Please add your support for an independent Scotland

[grumplass]

Please comment on this thread to indicate how many supporters of independence are on Scotsnet.
Please do not post if you do not support.

My argument is that if Brexit is going to be so manageable for the UK, why is independence impossible for Scotland?

So in your view Brexit will not be massively damaging to the UK economy, and the Scottish economy is as strong as the UK one?

Btw I'm part of the academic scientific community, and free movement around the UK is far more valuable than movement within the EU. Vastly more funding comes from UK sources too. It might have been ideal to have both, but if we must choose, the UK is more valuable in this respect.

And if Shetland were to have its own vote to become independent from Scotland, that would be perfectly ok, wouldn't OP ?

Yes , funny the Tories coming out with that. Boris visited as did Cameron in the run up to 2014 . Maybe it's the sheep they're frantic to keep the revenue from.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us
I don't agree with Brexit.
How can you say that being in the uk in Brexit is preferable to an independent Scotland with access to Europe? What makes us the only nation in the world incapable of independence!
How come we are so so rubbish, poor and stupid ?
And @RaspberryCoulis last time I looked Scotland had the highest rate per capita of adults with degree level Education in Europe. The OECD have recently endorsed our curriculum with recommendations that it be embedded further.
Not bad for the SNP government I guess.

@oldmotherriley crack on,Shetland.
Although I doubt that anyone on here is aware of the amazingly diverse population in Shetland and their unique challenges.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us

I'm genuinely curious: why would anyone want to push for independence now? I can understand the arguments about controlling your own affairs etc. even if I don't agree with them, but I really don't get he push to do it in the midst of a crisis, which could have many more months/years to run before we come out the other side. We have Brexit looming as well as COVID restrictions decimating the economy, and who knows what state any of us will in be once the dust settles (including the EU, who are also having a very tough time right now). The UK has its problems (and I count the current, temporary, incumbent at number 10 among them), but it remains one of the largest economies in the world irrespective of Brexit or COVID. Surely now is the absolute worst time to take a massive leap into the unknown (so many questions still unanswered) and hope the EU is willing and able to catch us.

This!

@grumplass
"How can you say that being in the uk in Brexit is preferable to an independent Scotland with access to Europe? What makes us the only nation in the world incapable of independence!
How come we are so so rubbish, poor and stupid ?"

That is indeed my preference, mainly because I don't see the UK as 'other' but rather part of my identity. There are parts I don't like right now, including the current prime minister, but I have seen 7 prime ministers in my lifetime and I hope will see many more, and I'm not willing to throw away a core part of my identity for such a temporary thing. Conversely, whatever I think about whether leaving the EU is a good idea or not, I don't really care in the same way I would care about leaving the UK. I never gave being European a second thought before this all kicked off, so I don't feel personally hurt that we're leaving. I have never said that Scotland is 'too poor/too stupid' (in fact I think the only person who ever has was SNP), but it remains a fact that Scotland has a much smaller economy than the UK and I do believe we're better off financially within it, despite Brexit.

Although I doubt that anyone on here is aware of the amazingly diverse population in Shetland and their unique challenges

Puts hand up

@OllyBJolly 👋🏻

Actually it's GDP per capita not the size of an economy that's important for higher standard of living Large economies with lower gdp per capita - more poverty (think India). Scotland 's GDP per capita is higher than the UK ( or was the last time figures were released).

The UK Gov is currently borrowing £1 billion a day. Mind boggling.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us
Of course the uk has a bigger economy than Scotland they have 60 million people and we have 6 million.
So think we will be ok.
Despite all the restrictions we have been absolutely rammed with tourists this year- that's not going away any time soon. Unbelievably we are on of the worlds' main source of seed potatoes and with high quality food and drink exports, self sufficient in renewable energy and with oil reserves which for investment purposes may actually be more valuable in the ground ... and that's before I begin to mention all other aspects of the economy. I really think we will be ok.

I was yes before and I think I’m still yes. Ideologically, absolutely yes; financially, I’d like to read detailed proposals about currency/borders/debt etc before deciding.

I look forward to an open and honest discussion about the economics and all other issues if the question arises again. I'm not interested in flag-waving or rants about 'tories'. I'm not an economist so not qualified to say whether we'd be better off or not - I only go by the IFS report (the only one I could find with no particular axe to grind) which predicted 10 years of austerity, although of course that report will be massively out of date now (I suspect the situation is now worse, but who knows). As a bare minimum I would also expect full freedom of movement/employment around the UK to be guaranteed ahead of a vote - which for me would mean the UK and EU both agreeing to it in writing to avoid any political bullshit down the line.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us I would love that to be written down too.
Unfortunately we are learning that anything written down in paper by the present UK government appears to be able to be ripped up with a year so I wouldn't be too concerned about that.

