Posted on 09/06/2014 1:59:54 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
Taken from another site:
‘Democracy
I only got half way down the first page of the summary in ‘Scotland’s Future’ when I found the first flaw of many in this ‘guide’. ‘The people of Scotland will always get the governments we vote for’ it is claimed. However, this claim is made by a political party who found itself in power after the 2011 Scottish Parliamentary Elections with 45.4% of the constituency vote and 44.7% in the regional vote. This is obviously not a majority with a majority voting AGAINST the SNP in both constituency and regional votes. The majority of Scottish people therefore did NOT get the government they voted for and we are now being subjected to a referendum from a government with a minority support. ‘We can decide how we use our wealth to benefit all the people in our society’ which sounds great to read quickly but to look closer, is it likely wealth will benefit ALL in our society? So far, the SNP has been accused of favouring areas and cities of Scotland over other areas with accumulation around bigger cities, especially Edinburgh. Can they really promise us that without delivering so far? At the moment as part of the United Kingdom, a common nationalist moan is that power is centralised to Westminster which is too far from Scotland this is despite having 59 seats in Westminster out of a possible 650 seats. Scotland makes up just over 8% of the UK population and we therefore have 7 more MPS than we should have proportional to our population. That is 13% more representation than we should have. In the event of independence, power would be centralised to Edinburgh where the current Scottish Parliament is located which would still be out of touch with highland and island life in Scotland. What about local government I hear you say? Well, the SNP have cut local government jobs by 34,000 and has taken power from local government. The much acclaimed council tax freeze has taken power from local government hands. Think about it, the Scottish government implements a council tax freeze therefore as prices for increase each year, local government can’t put up council tax as it is out of their hands so they either need to increase the cost of other services or cut services to make up the difference.
European Union and NATO
It is assumed that Scotland will automatically become the 29th member of the European Union which is categorically untrue as pointed out by the President of the European Commission who stated that we would need to apply for membership. It is actually ironic for Yes Scotland to want to be a member of the European Union...what happened to Scottish independence?! Anyway, let us consider this ironic idea for a moment. For Scotland to be included into the EU as a full member, it requires us, firstly, to accept the Euro, this has happened to Croatia who joined the EU last year and has to take on the Euro this year. The Yes campaign is not prepared to accept this term. They believe they can be full members of the EU and continue to use the Pound Sterling. The second condition is that Scotland would need to be accepted by ALL current 28 member states in the EU. This is VERY unlikely to happen, especially with the position of Spain and the nationalists in Catalan. If Spain was to okay Scotland’s membership this would give their Catalonian nationalists a chance to divide Spain, as they too would be able to seek full EU membership. The Spanish PM has said he will vote against Scottish EU membership. As part of the UK, which is part of the ‘big three’ countries in the European Union, Scotland is able to reject pressure to join the Euro currency and to give in to other EU demands. Are the SNP and Yes Scotland deluding themselves into thinking that everything we ask for will be done with no questions asked and that we would be listened to as much as the UK ?
Britain is a key player in important and vital organisations such as the G8, NATO, G7, G20, commonwealth and top table at the UN. Britain benefits from being one of five nations at the UN Security Council. This is really vital in discussing world issues like Syria and trying to act on things, essentially leading the way in global discussions and developments. There is a lot of doubt as to whether Scotland would get membership in NATO. With doubts about whether countries with nationalist movements would let Scotland re-apply for membership, the same argument being similar to that of EU membership. Greece rejected Macedonia’s entrance into NATO in2007/2008 on grounds of the Greeks not particularly liking the Macedonian’s. NATO is still important today, with common use of weapons, warships, etc. This has been seen as effective in preventing Russia from taking over Ukraine with regular NATO flights commanding the airspace above Ukraine. Security wise Scotland would be protected by the Scottish Defence Force which would be small in comparison to what we are protected by just now by the UK and NATO, leaving us more vulnerable and open to threats. I believe you have to have credible deterrents to deter other countries.
