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.

Anti-independence for all the same reasons I was anti-Brexit. I don't believe in it philosophically nor do I think it would benefit us practically or financially.

I'm not sure why the Scottish think they are so hard done by. They get free prescriptions , university more funding per head than the English population and that's funded by more English taxpayer's than Scots.

Same here. My kids are having treatment in London currently not available in Scotland.

I pay about £2500 a year more in income tax than I would in England. You don't understand how the fiscal framework operates so why pretend.

Has anyone in this thread said they felt hard done by? 🙄

Really sorry to hear that, rainbow, hope they make a good recovery. It's crap being in this vulnerable position. Was reading about the people on dialysis in Ukraine and really felt angry at how people here take things for granted. It's literally life or death and they'll bang on about Project Fear when we speak up (exactly like Brexit).

I'm English and I don't know many English people who are 'desperate' to hold onto Scotland. A lot of English people are very fond of Scotland - I am myself - but it IS a financial drain on English taxpayers, which is particularly irritating when England and the govt in Westminster are blamed for almost every Scottish ill.

Completely agree with this. When the first Indy ref happened, I think most English did want to keep the union. However we're now so bored of hearing about how the Scots want to leave, and Westminster being blamed for everything that now everyone I know just doesn't care anymore. I would wish wish you good luck, if that's what you wanted. I'm half Scottish too!

God it's so annoying when English people just parrot daily express nonsense about financial drains. You absolutely don't know what you're spraffing about.

Still pro Union, though.

The Scottish Government’s ability to procure two ferries to ensure continued connections between parts of Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s ability to procure two ferries to ensure continued connections between parts of Scotland.*

Even though I would not get the vote and it is totally up to the Scottish people I am pro union. I am English and live in England but have lots of Scottish hertitage. Even though we might get pissed of with each other ultimately I think we are one family and are stronger together.

I am English living in Scotland for almost 30 years DH is a highland Scot

I think a country should be able to declare independance but there should be some agreed stance at a UN level on what level of support is required for the UN to recognise it as a sovereign state 50% +1 person is not good enough it should be clear cut; not so that if the vote was re run a week later you might get a different result or it taking several recounts of votes

my thinking would be a minimum of 50% of all eligible voters, and over 60% of those that did vote, also rules about who is included so people can't move in; in order to vote nor can people be moved in or out by the state wanting independance before the vote to rig vote so it needs to be monitored to be fair and at least a year's notice of the date
the same rules would apply to parts of Ukraine, Catalonia, parts of Sudan Morocco Algeria etc etc
I do not think in Scotland people would be moved in or out but it definitely happened forcibly before votes in parts of Ukraine etc

my own thinking is that Scotland could be independent no reason a small country can't be but it will be much tougher than Brexit and the plan has to be known before the vote. the currency issue needs addressing as does whether dual nationality will be availble for our DD who has Scottish Father and English mother, will pension rights be moved acrosss border,

I also only favour complete independance but still European like Norway, not re joining EU or at least it needs voting on well after independance is sorted, they are 2 separate issues and should be voted on independently as should whether we retain monarchy a 3rd vote, Scotland had either 7 or 9 MEP's out of 500+ ie about a 1 in 80 influence , while in Westminister it has 59 out of 660 about 1 in 11 influence

I think about 10-15 yearsfrom now is about right for another referendum and next time it should be written in when there can be another like another 25-30 years, we can't be voting on it every 10 years

personally not currently in favour but could be persuaded but not easily but the gender fiasco and educational decline makes me less favourable,
when I first moved here in 1994 Scotland was ahead of England in education terms, Scottish education with 5 highers not 3 A levels was often seen as better but the reverse is true now, attainment has fallen even in the least deprived areas and the gap has widened, there is free tutition at university but often Scottish students can't get in , there are places in clearing but they are not available to home students they want fee paying ones from England or EU or rest of the world
Health service problems are bad drug deaths and life expectancy is some of the worst in Europe, I know there are problems in health services across the western world it is not unique to UK

I think SNP are too dogmatic with their own membership stifling debate

FWIW This isn’t part of my job, I’m not a bot, I am just trying to find out what people think are the key arguments for and against independence. Though I can understand why people think I’m some sort of professional because I’m making an effort to be polite and open-minded so people feel comfortable answering follow up questions. I’ve seen a few threads on this topic and on here and it seems to be a very emotive issue, but that also means the people don’t often go into depth on why they think what they think- they mainly go to what they think or maybe contrast that with what they used to think (e.g. I used to be pro Indy but now… I used to be pro union but now…)

Ideally, I was hoping for some facts, sats or elaborations (which some have given, thank you) so I can see why some people think what they think or feel what they feel. I am intuitively/emotionally pro-independence, but also think that it makes sense in terms of economics, culture and international relations. I think the independence side has the most compelling arguments. However, if I’m intuitively for independence, there’s a good chance I’m not finding the best pro-union arguments through a sort of attention bias, so keen to hear these. Also keen to hear what people think are the most compelling pro Indy arguments.

