Can of worms: Scottish Independence

[MrBehemoth]

Oh, and side question: UK is part of EU. If Scotland breaks off the UK, will it also be out of the EU? I'm guessing so.

By default, Scotland will be out of the EU and have to apply to join, I think. No guarantees. I find that concerning, but I think the majority of voters don't care or they see it as a plus.

On the other hand, Scotland is in a very bad state today.

This may be true, but the austerity measures implemented to counter the international recession hit the whole UK hard. It is a national issue, but many Scots seem to see it as persecution against Scotland, which just isn't true. The UK's austerity measures were actually planned by prime minister (at the time) Gordon Brown, who is a patriotic Scot but also one of the leading figures of the "no" campaign, so go figure.

Here we have the Labour and Conservative Party who are pretty clear on staying within the EU, for as long as almost I can remember, UK has been a stuck between voting either Labour or Tories.

This is another issue I have with the debate. Most people in Scotland hate the Conservative party and think the prime minister David Cameron is a privileged, out-of-touch, public-school posh boy with little-to-no insight into the lives and minds of the "common" people of the UK, and I tend to agree. The mistake people are making is that they are seeing this as a vote between SNP and Conservative. No. The time and place to vote over that is in a general election and if the record breaking number of Scottish voters supposed to be turning out for the upcoming referendum had bothered themselves to vote in the last general election then there would probably be a labour government in London with a Scottish chancellor of the exchequer.

Another idea, which I think is spreading, is bargaining power. Scotland currently has a devolved government in Edinburgh which has been given back some powers from the UK government in London. For years, whenever a negotiation has taken place, the Scottish Government has had the threat of asking for independence to use as leverage. Many Scots I've spoken to feel that now the question has been raised, it's too late to back down: if Scotland stays in the UK then they will no longer have anything to bargain with. Personally, I feel that that argument comes from a very "us vs. them" attitude - it's overly patriotic and kind of paranoid. The big, bad English overlords are not out to get the good people of Scotland, but that is a feeling that has pervaded Scottish culture for hundreds of years. I mean, we've all seen Braveheart, right? Right?

I choose to live in Scotland because I love it here. I wouldn't live anywhere else. I was born in England and moved to Scotland with my family when I was 9. We lived in the very North of England and then in the very South of Scotland. I've never thought of myself as English or Scottish (the latter if I had to pick one) but rather I see myself as British.

Personally, I believe that a lot of what the "yes" campaign has to say is actually true, even though I've voted 'no'. Whether or not the various political, societal, economic, environmental, military or cultural arguments are true or false, the question, for me, isn't whether Scotland "can" pull off independence, it's whether it "should". I see no reason to.


As an aside,

To describe UKIP in a few words it would be 'Old' 'Traditional' 'Purist'.

Read, 'Backwards' 'Popularist' 'Racist'.

Anyways, I'm done. We'll see what happens on Thursday.