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Scottish Independence Referendum 2021


Davie P
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Scottish Independence Poll  

48 members have voted

  1. 1. Should Scotland be an independent country?

    • Yes
      22
    • No
      22
    • Undecided
      4


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I, for one, look forward to everyone having a Rolls Royce and a 10 bedroom house come May 7th. Independence will defo bring that and more by your one line reasoning. I do, however, doubt that many others do.

If you want to denounce anyone with inclination towards independence as mad and living elsewhere... I'm not sure who has the more extreme view here...

The folk I know who wish for independence do so fine well in the knowledge that crystal balls are unreliable, breaking away from our major trading partner is not that great for trade and things aren't exactly easy going at the moment. On the flip side, we're in a bad place as a result of matters being decided elsewhere for quite some time.

I'm reminded of rats and ships for some reason. Dunno why.

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6 hours ago, Capeesh said:

^^The same was said to every single one of the 60 countries that've gained independence from Westminster rule.

I wonder why none of them have ever asked to give it up again? They can't all be delusional can they?

While their fortunes have been varied as time has passed, very few didn't go through a serious sh*tstorm domestically before finding their feet, some still are.

Independence if fine, and if Scotland wants it' let them go for it. However, a charge frequently levelled at any suggestion of Shetland going Indy is that 'Who do we have we could trust to run the show', applies equally so to Scotland. They've had over 20 years to practice and prove they can with their 'Indy Lite' Holyrood showtime, and its never raised itself much above 'unimpressive' and frequently been worse than shambolic.It hardly inspires confidence to let them loose with more to mess with.......

I'm not saying Holyrood is any worse or better than Westminster, they seem cut from very similar cloth really. I'm just saying that if Scotland is going to bother with such a large change, I'd like to see some sort of worthwhile payoff, and not just jumping out of the frying pan and in to the fire for its own sake which is all Holyrood ever seems to achieve.

Edited by Ghostrider
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Lets just look at the last year for a few examples of bad governance from London...

One of the worse covid responses in the world, we’re sitting in the bottom 5 with USA, Brazil, Mexico and India.

Hard Brexit. For those who, like myself, worry about trade, the UK government has just erected trade barriers with a market of 500 million relatively rich Europeans living on our doorstep.

Serious corruption with Billions of £££ of public money going to chums who have the PM’s personal number on speed dial. 
 

Lies and misconduct from the UK government has become commonplace, there’s been multiple ministerial code breaches with no repercussions.
 

An embarrassing oaf representing us on the world stage.

Edited by Capeesh
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At least when we are independent we will no longer be able to whinge and moan about Westminster! Although some will continue to blame them, for a generation or two.

If the next indyref fails, then that will be it  for a generation. The fallout and recriminations will take years to mend. I suspect that is why the SNP leadership have been so canny. However the diehards are nipping at their toes and forcing another showdown. The sooner we have a referendum and put this to rest the better. 

The power struggle at Holyrood is doing nothing for Scotland.

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Yes let a referendum happen but if it does the SNP will then spend many years trying to rejoin the EU and will not be focused on rebuilding Scotland. They have been in power for many years and if the figures etc are to be believed they have wasted billions ruined the education system etc but yes let us get away from the nasty English. For all the time that they have been in power their main objective has been independence, they could have done so much better.

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1 hour ago, hakama said:

 ...but yes let us get away from the nasty English...

 

20 hours ago, hakama said:

If anybody out there thinks that Scotland and its people will be better off out of the Union you are living in cloud cuckoo land and are delusional.

So half the voting population of Scotland are Delusional and bigoted...sigh :roll:

 

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7 hours ago, Muckle Oxters said:

Is there onybody here who voted for Brexit but wid vote against Scottish Independence? And if so, whit do you see as da difference?

Brexit was to undo an arrangement that was less than 50 years old, which IMHO had never worked worth a damn, where the infrastructure of independent Government from 50 years ago, which had seemed to work well enough up to that point, was largely still intact, and it should have been possible, and should still be possible if anybody gets put in charge that is capable, for us to slip back in to being a wholly independent and functional/prosperous relatively quickly.

Scots Indy is to resurrect an entity that has not existed for over 300 years, nothing of real worth of its former remains, and even if it did it would be of minimal use due to the time elapsed. Establishing Scotland as an independent nation required/requires more work than granting independence to any British Colony ever did, at least most colonies had some sort of governance in place in the colony itself when independence was initiated. Devolution/Holyrood should have brought Scotland up to the point where most colonies were when they started moving on to independence, it hasn't. Its just shown that the Scots governing themselves is no better, or worse than the British parliament governing Scotland as part of Britain. The same ineptitude and incompetence is rife, the same sleaze is rife, the legislation they're creating is largely the same as Westminster, only little tweaks differentiate them, tweaks that seem to have little real purpose other than to allow it to be said there is a difference. Any legislation not copied from Westminster is largely questionable in terms of privacy, freedom of speech and similar, so why bother?