SecurityObviously in the event of independence the British RAF, Navy and Army would move south. As too would the Trident nuclear weapons at Faslane. These bases are large employers with Scottish industries relying on these for contracts and to provide services. I think people underestimate how many businesses rely on MOD work. Faslane being a mini town, needs all kinds of services and contractors to carry out work. From building, to catering and hospitality. 5000 shipyard jobs depend on Royal Navy contracts in Scotland in building warships and aircraft carriers, like the one which has been recently launched at Rosyth.
Currency and economics
I was recently at a Scottish Government organised Q&A with Nicola Sturgeon whom I asked about currency. I challenged her about keeping the Pound Sterling, which she said would happen. All of the pro-Union parties have said they will reject this as they would need to agree to a currency union which they would reject. She didn’t deny this. I then asked what Plan B was. Her answer was that she had already stated the other currency options, which she had not. Pushed further she said Scotland would have its own currency. This would be without the backing and safety of the Bank of England with a multi billion pound bailout of RBS in 2007. Say we were to keep the Pound in a currency union, well that would continue to be controlled by the Bank of England with interest rates and borrowing going through them and ONLY them with no say from anyone in Scotland. This is laughable considering Yes Scotland want independence but in fact we would be DEPENDENT on England. If then, we joined the Euro, well that brings its own problems and worries. See the crash in Ireland for details.You may have heard the country of Panama being brought up recently in the televised debates. Panama uses the US Dollar without consent. If an independent Scotland decided to use the pound sterling without the consent of the rest of the United Kingdom this would be called ‘sterlingisation.’ Alex Salmond has heavily hinted that this is Plan B but has not confirmed that so we can only guess that this is what would happen. This is despite the SNP’s own fiscal commission ruling this out as an option. Sterlingisation would mean we have no central bank which means no-one to bolster pensions, saving or businesses. There would be no lender of last resort to protect individuals’ savings and mortgages. It would also threaten the success of our financial services industry and the 200,000 jobs it supports. However, being part of the UK and using the UK Pound means cheaper car loans, lower mortgage repayments and cheaper credit card bills for Scots. Why would we want to trade that for the risk and uncertainty of independence?
Remember that not long ago Alex Salmond, the main man advocating independence and keeping the UK Pound, said that sterling was “sinking like a stone” and a “millstone round Scotland’s neck”, advocating we join the Euro instead (which has now been ruled out). Alex Salmond must be delusional to think that we will believe anything more he says. He has changed from wanting:1. The Euro (until that crashed miserably), 2. To criticising the UK Pound,3. To where we are now wanting to use the Pound anyway despite causing a lot of uncertainty and risk to us all. Will this man and his followers in their desperation go to any lengths to get their “Holy Grail” of independence?
200,000 jobs in Scotland are dependent on companies which are based in England, like that of Standard Life who have rejected Independence. 9 out of 10 of their customers are based in the rest of the UK, a no brainer that they’d move south in the event of independence.
Oil and gas
The oil and gas forecasts are unpredictable, with the OBR rejecting the Yes campaign’s predicted income from it, being such an unpredictable source. Both the Scottish government and the UK government have made mistakes predicting oil revenue with the cost always being over-estimated so it would be careless to base the country’s future on a source that is increasingly unpredictable. Sir Ian Wood, world renowned for his expertise and knowledge of the North Sea oil fields, has recently rejected Yes Scotland’s calculations for projected oil revenue, stating that it has been grossly overestimated by 45-60% and that Scotland’s accessible oil reserves will be seriously depleted in just fifteen years time. The year Yes Scotland wish to have independence by 2016/2017, the forecasts are £2.5bn revenue from oil and gas which is impressive to me anyway. When you look at what we spend that £2.5bn it is a drop in the ocean with our basic annual expenditure being £40bn to start with on things like the NHS, Education and transport, this is not including everything else the Scottish government is responsible for. If Scotland was to become independent there is the immediate assumption that we would have all the oil to ourselves. This is categorically untrue and misleading. The oil does not belong to us but the oil and gas companies who extract it like BP and Shell. The figures for oil revenue come from the tax income from it not from owning the oilfields in their entirety.
