If Scotland became independant, what would Shetland do?

[George.]

I had never considered that Shifte but it has potential, huge amounts of potential. I had only thought of Scotland going it alone but we don't need to stay that way do we, not at all

[Redrobbie99]

Anyone watching TV recently will see that the EU utopia is disintergrating and could well plunge not just the EU but the whole world into economic disaster.What we need is a referendum on membership of the EU . What has always puzzeled me is why shetland keeps voting in a MP of the most pro EU party of all when its been such a disaster for the fishing industry

[Redrobbie99]

Anyone watching TV recently will see that the EU utopia is disintergrating and could well plunge not just the EU but the whole world into economic disaster.What we need is a referendum on membership of the EU . What has always puzzeled me is why shetland keeps voting in a MP of the most pro EU party of all when its been such a disaster for the fishing industry

[derick]

Anyone watching TV recently will see that the EU utopia is disintergrating and could well plunge not just the EU but the whole world into economic disaster.What we need is a referendum on membership of the EU . What has always puzzeled me is why shetland keeps voting in a MP of the most pro EU party of all when its been such a disaster for the fishing industry

 

habit. Also the Fiberals are past masters at spin.

 

I would definitely be for EFTA (and Schengen) rather than EU membership - free access to mainland european waters, but no CFP. What's not to like.

[Haggis hunter 72]

Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum. I actually came across it purely by accident and it caught my attention. I'm a passionate supporter of independence for Scotland and where I knew there was a movement for Shetland independence, I don't know much about it.

 

I obviously understand the reasons for Scotland breaking away from the UK, but why would Shetland want to break from Scotland?

 

I can't say that it should be ignored as that would make me a hypocrite, but I would like to see the whole of Scotland including the islands, prosper and stand tall where we all belong and think you deserve to be there with us. The UK has treated the scots appallingly since the bags of gold came north 300 years ago. Stay with Scotland and help deliver the Nation that we all know we can be, a nation where every voice counts lowland, highland, island, Scotland.

 

You are needed and valued as Scots and Shetlanders and your place IMHO is Standing side by side with the rest of the great peoples of Scotland.

 

Please don't leave without giving the new nation a chance.

 

Regards,

 

Martin

[Ghostrider]

....but why would Shetland want to break from Scotland?

 

Salmond & Co have totally failed to sell the concept of Scottish Independence being of any benefit to us, in fact from where I'm sitting it doesn't look like they've even tried. England is the devil we know, they may do us no great favours, but at least we know where we stand. Plus we'd be crazy not to listen to other offers. Scotland has put nothing on the table so far to suggest we'd have a better feed if we join them at their table, in fact the impression given is that the pickings would actually be leaner.

 

Historically the Scottish establishment has treated Shetland and Shetlanders appalingly for over 500 years, the English did so too from time to time, but any small favours we ever got during the same period came from England, not Scotland, so they're ahead, just, on the score sheet.

 

Probably the cincher on the deal is the fact that looking from up here, the English establishment have adpoted an improved attitude towards us as the years have rolled by, unlike the Scots establishment where the same centuries old attitude seems to be very much alive and well.

 

I can understand how your average Scot could be somewhat perplexed as to why we have little interest in an independent Scotland or being part of it, after all nothing of what we hold against the Scottish establishment was the doing of the rank and file of Scots, nor probably the rank and file of Scots ever had any knowledge of, and the Scottish establishment was hardly going to paint themselves black to anyone if they didn't have to to inform them.

 

I was not a fan of the establishment of the Scottish Executive/Parliament, at best I saw it as an un-necessary and expensive talking shop laying down yet one more layer of additional red tape, and at worst an interfering busy body who would cause us nothing but hinderance and harm. However as long as Labour/Liberals held power in it, I was, albeit very, very slowly coming round to the idea that maybe, just maybe it did have its uses, even if they were grossly over-expensive. That belief rapidly vanished very, very quickly as soon as the Nats took up residence.

 

On another level, we have a significantly different culture to Scotland, we only have a relatively short shared history with Scotland, very generally speaking we have different philosophies and outlook to most Scots, we tend to struggle to identify any meaningful amount of common ground with Scots and Scotland. Certainly we now are similiar to Scots, a lot of Scots blood runs in Shetlander's veins, but it has only really been around the last 150 years that rank and file Shetlanders and rank and file Scots have mixed freely in any meaningful and significant way. We are evolving continously to be more like Scots for sure, but we still haven't evolved enough to feel fully "Scottish", instead we feel more like a lone half-brother/sister of a large family, who feels a significant connection, but no real sense of truly belonging.

