SNP and Scotland leaving U.K.

[Hester54]

AIBU to not understand Scotland wishing to leave the U.K., can someone explain to me without being nasty or patronising, why is Scotland’s problem with the U.K.? Even before the U.K. ref

What an oh so innocent op. Hmm.

I'm English and I totally understand why a lot of Scotland feel sidelined by Westminster. If Liverpool could go independent I'd be all for it. Only half joking

And yes, 100 per cent this “I wonder how many non English UK people have come across the English people that don't see the rest of the UK as being different to them.”

English people tend to see England and Britain as the same thing. Endless memes about being proud to fly the English flag , with a pic of the Union Flag.

More seriously, total ignorance that in Scotland a university degree takes 4 years. The Government recently created a special 3- year visa for students. Totally bloody useless to Scotland. I think after hefty SNP pressure it was changed but the British government should have fucking known.

The Tory Government chose Johnson as their leader and consider him fit to run the UK government - yet, as Editor of The Spectator Johnson allowed this anti Scottish poem to be published. Why would any self respecting Scot think he had their best interests at heart?

The Scotch - what a verminous race!
Canny, pushy, chippy, they're all over the place.
Battening off us with false bonhomie;
Polluting our stock, undermining our economy.
Down with sandy hair and knobbly knees!
Suppress the tartan dwarves and the Wee Frees!
Ban the kilt, the skean-dhu and the sporran
As provocatively, offensively foreign!
It's time Hadrian's Wall was refortified
To pen them in a ghetto on the other side.
I would go further. The nation
Deserves not merely isolation
But comprehensive extermination.
We must not flinch from a solution.

The history of the Union is important. Scotland was independent for a very long time. England put tremendous financial pressure on Scotland to join. There were riots across Scotland the day the Act of Union was singed, they had to hide in a basement and sign it there.

The Union hung on a shoogly peg for 100 years. Then, many wars saw Scottish regiments being sent off to deal with it and land owners took this opportunity to clear the land. Any dissent say you being shipped off to a colony. The land owners usually sat in the commons or lords.

That takes us up to 2 world wars. Scottish regiments suffered heavier losses than other British regiments. By the 1940s you see the rise of the SNP and people being to question the Union.

By the 70s interest in independence grows. Vote for devolution wins, but labour move the goal posts and make it impossible. Then the conventions begin, to start to look at how to get independence. By 1990s Labour have to grant Devolution.

For the past 300 years Westminster has kept a tight hold on Scotland and has crushed the push for self determination very hard. The question is why? They have never had the same demands from Wales. The eventually had to let Ireland go and they made a first class mess of that.

Just now Scotland pays towards what are deemed U.K. projects which Scotland gains no benefit from eg

-HS1 in Kent
-Olympics
-London Underground
-HS2
-Crossrail

These arent small amounts- 10s of Billions.

Scotland also pays into the benefits system which funds housing benefit in London and the SE of England which props up the over inflated property market there.

With lower house prices in Scotland we’d save money running our own social security designed for our needs.

Frankly, I'd like to see Scotland extend all the way to the Wall. Then I could live in a country where I wouldn't be ruled by utter shits.

Another perspective...

I've always grown up thinking of Scotland as being it's own country. I don't understand why you wouldn't think it would make sense for us to govern ourselves? Its what most other countries out there do. Look at Scandinavia..... a group of countries but all separately governed. It doesn't mean they hate each other (maybe some friendly rivalry). I have no problem with English people. I have no problem with any country....doesnt mean I would want them to govern us. I think overall Scotland is a lot for socialist than England. There's changes Scottish people would like to see but we would always be outvoted.

*Hester, yes democracy is having to settle for what the majority votes for.

But Scotland is a different country- which is voting en masse and even that isn't enough to have an effect on English voting patterns.

Having seen what the Tory Govt have done to the UK with my own eyes. Scotland couldn't be much worse off on its own.*

This entirely. I’m still not convinced of the case for independence. I voted no and remain. But look now what’s happening despite the fact we were promised that voting no was the only way we could stay in the EU.

I know no one here who voted leave. No one. Obviously a sizeable minority did but I don’t know anyone. Every area in Scotland voted remain.

It’s clear to look at the map after the election and taking into account the referendum result in 2016 that we aren’t the same country.

I appreciate there are many people in the rUK who feel removed as to what’s happening in government but at the end of the day our loyalty and wanting to support our rUK brethren hasn’t got us anywhere. Maybe it’s time for us to try and break away from this madness. But I don’t know. I really don’t know how I’d vote in another Indyref but I am no longer a definite no.

I have a feeling BJ might offer us Devo Max as a means to try and shut us up. Not soon, but at some point

I have a feeling he'll try and take powers AWAY from us as he threatened in PMQ's

If Scotland do get a referedum and leave the EU will probably welcome them with open arms.
No they won't. After the Greece Crisis the EU has become much more careful about the financial affairs of new members. Scotland would have to more than halve its budget deficit to be admitted.
Then they'll probably be a huge surge in UK companies and people wanted to move to Scotland.
On the contrary, without a lender of last resort, the banks based in Scotland will be moving their headquarters South to ensure that the Bank of England will be there for them.

