To feel sad that this could be the beginning of the end for the United Kingdom?

[SamuelWestsMistress]

I feel so sad this evening after hearing the news for the date for the referendum. I am really dreading the whole countdown to voting day because I really fear that the SNP will get their way. What would be really sad is if its a close count. I just desperately hope living here won't feel too different.

I love having a British identity despite being born in Scotland and will be so sad and angry if its taken away.

AIBU to be feeling rather worried and actually afraid by the entire thing? I really don't like the SNP. (Don't like the coalition it her, but I think they've managed to push things to come to this!)

Its very scary. I work for a very well known business support agency, and the business community is jittery about independence, membership of the EU, taxation, international trade, haulage, and a million and one other things. Without the businesses on board Scotland will have no economy to speak off. Many are already threatening to relocate. Be very careful Mr Salmon, what you wish for......

That's been my perception too determinedma

Agree. DH works in the financial sector and some of his clients are already looking at moving their money out of Scotland. Independence won't happen, I'm confident of that, but all this nonsense from the SNP undermines confidence in the lead up (I use the term loosely!) to the referendum.

DOn't forget determinedma - it isn't what Mr Salmond wishes for that matters - the referendum is by the people. If they wish for it.......then so be it.

Why do we have to personalise it - so many comments pointing at Salmond, the SNP etc. who son't forget - wouldn't be in power if the people didn't vote for them in numbers greater than the others - and it is no secret what their agenda and aim is.

Whether they even exist after a Yes vote (or go their seperate ways and join/form other parties in an independent Scotland) occurs is another interesting one - and Salmond - well with an independent Scotland - would he need/want to continue.....?

On those grounds - if you want independence - vote yes- and if you don't like Salmond - then vote yes for independence too - and if you don't like the SNP - then vote yes again.....everybody wins!!

Salmond will lead the SNP until he drops down dead - his ego wouldn't allow him to do anything else!

There is a vast difference between voting for SNP and voting for independence - time and time again the polls have shown that only around a third of Scots support independence, and that figure hasn't changed for years (apart from the odd wee blip). I think the last election reflected people's dissatisfaction with Labour in Scotland, as with the rest of the UK. The Tories don't stand a chance up here, so SNP benefitted hugely from that overall swing away from New Labour.

Yes be very careful what you wish for Mr Salmond....it could be very costly for Scotland.

My biggest bugbear is that I live in England now and can't vote all because Toad of Toad Hall has decided to manipulate the voting population - allowing 16/17 year olds to vote, restricting the vote of 1st generation Scots living in the UK (as far as I know we are still part of the UK), allowing foreign nationals on the electoral role to vote.

I wouldn't be surprised if he's managed to change the law so only 25% of those on the electoral role need to vote yes for independence to be passed.

The beginning of the end?
I thought the beginning of the end officially started with recession and the London riots.

It's pretty simple, you live in Scotland you get a say, you don't then you don't.

Does anyone here appreciate what 300 odd years of London rule does to a nation's psyche? There's a big lack of confidence in the Scottish population at a deep level which is masked by bravura. I've never been a nationalist but having moved back here from a long time in England my views are changing. I think it could be very good for us to be independent. Scary, yes, but that's what happens when you've been ruled by a foreign hand for so long. We've never loved the tories but they keep being voted in and will always be voted in so essentially we're in the hands of the English populace. I also think it will be a close run thing. I'm still undecided BTW.

If the majority of Scots decide to be their own country and rule themselves then that's wonderful. I don't understand why you want to be ruled by people in London who are so far removed from your reality. Independence is freedom, the freedom to be better, the power to change in the direction of where the majority of people want to go. Scottish people won't lose by gaining power over their own future, whether they want that responsibility is up for a vote.

The uk is a dead empire anyway. Better that people focus on making the best of their own locality rather than poking their noses in everybody else's.

In New Zealand a country which also has the benefit of oil and gas reserves and a small population 4m, the tax-take is such that NZ Governments of any political hue struggle to provide services at the sort of levels UK citizens expect.

