To wonder how you're voting in the Scottish Referendum and why?

[deeedeee]

a month away from the vote thought it would be interesting to ask

( no bunfighting , derision or soundbites please. just yes or no and why. feel free to post more than once with different reasons. No links unless independent fact or opinion, nothing from the official campaigns)

I'm a YES

because Westminster's failed to protect the vunerable and the UK's me first politics have taken us down a particularly nasty path. An independent Scotland leans towards to left and can potentially choose a better route. And if a change happens in scotland then I think that that could inspire a change in the direction of politics in the rest of the UK.

Hypothetically speaking, if a bank does 90%+ of its business with rUK then maybe its customers would want rUK based staff as opposed to iScotland based staff. Skilled financial services staff exist elsewhere in rUK.

If iScotland puts in place different banking rules, new employment rules, etc then it makes sense to move staff to the country where the majority of business is located. Would be cheaper in long run due to avoiding additional running costs by having to work around different regulations in the two countries.

Maybe they'll keep the bulk of non senior management jobs in Scotland but I suspect jobs will be moved slowly down south if there is an iScotland. Banks are cautious and it's not yet clear what the scale and pace of change would be in iScotland.

Montreal in Quebec used to be one of the financial centres in Canada. It's still got a fair amount of jobs in the sector but the potential instability around the referendums and potential future referendums have lead to greater investment in cities outside of Quebec, mainly Toronto. Language was also a factor, which it won't be in Scotland.

www.heraldscotland.com/business/company-news/the-montreal-effect.24795098

you don't have to apologise for debating. thanks for your time and thoughts!

but the companies would still be operating in scotland, they would still have scottish customers! They already operate in London and Edinburgh ( and elsewhere in the world) . Och well, I shall go and ask questions of managers and the like. But strangely none seems to be that worried in Gogarburn. Must all be as naive as I!

Off to bed, thanks to everyone for your opinions, been an interesting thread. Don't have nightmares Mrs Bag Face, and don't tar all yes voters with the same brush. Not that it's my responsibility, but sorry for the wankers!

Yes but they could serve their existing Scottish customers with much smaller numbers of staff. Quite different from serving the whole of the UK from their Scottish offices.

Unless you're speaking to very senior managers in an off the record discussion, I very much doubt you'd get a straight answer as to their intentions if there is a yes vote.

Businesses make contingency plans all the time, usually with the hope that they won't have to activate them.

I'd much rather we had been independent when the banks failed and had treated them like the Icelanders and jailed the bankers.

The banking bailouts were an international effort. It's Westminster propaganda to say otherwise.

Waswondering-those issues are addressed in the white paper and in other yes scotland and other yes organisations' material.

But the answers in the white paper don't convince those of us voting No.

It seems to me that we're being asked to make an irreversible decision when we don't know the actual outcome of that decision. All the main issues - currency, debts, assets - will be subject to negotiation after a Yes vote. We're expected to take a leap of faith and just hope for the best that those negotiations go our way. There's no way on earth I'm prepared to gamble my family's security on that basis.

I feel I would be gambling my family's security if I voted no.

Fair enough. You feel you'll be worse off in the UK. I think I'd be worse off in an independant Scotland. Neither of us can say definitively who's right....

Just as I feel I would be gambling my families future if I voted Yes!
Impasse....

Erroneous ! there, was supposed to be a full stop

Scotland needs to all vote yes. Then we can be free of salmonds whining this side the border.

But we make major, and sometimes irreversible, decisions regularly. We move in with other people as our dps/spouses (reversible, sometimes at great financial/emotional cost) as a leap of faith, that this person is who s/he appears to be (and sometimes in the face of evidence that they're actually a bit wanky).

We take out mortgages, when dp's/our job may be lost/we may become ill/permanently disabled, or mortgage interest rates might shoot though the roof (I remember 15-18%) or property prices might drop, leaving us in negative equity. (Reversible, but at great expense and over a long time.)

On this site in particular, we have children (irreversible) sometimes with unsuitable people (see many, many threads...) which can cost us, and our dc, a huge amount of money, stress, and emotional pain. That's a really big leap of faith, but we make it all the same.

We never really know, for absolute certain, what the outcome of a decision will be.

So we happily gamble with the security of our families all the time. What's the difference here, when the gains of a Yes could be so substantial, and the losses of a No so clear?