Austerity is over as a policy. It cannot be sustained.
Ironically the virus will make fiscal stimulus necessary across the world.
Why not be an optimist! We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Hoping for unprecedented economic growth tends not to work, much as they secret' has sold many copies.

the secret - the economic non case for independence often reads like that type of positive visualisation exercise, and supported by many that believe they won't be that impacted financially as they're teachers etc.

I'd vote for independence from the SNP's magical economic thinking.

Why not be an optimist! We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

See, this is the kind of thing that really panics me the most. I would be sad to see us leave the UK (and actually think there's plenty to lose personally), but if we were to leave the UK on the back of little more than a prayer that is just terrifying. I think most agree that the way the Brexit referendum was handled could not have gotten much worse, yet we really seem to be making exactly the same mistakes here in Scotland. There is no proper discussion of pros and cons to leaving the UK, just a bucketload of 'hope' and 'positivity', no independent reviews of the impacts (which obviously discounts anything from the Scottish Government), and no plan or agreements with key partners (in any form) in place for afterwards. We're just supposed to believe that somehow this will all fall into place, despite ample evidence from the Brexit negotiations to the contrary. I reluctantly accept that the question needs to be revisited given the levels of support, but there seems to be no appetite to actually face the issues honestly.

Anon - Kate Forbes might enlighten you. Might be a bit kinder than when she ripped Mr Ross a new one.

On another note, Scottish students ranked 4th out if 27 countries in a test of their understanding of global issues. 'In an adjoining questionnaire, attitudes towards immigrants and other cultures among pupils in Scotland were consistently better than in the other 27 nations.'

Good to see evidence that blows the unionist argument that Scottish education is insular out of the water.

Seriously @Youcannot. The brexit negotiations were originally written on the back of a fag packet and in stark contrast, the white paper was the size of an old BT phone book. All that was released by BJ etc al prior to the referendum were lies in adverts to leave the EU. You must know this?

Boris didn't want a deal because his donors make more from shorting affected stocks. The EU don't need a deal from the UK.

100% yes. The last few months alone have provided more than enough good reasons to cut ties with the London Government. I don't agree with all the SNPs policies, and I'm sure the Scottish people won't all collectively skip off into some utopian ideal, but by god, I loathe the Tories and what they've done, and are doing, to the UK.

Seriously @Youcannot. The brexit negotiations were originally written on the back of a fag packet and in stark contrast, the white paper was the size of an old BT phone book. All that was released by BJ etc al prior to the referendum were lies in adverts to leave the EU. You must know this?

Yes, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. Our current 'plan' for independence seems to have about as much substance as Boris' bus unless I've missed something. I would say the white paper was SNP propaganda, others might say pure fiction, but surely we can all agree that it wasn't impartial and that's the point. We need solid information from sources not trying to push either side of the argument. This is probably the biggest decision any of us will be asked to make, so its absolutely ESSENTIAL that it's properly thought through and based on solid, independent information, with a proper plan in place for afterwards. It would be a nightmare if Scotland was persuaded to vote to leave the UK, and only then we started the same years of wrangling, trying to negotiate deals/debt shares/border issues/god knows what else that we've seen with Brexit.

I don't think a list of people saying yes is very helpful.
Because it gives no idea if the yes vote outnumbers the no.
It also doesn't allow for the reasoned debate that Brexit shows is really important to actually have.

@lakesidewinter this thread would have been useful as a count if people had just posted as asked.
Unfortunately that was too confusing for them and they were outraged and demanded the right to debate.

Bit similar to asking for detailed economic plans @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us
We tried to do that before with the white paper but it was " wrong" and "propaganda". Of course it was inaccurate as no economist in the world has yet developed a crystal ball. However it could have been written in pearl ink on gold by angels and it would have made no difference. If you don't agree with independence it's a nice distraction technique to say what about the money. Confidence and positive attitude are really the most important things in terms of achieving independence. Yes we can do this and we are good enough.
Are people truly suggesting that every single enterprise in the whole of Scotland is propped up by the Uk?

We are a country full of smart and well educated experts and businesses .... if only we could realise our potential.

Approximately a third of voters for Scottish independence also voted leave while a minority it is a substantial minority that don't want to swap Westminster ( about 1 in 11 seats) for Brussels where about 1 in 100 seats . I don't think that's it's a given that an independent Scotland would prefer the EU to a free trade deal with England it wouldn't want to trade with England on WTO