to think that I am not a scared ignoramus - Scotland

[iamnotacoward]

That's it really.
My FB feed, and real life conversations with people voting yes. So much aggression, and complete inability to accept that people have a different view point. So much talk of people being unpatriotic if they vote no, or that they just 'need to be educated' or need the facts explained to them so they can 'stop being scared' and vote yes.
I have educated myself, and yes I do fear for Scotland's future if a yes vote wins. That doesn't make me cowardly though, or someone who is too scared of change to vote yes.

Well having read through this I'm feeling a little more reassured about the result of this expensive and potentially dangerous exercise.
Once again it seems the contributors to MN are more sensible and thoughtful than the general population :)

Do you really expect the British PM to say that he supported independence? It would be political suicide!

Scotland does bring a lot to the union, it's not a one way relationship. But it does only make up approximately 10% of the British population.

I dunno, Santana - wouldn't the Tories have won practically every election in the last 50 years if Scottish votes weren't included?

No, BillnTed, Scottish votes have only affected about 2 general election results in the past 50 years or more, and those total less than two years of actual governance.

I think some, if not all of the Labour victories would still be Labour victories without Scotland, but I couldn't be sure. but of course you're talking about a different political landscape 50 years ago, so I'm not sure how much that would be taken into consideration anyway.

I think that's also a very simplified view to take, firstly because we have a vastly different political landscape from 50 years ago, and secondly because it ignores all of the economic considerations and so on.

Plus, if Scotland voted yes, whoever wins the next general election will have to continue with the negotiations. The Edinburgh Agreement made it legally binding. Labour couldn't get into power and turn the tide.

Made the same point twice. Pregnancy brain!

Thanks olks and sl for clarifying!

I agree that a British prime minister couldn't be seen to advocate independence, whatever the political demographics.

No. That's a myth. Scottish votes are not a deciding force.

There are a lot of people saying Scotland has controlled the whole country via our horridly left-wing votes (because no-one in rUK votes Labour). It's not correct - 1997 and 2005, if you took out the Scottish vote, Labour has a reduced majority but still a majority. There are more of them than us :)

Labour will have some extra difficulties, but it doesn't torpedo their support. It's an error to presume it does, from either side.

The Coalition government we have now wouldn't exist without the Scottish vote, actually.

Highjack; didn't know you're pregnant Santana, are you at the "Congratulations!" stage or the "God, I'm knackered, can't wait till the birth" stage? (Had an August baby myself, I know how exhausting the heat can be in the later stages.)

/highjack.

The congratulations stage- twice! It's twins!!

Salmond and the SNP are having to fight this referendum at a time not of their own choosing.

Despite the proportional representation which was supposed to ensure coalition government, the SNP are in power as the result of a protest vote. The Tories have been a busted flush ever since Thatcher and the voters were fed up with the Scottish Labour establishment. Salmond was planning for a more gradual evolution towards a true consensus for independence. This is not the campaign he wanted.

I think The Best of Both Worlds and No Thanks are better slogans than Better Together.

santana how wonderful!

Highjack. Wow, well, congratulations then, Santana! (Apols to everyone else, but Santana and I have had many discussions on the indyref thing, on opposite sides, so I kinda feel we're acquaint.)

/highjack.

I think, when the indyref thing was first raised by the majority SNP gvt, some form of increased devo would have won by a massive majority, and yes, probably was Alex's preference too. WM refused to put it on the ballot, which is why we have a straightforward yes/no choice come September. I don't think either Salmond or the WM gvt had anticipated the way "Yes" has become such a massive, genuinely grassroots response; hence all three main WM parties suddenly offering, "promising", "guaranteeing" all sorts of increased devo if we say no (but there was no mention in the Queen's Speech, the Tories are promising further austerity measures and cuts to the Scottish budget, and Labour are promising to go even further...)

Santana Congratulations indeed!

Thanks everyone Totally delighted and petrified at the same time!

Obviously, I'm going to call one Alex and the other Nicola. Or maybe David and Cameron

The NO TORIES line on that poster is especially nasty . Are Scottish Tories going to be banished from Salmond's

Scotland?

What other lines are nasty them if that one is especially? We wouldn't want the other things would we? I would agree that is out of order, in my head I'd see that as meaning "the party in charge" but of course that's not what it actually says.
Don't know who made the poster.

Love your names, Santana!

The poster is a bit of shorthand, as all such posters are. "No Tories" - unless we vote for them.

Which is not impossible, the old-fashioned Tories had a majority vote in Scotland in the '50's. But I don't think it's particularly helpful to be looking so many years back, we need to be looking at the present, (with only one Scottish Tory MP) and into the future. What do we want for our dc, our dgc, Santana's unborn twins?

What kind of country do we want to be living in? What kind of governance? Are WM policies working for Scotland?