Or... the losses of a Yes vote could be so substantial and the gains of a No vote so clear?
That's the problem in a nutshell, we don't have the benefit of hindsight here and I am not a gambler.

This is what it all comes down to though.

Yes voters think it's a bigger gamble to vote no, no voters think it's a bigger gamble to vote yes.

No matter what figure, studies, article we throw at each other, that is the crux of the debate.

I truly believe staying is the bigger gamble so I will vote Yes, but I absolutely respect anyone's right to vote no for the same reason.

That's where we differ, WildThong, I can see no gains from a No vote. Can you tell me what they are?

I see clearly what WM has promised; more austerity, more cuts to our block grant, the threat to our NHS and education system.

I see what they've already done, removing powers from the Scottish Parliament via the House of Lords, with no democratic discussion or consent.

I've seen our highest court removed to London.

I've seen WM, blue and red, lie to us about our oil for 40 years.

At the risk of playing referendum bingo, I have not been shown a positive case for the Union.

There are no guarantees with a Yes vote, but I'll take the chance. And I'm not generally a gambler either, though I'll admit I have £50 on Yes with Betfair, at 6.2.

You're gonny lose that bet

Or I'll walk away with an extra £260 and a bright new future.

Bookies odds are falling, btw, even with No putting on huge bets down south.

oldlady you are worryingly not differentiating between an irreversible decision that's ghat affect a small number of people (in the case of children, using your example) and millions of people for multiple generations.

This is not an "och, why not?" moment.

This will affect the welfare, education, healthcare, national security, opportunities if you great great grandchildren.

I implore people not to view this as taking a punt.

There is not one thing in anything Salmond has said that makes me believe anything will be better for my children, and beyond, that would let me risk a "yes" vote.

There is no going back.

This thread has shocked me. I think I thought the "yes" voters had somehow figured it out differently to me, in terms of the oil numbers (as that is the only thing Salmond has). But they haven't - they have been bought in to his claptrap.

The worst thing is, I can't even escape the country I, and my foremothers and fathers have called home as I will be stuck in blinking negative equity when house prices crash as the business world takes cover elsewhere and financial services collapse.

At the risk of lighting blue touch paper (and on a Sunday too) do ppl feel that rUK should be allowed a referendum on the currency issue? Is it any of our business, in a way that the core debate isn't?

I agree with posters saying it's leap of faith to vote yes. I think I've enough faith in my adopted countrymen to take that chance.
Incidentally if the UK government hadn't become so diabolical, I would have remained a no voter. But I see no future for the values I hold dear in the hands of the Tories (or possibly, UKIP).

Everything that happens under any government has lasting effects. It's not inevitable that an independent Scotland will fuck everything up, just as it's not inevitable the next UK government will make anything better.

The future is full of uncertainties. We had a UK government who did not see a global crash coming and allowed house prices to spiral out of control. A UK government that sent our troops to die in an illegal war, who squander billions on an unusable weapon of mass destruction, who have implemented a punitive and non discriminatory tax on the most vulnerable in our society... I could go on.

The point being we're always at the mercy of those with the power. I'd rather those with the power at least represented the country they govern, understand and care about it. That's what independence means to me.

There's no point us going round and round in circles throwing assumptions, educated guesses and gut feeling at each other. It was always going to be the case that the details would not be thrashed out until they had to be. Just like we won't see which other politicians are on board, from out with the Yes campaign. It's a shame we need to wait for some honesty but that's the nature of this debate, created by both sides. Bt are playing hard ball to keep no voters and Yes know that there's a lot of negotiation to come and you can't show your hand.

Of course the currency issues is all of UKs business, but I thought the issue had already been settled ie there will be no currency union?

With respect to the crash in the world's economy that wasn't entirely doesn to government debts no, it was down to be ridiculously risky behaviour by banks, many saw it coming. I'm not certain that a loss of some of Scotland's financial sector, and a requirement for Scotland to be careful with its spending is necessarily a bad thing? Which EV er way the vote goes, nothing will the stay the same. As Fanny said, everyone needs to weigh up on the available evidence, and decide what is the best way outcome for them.Both sides believe there is plenty of evidence supporting their position so it almost does come down to faith, and what people want, and people want very different things.

Ie there is lots of talk about how UK sits at the top table, punches above its weight internationally etc and how an iScotland. I don't give a shit about that, I am perfectly happy to live in a small insignificant average country - what is important is the the population of a country,, not how many nukes it has, or whether or not it is a centre for the gambling of currency.