to start a new Scottish Indyref thread?

[FannyFifer]

Round 2 folks, ding ding!

continued membership of many internationally renowned organisations/regulatory bodies etc

There is no reason Scotland could not be members of these in their own right.

continued advantages of sharing the same landmass/coastline

Eh? Scotland is not physically going anywhere...

continued added value of having a large, prestigious city as capital

Edinburgh is pretty prestigious worldwide, just without the City of London, which is probably a good thing.

continued experience of having a long-established democratic political system

We already have that too?

continued shared established currency

No reason we cannot continue to use the £

continued international influence

Is that massively important really? I could do without the illegal wars, and maintaining WMD.

continued membership of the EU (as a long established member we don't have to negotiate everything)

Looks like the UK may well leave the EU anyway, and it is v unlikely that Scotland would not be accepted into EU.

continued 'friendship' with America (maybe a mixed blessing)

Not a positive. US is bad influence, and it is only our friend because we rent their nukes.

Disadvantages of setting up as an independent country regardless of the rights and wrongs of the idea of self-determination and regardless of the actions of rUK or situation peculiar to Scotland/rUK

Not really a positive reason? Agree there will be some costs there.

a new border will be created

There is already a border - see any map of UK

need to negotiate with a different country - likely to result in new grievances and even if it doesn't, a huge cost in time, human resources and money - surely that effort could be better spent on constructive projects

Its not that hard dealing with countries outside of the UK!

Scotland would be a country that dismantled an existing longstanding partnership despite the rest of the partnership not having a say

The problem is it is an unequal partnership, and as in the current system if rUK has a say, Scots' voices don't get heard.

Unless there is a huge majority yes vote, a very substantial portion of the electorate will be very unhappy about being separated from the rest of their country; not a good basis for a new start

Again not a positive reason, scenario can also be reversed to apply to no vote

Scotland will be working for what is best for Scotland, regardless of what is best for the whole of Britain. You may claim that Westminster has done that in the past - but that doesn't make it acceptable for Scottish politicians to act in the very same way they criticise other politicians for.

Eh. So Scots should get the shitty end of the stick so it is better for rUK? And that in a nutshell is why there is a referendum....

continued membership of the EU (as a long established member we don't have to negotiate everything)

Not for long, Cameron has said there will be a referendum by 2017 on whether the UK should remain in the EU.

Scots' voices don't get heard.

I know that people tend to jump on this, but this is true. If you took away every single Scottish vote for the last few General Elections at least, it would have no impact whatsoever on which party won that election.

I take this from Yes Scotland, however it can be easily verified by checking the votes:

There have been 18 general elections since World War II.

• In none of these has a Conservative majority been turned into a Labour majority by virtue of Scottish MPs (nor a Labour majority turned into a Conservative one).
• There have been two elections where a hung Parliament has been turned into a Labour majority by Scotland’s votes (1964 and October 1974), and one election where a Tory majority has been turned into a Tory/Lib coalition (2010). In one election a Tory minority was changed to a Labour minority (February 1974).
• In 14 elections out of 18, Scotland’s votes had no effect on the outcome.

I don't understand this interpretation of the statistics - we are 8% of the UK population. Therefore we should expect that 8% of the politicians in Westminster are representing Scottish constituencies. Could you not say the same of any area in the UK? Given that we have a con/lib-dem coalition currently and the proportion of lib-dem Scottish constituencies, we are arguably better represented at the moment than other predominantly labour geographical areas? Eg, the midlands.

And we have a devolved Scottish government.

This claim that Scotland is more socialist than the rest of the UK - we had a labour government for three terms. (and might have had a tory/labour coalition had Gordon Brown (Scottish, as you know) been so difficult to work with, apparently.

Had an interesting discussion in work yesterday at lunchtime about the Referendum - I'm a No voter as are all of the group I go for lunch with but we were having a discussion yesterday in the canteen and lots of other tables started joining in. The upshot is the overwhelming majority in my workplace are voting No -no big surprise as in the event of a Yes vote our jobs will move south of the border (not scaremongering, already decided due to security reasons). What was interesting is that pretty much everyone had the same concerns (not just for our jobs although it's going to be pretty horrific with nearly 1000 people all with similarish skills being in the market for jobs at the same time -although a lot will move I suspect) but the main thread of the conversation was no one is telling us what the benefits of a Yes vote is for normal working people who own their own homes, very likely pay higher rate tax or are self employed (contractors) -we hear a lot about the bedroom tax and welfare which of course are important issues but there has been no talk of how the ordinary folk in professional roles are going to be better off (although everyone seems to accept that we are the ones who will be hammered tax wise). Selfish? Maybe but we all have families to support and mortgages to pay...

