funk de fino
Dreaming of unicorns
It does not concern UK citizens as it is a Scottish Govt matter. Try again.
Referendum on Scottish Independence
- Thread starter commandlinegamer
- Start date
It does not concern UK citizens as it is a Scottish Govt matter. Try again.
richardm
Philosopher
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2001
- Messages
- 9,248
I don't think it is entirely irrelevant. To say "They are the largest party in the parliament" may be true, but it is, to my mind, implying that they are rampantly popular and showing the way the Scottish people are thinking en masse. Which I don't think a 1 seat majority really shows us.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into it.
funk de fino
Dreaming of unicorns
Wrong, wrong, wrong. It is not destruction of a country. It is the the return of a sovereign nation to self determination. We do not want to close the borders, kick out english, stop speaking or can the monarchy. Britain is not a country in my eyes. I am not British. I am Scottish. If the people of my country want to be independent then they should bloody well get to vote on it and the english run parties should have nothing to do with being able to stop us having that vote. It makes it even funnier when some of those that object also get their knickers in a twist about being governed by that dour Scot who was not even voted in to power and is from a Scottish constituency.
Case in point - No second class citizens? That'll be why Maggie Thatcher introduced the Poll tax in Scotland a year early then eh? All equal in her eyes. Under a Tory govt anyone outside the south of england automatically becomes a second class citizen.
Francesca R
Girl
Yeah. Take it to the UN. 
Yes it is - no matter how you try and spin it my country, and your country will end and in place of that will be two new countries.
This is romanticism - you do not want Scotland to "return" to what it was prior to the Union.
Denying reality doesn't alter the fact that the UK or call it Britain is a country by any commonly accepted definition.
You are British and you are also Scottish. I am British and I am also English.
I totally agree - yet you do not want this to happen.
How did that make you second class citizens? In her eyes (which granted were deluded) you were getting the "better" system first! Your argument is like claiming that people in central London were treated as second class citizens because they were the first to incur a congestion charge/tax.
Last edited:
funk de fino
Dreaming of unicorns
Except I was not implying they were anything I was stating a fact. They are the largest party who ran on an independence referendum ticket.
Polls show a majority of Scots want the referendum while they may not be a majority who want independence. If the polls are so damning to Salmonds aspirations then you have to ask yourself why the english run parties are so afraid to let him humiliate himself.
funk de fino
Dreaming of unicorns
My country already exists as a co-opted member of Great Britain. Scotland already exists. England already exists. You are incorrect.
BS. You have no idea. Your bias makes you think all nationalists are racist england haters by the sounds of it. I want a independent Scotland as part of the EU and an equal partner to England, Ireland and Wales. I would retain the Queen as head of state. There would be open borders between the two nations. It is my country.
So is Scotland. I am Scottish. I do not class myslef as British. Britain is not a country. UK is not a country.
You be whatever you want to be. Knock yourself out Britboy. I really do not care what you want to be. I would support English independence.
What are you havering about?
BS. It was not better for the poor and the Tories knew that. Stop making crap up.
Cleon
King of the Pod People
May I ask why? I'm genuinely curious; as a Yank, I find the idea of wanting to secede from the UK but retaining the Queen as being kind of weird. (But then, to me, wanting a royal head of state at all is rather foreign.)
funk de fino
Dreaming of unicorns
Why not? We have had Kings and Queens for centuries and shared them with England for years from James VI.
I would rather have a figurehead Queen than a Prime Minister from the Tories who had no mandate to govern my country.
I think the monarchy does a good job.
Again your denial of reality does not alter the facts - for a new country called "Scotland" to come into existence our country, the UK, will have to end.
My "bias"? What on earth?
I am assuming that you don't want Scotland to return to what is was prior to the Union so stating that you want it to "return" as you did is romanticism.
As I said your denial of reality does not alter the facts.
No idea what a "Britboy" is.
When will I, according to your plans, get to vote on the future of our country?
I am not "making crap up" - do you really think that the Tories didn't think the "poll tax" was a better system?
I must confess I do not understand why anyone would oppose a referendum on this issue: it was the platform the SNP ran on and they are the majority party. If they do not have a referendum they will have broken a crucial manifesto pledge and I cannot see how that is desirable in any way at all.
As to the idea that it will somehow abolish a country, that is very strange to me. The UK is just that: a union. It was not imposed by conquest and I can see no reason whatsoever to oppose secession if one of the parties to the treaty wishes to end it.
The union does not serve Scotland's interests IMO: if a person agrees with that proposition then it makes sense to vote for independence. If one disagrees then one can vote against. I see no romanticism in this. Nor do I see it has anything to do with anyone else.
As to the idea that it will somehow abolish a country, that is very strange to me. The UK is just that: a union. It was not imposed by conquest and I can see no reason whatsoever to oppose secession if one of the parties to the treaty wishes to end it.
The union does not serve Scotland's interests IMO: if a person agrees with that proposition then it makes sense to vote for independence. If one disagrees then one can vote against. I see no romanticism in this. Nor do I see it has anything to do with anyone else.
Francesca R
Girl
I can see a good reason to oppose (as illegitimate) a partial referendum. As for a UK-wide one, I suppose the general position is that the Brits are just not into them much--unlike the Swiss for example who have one every five minutes--so it seems more sensible that the burden of argument shifts to those who want one.
I agree.
