I think the bottom line is even simpler. The Scots want their country back from the English.
Sure, there are any number of scoundrels who want to grab hold of it for themselves, but that is always the case. Once Scotland is “its own man”, then the real democratic fighting can begin.
Do not underestimate the power of “feeling owned” that the Scots have had since about the beginning of the 18th Century.
“Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with England on 1 May 1707 to create a single Kingdom of Great Britain. This union resulted from the Treaty of Union agreed in 1706 and enacted by the twin Acts of Union passed by the Parliaments of both countries, despite popular opposition and anti-union riots in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and elsewhere.”
I can appreciate the land of my father’s wanting to be free, but if they are going to be free and not enter into another type of enslavement, they are going to have to go back to their Presbyterian roots.
Feeling owned? Scotland has been in the driving seat frequently and has been more influential than its population size would suggest. Our last two Prime Ministers were Scottish and our current one is plainly of Scottish descent.
If the Scots do this they will end up a teeny tiny backwater overshadowed by a much more powerful and jilted neighbour. They will never again have the opportunity to have a voice that influences world events.
If the Scots want their independence so much, and I don’t doubt that they do, then, why do they want to join the EU afterwards? They are just exchanging one master for another. I guess they hate the English so much that the yoke of an EU master seems lighter by comparison.
...feeling owned...
Ever since the foundation of the United Kingdom, it's been jointly 'owned' by its partner countries. England does not, and never has 'owned' Scotland. Scotland is not, and never has been a colony. The Union is just that - a voluntary partnership of equals. It's not the result of invasion, defeat, occupation, subjugation or colonisation. Although the rhetoric of the more excitable Scotnats (aided and abetted by Hollywood myth-making) might do its best to convince you otherwise.
The Scots did not become a colony in 1707 (though they had been an English colony in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries). This "Scotland is an English colony" line is nonsense.
True, England was the engine and catalyst of the Union and enthusiastically identified with "Great Britain" to the point of losing its own identity. And also true, the English majority in Westminster meant that Scotland could always be outvoted. But its union with England never made it a colony (like Wales and Ireland).
Since devolution the situation is reversed. Now Scots get to vote on English issues in addition to their own. If Scotland has its own parliament, so should England. True, both situations were unfair (first to Scotland, now to England). And as I understand it, the common people of England were as against the Union as were the Scots.
Don't misunderstand; I'm all for Scottish independence because that will mean English independence and the end of England's submersion into "Great Britain." My beef is not with Scottish independence per se but its left wing nature and its apologists on Free Republic who seem to think that the Scots are the Holy Chosen People Of Good Old American Individualism.
Why don't you Celtolators visit the web sites of your beloved Celtic nationalist organizations and see how pro-Communist and anti-American they are???
Just because you feel something dosent make it correct.