LeMitior Independent or not, the SNP do not seem to be building a very free place to live. Along with the HCB now policing language per se, telling Parliamentarians what do and what they can't see with the benefit of the Crown office, and now telling people what services they can access and the merits of a harder border.
At what point will people realise that this all looks rather repressive and over the border that there is more freedom? It doesn't look like Scotland is going to engage with the remainder of the UK in any way based on the current performance.
I couldn't agree more. Admittedly I have a slight outsider's perspective, from the point of view that I lived and worked in Belgium and The Netherlands for a while. But Scotland already does have a bit of a poor reputation amongst many non-Brits. I remember suggesting to a Danish friend working for the EU that she could move to Scotland for work, and the reply was "Eugh". A lot of my Dutch friends are shocked when I tell them about the legislation being passed in Scotland and describe it as "sounding communist" and "unbelievable". And that is the reputation that Scotland is getting.
No doubt there will be someone coming along soon with a one or two sentence grandiose dismissal of anyone's experience who is not following the SNP authorised approach, without any attached explanation or reasoning. It always strikes me as sad that people who have spent their entire lives in a country of 5 million people and followed the political leanings of their own somewhat radical parents think they know it all and can dismiss people who have wider experience in the outside world.
The xenophobia is very strong in Scotland. Its a shame because Scots used to be famous for sending people all over the world to make their mark, but it currently seems dominated by those looking to control the population and run it as their own little fiefdom, complete with the benefits that brings for them and them alone.
I'm not actually against the idea of independence at all - many small countries such as Switzerland do great - although I wouldn't choose to live in an independent Scotland. I do however think that Scotland, at present, would be a small quasi communist, poverty stricken state if it became independent in its present incarnation. Even in recent years, its lost so many skilled engineers and other workers to England and no-one in the SNP or SG seems to care or think it worth discussing in Parliament.
Do I have any interest in working to make an independent Scotland better? No, because there is a whole world out there and Scotland is too old fashioned, sexist, lowly paid and small when there are better options. Which would sadly be good for said incompetents wanting to run it as their own personal fiefdom.