That's an interesting point choccaluvva Is there any other (definable) area of the UK which has consistently voted one way and got a "different" government? I'm sure the analysis will be out there. Yorkshire, the North West or Cornwall, say? I don't know the answer.

I don't understand this interpretation of the statistics - we are 8% of the UK population. Therefore we should expect that 8% of the politicians in Westminster are representing Scottish constituencies. Could you not say the same of any area in the UK? Given that we have a con/lib-dem coalition currently and the proportion of lib-dem Scottish constituencies, we are arguably better represented at the moment than other predominantly labour geographical areas? Eg, the midlands.

The current system is currently "fair" (ish) to the whole of the UK. The point is that if Scotland ruled itself we would have 100% representation and the government would always reflect Scottish votes. Obviously the current system is "unfair" to various regions of the UK bit they are regions not countries, so independence isn't really an option. If enough of the rUK cares enough though maybe they could get more regional devolution?

Call me dense, but isn't Scotland's under-representation at elections simply down to their much smaller population? After all, under the one person one vote system it's hard to see how it could be otherwise?

Actually that reminds me that nobody's yet answered a previous question ... how many (relocated) English people are there sitting on the Scottish Parliament??

I think that too frankblack. Middle to high earners will bear the brunt of the inevitable discomfort. That I presume is what a fairer more socially just Scotland will be like.

However those who are mobile will be able to leave so tax take may well go down. And the benefits of an independent Scotland would take time to bed in so it would be a painful transition, or do the Yes supporters think that wouldn't be so?

FrankBlacksWife - That is very interesting as that has been my assessment of the discussion too. Of course welfare and the bedroom tax are a huge concern but as a self-employed home owner married to another self-employed home owner I am very worried about the practical effect on our lives. What is or isn't selfish is hugely subjective but I don't think having this concern about our own families' future is selfish at all.

Call me dense, but isn't Scotland's under-representation at elections simply down to their much smaller population? After all, under the one person one vote system it's hard to see how it could be otherwise?

So then wouldn't it make more sense to have our own Government so that we have a say in matters? It's interesting that other areas which feel under-represented (like Yorkshire) are now starting to push for devolution, which I think is a good thing.

Actually that reminds me that nobody's yet answered a previous question ... how many (relocated) English people are there sitting on the Scottish Parliament??

You'd be able to find that out through the website (although I'm unsure of the relevance?), I'll have a look though.

To explain more - same coastline and therefore shared defence and coastguard/emergency services (what's left of them)

Membership of UK bodies because we are part of UK - a new Scottish government will be desperate to set up new Scottish bodies, instead of co-operating with the existing bodies; it's in the nature of government.

London has an amazing international reputation for loads of things - academic concerns, culture, city of London, heritage. Edinburgh does not have this reputation to the same extent.

Scotland does not have a long established parliament. And it only has one chamber unlike Westminster.

An independent Scotland would not have a "mandate" for a currency union. The "sovereign will" of Scotland accounts for only 8% of the UK.

Continued international influence - benefits might indeed be overstated, (I do wonder about this) but I'd rather have a stronger UK sitting at a summit than have it edged out and replaced by an undemocratic power.

Negotiating with a different country - we're part of UK, but we would have to negotiate with rUK in the event of Scottish independence. We would be competing with it instead of benefitting from shared efforts and revenues. Eg, one of the SNP's main ways of trying to attract more employers to Scotland would be to lower corporation tax in competition with rUK. This might or might not work and would presumably only work if rUK doesn't lower its corporation tax too.

You can't argue that it's tough on the yes voters if they don't get a majority. Should we change the status quo because a minority want it? No. If A huge majority of the scottish electorate vote yes then it would be different. And remember that rUK is not getting a say.

Uk is mostly populated by English electorate - many of the Westminster concerns are irrelevant to geographical areas.

How, when Scotland has constituency politicians in Westminster and a devolved parliament can you claim that it is getting the "shitty end of the stick" to benefit the rUK?

Re the might not be in the eu anyway issue, for me the most important union is the closest one -so my order of preferred outcomes goes UK in eu, UK out of eu, Scotland in eu, Scotland out of eu. Obviously other people value different unions in different ways

There are 33 Scots sitting in rUK constituencies at Westminster. Just another little factoid.

I think that too frankblack. Middle to high earners will bear the brunt of the inevitable discomfort. That I presume is what a fairer more socially just Scotland will be like.

However those who are mobile will be able to leave so tax take may well go down. And the benefits of an independent Scotland would take time to bed in so it would be a painful transition, or do the Yes supporters think that wouldn't be so?

