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Lanarkshire_Bud

Scottish Independence Referendum  

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If it's yes then we can rest assured that we will never again be ruled by Tories , which in itself , is something worth considering !

One of the main reasons I'll be voting YES.

Indeed, Scotland never voted Tory but was still governed by Tories because of the English vote.

I think you have misread your history boys. Scotland was firmly liberal until the WWI but then voted "Tory" and indeed did so up until the 1960's. It was under the name of the Unionist Party but their MP's took the Tory whip at Westminster. Indeed two Tory Prime Ministers were Scottish Unionist MP's. They are the only party in Scottish electoral history to gain more than 50% of the popular vote. Scotland was traditionally a Protestant, pro-unionist country and was not that keen on a London based and London controlled Labour party, whose success in Scotland is really only in the last three decades of the last century.

This change from unionist to labour coincided with the decline in membership of the Church of Scotland, with the increasing secularism of the population as a whole and the Catholic influence in (or infiltration of if you believe the WASP conspiracy theorists) the Labour party. In recent years, the decline in the labour party and the swing towards nationalism has similarly coincided with attacks on secular and liberal values by senior Catholic clergy and other serious PR disasters that have beset the Catholic Church worldwide. Funny how religion has influenced politics in Scotland over the last hundred years or so.

Now, I say all this as a man of no religion, with a leftist leanings and a liberal philosophy on life. But I also say it as a man who spent almost 40 years of his working life with politicians, some of whom went on to grace the Palace of Westminster and, latterly, some to embarrass the nation by opening their mouth at Holyrood. spudnikconfounded.gif

Edited to add: Alex Salmond is the most smug-arsed of them all.

Edited by rabuddies
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Using the bookies as a barometer doesn't really work.

It is a vote, either yes or no. Of course Better Together have a case to make.

It is about 60/40 if you don't include the undecideds. Both sides need to present make a dent into those who don't know.

I prefer using the bookies than the polls, as bookies are wrong less often. But either or works fine.

It was 60-40 when the campaign started, why do you think the yes campaign has failed to make any inroads into the no campaigns lead?

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You're not voting for the SNP or Alex Salmond.

Indeed.

The quickest way to get rid of Salmond is to vote yes.

He won't hang around for long, plus the political landscape in Scotland will change forever and IMO it's extremely likely that more political parties will come to the fore.

I find it strange how people see a yes vote as ensuring we'll be some cute microcosm of the current UK political set up.

All of the current politicians are distasteful in each of their own ways, so to single out Salmond, as a reason for not voting yes seems a tad short sighted. Especially when it ensures that the likes (or should that be lies?) of Cameron, Clegg, Milliband and Farage continue to take centre stage.

Voting yes is a gamble, but it's one that I'm willing to take, because what we have now is shit and we have no say in how to change the London centric policies of all the current political parties.

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. From where I am standing the SNP have done a remarkable job in very difficult financial times. Here we have London hell bent on privatizing the Post Office just wait and see the mess this will leave rural Scotland with a vital service. Privatize the power companies with no governing body keeping a check on them yet they are making mind blowing profits , still not enough so we are in for more increases which in turn puts the price of everything up. Tories will tell you it’s good economic business. The working man in the street will tell you the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer and that is a known fact today.

London and the south east is where 3/4 wealth of the UK is based. Fact look it up.

Local people looking after local issues might not be perfect but it’s as sure as hell better than some private school boys club twats in Westminster making key decisions in an area they know absolutely nothing about for that reason alone I will vote YES for independence.

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I think you have misread your history boys. Scotland was firmly liberal until the WWI but then voted "Tory" and indeed did so up until the 1960's. It was under the name of the Unionist Party but their MP's took the Tory whip at Westminster. Indeed two Tory Prime Ministers were Scottish Unionist MP's. They are the only party in Scottish electoral history to gain more than 50% of the popular vote. Scotland was traditionally a Protestant, pro-unionist country and was not that keen on a London based and London controlled Labour party, whose success in Scotland is really only in the last three decades of the last century.

