If the Scots leave the UK, they take the North Sea oil with them.
If the Scottish Members leave the UK Parliament, they will take out about 50 leftist members, and one Tory, leaving the the British Parliament structurally conservative (Tory/UKIP).
If the Scots are gone by 2017, the Brits are much more likely to vote to leave the EU when that vote comes up.
If the Scots are gone, the relative political strength of the anti-immigrant, anti-muslim reaction in the UK will be magnified, likely changing policies.
I feel bad that being of Scottish decent I haven’t followed this story. My family’s Scottish branch declared their independence from Scotland in the 1800’s when they came to America. I hope it works out well for everyone. I have English ancestors also so I’m in no position to take sides. It does however, make me want to go outside, kneel down and thank God that for whatever choices my ancestors made, I am an American.
William Wallace cheering from the grave.
This poll DOES NOT show independence winning. The media headlines are a nonsense.
It was 51% with undecideds taken out, when it was “weighted”. Using the 2011 Scottish elections.
In the actual poll 475 voted Yes, 538 voted No.
So the poll actually has the NO vote winning!.
Taken from another site:
‘Democracy
I only got half way down the first page of the summary in ‘Scotland’s Future’ when I found the first flaw of many in this ‘guide’. ‘The people of Scotland will always get the governments we vote for’ it is claimed. However, this claim is made by a political party who found itself in power after the 2011 Scottish Parliamentary Elections with 45.4% of the constituency vote and 44.7% in the regional vote. This is obviously not a majority with a majority voting AGAINST the SNP in both constituency and regional votes. The majority of Scottish people therefore did NOT get the government they voted for and we are now being subjected to a referendum from a government with a minority support. ‘We can decide how we use our wealth to benefit all the people in our society’ which sounds great to read quickly but to look closer, is it likely wealth will benefit ALL in our society? So far, the SNP has been accused of favouring areas and cities of Scotland over other areas with accumulation around bigger cities, especially Edinburgh. Can they really promise us that without delivering so far? At the moment as part of the United Kingdom, a common nationalist moan is that power is centralised to Westminster which is too far from Scotland this is despite having 59 seats in Westminster out of a possible 650 seats. Scotland makes up just over 8% of the UK population and we therefore have 7 more MPS than we should have proportional to our population. That is 13% more representation than we should have. In the event of independence, power would be centralised to Edinburgh where the current Scottish Parliament is located which would still be out of touch with highland and island life in Scotland. What about local government I hear you say? Well, the SNP have cut local government jobs by 34,000 and has taken power from local government. The much acclaimed council tax freeze has taken power from local government hands. Think about it, the Scottish government implements a council tax freeze therefore as prices for increase each year, local government can’t put up council tax as it is out of their hands so they either need to increase the cost of other services or cut services to make up the difference.
European Union and NATO
It is assumed that Scotland will automatically become the 29th member of the European Union which is categorically untrue as pointed out by the President of the European Commission who stated that we would need to apply for membership. It is actually ironic for Yes Scotland to want to be a member of the European Union...what happened to Scottish independence?! Anyway, let us consider this ironic idea for a moment. For Scotland to be included into the EU as a full member, it requires us, firstly, to accept the Euro, this has happened to Croatia who joined the EU last year and has to take on the Euro this year. The Yes campaign is not prepared to accept this term. They believe they can be full members of the EU and continue to use the Pound Sterling. The second condition is that Scotland would need to be accepted by ALL current 28 member states in the EU. This is VERY unlikely to happen, especially with the position of Spain and the nationalists in Catalan. If Spain was to okay Scotland’s membership this would give their Catalonian nationalists a chance to divide Spain, as they too would be able to seek full EU membership. The Spanish PM has said he will vote against Scottish EU membership. As part of the UK, which is part of the ‘big three’ countries in the European Union, Scotland is able to reject pressure to join the Euro currency and to give in to other EU demands. Are the SNP and Yes Scotland deluding themselves into thinking that everything we ask for will be done with no questions asked and that we would be listened to as much as the UK ?
Britain is a key player in important and vital organisations such as the G8, NATO, G7, G20, commonwealth and top table at the UN. Britain benefits from being one of five nations at the UN Security Council. This is really vital in discussing world issues like Syria and trying to act on things, essentially leading the way in global discussions and developments. There is a lot of doubt as to whether Scotland would get membership in NATO. With doubts about whether countries with nationalist movements would let Scotland re-apply for membership, the same argument being similar to that of EU membership. Greece rejected Macedonia’s entrance into NATO in2007/2008 on grounds of the Greeks not particularly liking the Macedonian’s. NATO is still important today, with common use of weapons, warships, etc. This has been seen as effective in preventing Russia from taking over Ukraine with regular NATO flights commanding the airspace above Ukraine. Security wise Scotland would be protected by the Scottish Defence Force which would be small in comparison to what we are protected by just now by the UK and NATO, leaving us more vulnerable and open to threats. I believe you have to have credible deterrents to deter other countries.
SecurityObviously in the event of independence the British RAF, Navy and Army would move south. As too would the Trident nuclear weapons at Faslane. These bases are large employers with Scottish industries relying on these for contracts and to provide services. I think people underestimate how many businesses rely on MOD work. Faslane being a mini town, needs all kinds of services and contractors to carry out work. From building, to catering and hospitality. 5000 shipyard jobs depend on Royal Navy contracts in Scotland in building warships and aircraft carriers, like the one which has been recently launched at Rosyth.
