Scottish independence, English me would like to understand

Sorry Alegrias I take so long to type on my tiny phone with my fat fingers I crossed posts with you.
Thank you for bringing your post over. Giving some insight in to how others in Scotland feel. I know you have said you can’t speak for all but I imagine many will feel like you.

paddyanne why should people who dont live work or contribute to Scotland have a vote? Surely they have a vote where they live?
They have a vote where they live to decide who represents them in Parliament.

A referendum to decide on independence is completely different from voting for your MP whether it’s the Westminster Government or the Scottish Parliament.

I wasn’t suggesting expatriate Scots should have been allowed to vote, only that I was surprised that they weren’t.
All the Scots I have known who lived & worked outside Scotland have all identified strongly as Scots & I got the impression that the heritage & cultural aspect of the Independence cause was important to Scots, albeit not as important as the political and economic aspects.
But happy to be corrected.

Second time this week I agree with PippaZ blimey.

Would PippaZ’s idea appeal to all. A separate parliament for each nation with equal representation in an upper house?
Or would that result in other regions of each nation wanting more representation?

What Alegrias1 says.

Also, please could we have less of the "Where do the Scots think the money comes from?" stuff? We pay taxes like everyone in the UK. We choose, through our elected Parliament, to spend some of it differently from how it is spent in other nations - on free prescriptions as one example.

The other point I would like to emphasise is that independence support does not necessarily equal SNP voting.

Why would we need hard borders with the rest of the UK? Is it impossible to imagine a Schengen-type arrangement?

lynx, I wonder which peculiar part of Scotland you are visiting when your husband feels that he has to put on an accent which he doesn't normally use. Michael Gove does that, and it's very irritating!

LauraNorder

Would PippaZ’s idea appeal to all. A separate parliament for each nation with equal representation in an upper house?
Or would that result in other regions of each nation wanting more representation?

You can devolve power within a country or offer a fairer voting system LauraNorder.

LauraNorder, if the English regions were to become interested in a federal system, that could be a way forward and allow each region and nation to be more fairly represented. At the moment, as England works as a whole, the UK is unbalanced. It is obvious that some areas feel unhappy - parts of the North feel ignored, and London voted to stay in the EU as Riverwalk says. So far there is no sign of that approach happening.

Sorry, back again. People say that Nicola Sturgeon is always banging on about another referendum, but she is not, in spite of what you will see in the Unionist press, using her Covid updates to do so. In fact, here the person banging on about it is our (sadly) Tory MP, who has been doing so regularly for some time! He is no doubt doing so as preventing one is the only policy he seems to be able to come up with.

Good thought WhenIwasyourage. That could work. Change needs to happen if we are to go forward in peace.

merlotgran

Can somebody please point out the disadvantages to the rest of the UK if Scotland leaves?

Don’t think this has been answered yet, I too wonder about this.

Scotland is NOT a region .its a country that was Independent for longer than it has been part of the union. We have our own Church and systems of Law and Education and our own ideals
That is a union we didn't want and were sold into.There were riots on the streets about it .It was supposed to be a UNION there was never any evidence we were treated as equals
.We dont want to spill blood over Independence as the Irish had to we're happy to do it through the ballot box..I have been a supporter of Independence since I was 13 ,thats 54 years ago and can find no reasons that would make me change my mind . Independence is NORMAL

I don’t think any of the constituent parts of the UK are happy with the current political arrangements. In population terms, for example North West England is considerably bigger in population terms than any of the other nations, and they also feel they get a raw deal, as does the North East, Yorkshire, etc.

Scotland must choose its own path whatever that turns out to be, but there’s a very strong case for more devolved government for the regions of England as well.

Paddyanne you are guilty of using the Royal ‘we’.

Not everybody in Scotland agrees with you, you are speaking for a proportion, not the whole country.

Isn’t that one of the issues with all the proposed changes to the status quo though, there will never be a solution that pleases everybody.

plays into the hands of those of us who want independence to build ourselves a proper country away from people who think they know what we want.

If you are talking about English politicians, Alegrias then we have had many Scottish politicians who have been part of the United Kingdom Government, including Prime Ministers steering the ship for the whole country.
The problem with the SNP becoming so popular and prominent in Scottish politics is that this will not happen again.

