SNP lay their stall out - vote for them next May, they will start negotiating to separate.

[RandomGeocache]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgknlj3vr76o

Because they have learned nothing from Brexit. I mean, it's sort of their raison d'etre, banging on about independence and it does resonate with some of their fans who believe that should Scotland separate, we'd all be loads richer. They do appear somewhat confused though - a majority in parliament is a mandate, the biggest number of MSPs is a mandate, a vote for "pro-indy" parties is a mandate.... Anyone would think they were either making it up as they go along, or hedging their bets.

Are we supposed to forget all about the incompetence, the failing NHS and education, the scandals and all the other fuck ups?

So if you don't want to separate, don't vote SNP or Green in May.

I'm voting SNP.

Screw Reform & Toryism.

I think the parties all need to get together to arrange for tactical campaigning and voting to keep reform out. I’m very worried following the by-election in West Lothian. I really did not believe the Scottish electorate would turn like that but now I’m scared.

I’d far prefer Reform to the incumbents. I mean they’re a terrible prospect but must be better than the SNP.

I’m no fan of the SNP, but they at least believe everyone belongs here.

Reform seem very much a case of “first they came for” the asylum seekers…

The SNP just have the reverse Midas touch though. Everything they touch turns to shite.

Scottish education used to be good. Now it’s shite.

The Scottish nhs absorbs so much more money per head of population than the NHS, and yet it’s worse.

Duelling the A9 is one of the worlds most complex engineering project apparently, which it is only if your capacity for intelligent thought is as limited as an SNP MSP.

The finance minister cannot seem to utter anything coherent or intelligent whatsoever. We have the UKs highest taxes but with nothing to show for it other than showering the workshy with benefits.

Someone under 25 could rape someone or leave them in a coma for life and yet face no consequences.
The justice minister repeatedly lied to the giver and yet when challenged said she couldn’t work out how to tell the truth so lied. And then the SNP and Greens have the cheek to claim to have confidence in her.
They’re trying to make Gender policies that threaten the safety of women.

Have they done ANYTHING good?

It’s just appalling. Reform will deport immigrants will they? Let them. Immigration is the least of our worries!

@Homephonea You have got to be kidding.

A pro-Putin, neo-con xenophobic party that is Reform in power!

My God.

@Homephonea At least the SNP didn't party on down whilst ordering the rest of us to stay put.

And it was a UK Tory PM who didn't care if our bodies piled thousands high. And the same adulterous wonder as PM who presided over PPE contracts on mates rates courtesy tax payer cash.

Tories are far worse.

im not sure it will be Boris Johnson who stands for the Scottish Tories in the next Holyrood election. I concede that maybe you know more than me though. The Tory MSPs are the only ones who have been absolutely resolute in banging the drum loud and clear for women’s rights in Scotland which stands them in good stead. I really cannot see why other parties don’t join them on the moral high ground here. Is showing their misogyny worth more to them? I’m a genuine floating voter - Labour, Tories or Lib Dem’s could get my vote - but the Lib Dem’s aren’t going to get it for their moon-howling statements about women having penises etc. so it’s down to the Tories or Labour. Ill decide later as the election draws near.

The SNP ministers absolutely were partying and nipping off to their holiday cottages whilst the bodies piled high in nursing homes where they sent elderly with Covid, and they set up dodgy PPE contracts with their mates. All the while ignoring evidence in an effort to be different to England. Were you taken in by Nicola’s daily party political broadcasts?

@BrokenSunflowers That did not come out in the recent Covid Court cases.

Have you fresh evidence? Names? Dates?

Some facts.

When Norway with <3m pop. first achieved independence they had not discovered oil or gas yet thrived courtesy of other natural resources incl. exporting hydro-power.

Finland, Sweden & Denmark similarly where isolated geography & coastline encouraged the use of natural resources on industrial scales.

Scotland owns 90% of the UK's fresh water.

Scotland produces 113% of renewable energy ie it is a nett exporter to the UK & further afield.

Scotland owns 6 times the waterspace of the rUK courtesy of her myriad islands.

Stop Barnett but charge rUK sufficient to make up for that loss for water, hydro & wind power, timber and of course oil & gas.

Charge rUK rent for Faslane.

And all revenue to remain in Scotland ie VAT; Divi & Savings taxes; personal tax.

Take a leaf out of Ireland's book & copy their corporate taxation structures.

An independent Scotland is not impossible - just not popular with everyone, I ken that. But not impossible.

You mean the inquiries where they government had deleted all the WhatsApp messages as evidence?

@Homephonea The SNP absolutely are incredibly - stupid? (not strong enough adjective) over contemporary gender issues. And I really do shake my head at their cash issues too - the campervan; Sturgeon's ex & his fingers in the pie.

There is also the case of that stupid SNP MP travelling on the train during Covid.

I would prefer a fairer UK where no one nation, no matter how big can foist unpopular governments on the rest of the UK. Eg Thatcher; Johnson; Farage?

And it need not be the SNP that delivers independence, either.

PS I voted No in 2014. My dream is a more federal UK with maxDevo for all the Nations.

*maxDevo = Borrowing; keeping VAT etc.

Yes.

Who deleted them? Do you know specifically that you could name?

But absolutely yes, a very bad thing to do.

Not as bad as wanting thousands of us to die to protect the economy. I personally value my family above any economy though apparently the Conservative Party did not. Do not.

Charge rUK rent for Faslane.
Scotland's part of the UK and it surely provides a fair number of jobs - Scotland needs jobs.