Sorry but this is romanticism - you are talking about an act that created a new country/state/nation 300 years ago, the original "parties" to that agreement have long since died, and I don't just mean the principles, I mean the actual states that combined. (Granted the state that was created has gained and lost a few bits and pieces in those 300 years.)
Lets deal with what we actually have today. Which is a nation/state, the UK, in which all the citizenship has representation, that does still have constituent regions, some of which we still call "countries", and each of those regions retains some residue of their past "independence".
People who want Scottish independence, for whatever reason, want to create a country called Scotland that has never previously existed, in other words a new country and to do so they will have to end a country that has existed for 300 years.
Last edited:
No I am afraid it is you who is being romantic, Darat. There never was one country. I do understand that many people believe this, but since Scotland retained a separate legal system among many other differences I do not think it is sustainable to say there was ever "one country".
We have our share of unionists, who would make the argument you make: but I honestly do not think it is, or ever was, the majority view here. That is not for lack of trying to incorporate "north Britain" over the years: it just did not take. What is true is that it was not a very live issue when the countries had convergent politics: but they do not any longer and have not for a long time. Gradually it has been borne in on me that that is not a temporary blip, as has happened before: it is a deep divide and I do not know how it came about really. But that is the reality we "actually have today".
Scottish representation is frankly meaningless in this situation.
I will also say that your characterisation of Scotland as a "region" which is called a country is a big part of the problem: not because you are wrong from your perspective, but because you are wrong so far as many many scots are concerned. That kind of thinking annoys us because for many it is self evidently false and it comes across as frankly arrogant. It is the mindset which ignores scotland's interests (and incidentally those of Wales and the North of England and the west country). Britain acts as a strongly centralised state with little or no regional autonomy: if that were not so then perhaps the convergence you fondly imagine would have actually happened: but it didn't. Again it is you who is romantic, Darat, and I think it is you who does not understand the reality.
Cynic
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2009
- Messages
- 1,329
This must be mostly a matter of perspective though. The situation seems analogus to America's states, which have their own govenments and rules and courts -- where not superceded for various reasons by the federal government. The difference, I suppose, is that we don't have a state that could be considered "primary" in any way as Britain might be seen (or see itself) in this case. While the US is nominally ruled from Washington, DC, DC isn't a state, per se. So in America, the division of the land into such semi-autonomous regions not only doesn't prevent people from seeing America as one country, that arrangement fosters that view.
I'm surprised to hear that the UK doesn't see things in a similar light, with each region regarded as we regard states. Scotland's history and the nature of it's "act of union" might be more important than we suspect.
Undesired Walrus
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2007
- Messages
- 11,691
They don't. Nor do they want a vote.
In your view is the UK a country? If it isn't how does it fail the test for being considered a country?
Why? It is accurate - it is also how I would describe England in terms of the country we both live in today (or Wales and so on).
How is it arrogant?
How am I being romantic - all the international courts, international organisations such as the UN and so on recognise that the UK is a country, are they being "romantic" as well?
However it is romanticism to make claims that call back to a state that has not existed for 300 years ago as a bases for a "return to self-determination", especially when what you want is certainly not a return to the country Scotland was prior to the act of union.
I am also a strong supporter of a more federated UK, and I have long thought that the UK has, for much too long, been too centralised on a small part of the south east of just one its regions.
Last edited:
Rolfe
Adult human female
I've had this argument with Darat before. I agree with Fiona, but there's no point in re-hashing old ground. We disagree, and I've given up trying to explain to him why he's wrong.
I'm not a fan, I have to say, but I see your point about the utility of a powerless figurehead as a head of state. (On the other hand, I think it's pretty rough on whoever gets landed with the job - the present Queen has been by and large exemplary, but what a waste of a life! And what do you do if the incumbent is a trouble-maker, or mentally deranged? Come to that, what about Chuck and the homoeopathy stuff?)
Oh, and I wouldn't hold up Jamie the Saxt as an example of anything - he was the main cause of Scotland being sold down the river in the 17th century.
I just see it as a pointless distraction. Let's achieve independence, and then decide what we want to do with the monarchy. I've got no time for people like Ian Bell who insist that although they strongly desire independence they won't vote for it unless the terms are exactly as they wish - republicanism in his case.
First things first.
Rolfe.
I'm not a fan, I have to say, but I see your point about the utility of a powerless figurehead as a head of state. (On the other hand, I think it's pretty rough on whoever gets landed with the job - the present Queen has been by and large exemplary, but what a waste of a life! And what do you do if the incumbent is a trouble-maker, or mentally deranged? Come to that, what about Chuck and the homoeopathy stuff?)
Oh, and I wouldn't hold up Jamie the Saxt as an example of anything - he was the main cause of Scotland being sold down the river in the 17th century.
I just see it as a pointless distraction. Let's achieve independence, and then decide what we want to do with the monarchy. I've got no time for people like Ian Bell who insist that although they strongly desire independence they won't vote for it unless the terms are exactly as they wish - republicanism in his case.
First things first.
Rolfe.
And I keep hoping you will realise the errors in your views, but then I am an optimist at heart!
That doesn't seem daft to me - if you asked me "Do you want X", I'd want to know what "X" is before making my mind up. Is the SNPs intent merely to ask "Do you want an independent Scotland?" and not let the Scottish people know what they are actually voting for?
Undesired Walrus
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2007
- Messages
- 11,691
Then you would still be a British subject.