 

All IMHO, of course.

[Haggis hunter 72]

Thanks ghostrider for the reply.

 

As an SNP member and supporter, I am disappointed that these issues are not being addressed or for that matter publicised in the media, however the media always seems to find a way of supressing anything that is remotely anti-union as i am sure you are more than aware, this considering the generally good job that I feel they are doing over all.

 

Hopefully with time (i know you wont be holding your breath, but im an optimist), or as more powers are won through greater or full independence, more can be done to improve the level support the Shetland communty receives and opinions change, but I would also hope that this could be acheived without any dilution or damage to the unique identity that you describe. This is an important part of who you are and is more precious than gold.

 

I wish you good luck on your journey in to the future where ever it leads and hope the right path for your islands leads you on a path with the rest of the scots. To lose you along the way would be our loss.

 

Regards,

 

Martin

[Guest tiodylb17]

Read this its not a good idea

 

'Yours for Scotland," was the sign-off Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, gave in a May 2007 letter to Sir Fred Goodwin, then chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, as he endorsed the Edinburgh-based bank's bid for Dutch financial group ABN Amro.

 

Seventeen months later, Mr Salmond's words would come back to haunt him as RBS, crippled by billions of pounds of losses and facing a run by corporate depositors, went cap in hand to the British government for an emergency bail-out.

 

Days earlier, another Scottish lender, HBOS, had made its own request for taxpayer funds. Together the two banks received direct cash injections of more than nearly £70bn as well as hundreds of billions of pounds of British state guaranteed loans and credit insurance.

 

As the scale of the losses made by the two banks became apparent it did not take long for many to observe that the UK had faced not a British banking crisis, but a Scottish one.

 

With a population of 5.2m and an economy worth just over £140bn the scale of the rescue required by RBS and HBOS in October 2008 would have easily swamped an independent Scotland.

 

 

Taken together, the assets of the two banks are still about 14 times the size of the Scotland's annual economic output, a figure greater even than the engorged balance sheets built up by Iceland's bloated lenders during the credit boom.

 

Speaking at an event in Glasgow in November, former Chancellor Alistair Darling, who authorised the bail-outs, had some cutting observations for his audience.

 

"If there are any Nationalists in the room, let me tell you this. This didn't happen [the banking crisis] because of what was happening in the sub-prime market, or in New York, or in London, it happened because of bad decisions being taken 40 miles away on the other side of the M8."

 

With Scottish independence once again high on the agenda the costs of the "Scottish banking crisis" are more than just a theoretical question and have very real implications for the debate on what a 'yes' vote in a referendum might mean financially for the UK and an independent Scotland.

 

Jim Leaviss, a senior fund manager at M&G, has analysed the financial impact on Scotland and the UK as a whole of ending the Union. By Mr Leaviss's reckoning, an independent Scotland would not be quite the land of plenty some of its proponents make out.

 

For a start, the independent Republic of Scotland would have to take its share of the Britain's national debts. Calculated on the basis of its proportion of the UK population this works out at about £80bn of Britain's £940bn debt pile.

 

Servicing this debt at its average annual interest rate of 4pc equates to £3.2bn per year, which based on Scotland's annual tax and duty revenues of £41bn works out at a more than manageable 8pc of the total.

 

This excludes Scotland's share of £1.25 trillion of liabilities taken on by the UK taxpayer as a result of the rescue of the banking sector. As Mr Leaviss points out, a "bad tempered English MP" might suggest that Scotland should take on the liabilities created by the Scottish-based banks, ie. HBOS and RBS.

 

Even assuming this were not the case, there is the issue of Scotland's spending. Figures from Oxford Economics show that Scotland spends about £11bn more than it contributes to the Union – the largest "net negative contribution" of any region.

 

Scotland would therefore need to borrow the same amount every year, which including its share of interest payments on existing UK debt, suggests an annual deficit of a little over £13bn.

 

At about 9pc, Scotland's deficit-to-GDP ratio would be about the same as that currently maintained by the UK as a whole, however this is without correcting for Scotland's increased share of North Sea oil revenues.

 

About 90pc of UK oil and gas revenues come from production inside Scottish waters, therefore if the independent country were to have received its full share of this money for the fiscal year 2009/10 this would equate to about £6bn.

 

At a stroke this would cut its annual deficit to 5pc of GDP, however this assumes that these revenues stay at a level most energy industry analysts think unlikely.

