Scottish Independence

[BillButNotBen]

This has nothing to do with sport, this is actually a very serious topic. If people vote yes for independence because they love Braveheart and they want to get one over England, then they are simply an uneducated and misguided fool. I don't need to say any more.

The reason why Scotland is moving towards independence is because it is beneficial for our country. Scotland needs full control over all decisions for its own future. I'm sure we will see many independent reviews and reports over the coming months that will verify Scotland can strive as an independent nation. It is already proven by facts that Scotland pays more into the Union than what is given back in return. Although it is very complex to discuss as the media constantly distorts a lot of the facts in a bid to save the Union.

What I meant was that the key issue is that not everyone in the UK feels British. And that's kind of weird for me given the length of time that it has existed. For some reason individual "national" identities have continued and an actual national identity for the nation hasn't appeared.

If there was a sense of a British Identity then there wouldn't be public feeling for independence. And I feel that sports has, in a big way, contributed to that. Also the fact that we still refer to scotland, england and wales as countries, despite the fact they haven't been countries for centuries. Considering everything we have in common, and how much we work and live together, it's strange to me that these "national" identities still exist - they don't in most other countries (except where there is a big regional difference in religion, language, ethnicity or persecution. )

The economic arguments seem to go both ways, but I doubt anyone knows for sure until it actually happens. But personally I feel that in a global economy where countries with big populations are rising fast (brazil, china, india, argentina) it's very risky to divide nations into smaller chucks. A united Britain/UK would be a stronger force than each individual nation might be... though it would of course need to represent all the people. And that representation would be more likely to happen if all those people were British, rather than being non-British.

I think the UK is in a very precarious position right now globally, and I'm worried that responses to domestic issues are going to make that position much weaker. Because the press and populist politicians don't seem to have any wider view.

[Adam]

Scotland is one of the oldest nations in Europe with a grand history and a culture that is well preserved and is rooted into the hearts of all Scots. That's why we still have a strong identity of being Scottish, because we are proud of our roots. The same could be said about Wales.

I truly believe we could strive being separated, because there is little advantages of being in the Union. There is a well known myth that London subsidises Scotland, when in fact it is Scotland that is paying more and receiving less in return. With the limited powers Scotland gained in 1999, it has benefited greatly because Scotland knows what is best for Scotland, not London. With full power, control and independence then we could build on that. Not everything has been great, we've fucked some things up, for example the tram system in Edinburgh, but that is our problem and hopefully we can learn from that. My point is that we've seen a lot more gains since devolution than the many decades beforehand.

[Zephro]

As a Scot, who calls himself a brit , living in London, god no. The thought of visiting family back home being in a different country is just alien to me. We're all the same everywhere but it's even more true of the British.

Scotland's culture is almost indistinct (I say indistinct but really half of it is victorian romantic idealism anyway) from the English anyway and most the best parts worth being proud of are after the Union anyway and the past 300 years of Union saw Scotland going from a poor backward country to a centre of philosophy, science and engineering.

The economic arguments are normally all straw men, but generally I think it'd be screwed going alone and that most numbers Salmond comes up with are total bull. Most the arguments would also apply to any subdivision of a macro economy, London would be economically better off independent, The North would be better off being able to tackle it's various problems itself etc. But nobody takes them seriously due to the cultural bonds, same with say Northern US vs Southern US.

EDIT: As a sideline on things like Tartan being relatively modern. Only worn amongst highlanders and the gentry, normal people rarely wore it for weddings etc. in the lowlands. Until the rise of the SNP in the 60s. My Grandpa refused to wear them on the basis that he was no longer in the army and that Alex Salmond is a prick.