I'm really none too bothered whether Scotland goes independent or not, what does bother me is that if Scotland goes independent they'll insist Shetland is part of them. Shetland will always be da tail swup of whatever country its attached to, the adopted child whose attended to and bragged about when it suits them, but largely ignored otherwise.

Historically none of our neighbours have been our friends, the Norsemen by all appearances came here over a Millenia ago and did what they liked and took what they wanted. 500 year ago the Danish had no more respect for us than shunt us around like livestock to cover their debts, then the more dubious end of Scots nobility from the Central belt and Edinburgh started coming here to do what they liked and take what they pleased, 200 year ago Westminster sent the Press Gang......

So, its only the more recent past and the present than can stand as any kind of rule of thumb, and on the basis we'll be tail swup wherever we are, I'd much rather be tail swup of an already long established and somewhat functional nation, than tail swup of a fledgling wannabe nation that may or may not ever be functional, and in any case doesn't seem like its going to be noticably different, or any better than where we're at right now.

To flip the question a bit. If there's anybody here who has voted for, and/or will vote for Scottish Independence, but who would NOT vote for Shetland Independence. Why not, how is it different?

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^ Yeah, there's that.

At the risk of starting to sound like a Calamity clone, what occurred back then has never been interpreted or translated and it established what that has evolved  in to what it means in today's world.

I could go on all night about all the side hustles of over five centuries, but there's little point as it would take a team of constitutional experts a lifetime of debate to settle what was and was not relevant, what exactly its relevance was and what its current day effect was. One thing stands out though, and that is Denmark's crown pawned their possessions in Shetland to the Scottish Crown, when James III's G. G. Grandson, James VI of Scotland ascended to the Englisj throne in 1603 as James I, he'd already be King of Scotland for 33 years. So, regardless of how history may have dressed it up over the centuries, the reality was at the time the English Crown was absorbed in to the Scottish Crown to become the British Crown.

Take that one step further, and on the basis we were/are held in pawn by the Scottish Crown, we are held in pawn by its current day incarnation, the British Crown, not Scotland, not Britain, not the U.K. etc .

Obviously its not that simple, but if we're going to dig through history to justify or discredit claim and counter claim, all that stuff needs airing, not just the starting or finishing point. If we're going there a Calamity self-taught amateur crash course in 500+ years of history isn't going to cut it, he's ably demonstarted that over and over again. The 'official' line as trotted out so far by the Scots Court of 'we are, so it is' doesn't fool anybody much either. Its weak, its rather patronising, and reeks of a superior conquering force lording it over a vanquished opponent who never had a chance to resist until long after assimilation was achieved. Which leaves only a behemoth task of historians, constitutional experts and lawyers picking over every act and document that affected Shetland between 1468 and present to establish who and what Shetland is, and where we should be.

Something that would bear no fruit to our generation, or even perhaps the next, such is the time it would take, never mind what it would cost. Even if the task was completed howeve rfar down the line that was, I'm less than confident that the answers we'd end up with would even be satisfactorily robust given the gaps in records and knowledge of the last 500 years.

Personally I'd leave history out of it as far as is possible, write it off as being 'it is what it is', but given that Shetland and Orkney's association with Scotland is far more dubious and short term than any other part of Scotland, that if Scotland is determinded to make constitutional changes, Shetland and Orkney should be given the opportunity to decide whether they follow with Scotland, or remain where they are.

I can understand to some degree Scotland's desire for independence, its only 300 year since they were, only 400 year since they had their own Monarchy. On the other hand, we've been British for 300 year, and only were 'Scottish' for 200 year before that, as for the preceding 600 we'd been Norse.

It comes off as a bit presumptious of Scotland to appear to just assume Shetland and Orkney will come along with them in whateve rthey decide, given that the only period we've ever been truly 'part of Scotland' was for 200 years between 300 and 500 years ago.

It would have gone down much better if they shown some manners and respect up front, and said to Orkney & Shetland, 'We wanna do something different, but appreciate Shetland & Orkney's relationship to Scotland is unique, and while we'd like you to come along with us, its only fair you get the oppostunity to decide that'.

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All very interesting but it is irrelevant to the future as the Chinese who are in pursuit of world domination will be in charge. They already have the commercial market wrapped up as most of what we buy comes from China and when we are on our own we will not have a military force and no nuclear weapons. The Chinese have been very clever over the years with their long term plan.We should stop buying from them and make our own. Tibet next Taiwan then Scotland. Better start learning Mandarin/Cantonese if you are a young person. Too late for me as I will be gone unless you believe in reincarnation then I will be back to face it all. Now where did I put that Chinese dictionary.

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