'Stop Barnett but charge rUK sufficient to make up for that loss for water, hydro & wind power, timber and of course oil & gas.' Unfortunately there are hills etc in the way of piping more water to England.
We are industrialising our countryside and producing wind power but I don't think it compares to what was produced in coal and gas fired power stations. When you drove south through England you'd see maybe 3-4 major power stations. How many hundreds of thousands of wind turbines have we now which still nowhere near matches that output.

MPs bluff away with their Green jobs - there are hundreds of wind turbines where I live - no jobs except for the plant hire companies who make millions ploughing up the heather making wide roads across the hills to transfer the chinese made turbines for foreign owned companies .

I agree the SNP’s record in office has been abysmal, but can anyone here actually tell me that Reform as going to improve education in Scotland? Or invest in infrastructure? Or take any steps towards disarming Faslane? No! They are just here to create divides and fear! Their regime would be punitive, not some halcyon future.

I don’t support the SNP, but they are not the threat at this election! Reform are!

Is everyone on this thread Scottish. If we are heading for a uk government under reform, I would vote for an independent Scotland. I voted no last time.

Why the hell would anyone want to disarm Faslane???

What really annoys me about the SNP is that the average IQ of the party is clearly below the average IQ of the nation. There are plenty of really clever people in this country. How do we end up being run by such idiots? How does that happen? Jenny Gilruth, Shona Robinson, Neil McKay. Deeply unimpressive people who dont know how to look anyone in the eye and have an intelligent conversations, and don’t know how to get anything done. The justice secretary is such an embarrassment. These are supposed to be serious people doing serious jobs. And they’re idiots. They’re like kids playing dressing up.

I’m sure Reform said it is going to bring back permanently excluding violent children from mainstream schools in Scotland. A small step that would make a VAST difference to Scottish schools. One that the current incumbent could do herself and would gain her a huge amount of kudos, but that would take effort and she can’t be arsed protecting our children from kids who like to throw chairs around classrooms, physically attack both hold and teachers and generally traumatising people.

I’m not wanting to vote Reform or any other political party, but when they seem to be bringing forward policies that address serious issues that have been totally unaddressed by the current incumbents for SO LONG they’re going to turn heads.

‘Facts’. If Scotland stopped the Barnett formula and simply kept all the taxes they raised, then the country would be MASSIVELY poorer. Immediately.

Having all that coastline and freshwater is totally meaningless if there is no cost effective means of using or exploiting those resources. Contrary to what many Indy supporters think, England is not using Scottish water in any way currently. You cannot sell water to England when there are no means to transport it.

rUK wouldn’t pay a high rent to Faslane, when if could set up a new base elsewhere.

Renewables cannot be the answer to energy without nuclear providing back up power. So the SNP are predictably against nuclear.

It seems like you have read one of those ‘Believe in Scotland’ posters about resources without thinking about how these resources can be used to generate an income for Scotland. If they could, Believe in Scotland would have explained how having 91% of the UK’s freshwater resources is going to make us rich, but they don’t.

I'll just remind you of this breach:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-62589375

The senior Greens were also caught breaking Covid rules:

https://news.stv.tv/politics/scottish-greens-apologise-over-pub-breach-of-covid-rules?top

Unfortunately this is what’s going to let the SNP in again. People need to stop voting for the minority outliers

Permanent exclusion without alternative pathways is meaningless.

1. teachers won’t do it. Teachers actually want their pupils to achieve and do well. We are trained to see the best in everyone. I say this as a teacher who spent 7 months being beaten black and blue. I still cared for that child and until the final month wanted to make it work for them. I would have continued to oppose it if there hadn’t been an alternative pathway in place.
2. it just pushes the problem down the line. Children behaving this way will become absolute menaces to society without proper intervention.

Reform will not spend your tax money solving this. They may exclude children but they won’t support them afterwards. Don’t kid yourself. What laws are going to have to change to allow for it? Are you prepared to lose the other protections those laws afford to society? I’m not.

Your tax money will go towards deportations and campaigns to alienate the next group of people they decide they don’t like. What’s left will be divided up on government contracts to their friends to privatise public services and make them worse.

I'm really not convinced that permanent exclusion is a bad thing when considering the school population overall. It must be virtually impossible to tell if it makes any difference to the longterm employment/criminal justice outcomes for the excluded child - their behaviour must have been already at a dangerous or persistently disruptive level for them to be excluded. Removing them from a school has clear benefits to the children and staff who remain. On average I suspect the pro/con analysis would be in favour of using exclusions more. You could try and compare crime committed by young people in England (exclusions happen) vs Scotland (no exclusions) but the very weak application of criminal consequences to young people in Scotland will skew the figures. There are reports of increasing levels of serious violent crimes committed by children in Scotland -

https://theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2025/06/children-involved-in-thousands-of-violent-crimes/

Personally I think excluding a small number of disruptive children is worth it to benefit the education and mental health of the majority.

Unenviable choices there - choosing between reform and the snp seeing us through Indy and beyond….the reform vote in Scotland unlikely to be negligible…

On exclusions - a severely disruptive child is already being failed in their setting, as well as impacting other children. Excluding them at least ends the pretence mainstream is working.

I really don’t care about what happens to children excluded from school. They only exclude children who the school can do no more with. The majority of children go to school wanting to learn, and their education and mental health is being systematically destroyed by these violent thugs. Do you not care about them?

Increase the prison spaces.