People wondering what my reasons are for being pro Indy, fair question, I didn’t want to share what I think are the best and worst arguments because I thought I might end up shaping the discussion too much and only get more on the topics I’ve already thought about in depth.

I will go through my reasons in a bit (for those that are interested - I have many) just quite busy at the moment, and like I said just wanted to get a handle on all the arguments without biasing the sorts of responses I get on thread. Thanks for all the responses so far

I am against independence. I have never heard a coherent argument on currency, pensions and more recently, given the NI situation, how a land border with England would work if we joined the EU. There's too much of 'well these things would be for the government of the day to decide' - so basically the SNP want to get us into a mess but then leave someone else to sort it out.

Also I don't understand the argument of not wanting to be controlled by Westminster but happy to cede control to Brussels where our influence would be minuscule.

I pay higher taxes than someone on the same salary in England would pay and if I saw better public services for everyone I wouldn't mind. But I don't. What i see that money being spent on is £100 extra a month paid for every child in a low income family which is a massive disincentive for them to then to work. There's a fine balance to be struck between the Tory position on cutting benefits and providing a bit of extra support (which I do think is right) but a family with 3 kids in Scotland gets £300 more every month than the same family in England - all paid for by higher taxes for anyone earning over £25k which is not a high salary. I just don't get it.

Plus the disaster that is Education after years of SNP.

Nobody said you’re being paid, OP. Just on a fact finding mission for the SNP. Apparently some people do that for fun. 🤷‍♀️

Maybe, a PP mentioned remit, which to me implies professional remit or at least being directed by someone else. I’m not a member of the SNP, I am doing it for fun (sort of), but given this is all anonymous people can go ahead and suspect the worst motive they can think of, hopefully it won’t change their responses too much.

not re joining EU or at least it needs voting on well after independance is sorted

Rejoining the EU any time soon would be impossible anyway. Just looking at one single aspect: Scotland would need five years of a stable monetary system before the EU would even start to consider Scotland. Given that a monetary system would not even start until independence, and possibly after independence, and is likely to be unstable for years due to global market/pressures, this aspect alone would take more that a decade before the EU could even start to consider membership.

I’m English and live in Scotland (for many years), grew up in England and have family there

I have never experienced any anti-English sentiment as mentioned above on the thread, actually felt very welcome in the many parts of Scotland I’ve lived in (city and rural)

I don’t know what idea people in England have of Scotland, but from speaking to family and friends down south it’s often inaccurate. Some think Scotland is the best place, there is some definite hate of Scotland from the English too! It’s more balanced, good and bad. I do hate people in England getting over-involved in the argument for independence when they have barely been to Scotland and do not know it well (apart from what they read in the English press), but I guess Britishness is often about controlling different people we don’t know much about. I mean, so many English have absolutely no idea about the differences in legal system, schools, culture, language etc between the countries

Actually I’ve experienced lots of English people making fun of Scottishness, so can definitely sympathise with the independence movement

many of my family in England struggle to get GP appointments, I’ve never faced quite the same issues up here (even if a little wait). My very elderly grandmother has so much trouble accessing medical care in England

Having spent time on both sides of the border I often think I would rather be a citizen of Scotland, rather than the UK, as Westminster is an absolute mess.

