I'm voting NO. 

There was a thread about it, but it got rather heated.

It's an issue which inspires great passion and emotion on both sides.

 

Should I get a mod to delete the thread then Yogi?

 

Hi by the way.

I think it's better left tbh. Things may be said that shouldn't be said. Ppl rightly feel very passionate about it.

No, not at all.

 

As I said before, and I'll say it again because I liked it, until someone gives a credible reason for independence, and then can explain how it would occur.............

I've no idea.

 Spot on.

I don't want Scotland to go  but wouldn't blame them if they did.

 

 

 

 

Scares the crap out of me, donks... and what really scares me is the amount of young ones I've seen on Facebook saying 'i don't know how to vote.. I don't understand...' and they're pounced on by raving indy people.. I've a niece who had no idea what to think and posted it on FB.. two days later she's posting links to Indy propaganda.   Scary shit.

Me too Rog 

Oh fippin eck! 

Ruling yourself ain't all that. Look what's happened to Ireland. 

I'm only half joking  

 

The tricky bit is having a government that isn't as corrupt as hell and lines its own pockets. Good luck 

I give you 2 questions:

 

1) Can anyone say for certain what life will be like in 5 years under a Westminster government?

 

2) Can anyone say for certain what life will be like in 5 years under a stand-alone Scottish government?

 

To me the answer to both questions is quite emphatically NO!

 

So what's so scary about one over the other?

Have you read Kaff's post though Fluffs? 

Where it's always come from - the Scottish tax payer. We'll just get to keep it all for ourselves and not have to give a big chunk of it to Westminster!

 

 

 

So, I'm guessing you're going with the 'Yes' vote then? 

The Scottish tax payer !! we get to keep it all to ourselves!!

WE ARE SUBSIDISED. It's the opposite way about  

 

Scotland has a population of 5million 327,700

2.5 million are tax payers

Current income for Scotland is 53 billion

Current expenditure is 65 billion this equates to £1200 per head subsidy from the Barnett formula!!! 

The result of independence over the next 5 years will be

No ship building  as the Royal Navy do not buy ships from foreign countries

We will have to finance in full our own Army/Navy/Air force/ Custom and excise/Benefit agency/ Road Tax/Income Tax to name just a few.

As for cross border health care ...that will no longer apply .

As for fiscal policy Salmond cannot give us an answer what our currency will be .

We will also be out of Europe and will have to reapply ...with  no credit rating.

 

No we're not subsidised. Scotland puts more into the UK coffers than it gets out. Has been doing for years!

I wish I was home in Scotland for the vote, and Yes, I would be voting yes. My father spent almost 30 yrs in the British forces, I was educated in forces schools and spent a good amount of my childhood/adolescence/early adulthood abroad. Having witnessed first hand the workings of smaller countries I would love to see Scotland go it alone. Yes it may be scary, but what an exciting time to watch our country come into it's own. Not many countries get the opportunity we are being offered without having to spill blood for it. If the politicians would stop slinging mud at each other we might get a better plan in motion.  Many of the questions can't be answered in truth until we know for sure where we're all going to stand ie: currency, health care. It wont be good over night, it will take a lot of working out. I would love to move home to be a part of it I can understand Labour wanting us to stay part of the union, without us, they will find it hard to get into power, yet most times Scotland gets a parliament in Westminster they never voted for. I can only believe policies made in our own country for our own people has to be better than that. I know I'm in a minority but my heart would just swell with pride if this really happened in my life time..... I do, however, doubt it will happen. 

Bullshit ...bless

Erin, the Royal Navy have very few harbours deep enough to build the kind of ships they will need south of the border. Portsmouth and Plymouth have to be dredged constantly to keep them flowing. Nato would deal with Scotland, they would have to, we are the natural place for NATO to have a base for the North Atlantic. I read today somewhere that if Scotland does as they say and tell England to remove the nuclear submarine base from Faslane, Portsmouth has already said they don't want it, water isn't deep enough and they don't want it so near to a populated area....yet we had little say in it being placed less than 30 miles from our largest city. Doesn't seem right, somehow.

Bethni they will not buy of a foreign country, so ship building here in Scotland would cease.

As for Faslane they will be kicked out along with 6 thousand 700 jobs . 

As for Nato I don't understand what you mean ,they don't buy ships .

Goodnight..have a good one   

I was meaning NATO wanting a base in Scotland, Erin. As far back as the 70's and 80's NATO had said they would be relying heavily on Scotland, we're most naturally strategically placed for protecting and policing the North Atlantic, granted it was possibly more important during the cold war but the threats are still there. There is very little shipbuilding left anywhere in the British Isles... Clydebank is very nice area but not exactly the ship building magnet it once was.  