Currency and economics
I was recently at a Scottish Government organised Q&A with Nicola Sturgeon whom I asked about currency. I challenged her about keeping the Pound Sterling, which she said would happen. All of the pro-Union parties have said they will reject this as they would need to agree to a currency union which they would reject. She didn’t deny this. I then asked what Plan B was. Her answer was that she had already stated the other currency options, which she had not. Pushed further she said Scotland would have its own currency. This would be without the backing and safety of the Bank of England with a multi billion pound bailout of RBS in 2007. Say we were to keep the Pound in a currency union, well that would continue to be controlled by the Bank of England with interest rates and borrowing going through them and ONLY them with no say from anyone in Scotland. This is laughable considering Yes Scotland want independence but in fact we would be DEPENDENT on England. If then, we joined the Euro, well that brings its own problems and worries. See the crash in Ireland for details.You may have heard the country of Panama being brought up recently in the televised debates. Panama uses the US Dollar without consent. If an independent Scotland decided to use the pound sterling without the consent of the rest of the United Kingdom this would be called ‘sterlingisation.’ Alex Salmond has heavily hinted that this is Plan B but has not confirmed that so we can only guess that this is what would happen. This is despite the SNP’s own fiscal commission ruling this out as an option. Sterlingisation would mean we have no central bank which means no-one to bolster pensions, saving or businesses. There would be no lender of last resort to protect individuals’ savings and mortgages. It would also threaten the success of our financial services industry and the 200,000 jobs it supports. However, being part of the UK and using the UK Pound means cheaper car loans, lower mortgage repayments and cheaper credit card bills for Scots. Why would we want to trade that for the risk and uncertainty of independence?
Remember that not long ago Alex Salmond, the main man advocating independence and keeping the UK Pound, said that sterling was “sinking like a stone” and a “millstone round Scotland’s neck”, advocating we join the Euro instead (which has now been ruled out). Alex Salmond must be delusional to think that we will believe anything more he says. He has changed from wanting:1. The Euro (until that crashed miserably), 2. To criticising the UK Pound,3. To where we are now wanting to use the Pound anyway despite causing a lot of uncertainty and risk to us all. Will this man and his followers in their desperation go to any lengths to get their “Holy Grail” of independence?
200,000 jobs in Scotland are dependent on companies which are based in England, like that of Standard Life who have rejected Independence. 9 out of 10 of their customers are based in the rest of the UK, a no brainer that they’d move south in the event of independence.
Oil and gas
The oil and gas forecasts are unpredictable, with the OBR rejecting the Yes campaign’s predicted income from it, being such an unpredictable source. Both the Scottish government and the UK government have made mistakes predicting oil revenue with the cost always being over-estimated so it would be careless to base the country’s future on a source that is increasingly unpredictable. Sir Ian Wood, world renowned for his expertise and knowledge of the North Sea oil fields, has recently rejected Yes Scotland’s calculations for projected oil revenue, stating that it has been grossly overestimated by 45-60% and that Scotland’s accessible oil reserves will be seriously depleted in just fifteen years time. The year Yes Scotland wish to have independence by 2016/2017, the forecasts are £2.5bn revenue from oil and gas which is impressive to me anyway. When you look at what we spend that £2.5bn it is a drop in the ocean with our basic annual expenditure being £40bn to start with on things like the NHS, Education and transport, this is not including everything else the Scottish government is responsible for. If Scotland was to become independent there is the immediate assumption that we would have all the oil to ourselves. This is categorically untrue and misleading. The oil does not belong to us but the oil and gas companies who extract it like BP and Shell. The figures for oil revenue come from the tax income from it not from owning the oilfields in their entirety.
Education
What a lot of young people and parents of young people in school just now are justly worried about are university and college, places and costs. Education is a devolved power and so cannot be touched by Westminster. Yes Scotland like to try to fool us into thinking that because tuition fees were implemented in England we somehow need independence to stop tuition fees coming to Scotland. If tuition fees were to be introduced in Scotland this would be introduced by the Scottish Parliament and would NOT be the decision of Westminster. Under the SNP the college budget has been cut by £34m with 1000 less teaching posts and 140,000 less students including those who are disadvantaged. Yes Scotland love to gloat that tuition fees are free in Scotland which is untrue for a lot of students who have to pay their fees to finish their courses like I will have to or for part time courses or those returning to education. Researchers who promote Scottish research and universities say that an independent Scotland would mean Scotland would miss out on funding, the likes of which the wealth of the UK can only provide , such as research labs in Dundee. We get a disproportionate amount of UK Research Council funding which means we get more out than we put in. Many professors have spoken out over the past few months, writing into a national newspaper about their concerns that this could really set back funding in Scotland for tackling diseases like MND and cancer, to name but two.
Health
Health is a devolved power in Scotland which means that Westminster CANNOT touch it. Recent scare stories by the SNP and Yes Scotland suggest that the Scottish NHS will be privatised which is in complete contrast to what is written in ‘Scotland’s Future’ which THEY published which says ‘The Scottish Parliament has the power to keep the NHS in public hands...’ So why the scaremongering and lying now? Well, it’s all to get your vote I’m afraid. Since we are on the subject of health I’d like to bring up the SNP’s record in dealing with the NHS. The BBC investigated the SNP’s health policies and found that ‘People are waiting too long in accident and emergency departments, too long for specialist treatment, and too long to be discharged.’ Do they think that we will suddenly trust them to deliver an effective health service in an independent Scotland despite their tenure in government and all that they haven’t achieved in the NHS? Scotland receives around £200 a year per head more in health spending than the rest of the UK. With severe cuts or tax rises necessary if we were to separate, our hospitals, nurses and doctors would be placed under significant pressure.’
The odds of a “Yes” vote have now increased on the betting end of such matters; I caught this from William Hill, a UK betting agency (bookmaker).
http://sports.williamhill.com/bet/en-gb/betting/g/1479658/Scottish-Independence-Markets.html
We shall see, of course. And the link is not meant as an endorsement of gambling - I’m not a betting man myself, but I do find it occasionally useful to look at the odds.