@Corcory
It's interesting how the SNP are now so keen on the EU given the party was dead against the Common Market when they were originally formed. Many older SNP voters voted leave and certainly don't want to go back into the EU.
As for the the racist language of SNP supporters, I've found that it's not the English per say they are so against but the Tory party. They vial stuff pouring out of perfectly respectable people in my village when one person dared to put out a Conservative banner at the last UK election was abhorrent.Some time later the conservative supporter showed an interest in joining a committee I am on but I was told by one person she didn't like people in big houses joining village groups and another said that putting up the banner was a problem - given this was from an SNP supporter who displayed her own banners and had a flag pole installed in her garden it was more than a bit ironic! When I made the mistake of congratulating the winning conservative candidate on face book you would not believe what sort of hatred was thrown at me. The sort of stuff they put up on social media is vile nasty rubbish, which, if it was against a religious or ethnic group would be a criminal offence but because it's about
Tories then it's alright. The SNP really can be so nasty in their hate of anything to do with Westminster and Conservatives.
Yes, there is definately an intolerance in respect of differing views that is apparent in Scotland now. The idea that Scotland has different societal values is dangerous because that reasoning allows for all sorts of things in its pursuance, such as the First Minister being found by the Scottish Parliament to have misled it.
It's an attitude I've come across multiple times. This sense of jealousy of anyone who is perceived to have done better than them, or to somehow be priveleged in some way, or even just different, justifies punishment through higher taxes or restrictions on their lives. Its reminiscent of the former Eastern European countries, as is some if the legislation designed to control peoples' lives pouring out of the SP.
Many property owners in Edinburgh are in despair about what their council will do next. The council wants to "crack down" on holiday let's, so they are all to be licensed and inspected now, which simply means that there will be less availability of accommodation for people visiting Edinburgh so prices will go up and it will mean staying in an expensive hotel room rather than a bijou small apartment.
Some owners are just recovering from the statutory notices scam, where you had pensioners living alone facing £90,000 nils for communal repairs to replace their building's entire roof that weren't really necessary but were ordained by Edinburgh Council are farmed out to their favoured contractors to be vastly overcharged and shoddily done. I think only 4 people were ever jailed for it.
It's just not a very nice country to live in now. I feel in a constant state of anxiety about which piece of legislation to control my life will be passed next. Public services and education are dire, and there is a worrying underlying rhetoric that is poles apart from the Conservative with a small "c" approach of the Scandinavian countries, which only works with high taxation because there are extremely low levels of corruption and a lot of trust in government.
I think an independent Scotland would lose an awful lot of bright, talented people to England and abroad, because living in a country where you are constantly being told that being ambitious and working hard to have a better lifestyle is bad or "priveleged" is very draining.