There's no dredging being done at Millbay Docks and Sutton Harbour. Where are they dredging?

As I've said, NO-ONE bar no-one, can give any clear and precise details of how things will be under either of the outcomes. Is our present Westminster based, London dominated. government so wonderful that we want to shackle our children and grandchildren to a government that doesn't really care?

If Scotland says NO in the referendum, Westminster will claim that we WANT to be ruled by them and that we have given them a mandate to do what they like (ruin/dismantle) to all our institutions - and they will!

I read it on a sheet only the other day, Cologne, I'll hunt it up and get back to you. My dad was stationed in Portsmouth and Plymouth way back, I remember him moaning over the dinner table about them having to dredge to make it safe for the subs and larger Naval ships, I didn't pay much attention then but when the Americans were based up at Dunoon  I remember him starting off on one again. It's closed now, i know. My dad was 6yrs Navy, 1yr Army just before that and then over 25 years in the RAF. He always vowed that if he'd had his time over or if one of his sons wanted to join up he would discourage it with all his might. They, of course, didn't listen and even his grandchildren followed him into the services. I'll look up those things mentioned in the morning and get back to you thou, promise  

I think a no vote would probably be beneficial for many, as promises have already been made to the Scots about more and more devolution of powers,Wales won't sit idly by and  allow that without having more devolved powers themselves,then N.I. will be looking  for more autonomy too, so that leaves the English pretty much no where, I think that this will lead to a desire by the English to regain a national identity, and  calls for a more federal type government.I think everyone is agreed that the current government operates in a London  and South East bubble,and has done for decades,the sooner that is addressed the better.

If Scotland votes yes, there will be masses of legislation to follow, I'm thinking it will be like a divorce, who gets the dog?

 

We will have to decide not only about fiscal matters and defence matters but also cultural ones.Who owns what in the national galleries,for example, we will have to have a new flag, without the cross of St.Andrew on it.There is the currency issue,land issues,fiscal issues, border issues, it really is endless, government will be negotiating deals for the foreseeable future.

Wasn't it a Scottish King, a Stuart, who melded the two nations together in the first place? and yet all many Scots have done for  centuries is moan and complain about it, claimed the victim role and told  the English they are bullies, booed our football team, become MP's in Westminster,so many Scots there, voted on English and Scots matters, but wail if it is ever suggested that English MP's should have any say in Scottish matters..

 

The anti Scots brigade is growing in England,'if they want to go, then let them bugger off' as some one put it to me.

this is the attitude that scares me, J.. because whilst I know a lot of pro independence voters aren't anti-English I fear the number of uniformed (sorry.. but it's especially young people in my experience) England haters are voting, as Donks said, with their hearts rather than their heads.   The Scottish equivalent of the stereotypical skinhead with bulldog English yob..   

 

and Fluffs.. you say nobody can say what will happen either way, but you seem to have a cast iron guarantee that we'll be 'punished' for dissent and they'll take away our powers to govern our own NHS and then dismantle the system.    A bit contradictory....?

I have heard no evidence along these lines.

As I said no-one has come up with a reason "why" No-one knows "how"

People don't even know what questions to ask. No-one knows how it would affect either country.

Call me an old fashioned silly ex-Marxist but I always thought the modernistic approach was to unite and find things that connect us all.

A particular favourite piece of history was how Otto von, by deception dragged together a bunch of principalities and tin-pot regimes into the modern 1870ish powerhouse we now call Germany. I know it's the wrong sort of politician saying "We're better together!" but I really believe that.

It goes without saying that I have zero tolerance for nationalists, be they SNP, BNP, UKIP, or EDL.

I thank you.

I think another problem is that the time table in the event of a yes vote, seems ridiculously short, some thing like half way through the next parliament.the idea that the problem is getting the vote result you want, whichever side you are on, will cease to be a problem then, is pretty daft.The incumbent goverment, will be  a lame dog one, because it will have to be disolved part way through  if it's a yes, and then we have to have an election, without the Scots being involved, all their MP's currently in Westminster will have to go home.

 

The 'well bugger off them' brigade are probably much the same as the ones Kaffs mentions GJ,I've heard it myself, as I said the time table regardless of the result is plain daft, no one has enough information, either way.

I'm firmly in the better together camp as well,GJ, I was just giving a view of the other side.

 

 

Call me naive, but I agree.

Can you believe that voters are being asked to vote Yes ...but they can't tell you what voting yes will mean lol.

Never have I cast a vote not knowing what I am voting for!!!

I'm off  I hope and pray we win at the ballot box and remain united .

From a Welsh point a view, we love our Celtic cousins and PLEASE don't leave us on our own with the English