This change from unionist to labour coincided with the decline in membership of the Church of Scotland, with the increasing secularism of the population as a whole and the Catholic influence in (or infiltration of if you believe the WASP conspiracy theorists) the Labour party. In recent years, the decline in the labour party and the swing towards nationalism has similarly coincided with attacks on secular and liberal values by senior Catholic clergy and other serious PR disasters that have beset the Catholic Church worldwide. Funny how religion has influenced politics in Scotland over the last hundred years or so.

Now, I say all this as a man of no religion, with a leftist leanings and a liberal philosophy on life. But I also say it as a man who spent almost 40 years of his working life with politicians, some of whom went on to grace the Palace of Westminster and, latterly, some to embarrass the nation by opening their mouth at Holyrood. spudnikconfounded.gif

Edited to add: Alex Salmond is the most smug-arsed of them all.

On the contrary, I have always had a very keen interest in history. Something I have learned is that you shouldn't be too quick to draw on it with a view to predicting the future course of events. Just ask the Germans, Spanish, Italians....

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As an independence supporter I'm really hopeful that this level of complacency persists right to the end because this level of utter stupidity is the best chance for the YES campaign.

It doesn't surprise me that you're a yes supporter.

The no campaign is sitting back and defending a comfortable lead. It's up to the yes campaign to catch up. This isn't happening. The poll figures now are the same as they were the day the yes campaign was launched, and not surprisingly this is seeing the yes vote drift out even further with the book makers.

What do you attribute the failings of the campaign to?

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I think you have misread your history boys. Scotland was firmly liberal until the WWI but then voted "Tory" and indeed did so up until the 1960's. It was under the name of the Unionist Party but their MP's took the Tory whip at Westminster. Indeed two Tory Prime Ministers were Scottish Unionist MP's. They are the only party in Scottish electoral history to gain more than 50% of the popular vote. Scotland was traditionally a Protestant, pro-unionist country and was not that keen on a London based and London controlled Labour party, whose success in Scotland is really only in the last three decades of the last century.

This change from unionist to labour coincided with the decline in membership of the Church of Scotland, with the increasing secularism of the population as a whole and the Catholic influence in (or infiltration of if you believe the WASP conspiracy theorists) the Labour party. In recent years, the decline in the labour party and the swing towards nationalism has similarly coincided with attacks on secular and liberal values by senior Catholic clergy and other serious PR disasters that have beset the Catholic Church worldwide. Funny how religion has influenced politics in Scotland over the last hundred years or so.

Now, I say all this as a man of no religion, with a leftist leanings and a liberal philosophy on life. But I also say it as a man who spent almost 40 years of his working life with politicians, some of whom went on to grace the Palace of Westminster and, latterly, some to embarrass the nation by opening their mouth at Holyrood. spudnikconfounded.gif

Edited to add: Alex Salmond is the most smug-arsed of them all.

Ten years of Thatcherisim , effectively killed Tory support in Scotland . They effectively returned no MP's after that. .

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It doesn't surprise me that you're a yes supporter.

The no campaign is sitting back and defending a comfortable lead. It's up to the yes campaign to catch up. This isn't happening. The poll figures now are the same as they were the day the yes campaign was launched, and not surprisingly this is seeing the yes vote drift out even further with the book makers.

What do you attribute the failings of the campaign to?

Is your entire argument based on what the bookies and pollsters are currently saying?

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It doesn't surprise me that you're a yes supporter.

The no campaign is sitting back and defending a comfortable lead. It's up to the yes campaign to catch up. This isn't happening. The poll figures now are the same as they were the day the yes campaign was launched, and not surprisingly this is seeing the yes vote drift out even further with the book makers.

What do you attribute the failings of the campaign to?

There's an entire year to go FFS. The general public isn't interested yet.

