I am currently very pro Scottish Independence…

[Iheartscotland]

what do you think, objectively, are the best arguments for independence?

and/or

for remaining in the union?

Answers that are well reasoned and backed up with facts and figures would be great, but you know- go with whatever you feel.

And which one of those eejits would you trust to lead it?

Scot here, living in the North of England, English DH grew up in Scotland, most of his family are there. Our adult kids love Scotland, but grew up here. We’re unionists, we have UK passports, and I want to keep mine! Financially I think its a no brainer, but there is a large cohort who appear to think Scotland doesn’t get its fair share, when it actually gets far more than many areas of England. And yet, even with its higher taxes its failed to tackle its horrific drugs problem.

Now I know you're talking bolleaux.

We must not tolerate anyone who disagrees with us - they are bigots and to be excluded from our inclusive GNLWDD utopia!

It’s not the trans folks but hi h poster are taking the mickey out of, @Kickass42 .

it’s you. Soz.

@redbigbananafeet is this a question for me regarding independent Scotland? I like Kate Forbes, I don’t agree with Kate Forbes’ views on gay marriage but so long as she is democratic in her leadership I don’t think it should matter. I am not religious, but a huge proportion of the country is so I think it’s important to have diverse perspectives represented in leadership. She seems like a very decent human being. Most importantly I don’t think she’s stupid, and I think she will be a very capable FM and leader of an independent Scotland if it comes to that.

Some of the bigots might even move to England. Or, worse, edinburgh.

The purity of the GNLWDD utopia will be preserved. it must be.

@hryllilegur are you pharaphrasing @CoorieInByTheFire ? I think they were referring to the “cunts” In Westminster who they didn’t vote for, not unionists. It’s not a very nice word maybe but to be fair most of the English people I know would whole heartedly agree with that analysis. Not just the lefties either, Conservatives have vandalised the UK economy, but England and Wales are arguably the worst affected by their actions.

Paraphrasing*

are you really defending the description?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts @Kickass42, and sorry to hear about your trans friend, I imagine it’s a difficult time to be trans. I personally felt the bill that was voted on in Scottish Parliament was very flawed from a legal perspective as I felt it did pose a further medium to long term risk to the provision of female only spaces and women’s rights more generally. I wasn’t happy with how Sunak interfered with Scottish democracy however, so I have mixed feelings about what happened.
Interesting to hear your perspective on it all though.

Thanks no matter what you think of independence for alot of us like me we did think sturgeon was great in covid the U.K. gov was crap but sturgeon wasn’t. Now I am sure scotland has drug issues that some have said but for some of us we feel this country has gone fascist I love Maira black snp I think her name is she’s fantastic I love how they come back at the gov. I do think independence is flawed as I would like us to be stronger together but I feel not being funny that I have nothing in common with some of my fellow citizens now. I am a northerner Yorkshire and I can’t stand how us in the red wall are perceived to be working class anti foreigner types and it annoys me the direction we have gone

Yes I suppose I am, I understand why people find it offensive, especially that word, but I’m just not that easily offended I think so it’s hard to connect on an emotional level with why people found it so upsetting.
I like people to be polite but prefer people to speak their minds plainly even rather than be disingenuous. Maybe I’ve become too hardened from living down south, people really do hate the tories there. Last time I heard anyone I know from England defending them was probably 2021

Yes. I don't really have the inclination to write anything online anymore in relation to threads like these, however what I would say is that our friends in the North of England always say they would love to gain independence along with us.

Agreed regarding Sturgeon, I think she’s the most impressive UK leader for a long time, she was excellent during the pandemic and she had managed to maintain a surprisingly good approval rating in Scotland despite being such a symbol of the divisive issue of independence. By my estimation Scotland has been far better run by Sturgeon than the UK has been run by anyone since Gordon Brown (though his run didn’t end in glory I think he was fundamentally a good person and the right leader at the wrong time). I don’t think you are alone, a lot of English people are sad about how they are perceived I think, but northerners and the working class seem to get the worse stereotypes thrown at them.

Agreed, you do hear that a fair bit in England, especially the further north you go.

Some devolved benefits that have helped me personally are - free tuition, 30 hours free nursery , I'm on a much higher wage than I would be in other parts of the UK. There are others but they're probably the best from the top of my head!

Great in the pandemic. It was brilliant the way she ignored the Nike conference, and discharge elderly to nursing homes without checking if they had Covid. Marvellous keeping our kids out of school longer than England and having a higher Covid death rate than England. And the way they released one set of SQA results then had to change them all. Great that Covid business support money never got paid out and that businesses are not getting rates relief to recover like those in England. Amazing how they decided to break a hundred years of continuous data collection to delay the census, then fail to persuade enough people to fill it in so it became an expensive worthless exercise, unlike England.

NS great at giving public speeches, I grant you that. And I am sure a year of daily political speeches in prime time gave her absolutely no advantage in the Scottish election...

I’m surprised people praise this too. Another thing that stood out was closing private nurseries when English ones were open. Must have been so tough

Ah yes amazing in the pandemic which is why pubs were open whilst those really dangerous places like softplays remained shut in Scotland for over 18 months whilst the English ones open........

Or the fact that nurseries were shut doluble the amount of time as they were in England and of course not to mention our absolutely amazing 2million spent on our own covid app because we just wanted to be different and have a saltire on it.....🙄

Let's not forgot about the Scottish govt amazing response for the 90,000 long covid sufferers either.....a full 10 million to be shared (over 18 months after it was raised as a issue) among all the 14 health boards to try and assist them because they didn't want to set up long covid clinics or use the 2+years of data which came from NHS England on them!

Yep amazing job I'm slow hand clapping them now!

I was always amazed that given most people have large mortgages borrowed in pounds sterling that so many were prepared to take the risk on being paid in another (unknown) currency.

I know many offshore workers whose fortunes vary massively with the exchange rate. It's not something I'd like to have to worry about every month

She would have voted against gay marriage.

Yes but as long as she wouldn’t compel the rest of the party to vote with her that doesn’t bother me too much, it’s not ideal to my mind but you can have everything you want all the time.

It’s astonishing how little people understand about the risk here. If you have a mortgage you’d be bonkers to think you could survive the post-Indy apocalypse. I have a mortgage, but always keep our house in a marketable state incase an Indy vote is on the horizon. If it ever came to pass we’d book a home report and get a solicitor around to quote in the hope that we could dodge the worst of the free-fall in house prices and emerge with some equity - to immediately be paid into a rUK bank account pre-move.

I think for lots of people it is an emotional decision primarily. So the stuff that people are objecting to like ‘what currency would you use?’, ‘how would an independent Scotland defend itself?’ and other boring things seem like mere ‘details’ to be worked out.

For people less emotionally invested in Scottish nationalism, those ‘details’ really come to the fore.

Even more so when you’re looking at the ongoing problems of Brexit, and that was not a union where you shared a currency, a diplomatic service, and all sorts of other things that make disentangling complex and risky. Questions about what you’d even be paying your mortgage in, never mind how you’d meet the payments, are not minor quibbles for people in reality.