I have no idea if my job will go or not. I don't think so, but I'm not going to base my decision on it.
I assume high earners may often decide to vote No. But as long as I have enough money to live on I'm happy.
Obviously there are going to be "start-up costs" and it won't be a bed of roses, but that's no secret. I'll admit that when I was younger I used to think that spreading wealth more equally by taxing higher incomes was unfair. However something doesn't sit right with me when I'm deciding where I should go on holiday this summer, and someone else is deciding if they should eat this week, or pay the bills. That's not entirely a referendum issue though. :)

Don't know Puzzled. There is at least one I know of for my area. Then the Education Secretary was born in England and Nicola Sturgeon had an English granny from Sunderland I believe! It's not a worry of mine I have to say.

You can watch our thrilling parliament on the Parliament Channel on Freeview quite a bit at the moment if you really are having trouble sleeping!

There are 33 Scots sitting in rUK constituencies at Westminster. Just another little factoid.

Then they must have been elected by the constituents...?

Yep. I'm just making the point that there are presumably 33 extra MPs in Westminster who are not determined to give Scotland a hard time.

According to my googling, there are 533 English seats,
40 Welsh seats,
18 N.I. seats
and 59 Scottish seats in Westminster. So more than 8% of the seats in Westminster are Scottish.

To explain more - same coastline and therefore shared defence and coastguard/emergency services (what's left of them)

Defence: everytime a Russian vessel comes into Scottish waters a ship is scrambled from Portsmouth. There are no major surface vessels based in Scotland.

London has an amazing international reputation for loads of things - academic concerns, culture, city of London, heritage. Edinburgh does not have this reputation to the same extent.

Edinburgh/Glasgow to have a pretty good international reputation for these things.

Scotland does not have a long established parliament. And it only has one chamber unlike Westminster.

It has been established for years, plus of course there are Scots involved in the WM governent. Honestly, we are not too stupid to run our own country.

The HOL is unelected.

An independent Scotland would not have a "mandate" for a currency union. The "sovereign will" of Scotland accounts for only 8% of the UK.

Didnt say anything about a currency union. Scotland can continue to use the £ (among other options)

Eg, one of the SNP's main ways of trying to attract more employers to Scotland would be to lower corporation tax in competition with rUK. This might or might not work and would presumably only work if rUK doesn't lower its corporation tax too.

Apologies for Wings link - but a race to lower corporation tax has never happened wingsoverscotland.com/the-race-thats-never-run/

You can't argue that it's tough on the yes voters if they don't get a majority. Should we change the status quo because a minority want it? No. If A huge majority of the scottish electorate vote yes then it would be different. And remember that rUK is not getting a say.

Your earlier point was that with a Yes vote half of the population would be unhappy/rifts would need healing etc. I was just pointing out that the smae is true with No vote - a lot of very unhappy Yessers.

Uk is mostly populated by English electorate - many of the Westminster concerns are irrelevant to geographical areas.

Agreed. So an independent Scotland makes perfect sense.

How, when Scotland has constituency politicians in Westminster and a devolved parliament can you claim that it is getting the "shitty end of the stick" to benefit the rUK?

Because (putting cynicism aside) the WM government will always do what is best for the majority of the UK population. The majority of the population lives in the SE England. So obviously anyone living outside of the SE England will not get the optimum governance for them.

Numanoid I think that is a very valid viewpoint and I would be philosophical about paying more tax for social equality, just not to fund a new tier of government jobs in Edinburgh, whilst private enterprise is flowing away across a new taxation border and those remaining are squeezed to pay for someone else's dream of self-determination.

But nobody can explain what the specifically Scottish interests are that aren't being represented on this thread, other than a greater need and willingness to have more immigration in Scotland. And many issues of governance are concerned with more than just economic issues eg criminal law, individual freedoms etc

The majority of the Scottish population live in the central belt of Scotland so presumably the rest of Scotland would still not get "optimal governance".

It's only the SNP who wanted a referendum - a tiny minority of the UK electorate and only a small majority of the Scottish electorate asked for it.

I have actually read one comment somewhere from a guy who was voting No because he wanted Scotland to continue to subsidise the UK as he believed in the welfare state and if that meant contributing more, then so be it. :)

A valid reason - but a bit different from the perceived "wisdom" from some in the English press.

No Scottish ships = need for Scottish ships in the event of scottish independence at huge cost. Presumably the rUK would not be expected to fund the defence of its foreign neighbour. You make my point by explaining how the british landmass shares its defences and therefore costs.

I also don't see that there are that many issues being decided by Westminster where Scottish interests are markedly divergent from those of the UK as a whole.