I can understand that, as the majority in Scotland voted to remain, they are unhappy with the result of the referendum.

I don't want to see the Union split. I know quite a number of Scots and I don't know a single one who would have voted for an independent Scotland, but, of course, they are the ones who don't live there now. They have broadened their horizons, worked overseas or in the rest of the UK and see us as a whole, not as discrete parts.

Scottish independence, English me would like to understand

I think my Scottish friends dont understand either, LauraNorder

Adam Price wants an independence referendum for Wales and used his party political broadcast to plug it this week.

LauraNorder

I was going to leave party politics aside and get a feel for feelings.
For example another poster who I hope will be along soon has said that she feels that we no longer share the same values politically or culturally. She also feels that she doesn’t want to be part of a larger more dominant country.
I feel that devolved government has given each nation power for some self government but the down side means the borders are stronger and more obvious so that we are no longer capable of acting as one country and therefore our values are diverging.
Here in Wales I am often embarrassed when visiting friends refer to the Queen of England, how is that inclusive? Or the England cricket team which is actually the England and all Wales cricket team. This makes other nations resentful, ignored, unimportant.
If we are ever to save our union we need to understand the deep feelings and ask what we can do to make it right.
Please let’s not slag off any nations First Minister.

Referring to your third paragraph

“Queen of England” is not her correct title! Her correct title, simplified here, is Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. England has not been a separate sovereign state since 1707. (quote from Liam Foley)

Calendargirl

merlotgran

Can somebody please point out the disadvantages to the rest of the UK if Scotland leaves?

Don’t think this has been answered yet, I too wonder about this.

Oh good. Not just me wondering then.

It's a genuine question BTW

Independence for Wales is not going to happen anytime soon though Callistemon is it, for whatever reason there’s not much appetite for it, maybe because we are a poor country in material terms.

Nationalism is very strong here, but it’s more about the culture than it is about politics.

lemongrove

......Scotland has a great amount of autonomy already though.
300 years of dissatisfaction? Time to put ancient grudges aside and live in the modern world surely.
We are such close neighbours that a split would be a great shame.

Yet.... it was so few years of the EU to convince you to split?

I find brexit voters thinking Scottish independence being a bad thing mind boggling

Its ironic how people who voted for Brexit talk about the advantages of working together with our neighbours. I love Scotland and if I lived their I’d vote for independence.

I wouldn't think that there would be many if any disadvantages to the rest of the UK if Scotland left the union. Financially it could be an advantage. While I can understand Scotland wanting independence, after all I voted for it in 2016, I can't I understand wanting to join the EU, going from one perceived tyranny to another? Surely far better to have total independence like Iceland, Norway or Greenland?

Nationalism is very strong here, but it’s more about the culture than it is about politics.
It has its downsides too, eg the relentless way in which the Welsh language is taking over. Whilst I agree it should never be left to wither away, I don't think it should be more prominent than the English language, to the detriment of such things as health for instance.

In fact, I don't think that is happening in Scotland, not yet anyway.

Merlotgran and Calendargirl I attempted to give a answer to that question at 16.57. Perhaps you missed it.

The SNP is not Scotland. Scottish people are not disenfranchised. We have the same proportion of MPs as people in the other regions have. We've had Scottish PMs and senior ministers.
The benefits of the union are manifest. The SNP government have had 13 years to impress us but have failed on so many counts that it's embarrassing. Current developments around the Salmond inquiry are likely to demonstrate a dark underside to SNP politics. Much more to come out in the next few weeks.

Casdon

I don’t think any of the constituent parts of the UK are happy with the current political arrangements. In population terms, for example North West England is considerably bigger in population terms than any of the other nations, and they also feel they get a raw deal, as does the North East, Yorkshire, etc.

Scotland must choose its own path whatever that turns out to be, but there’s a very strong case for more devolved government for the regions of England as well.

I’m in the north west. I accept our region was never an independent country, as Scotland was. If I was Scottish (rather than the English, Nordic, Irish, Scottish, French, Welsh mongrel that I am. I suspect I’d vote for independence
I want more regional powers devolved, Sick if being ruled by posh boys on westmibstet