Most people haven't even started thinking about Christmas let alone next November.

The NO campaign think this is already in the bag and don't feel the need to build a case for the union as you and others have said.

That is the biggest hope for the YES campaign.

BTW before you start, I've said it before and I'll say it again - I think the NO campaign will probably win because I think people in this country are simply too scared to take responsibility for their own fate. We seem to like having the English to blame. That's why the NO campaign is a negative one. They are telling people to be afraid and fear sells. You have to applaud it as a tactic.

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There's an entire year to go FFS. The general public isn't interested yet.

Most people haven't even started thinking about Christmas let alone next November.

The NO campaign think this is already in the bag and don't feel the need to build a case for the union as you and others have said.

That is the biggest hope for the YES campaign.

BTW before you start, I've said it before and I'll say it again - I think the NO campaign will probably win because I think people in this country are simply too scared to take responsibility for their own fate. We seem to like having the English to blame. That's why the NO campaign is a negative one. They are telling people to be afraid and fear sells. You have to applaud it as a tactic.

Oh dear, such an assumption and condescending, which you have been guilty off in the past, to state that people will vote no for these reasons.

I wouldn't presume to guess, as you have, the reasons people will vote no, there are many but I will vote no because I have no real personal reason to leave the union as I believe I, and many others, have made a decent life under the current regime and by changing I see no REAL benefits.

I do agree it's way too early for any assumptions on the outcome, I think it will be closer than the current 60/40 statistics.

Edited by faraway saint
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As things stand, I'll be voting no. I'm not interested in the party political nonsense, as I completely 'get' that if independent, in 10 years we could still have an SNP Scottish Govt. or we could have a Labour Scottish Govt. etc.

BUT - to an extent, you have no option but to listen to party politics given that the only main political party who as a whole support independence are SNP, and so almost exclusively they have been / will be presenting the case for independence. Given that logically, if the yes vote were to pass, that would also mean that the majority (not all - so don't nitpick) in the referendum have been persuaded by the case put forward by the SNP and therefore it's most likely that in the initial first term as an independent nation that we would have a SNP Govt. at least for the short - medium term.

In any case, as I said, I'll be making my choice (currently no given the hard evidence available) based on the substantive issues of long term sustainability of defined strategies relating to areas such as the economy, defence, international commitments (including the EU), health, education etc.

I'll take each of these in turn as things stand:

The economy - I would like to see a robust set of projections (not spin and rhetoric - which is entirely what we've been fed so far), on how our economic model would look post independence. This is not a stand alone issue either - it is very much dependent on our coninuation within the EU or EEA. Currently, with limited tax raising powers, whether the previous Labour Govt. or the current SNP Govt. the vast majority of the budget for the devolved areas in Scotland comes from a block grant given to us from Westminster. As such, dividing that budget is relatively straightforward as it is a (relatively) predictable income, that doesn't fluctuate significantly dependent on external economic issues such as the global economic meltdown - we have been relatively insulated from that in Scotland in a central Govt. sense. I want to know what each party would do with a fluctuating economy that isn't so easy to predict. However, regardless of who would likly be in power initially, I would like to see these predictions from all of the major parties, supporters of independence or not. This is because if they are being responsible, the other unionist parties should still be prepared for independence, even if they don't support it. Until I see that we can support ourselves in black and white, and not with buzzwords and rhetoric about oil etc. I cannot vote for independence.

Defence - The issue of armed forces, trident etc. is one thing as it is relatively easy to set a broad policy for this, but there is more to defence than frontline and nuclear capabilities. What will happen for example to the current MOD contract that gives BAE in the west of Scotland almost its entire workload? Will that contract run to completion and then not be renewed? Will work be moved down south? We could be talking about thousands of jobs with virtually no other area of shipbuilding left for those individuals to go to. Beyond that, what would the transitional arrangements be for the move from a UK defence strategy to a Scottish one (whatever that might be)?