Education
What a lot of young people and parents of young people in school just now are justly worried about are university and college, places and costs. Education is a devolved power and so cannot be touched by Westminster. Yes Scotland like to try to fool us into thinking that because tuition fees were implemented in England we somehow need independence to stop tuition fees coming to Scotland. If tuition fees were to be introduced in Scotland this would be introduced by the Scottish Parliament and would NOT be the decision of Westminster. Under the SNP the college budget has been cut by £34m with 1000 less teaching posts and 140,000 less students including those who are disadvantaged. Yes Scotland love to gloat that tuition fees are free in Scotland which is untrue for a lot of students who have to pay their fees to finish their courses like I will have to or for part time courses or those returning to education. Researchers who promote Scottish research and universities say that an independent Scotland would mean Scotland would miss out on funding, the likes of which the wealth of the UK can only provide , such as research labs in Dundee. We get a disproportionate amount of UK Research Council funding which means we get more out than we put in. Many professors have spoken out over the past few months, writing into a national newspaper about their concerns that this could really set back funding in Scotland for tackling diseases like MND and cancer, to name but two.
Health
Health is a devolved power in Scotland which means that Westminster CANNOT touch it. Recent scare stories by the SNP and Yes Scotland suggest that the Scottish NHS will be privatised which is in complete contrast to what is written in ‘Scotland’s Future’ which THEY published which says ‘The Scottish Parliament has the power to keep the NHS in public hands...’ So why the scaremongering and lying now? Well, it’s all to get your vote I’m afraid. Since we are on the subject of health I’d like to bring up the SNP’s record in dealing with the NHS. The BBC investigated the SNP’s health policies and found that ‘People are waiting too long in accident and emergency departments, too long for specialist treatment, and too long to be discharged.’ Do they think that we will suddenly trust them to deliver an effective health service in an independent Scotland despite their tenure in government and all that they haven’t achieved in the NHS? Scotland receives around £200 a year per head more in health spending than the rest of the UK. With severe cuts or tax rises necessary if we were to separate, our hospitals, nurses and doctors would be placed under significant pressure.’
Want a bet on that? You think the north of England will want to stay with r UK? I had a great time with the boys of York and Leeds today who saidgo for it. York and Leeds iisnt even the north of England, London and the south east is sucking the life out of the country.
Don’t count on it. One of the key driving forces behind the ‘yes’ vote is a paranoid fear amongst the left-leaning Scots that UKIP will gain influence and take the UK out of the EU. The Scots on the whole love the EU. Yessers want to take Scotland out of a successful union, yet shackle it to a dysfunctional and anti-democratic one.
Successful union you’re having a laugh. Are you posting from daddy’s from schooner?
The three main parties have basically promised devo-max due to the polls, and they will have to keep this promise because of the obvious strength of feeling about the current arrangement north of the border. Britain is on its way to becoming a federal union, not just with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but also with the English Regions. Scotland can either join this and be proud of itself for once again being the driving force behind a British achievement for the benefit of the whole of the UK, or it can go ahead by crossing that line and putting itself outside of Britain forever, and simply have to live with the consequences of decisions made in London without their input that will govern Scotland’s monetary, trade and immigration policies. I would advise that you seriously consider what you really want for Scotland. Self-Governance with a seat at the table of power, or faux-independence under the domination of your leviathan neighbour that no longer has to consider the effects of its policies on the Scottish electorate.
Mitch, I live in the North of England, and although people here might grumble about London and ‘bloody southerners’ occasionally, the idea that we would seriously consider secession from the UK or the rest of England is laughable.
The Scots I met on my various trips seemed to want a very real free Scotland. I understand wanting to be independent, I don’t understand joining the EU, which is a rather restrictive entity.