I am not pro-independence per se, more happy for whatever the Scottish decide. More and more I see young Scot’s providing very good economic and cultural reasons for independence, and I am here to listen to them, for and against

there are 5 groups when it comes to independance

A) Want independance as a matter of principle freedom is important emotionally, even if proved it would make them worse off both short and long term they would still be wanting independance as that matters more, freedom is more important than finances
B) want independance are prepared for some short term finacial hardship provided they believe they will be long term better off or at least no worse off, but are not prepared to be worse off long term, they only want it if price is right
C) could be persuaded either way
D) generally in favour of unity, even if some short term pain and disagreement generally anti- independance as they think they will be worse off and think unions are better than divisions
E) want Unity and The union even is there is subsidy the unity of United Kingdom is more important than it being better financially to be independent, even if it was proved this would be the case

you can't change the opion of groups A and E it is a deep held conviction and not a personal will it work best for me idea. Most elections depend on group C the floating voter, for a landslide you need some of either B to go with E or D to go with A
if a higher threshold to be independent is required than 50% of the electorate then not only do you need groups A , B and C but possibly at least some in group D need to be persuaded and that's when it get's hard. You can't sell independance to group E so no point trying but if you are serious instead of preaching to the faithful you have to convince group B, they won't be worse off long term maybe the easiest and then you have a uphill struggle to convince groups C and some of D it can work, this is the groups that need proof it will work, with cold hard stats and plans

on a separate note it costs more to deliver all services to a wide spread population Scotland has approx 10% of population of England but over 65% of land mass, there are more schools with less than 50 pupils, if 100 people live in 100 sq miles it takes longer to empty 100 bins than if there are a 100 bins on one street, same with everything else,

Tower hamlets has 15,000 per square kilometre, Eden in Cumbria is most sparse at 26 people per kilometre, in Scotland Glasgow is the most densely populated at about 3000 per kilometre ( 5 x times more space than in London per person) and the highlands the least at 9 per kilometre squared ( 3 x the space of even the most rural bit of England) I completely understand and see the need for more money to provide the same level of service in remote areas as opposed to urban areas whatever country it is in

The SNP’s own Sustainable Growth Commission has just stated that independence would result in 250,000 job losses and a £29 billion cut in Scotland’s economic output. The job losses would be mainly in public sector services, as we couldn’t afford to pay the wage bill without English subsidies via the Barnett formula.
That isn’t unionist propaganda - I repeat - that’s the SNP’s own figures.

National security. We have a sea border and are extremely fortunate in that.

I was very skeptical about the risks until the Ukraine war but I think we'd be mad to go it alone with zero armed forces.

If I lived in the borders I'd hate the idea of what might happen in the future. We are much further north and frankly the central belt bias is as bad as the south-east centric.

I think it's terrible to consider setting up two sets of everything on one island where there is the same language, same religions, similar climates, same religions and a very long shared history and put a border between them. Mainland Britain is an obvious chunk of land for a unit of governance. I could see a case for Scottish independence if there was something significantly different about Scottish people. But there isn't.

What a waste of time, effort and energy to establish two lots of banking systems, two currencies, two sets of laws for absolutely everything, two separate defence forces, two lots of embassies, two foreign offices, etc etc etc.

I could understand the case if Scotland had a predominantly different population, if there was an oppressed religious or ethnic minority, but there isn't.

I get that the British 'establishment' can sometimes be ignorant about Scottish things - referring to Manchester for example as,'the North' is irritating, but it's hardly a reason to flounce and off and disadvantage the smaller group by setting up its own stuff in its corner of the playground. And it's replicated by Scottish people too - people in the north of Scotland refer to anything south of Perth as 'down south'. Does this offend English people so much they want to kick Scotland out of the union? I hope not.

There hasn't been much discussion on what the security implications of Scotland becoming independent would be. And when it is spoken of, it's in the context of Britain defending itself from external threats. What of internal threats?

I suppose I don't really understand what independence voters want because most powers are already devolved and the SNP has been a disaster.

I was pro-union and felt British until 2016. Brexit left me feeling like I did not recognise the country I lived in.

We are living in a shit-show in both the UK as a whole and in Scotland as a country. Some issues transcend the border and some are specific to each country.

That shit-show makes me feel, what the hell! Both options represent 100 years more shit (in the UK but not the EU, Scotland independent but in the EU). Why not take a punt on independence?!

My preference is for a high tax democratic socialist country like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark or Iceland. My preference is for countries to work together as in the EU. I believe the purpose of Govt is to make the citizens' lives better.

The Brexit bollox really annoys me - NO one said during the Brexit vote ‘Oh, and by the way if you live in Scotland and vote to remain it means you want independence’ - there was no mention of independence so when the (small) majority wanted remain it magically turned into meaning a vote for independence - as I said above bollox.
if anyone had said a vote for remain means you want independence chances are fewer would have voted remain because at present fewer want independence.