. I lost the link to Treasury Figures which show that in the GERS calculations they use a formula which divides resources, tax received and spent, etc on a per capita, not Geographic ratio. This means that Scotland is only credited with between 8 & 9 % of all North Sea Oil revenues, (Geographically 95%) Whisky revenues (Obviously 100%) and so on. Meanwhile Scotland's expenses include 8/9% of all the infrastructure projects - HSR, London Underground, Nuclear Power and weapons (neither of which Scotland wants, etc. which are of no benefit to Scotland but Scotland bears the whole 100% cost of the new Forth Link Bridge, Commonwealth Games etc, with no contribution from the wider UK budget.

www.businessforscotland.com/question-ask-every-unionist-gers/

I'll wait, with bated breath for the Unionist to pick holes in the arguments therein.

Too long an article for some unionists to read, Granny23.

ukandeu.ac.uk/what-do-voters-in-scotland-want-from-brexit/