English people tend to see England and Britain as the same thing. Endless memes about being proud to fly the English flag , with a pic of the Union Flag.
How many people go to Arnhem and say that they went to "Holland"?

I've lived in Scotland for the last 44 years. There has never been a majority wanting independence.
I, and my fellow unionists, (55% of the population here) get very angry when Sturgeon claims to speak for the whole of Scotland - "Scotland was dragged out of the EU against its wishes" etc. This is patent nonsense. Scotland did not have a block vote, we voted as individuals in a UK wide referendum on the EU.
A third of SNP supporters actually voted for Brexit! Sturgeon keeps very quiet about that.
The obsession with independence means that the SNP have ignored the day job. They've made an utter mess of running Scotland's devolved services. Sturgeon asked to be judged on education- it's a disaster. Scotland has fallen down the international ratings for the last ten years, and is now worse than Slovakia. Yet Swinney blatantly lies and says it is "stable"!
A few other corrections: Scotland does not have a government, it has a regional assembly. Westminster is Scotland's government.
Scotland is not a country. It is a region of the U.K. It is not recognised as a country by the UN, and stopped being one in 1707.
England did not "bully" Scotland into joining the Union. Scotland was bankrupt after its own disastrous attempt at investing virtually the entire country's monetary reserves in a colony in Darien (now Panama), which failed, at the same time as a series of failed harvests and famine back home. England cleared their debt and sent financial and food aid, and then gave Scotland access to a much bigger market in England, and also access to ideas, science and culture that took Scotland from being a parochial backwater to the flowering of the Great Enlightenment of the 18th century.
The Union has been nothing but beneficial for Scotland, and it is sickening to see the SNP fuelling division and hatred of the English, thinly disguised as hatred of Westminster. Their promotion of Gaelic is purely to try and underline differences from England- they've wasted £6 million on Gaelic road signs in areas of Scotland that have no history of ever speaking it.
More people speak Polish in modern Scotland than speak Gaelic.
I could rant on indefinitely, but it's getting late. I shall save their hilarious plans for national defence in the event of independence for another time.... suffice to say they involve having no Air Force or Navy worth the name and just 600 ground troops!

“road signs in areas of Scotland that have no history of ever speaking it.”

Every area of Scotland has a history of speaking Gaelic, some areas more recent history than others, but it’s not true that there are areas where it was never spoken.

“Their promotion of Gaelic is purely to try and underline differences from England”

In your opinion... personally I’d say it’s because the SNP are very good at changing their policies to catch voters who are less bothered about independence but will support them for other reasons.

Either way, it does get them votes in areas where people are concerned that Gaelic is not far from being a dead language.

Please provide me with these figures that show they spent 6 milion on road signs. From what I understand...Gaelic was only added to signs when they needed replaced so therefore not much addictional cost but I know there was made up figures being thrown about in 2014 .

The main reason UN does not consider Scotland as an official country is due to it being governed by the UK. It's still considered a country in many competitions....fifa, rugby etc. I am pretty sure that most people of asked would class it as a country.

If every other country can manage it, why can't Scotland? No ones saying it will be perfect but neither are things in the UK or most other countries. At least if we were independent our votes would count.

Virtually every aspect of your post is inaccurate, but the bit that confused me the most was your reference to the great enlightenment. I think you'll find that was the Scottish enlightenment, that then spread south. Scotland was a frontier runner for science and invention.

Oh, and I'm baffled at your idea that Scotland ceased to be a country when it signed the Act of Union. This was a merger of Parliaments. Scotland was not absorbed by England and England didn't cease to exist either. It was the formation of a UNION.

I'm baffled how someone who had been around for so long has such a poor grasp of History, society or politics. I can recommend some books if you're interested.

Oh. And Holyrood has executive and legislative powers making it most definitely a parliament.

I can also recommend books explaining the structure of government in the Uk. Devolution and how governance works in Scotland.

I'm baffled why anyone would be asking these questions. I discussed endlessly why a vote for the tories would be a vote to end the union and I met no English voters who didn't understand that. They all said that Brexit was their preferred option and that they favoured losing the union. I was told many times that England understood and would be glad to have their independence from both the EU and the Union.

The Union has been nothing but beneficial for Scotland

Aye right.

Scotland does not have a government, it has a regional assembly. Westminster is Scotland's government. Scotland is not a country. It is a region of the U.K. It is not recognised as a country by the UN, and stopped being one in 1707

WTF
Scotland has its own Parliament.
Scotland is a country, a nation, with its own identity, its own flag and its own systems of law, education and traditions.

Every area of Scotland has a history of speaking Gaelic, some areas more recent history than others, but it’s not true that there are areas where it was never spoken

Find me evidence that gaelic was spoken in Shetland. I don't believe it ever was and I think you are wrong.

A few other corrections: Scotland does not have a government, it has a regional assembly
Haha stopped reading after this blatant show of ignorance from Babdoc

few other corrections: Scotland does not have a government, it has a regional assembly. Westminster is Scotland's government.
Scotland is not a country. It is a region of the U.K. It is not recognised as a country by the UN, and stopped being one in 1707

What the actual fuck? That's a complete lie. Scotland has a government not a regional assembly. Do you believe the nonsense yours spouting?

Babdoc a simple Google will show your ignorance.