Be free Scotland, don’t shackle yourself to an even more oppressive master than the one you plan to leave.
My hope is that once they feel ownership, true nationalism will occur. For now, they might be following along with the socialists ... but that’s for this vote. Doesn’t mean that an independent Scotland will continue on that path.
Promising devo- max! They took that off the table now it looks like they are losing we are getting promised everything. To little to late.
They will have to follow through on that promise. If they don’t, Salmond & co will be back, and the yes vote will be unassailable. I understand that if it wasn’t for the threat of secession being credible this wouldn’t have happened, but it has happened, and now is the time to step back before Scotland takes a step that will lead to anger, bitterness and division between people throughout the UK and amongst the Scots themselves. Devo-Max is the best option for all to allow for a more positive unity, where everybody has gained what they wanted. Scottish self-rule yet remaining British.
Scotland leaving the Union will make the world a more dangerous place. America’s most important ally will be diminished, to the joy of our mutual enemies. Our armed forces will be divided and less powerful, our nuclear deterrent under threat, and Scotland will NOT be the steadfast ally of the US that the UK is. Anti-Americanism is a more powerful force in Scotland than it is in England.
With Obamateur at the helm, do you really think that a weaker UK is a good idea at this point?
Who knows. Anyway bud running out of battery life on the train, going out the town in Edinburgh to spend my english pounds if the pubs except them. Next raid is 2nd November at Carlisle, come along I’ll buy you a pint. Be independent by then :)
That last post was meant for you. Forget the pint it will be whisky.
I wish they wouldn’t break up the union (for the reasons you mention... I do think they are valid). But I also value the right of people to separate from political entities they no longer wish to be part of.
As far as anti-Americanism goes, It’s been 6 years since I was in Scotland. Unless things have changes, anti-Americanism is limited. The worst I heard were bad jokes about us. Had a great time there on all my trips and never once felt unwelcome (except the time I got bit on the shoulder but I think that might have been a show of affection).
Granted, how people treat individuals is different than how nations deal with other nations. But I still believe that the Scots have enough ties to the USA that we’d get along just fine.
Personally, I hope for Devo-Max, the Scots get control over everything except foreign and defence policy. The UK has many burdens that require it to have a strong military, particularly a navy, and it is of course well known that Scots provide some of the best in the British army.
If the Falklands were to happen again, would the UK have to fight alone, minus the Scots? The Irish already have a policy of strict neutrality, which basically means they freeload off the security provided by their neighbours. The UK will be struggling to shoulder the burdens protecting this country and the civilised world from what it is plain to see is an increasingly dangerous world. Scotland, for its part, will lose the powerful and influential soft power excercised by the Foreign office, which according to reports I have seen, is second only to the US in influence on the world stage. Independence would be a tragedy for Scotland, and would make life more difficult for us. We would see a diminished UK, and a Scotland that counted for nothing.
If Scotland leaves the union and the Tories decided to pull out of the EU, do you think there will be a USA/UK economic union (beyond what we have now)? Canada/USA/UK have more in common than UK has with the EU. IMO at least.
Blown it again! A Scotland that counts for nothing! Nice, very nice.
Will rUK keep the seat on the UN security council? Will other nations not think that the boil on the arse of Scotland should not have it? Where are the nukes going to be based?
Sorry mate, but there is no way of sugar coating the fact that a country of 5 million instead of 65 million is not going to be a heavy hitter on the world stage. As part of the Union, Scotland has 200 embassies and consulates around the world working for its interests and promoting its products, including whisky, for which, incidently, Scotland’s largest distiller has come out against independence for this very reason.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-28183123
Scotland on its own will not have the resources to promote Scottish brands the way Britain does to promote British brands, including Scottish ones. Like I say, independence is cutting your nose off to spite your face.
I think Britain would rather have free trade agreements rather than formal economic unions like the EU, which acts more like a customs union than a genuine free trade area.
The EU is a government. Brussels is like their Washington DC. They have a President and a Parliament and courts and everything.
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