To want to keep my UK passport if Scotland votes YES in the 2014 referendum?

[SittingBull1]

If the majority of people actually voting votes YES in the 2014 referendum, Scotland will leave the UK. As Scots living in Scotland, will my family and I lose our UK passports? Along with a very large number of NO voters, my family and I will want to retain our UK passports, and I'm sure that a huge percentage of the non-voters will also want to keep theirs. I think that the UK government should offer to allow Scots living in Scotland to retain their UK passports. Is that unreasonable?

If Scotland voted yes, a big if, would there still be a United Kingdom? Wales is not technically part of the Union it is/was a Principality of England and united through sovereign law and not a political act. Great Britain is made up of a political Act of Union between England and Scotland (poor old Wales assigned to being legally english for the occasion). The only Act of Union remaining would be The Republic of Ireland which is not part of Great Britain thus the United Kingdom Of Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland would legally and politically no longer exist. Food for thought when one asks if they can retain a UK passport. Scots as a whole do not support the SNP, but it was and is the only party to offer a referendum and the only party to recognise that scots social values were/are different to England. If they vote yes, just watch how quickly the SNP will be kicked to the kerb and how quickly the other parties suddenly find they have aquired a Scottish outlook.

What relevance is the debate on marriage to this? It's Westminster government policy?

Huh?

Winniefred, think you mean Northern Ireland, not Republic.

Fanny, I meant it's not unique to Holyrood. Why mention it unless it's trying to bolster up the notion that Scots are just so much nicer.

Read the thread, I commented as there were some really amazing speeches today, so much for all the MSP's being thick & uneducated as suggested by previous poster.

MSP's previous jobs or education wasn't particularly relevant to this thread either but you didn't comment on that.

Winniefred

I refer you to my earlier post. The mistake people make is assuming that the Union was like a marriage in the sense that the two people united retained seperate (albeit joined) identities. Some countries are like that, notably the US, Canada and Australia.

The UK is a unitary state, and therefore more like a cake. First the butter and sugar get creamed together. Then add the eggs, then the flour and so on.

Sorry about the eye-watering analogies, but they were the best I could think of.

The 1801 union between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland was with the whole of Ireland. When Ireland was partitioned, it wasn't the case that an existing state (Ireland) "divorced" the UK. Rather, a new state (the Irish Free State) was created out of the territory of the GB&I. The same would happen if Scotland became independent. Accordingly, it would make perfect sense for the continuing state to call itself the UK firstly because it would be the continuing state, and secondly because it would still include territory it assumed through legal union.

It would make a bit less sense to keep the St Andrew's Cross on the Union Jack, but that could be replaced with the St David's Cross for Wales (yellow on black), which would look quite cool.

Apropos of nothing much, I feel a bit sorry when I see Jimmy Reid supporting nationalism. It suggests he has turned his back on socialism, which is international in outlook, in favour of what is by comparison pretty parochial.

The Socialist party has always supported independence.

I guess it depends on how you choose to interpret nationalism. For example if you look at the UKIP/BNP/some Tories they believe that the greatness of England is built upon the English and that things like immigration and the EU are bad. I would say that is nationalism.

Whereas the SNP want immigration, want to be in the EU, want to reach out internationally. I'm not sure that wantingn Scotland to be a sovereign state equates to nationalism.

I don't really know much about political theory though, so am happy to be corrected.

I wouldn't read too much into the differing stances on immigration; it could be explained by the population growth in England contrasting with the drop in population Scotland between the seventies and noughties.

sounds like the difference between civic and ethnic nationalism to me:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_nationalism

cloggal I read that but I didn't want to admit or quote from wikipedia as you get shot down for using it.

I agree with you though ;-)

Ah sorry - I'm sure there will be a better link out there! :)

Forcing children in non welsh schools to learn a language that is usless outside wales is incredibly arrogant and shortsighted

It's spoken in Argentina too

I don't think it's a waste of time to teach Welsh in non-Welsh schools. I think it is beneficial to learn any language, but you are unlikely to become fluent in a language at school and most people don't even become proficient enough to have a basic conversation. On the other hand even non-Welsh speaking Welsh people have Welsh vocabulary scattered across their language (thinking of DH), and at least in Wales Welsh is visible all over the place and readily accessible on TV and radio.

The welsh language is

Used for political purposes in wales. It serves no useful purpose other than to prop up the welsh language lobby, a tiny but vociferous minority who enjoy cushy jobs in s4 c welsh language channel (massively funded by cental government but watched by hardly anybody) and the jobs in the public sector in whch they have inbuilt advantages because they are welsh peakers!
Doen't matter how crap they are at their job. I have seen this at first hand. It is truely risible.
The problem with wales is that there is a huge amount of apathy.
While most people are aware of the dissproportinate funding of the welsh language to the detriment of other far more important things, the nutters in the language lobby shout the loudest, and the welsh assembly backs down.
I once was told by a welsh language speaker that if he had his way then all education for all children in wales would be through the medium of welsh! Deluded really is not the word for these people

Whistleblower are you welsh?

No i'm not. Why?

Thought not.

I find this assertion that learning welsh is pointless really odd. It is a language that people in Wales speak - are you saying that they should only speak English

Welsh is far more alive than Gaelic, one of my former wok colleagues is Welsh, first language Welsh second language English (she's early 30s). Whenever I have travelled to Wales to see my family I always here loads of Welsh,shopkeepers, teenagers in the street...

I also cant see anything wrong with people being required to learn the language to work - it seems a very odd attitude to expect everyone to speak english no matter what their language is. FWIW one of my family members is not native welsh, but has learnt the job to work. So anyone can get a job as long as they learn the language that is often spoken in the country. Why would you employ someone who is unable to communicate with customers in their own language - or are you saying that only english speakers should be able to access public services?

God , it's Like banging your head against a brick wall. You haven't taken on board anything i've said have you? I really cant be bothered...

If the welsh were apathetic they would have been english centuries ago.

Interesting you haven't denied any of the things i've said about welsh medium education and the nutty language lobbyists!
I think scotland is far too sensible to go down that route!

Every school in Rep of Ireland has Gaeilge as a subject, it's not optional, or at least it wasn't.

There are also lots of schools which only teach in Irish.

Similar set up in Wales which i think is great.

It's always handy when bothered by people trying to sell you stuff, speak in Irish & they no clue what you are saying.

I would love if my children learned Gaelic at school from a young age.
Learning a different language increases your aptitude and potential for learning other languages as well.