to think that this will bring about England as a separate country after this?

[chomalungma]

Is Boris Johnson the Prime Minister of the UK in name only? He seems to have forgotten about the rest of the UK in his speech as it was mainly about what people can and can't do in England.

Are there police on the border crossings in Wales and Scotland?

This crisis must be playing into the hands of people who would like to see the other countries in the UK as sovereign states recognised by the UN (as Richard Osmond would say)

Personally speaking, I think it would be good to have England as its own country. And good for the other countries as well. We could of course co-operate economically, have freedom of movement and free trade etc.

If England ever goes independent I'm heading for Scotland. I don't fancy a drought. I can swim in a Loch while England drowns in its own arrogance.
I may be English but I'm smart enough to know why Britain needs to stay together

@overworkedandstressed The UK doesn’t need to stay together, that’s an English lie, england needs it’s colonies to keep providing it with all the goods whilst constantly demeaning its inhabitants and teaching history in an atrocious way

I'm English so for me the UK needs to stay together or I have to move else I'm fucked. Wales is lovely but my family on my mum's side are all in Scotland so I'm be heading there. My dad always says when hes retired he's taking her back home because he loves Scotland and the people. He says he never laughs as much as he does there. I tend to agree Scottish humour is brilliant even the dialogue is great. I love when my granny says away and bile yer heid or haud yer weesht hen.

@Curiositykilledthecat113 well bloody said. We'd be pals 😊

Aye *@Curiositykilledthecat113 * you are bang on.
Watch what Loch your swimming in overworked you don't want oor Nessie biting you on the bum 😂

Why is it always “want to get away from the South East” (of England) on here? Sorry but I really don’t get the issue with people from the south east. Can someone enlighten me why we (from south east) are such a problem for the rest of the UK?

On I forgot about Nessie. Be avoiding Loch Ness then

No. I live in Scotland.

Independence has never been less feasible. Oil plummeting and tourism down. We won’t be going anywhere. No one serious wants the risk of setting up an entirely new currency and financial system right now.

The peoples action against section 30.

Lady Poole, on the 12th of May 2020, found in favour of the motion put forward by scottish people.

It's a challenge to both governments, Holyrood and Westminster, from us, the Scottish people to ascertain whether we are sovereign or not. If we are, we can hold our own legal/legit referendum and not have to wait for an S30.

It's down to the courts now.

Just curious, what would the currency be? Euro? Probably best not. The pound? Or would scotland have to have their own?

If memory serves me the current scottish government have stated they would initially look continue to use the pound sterling, allowing for a transition period. After that I don't know.
Considering the pound sterling is not something owned solely by Westminster I can't see a particular problem with this initially, unless of course Westminster decided to be obstructive and unreasonable.
In which case I'm sure the Scottish government would have the capacity to return the favour and increase rent on Faslane, withhold water, farming and fishing resources, energy renewables and so on.

But I would hope no one is that petty in deliberately trying to hurt another country and their potential success, after all it's the average person that would suffer and in a progressive society that is decent an open, honest dialogue should be the way forward in creating a fair existence for us all regardless of where we call home.

A country can use whatever currency it wants.

@amber763

I think you might be right, again if memory serves, South American countries are freely using the US Dollar without issue.

Absolutely but if that currency would crash there would be no bail out? Interest rates fell?

If Scotland did continue to use sterling a very mischievous part of me hopes it would require English visitors to exchange their BOE notes for Scottish notes

@Sometimeswinning

Totally agree, and the same rules apply to every country that uses any currency.

I might be wrong here but I'm sure I read in a Chomsky book a while ago that the European Central bank refused to bail out Greece during it's crisis and that was a major contributing factor to the interest rates and the fallout, if the government hadn't bailed the banks out during our crisis it may have been a similar picture.
Smart governments have treasuries set up and contingency plans in place for these things but with hope it won't be needed.
Like I said though, there is the potential for this to happen in any country.

When 3 of the 4 nations are continuing to extend lockdown, why isn't it seen that the one who has lifted restrictions is the one "going along" on their own?

I'm in England and really want us all to remain united, as long as the majority in each nation want that; but we're always going to have the issue of what is or isn't fair when 3 out of the 4 nations are united in wanting one thing, but the one solitary nation wanting something else happens to contain 85% or so of the country's people.

We had these arguments during the endless Brexit debates, whereby some were saying that each nation should have 25% of the say and even that just one nation rejecting the proposal could be enough to prevent the whole process for everybody. Obviously, it didn't happen that way, but just supposing every individual in England had voted for Brexit and every individual in Scotland, Wales and NI had voted against it. That would have meant 15% of the population (or potentially just 3%, so theoretically a NI domestic majority amounting to as low as 1.51% of the UK population if we'd gone on each individual nation having the full right of veto for everybody) dictating to the rest, just by virtue of where they happen to live. Like it or not, it would potentially have made each NI vote 26 times as powerful as each English one. How can that possibly be called democratic?

