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.

I'm a no.
Because of the racism that both myself and my children have been subject to.

Some more points..

On the point of the NHS being devolved and therefore safe - we can only have a scottish nhs if we have the money for it, if england spends less on it's nhs because it has privatised parts then that affects our budget as it is based on what is spent in england. We have been told we have cuts to our budget coming too.

In fact, none of our devolved powers are safe, we can have them removed, like they did with renewables.

I don't agree with a neverendum, I think whatever the outcome, leave it for the foreseeable.

WRT devo max, that was taken off the table by Dave and is now at the last minute being dangled as something which will happen if we vote no. Sneaky. And vague.

For me, it's a no because I don't think our jobs would be safe. There are too many of Scotland's jobs that will go back to rUK. Especially most of the higher paid sectors.

House prices will fall, it could be like the NI property crash.

Our pensions would be decimated.

Energy bills will go up. Scotland will be far too reliant on (no longer subsidised) renewable energy; fine when it's windy, but what do we do when it's not? Most of Scotland's energy comes from nuclear, then coal; both are baseload , which we need. SNP don't like nuclear so Scotland won't have that for much longer (and we won't be able to export it to England), and coal is being phased out.

a yes from me too. I hate how decisions that affect the whole of Scotland are made by people in Westminster who couldn't give a monkeys about any of Scotland, and its unfair that we are made to suffer these ridiculous people put into power by the voters of primarily the SE of England because of population numbers alone.

I like our education system - I like that we don't have this stupid postcode lottery and appeal thing for school places.
our NHS albeit far from perfect is a damnsight better than any I have experienced south of the border.
I like the cost of living being lower and wages for certain things being higher (ie police wages are higher in Scotland than England).
I like how we don't have this daft moaning about underground prices and tube strikes and a large portion of political bargaining vowing to remedy it if such and such is voted for.

YES
Apart from the ecconomic arguments that convince me Scotland can go it alone, I believe it is a country. Not a region, an area or a province. It was and is a country that was entered by into an ecconomic union to benefit a very few gentry. But still a country.

Countries govern themselves for better or worse. It is the normal way of things.
By the way, I am educated to the eyeballs.

Possible abstention here too Fantasma as I will probably be leaving Scotland in a few years. I've lived here twenty years and will have brought my family up here. I don't discuss the referendum much so haven't received any comments on my being "English" (I don't consider myself English actually but that's a long story!) I do think it would be a negative thing to reinstate a national border after hundreds of years but I understand the aspirations of the Yes campaign. Tricky.

Up until votingdilemma, there were 4 undecided, 44 yes and 35 no.

I had a thread with 200 days to go and it was 4 undecided, 51 yes and 83 no.

NCforAye - its my nephews losing dual citizenship that upsets her, the consulate told her they would lose that. They wouldn't have Scottish or British citizenship, just American and she was hoping to return at some point.

Iggy - its just what I have observed, a lot of single or unmarried couples are voting yes.

bakerstreetsaxrift where are those assertions coming from?

Why would we lose jobs?

Why would house prices fall?

Scotland has 1/4 of europe's renewable energy- that's not running out any time soon.

Do you have any positive reasons for staying in the union?

No wonder better together calls itself project fear when all it does is scaremongering.

There is no absolute certainty about the future. neither side can give cast iron guarantees about the stability of the economy in 10 years time. So I think it becomes about who I trust more to make decisions in Scotland's best interests. Why would Westminster, which doesn't need Scottish votes do what's best for Scotland? Altruism? Decisions affecting Scotland should be made in Scotland. It won't be a utopia but we are capable of taking responsibility for our own successes and failures.

it does annoy me that those who live here but weren't born here have a vote and are slagging off my country (the UK) when I do not feel they have lived here long enough to understand the benefits/downsides of either decision.
I have a relative through marriage, not born here, who constantly criticises the NHS - the same NHS that has saved her life a few times. She's on benefits, again which she wouldn't get back home. It really upsets me that she could decide my future.
In her case, and a lot of others who I come into contact with through work, I think they are viewing it as more benefits under an independent scotland.

Thanks Santana! That's very good of you to count! X

That renewable energy is hugely subsidised by Westminster, so it would lose a huge amount of funding.

Jobs will be lost in shipyards and in the financial sector. Civil servants won't have a job unless it is immediately replaced by the Scottish government. It is totally naive to expect the economy to flourish immediately. There will be losses because business doesn't like risk.

The yes campaign can't offer guarantees. Staying in the UK does guarantee several things: the pound for a start!

You're welcome dee.

Why could an independent Scotland not independently peg it's currency to Stirling, like the Irish Punt did for decades between independence and signing up to the EU currency union that eventually led to the Euro?

UK didn't agree to any informal or formal currency union as far as I know
Or have I missed something, Irish MNers?

Further to that point, everyone is talking like a splint would be completely unprecedented

But we do have experienced something quite similar less than a century ago when (most of) Ireland got its independence. I'm sure written records remain in Westminster & Dublin about how it was all sorted out that could be used as a starting point

I know Ireland was very poor for a long time after independence, but they were far poorer that Scotland is now , before independence too

When the punt was pegged it was an entirely different situation, globally, with currencies. Loads of them were pegged. Now the majority are floating which changes things.

Just came back on this morning, this thread grows pretty quickly!
It's okay Santana, I don't think you are jumping on me. DP wants to emigrate in the event of a No vote, and I would too, not straightaway, but probably no more than a year after. Neither of us want to leave, but we'd been thinking about it before the referendum, because of the cuts and the way things are going with the NHS, amongst other things. The surge in popularity for UKIP was worrying too, a UKIP coalition would be really bad.

Rose I have said in all the referendum threads I've posted in that I don't support Salmond. I'm neither a Salmond fan nor an SNP voter. On a side note, I think Nicola Sturgeon would have been a much better FM.
It's unfair to say that anyone continuing to campaign for a Yes vote is bullying people. If it was a landslide win for No, then maybe it would be put off for a few years. But if there was near enough a 50/50 divide then I don't see the harm in it.
People have been posted letters from the companies they work for telling them to vote No or risk losing their jobs, and the leaflet posted by HM Government wasn't exactly friendly. I don't doubt some Yes campaign literature will be viewed that way too, but the No campaign is definitely not free from bullying.

I think either way it will be Nicola Sturgeon leading the SNP into the 2016 election.

Although I'm iffy about the whole ice bucket challenge, it was, in a way, nice to see Alex Salmond, Alistair Darling and Nicola Sturgeon doing it. I've noticed a lot of people on both sides saying it was a good thing for all of them to do, and it's nice to see them doing something that isn't referendum-related. :)

I think so too weatherall!

Just stopping by - I am voting no

why ruby?

I'm voting yes for an opportunity for change, a written constitution, and a more democratic process.

I do actually really rate Nicola Sturgeon as a politician, about things other than independence. I just cringe when I hear her blindly trotting out the party lines and refusing to answer the questions. She's better than that. The sooner this is over the better so she can get back to her proper role.

Weatherall I base it on the fact that many, many companies have said that jobs will go in the event of a yes vote.

House prices will fall as a result of people en masse selling their homes and leaving iScotland to follow their jobs.

Also, having a quarter of Europe's renewable energy isn't much use when it's either not windy, or very windy, because they don't generate and power. Scotland needs baseload electricity generation, so what's an I Scotland going to do in a few years? Import it from England? Bills will go up.

and any*

weatherall
Why would we lose jobs?
See my post of 18.16 yesterday.

Why would house prices fall?
See above. In areas where people have become unemployed, or have moved away to follow their jobs to the UK, there will be more houses on the market. Supply and demand.