What this means in practice is that there are monetary contributions expected from parents for state schools, fees to visit your GP, no subsidised dental service except for schoolchildren, mountain roads lacking crash barriers, no real motorways, an almost non-existent train network and kids living in poverty and suffering from diseases of poor housing(damp) which have already been eliminated in the rest of EU.

Scotland's population is not much bigger than that of NZ and one day the oil will run out......long-term it has got to be better economically for Scots to stay within the UK - the existing devolution arrangements courtesy of the Blair Government - allow Scots to ensure greater social justice in those periods when the Tories are in at Westminster.
Also England and Wales need you there as part of the United Kingdom so that they also don't have to suffer constant Tory Governments....we don't all like them.
Please think very carefully before abandoning all that shared history and social struggle.

Quote Itsallgoingtobefine: 'The referendum is not about voting in the SNP for perpetuity.'

Well since all the other 3 parties endorse the No campaign, a Yes vote leaves them in a 'new country' they'd rather not be in....running Scotland is a lot easier with the UK institutions/large population behind it.

For as long as I can remember Alex Salmond is the SNP.....who else is involved and waiting in the wings....where is the long-term pool of 'talent'?

I'm hoping it doesn't happen, my father has been waiting for independence for so long that I'm worried he'll have a Simeon moment and declare
'Now I can die in peace' and then do it.
I was raised on the shared history, from Border ballads to Culloden and the Highland Clearances. I truly hope that they succeed and thrive, even if I have to take my passport when visiting relatives.

Who knows, ukatlast. Perhaps the Diaspora may send a few back?

My perspective (a British expat) is that British people generally lack confidence; not just Scots.

From where I sit, cultural differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK aren't significant despite the unimportant fact that Scotland has its own legal system etc.

Scottish (and English) nationalism is just sterile identity politics.

ukatlast I hear you!

I worry that from hearing my pupils at work that the snp will creep it in playing on the old notion of freedom. Several times i've heard them saying it...but they don't realise how the union came about. If Alex salmond gets Braveheart on the tv we're in trouble!
And don't get me started on the daft notion that we'll live on revenue from oil....oil is mostly gone, tired up already in long term contracts and it's a finite resource anyway. I suspect the snp will just pimp us out as a site for any unsightly wind farms that our neighbors don't want damaging their views...

My dad is very much Scottish, extremely patriotic, and voted 'YES' in the 70s. He told me that was when it should have been done but Thatcher counted uncast votes as a 'NO' so it didn't happen.

He will be voting 'NO' as it's not the right time and he feels the boat was missed 30+ years ago.

"..where is the long-term pool of 'talent'?" - I assume you mean in the UK Parliament - there is little evidence of it at the moment.......

Your comments about New Zealand sound very much like the way the TOries are taking us anyway - have you tried getting non-private Dental treatment in Scotland....and Crash barriers on Mountain roads......have you been up here....and Motorways - well our nearest one is 120 miles South........have a look at the motorway map you will see a lot of whitespace across most of Scotland.
Apply the same thinking to the extensive!! train network up here....
We seem to be subsidising the primary school on a daily basis anyway so no change there either.......

Personally I prefer the push towards renewables already in Scotland (Plenty hydro power already - more in the pipeline now - more coming) - yes more windfarms both onshore and offshore, tidal stream turbines et all. Scotland has a real chance of energy independence for when the oil does run out.
The messages I here on this from the condems are pathetic NIMBY driven short term view based and don't impress at all.

It's pretty simple, you live in Scotland you get a say, you don't then you don't.

I think it's pretty simple - as we are part of the UK now, it should be anyone born in Scotland of voting age. We didn't leave Scotland and go to Australia, or Canada -we moved a few miles down the M74/M6 , no emigration involved.

Salmond knows that if he allowed those of us living in the rest of the UK to vote, he would have a tougher battle on his hands.

But if it the rest of the UK voted how would that be fair ?

If every Scot voted yes, and everyone else voted no then it would be a no vote.

If you don't live in a country why should you have any say in its future?

The other three party's don't support independence.

The Greens do support independence.
There is a Labour for Independence movement
And a Lib Dems for Independence
(No Tories for Independence yet)

Not surprising as the only chance these parties have of regaining any power is in an independent Scotland where they can distance themselves from the toxic Westminster politics.