I think there's also a huge tendency to see each home nation as one homologous block with England always getting their way by dint of population . Again, we saw this sweeping generalisation after the Brexit referendum, where 'Scotland wanted to remain' - except 38% didn't; and 'England wanted to leave' - except that more than 46% (including the majority of Londoners) didn't.

Personally, I'm not in favour of us in England having a separate parliament, as I don't think it's needed with us constituting the large majority. Our majority (rightly) gives us power, but a majority is not a whole and that leaves 15% of people whose rights, opinions, needs and desires can easily get swept away unless we have the essential measures in place to protect them.

It would be like having a government minister specifically tasked to lobby and stand up for the rights of men and/or white people, and bitterly oppose institutionalised discrimination against them as a class, when this has never remotely been a serious threat.

If Scotland did continue to use sterling a very mischievous part of me hopes it would require English visitors to exchange their BOE notes for Scottish notes

And print two separate versions: ones with Robert Burns on to be distributed and widely used among the resident population and ones with the Krankies on to be exchanged at the border and clearly mark out the tourists

I voted against independence but I think its time Scotland chose our own path. Majority always wins and we always have to follow what England wants. Also fed up of constantly hearing we spend England's money as if we are leeches. We will sink or swim but at least it will be our own choices. I don't want to be part of this Britain who look down on us. A lot of these threads have been scotland basing and I'm fucked off with it

And print two separate versions: ones with Robert Burns on to be distributed and widely used among the resident population and ones with the Krankies on to be exchanged at the border and clearly mark out the tourists

@zscaler

I think there will be a lot less appetite for independence in Scotland after this. Imagine the state we would be in now if we had voted for independence 5 years ago - there’s absolutely no way we could have afforded anything like the level of support for businesses and workers that has been made available by the U.K. government, particularly given the oil price collapse.

Without having our government's hands tied behind their backs thanks to Westminster dilly-dallying and indifference, it's entirely feasible an independent Scottish government with full autonomy could have gone into lockdown much earlier, saved thousands of lives, and emerged from a much shorter and less costly lockdown much earlier than we are currently in the UK.

Far less reliance of furlough and government propping up of enterprise, far reduced government borrowing etc.

I don't think you can judge hypotheticals through the prism of what is actually happening right now under Westminster control. Too many variables. The two are not the same.

It's the same with any comparison really. People are always quick to point to how terrible everything is and then assume it would be much worse in an independent nation, as if that existing failure is somehow a ringing endorsement of the UK and Westminster rule. It's bizarre.

Wrong thread
Sorry

England is a small, arrogant little nation filled with some of the most obese people in the world who are less educated than others in Europe, vastly not speaking another language and a great many of whom are living in poverty because the government doesn’t care about them

I'm sorry but writing out this kind of rubbish only serves the Scottish v England type hatred. I find it really childish. There's obese people in Scotland too. And thick people. And stupid stereotypes like Scots all drink irn bru and eat deep fried mars bars. I think its immature to taint a whole nation with stupid generalisations so I'm not going to throw insults around about other nationalities. If you replaced England with Spain or Italy would you be happy with your statement? But if it makes you feel better and get a few online pats on the back for being a shock jock... I guess we see the type of person you are.

There'd be a proper debate about independence if people stopped with the scraping the barrel insults. As I've said if and when Scotland votes for independence go for it. I think there will be another referendum eventually. I think Scotland can make a go of it, but I do think there are some very risky and uncertain areas (such as currency - using £ means they are not in control but setting up their own is a massive task, join euro will require a lot of hoop jumping to meet ECB fiscal rules) which will be a challenge to overcome. If the SNP fail to give more detail in some of these areas, I think voters will find it hard to say Yes and we as a union are stuck in limbo for more decades.
The other emerging factor is Scottish Labour / Tories / Lib Dems emerging to offer devo max and see if voters prefer that choice.

I think English people in particular are fed up of Scots arguing they have some kind of bad deal in the Union. They don't in reality. But clearly there are many who will never be happy in Union, no matter what the deal (the Barnett formula could be doubled and there will still be unhappy Scots). So if you want true independence I hope Scots vote for it next time because voting to stay in the union and then voting SNP in elections who are going to undermine it at every opportunity is not fair on any of the other nations. So go for it, I truly hope Scots do and I will wish them good luck.