It's a huge decision, and I'm pleased more people are becoming engaged, even as others have reached saturation, scunnered with the whole thing, point.

Congrats, Santana!

How about JayKay and Rowling for the twins?

Well in terms of governance as opposed to government, as OldLady discusses, most companies try to promote an ethos of ethical and fair governance these days. Interestingly, changing a company's constitution or other extremely important decisions require a special resolution of 75% of shareholders in favour. A change of constitution would never be passed by a simple majority, and certainly not by a less than 50% vote in favour of it, which is the most likely outcome if there is a vote in favour of independence in Scotland.

It also poses an even harsher constitutional conundrum than a Conservative Government in Westminster - it will mean a majority of Scottish voters wake up in a different country one day due to a decision made by a minority.

I'm genuinely undecided on how I'm going to vote but based on the quality of the campaigns alone, I'd be voting Yes. The Better Together campaign has been embarrassingly bad. Every attempt they've made at an argument has been shot down in flames, sometimes spectacularly, for example, when the author of the report they used as 'evidence' pointed out that the report stated the opposite of their argument.

I agree, I am getting bored by some of the Yes supporters on my FB feed, but I can just scroll past them. A couple of No supporters did comment on the abuse that JK Rowling got and I had to fight the impulse to point out that the lottery winners who donated to the Yes campaign received similar abuse from the No camp. Both sides are as bad as each other.

To be honest, I am terrified by what could happen under Independence. I am also terrified by what could happen if we don't vote for independence.

The White Paper from the Scottish Government may not be completely inspiring of confidence , but at least they've produced an indication of what will happen after a Yes vote. The DevoMax suggestions that are coming out now are just that: suggestions of what the parties might do, or yet more examples of politicians saying what they think we want to hear. Do I trust them to keep their promises? Do I hell.

I keep hoping that the Better Together campaign will get their arses in gear and up their game. The future of our country is at stake; it deserves the best campaign, the best ideas and the best campaigners they can throw at it. At the moment, they're handing it to the Yes camp on a plate.

The White Paper from the Scottish Government may not be completely inspiring of confidence , but at least they've produced an indication of what will happen after a Yes vote

...but one sadly lacking in terms of a proper constitutional structure for an independent country. i.e. no mention of a second chamber as in every other parliament in a civilised country in the entire world. No restructuring of the secretive and already heavily criticised (for being biased in favour of government) committee system. No constitutional checks on legislation being passed by government. That's probably the most important thing I would have expected to see in the White Paper (although there is some tacit acceptance that it will take a while to sign up to the ECHR although confusion that the European Court of Justice is subverting justice by "supporting" Scottish independence.

Overall, I found the White Paper a very amateurish document. Or perhaps this is giving more credit than is deserved. It may be deliberately written with a lack of truth and inaccuracy, because the truth is unpalatable and unmarketable, even to the believers.

In 1979, when I was just too young to vote, there was a (roughly) 52/48 vote in favour of devolution, but because the votes of the dead/hospitalised/couldn't be arsed were counted as "no", devo didn't happen for another decade or more. It was utterly dishonest behaviour on the part of WM.

This time around, it's a straight yes/no choice (as decided by WM) regardless of how many people get off their arses and actually vote. I think the turnout will be high, much higher than for elections, because it's much more important than a mere election. But even if the turnout is low, the majority vote will prevail. And if you're in the "can't be arsed" lot, you have no cause to whine afterwards.

Just like the FPTP system has given us a Tory/LibDem coalition gvt in WM, for which no-one voted.

Facebook (the pages I've been on re the referendum) gets very heated, and the worst contributors seem to be aggressive Yes people. I've seen some inappropriate stuff from No voters, but not so much. And earlier tonight there were a couple of Yes people trying to make wishing Andy Murray luck on his page into a debate. I don't 'do' Twitter, but I understand there's vile stuff from both sides on there.

I occasionally look at Wings, just to see what's on there. His tone seems to be getting increasingly ranty, and the comments I've seen on there are appalling. I have no problem with free speech, but I think if someone has registered their organisation with the Electoral Commission as an official campaign body, then for goodness sake apply some moderation to the comments on your website.

I find the debate very divisive. I've been sworn at by friends of Facebook friends (and I genuinely wasn't being aggressive, I simply responded to articles they'd linked to for discussion asking a couple of questions that marked me as a No voter) and obviously the fact that I'm voting no means that I wholeheartedly support invading other countries and that I personally want to consign generations of unborn Scottish children into poverty.

I also have to face the fact that my job (not immediately, but likely in the future, and very likely any promotion prospects) is quite likely to move south of the border in the event of a Yes vote. My husband is voting Yes. He refuses to discuss what we will do. I earn more than him. We try and remain civil when we talk about politics, but if the vote is Yes then I really don't know what we will do.

I also hate the fact that almost everything happening these days is picked over in reference to the referendum, and spun to the nth degree by both sides.