 

With UK oil production peaking more than a decade ago and a significant decline forecast over the next decade it would be highly optimistic to think this figure could be maintained.

 

"If I'm rating Scotland as a stand-alone entity, I worry what will happen going forwards," said Mr Leaviss. As he points out, an independent Scotland could take the dramatic step of selling its future revenues from oil, which he estimates would generate enough money to pay off the country's entire share of UK national debt and leave it with about £80bn to set up its own sovereign wealth fund.

 

This analysis may comfort those in favour of independence, but it does not answer the most fundamental question that Scotland will face: what will it do going forwards?

 

The public sector accounts for a quarter of Scottish jobs and the growth rate north of the border is about half that of the UK as a whole.

 

On its own Scotland would struggle to justify an AAA rating from Standard & Poor's, says Mr Leaviss. However, the Scotland-less Union might also find its hard to maintain a top credit rating.

 

"I doubt that the UK's credit rating would change as a result of any fundamental economics of Scottish independence," he said. "But international investors might worry about the instability, real or imagined, of the Union breaking up, so a downgrade of the UK is not out of the question."

[redrobbie]

Iceland had the right idea they refused to bail out their banks let them go bust anyone heard of Icelands financial crises lately?

[Kavi Ugl]

Hello Martin, I'm actually in favour of Shetland returning to Norway. I get a little bit of stick on here for it but I do feel that there's a historic and growing desire among many other Shetlanders for this.

 

Why would I not want to be a part of an Independant Scotland?. The answer is simply because I'm not a Scot and as far as I'm concerned Shetland is not a part of Scotland. We may be ruled by Scotland with all that brings but the bottom line is Shetland is not a "part" of Scotland.

 

I heard/was told a very interesting piece of news a week or so ago.

 

Back in May when Jens Stoltenberg(the Norwegian Prime Minister) was here in Shetland there was a civic reception and meal one evening in the Lerwick Town Hall.

 

When Jens Stoltenberg addressed the assembled guests and reception apparantly they were left in no doubt that the door is open for Shetland's return to Norway.

 

The person who was actually there described it as "goosebumps".

 

This is where my heart and vote lies - Shetland back in the fold of the Scandinavian family.

[JohanofNess]

Hello Martin, I'm actually in favour of Shetland returning to Norway. I get a little bit of stick on here for it but I do feel that there's a historic and growing desire among many other Shetlanders for this.

 

 

Kavi I'm no having a pop and I'm not trying to take the piss but this growing desire you talk of I never see or hear any Shetlanders other than you stating a desire to join with Norway. I'm from the southend so maybe it's just not a popular thing down that way but seriously I've never heard anyone in the flesh on Shetland say they want to join Norway.

[Haggis hunter 72]

Tiodylb17:

I think you should spend a bit more time on updating your research as all of the points you have made have been debunked some time ago.

 

The way the international system for bank debt works, Scotland would have nothing like the debt you talk about as most of it was accrued in London and as such would stay there. If through some unbelievable agreement to bring it north it did end up in Scotland we we would want our share of the assets as well as the liabilities which more than covers the debt.

 

The rest of your points are equally ridiculous for anyone who is interested in facts but there are plenty of places for this type of discussion.

 

I have no intention of hijacking this forum which is about the Shetlands to debate the Scottish independence case. I came here to learn about the movement for Shetlands independence.

 

My apologies to any Shetlanders for bringing this to your board.

[Muppet]

the Shetlands

 

Hmm. Learning the name of the place might be a start towards gaining some favour here!

[unlinkedstudent]

I obviously understand the reasons for Scotland breaking away from the UK, but why would Shetland want to break from Scotland? ...

 

You are needed and valued as Scots and Shetlanders and your place IMHO is Standing side by side with the rest of the great peoples of Scotland.

 

English here but living in Shetland.

 

Viking Energy is a good enough reason for many wanting to stick two fingers up at the SNP. Yes, Shetland is valued right enough - to power your homes (allegedly) whilst many Shetlanders will continue to face fuel poverty and see the values of their homes decrease. I'm happy to stand side by side with many Scots on the Mainland who are in the same boat who, no doubt, will also be sticking two fingers up at the SNP over their alleged 'green' policies come the next election.

[Scorrie]

The SNP would get a lot more support in Shetland if they stated that they would allow Shetland to determine its own future - in the same manner that the SNP are currently pushing for themselves........

 

 

I'll not hold my breath.