International Commitments - Particularly the EU / EEA. In spite of the rhetoric presented otherwise, we NEED to be in the EU, free trade without import / export taxation is vital, certainly in the early stages of an independent Scotland as we can't afford for all of our imports to have a price hike to take into account the legal taxation that could be applied. Our imports would certainly outweigh our exports, so this would result in huge financial problems. In addition, the likes of Prestwick and Aberdeen airports would no longer be subsidised as they currently are by EU funds, so the cost of flights from these airports would raise significantly (they would have to, to allow for the raised landing taxes that would then be charged to still make those airports viable and break even, otherwise they WOULD be unsustainable). Those are just a couple of the hundreds of reasons we would need the EU. Speaking as an EU and constitutional law expert, our ongoing membership, or lack of eligibility to continue without re-application to the EU is not certain either way - both sides have presented opposing viewpoints, and there is in fact (oddly) supporting law for each side of the argument - I would like to see the issue resolved with 100% certainty one way of the other before making my choice.

Health - Currently, we have the free prescription service. This is great, however I don't want to retain that basic benefit at the expense of frontline services, which are currently stretched to breaking point. I already know for a fact that in several areas the NHS are not meeting various legal obligations due to being stretched on a frontline staff basis, and this is due to a combination of financial mismanagement from individual healthboards (actually mainly due to trying to stretch funds that aren't there to cover a budget that is significantly more than what they have coming in - not easy!!), and not enough funds being brought into the NHS to begin with. So what will the NHS financial model look like post independence? Brilliant that new hospitals such as the Southern General are being created, but will that continue? Will it be at the expense of areas such as the near closure of the RAH kids ward and other hospitals that have already closed? Again, I want to know. I also want to know what will be done about the scandelous costs that many pharmaceutical companies charge for their products, often life saving ones, and effectively holding health services to ransom as they have no choice but to pay up? Again - no rhetoric - firm plans and figures.

Education - The area that I work in - currently, education (further and higher) is again being stretched to breaking point. There have been forced mergers, discrimination in entry criterias stemming from central government policies, reduction of part time and evening provision as it's not 'cost effective' (apparently higher education is now a consumer product), closed doors to many adult learners that want to come back to retrain. Many institutions are struggling in the current environment, I want to know that the long terms strategy is for this.

That's all I have time to discuss - I have other issues linked to all of the above and more, but ultimately what it comes down to is that I want to see more facts and hard policy and less rhetoric and party political in fighting, spin and bullsh*t.

Until that happens, I will not be voting for a leap into the unknown. I am a generally neutral person on most issues, as I base my decisions on facts. I am open to change in general, but not under the current circumstances.

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If we are independent what income would scotland actually get and don't say oil as it is owned by British petroleum as when we split from Britain we lose our right to the money

Firstly, the oil revenue is a bonus, there's enough money in the Scots economy to get by without it, especially when you factor in the savings to made through ditching Trident and HS2.

Secondly, that's nonsense. There is no doubt whatsoever that something like 90% of the remaining North Sea reserves will belong to Scotland and there's the Atlantic shelf still to come, too. Bear in mind that we're not splitting from Britain, the United Kingdom, as defined in the Acts of the two Parliaments which created it, will cease to exist. That's an interesting legal position right there (and, I suspect, one of the ones Allan was alluding to in his earlier post).

Notwithstanding faraway's comments, I think what oaky was alluding to is the fact that the BT campaign is, to a large extent, built on the fear factor. Not everyone will vote no because of this but (imo) it will be a major player when appealing to the broad electorate in much the same way that the Braveheart factor wil appeal to many Yes voters.

I'm in favour of independence for the simple reason that I'd like my vote to actually count. We've had nothing but Tories in every election I've voted in during my lifetime (and I include "New" Labour as Tories) and I want to see a government reflecting the voting patterns in Scotland.

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Politically there are two subjects that I have pretty strong views about 1. is nuclear weapons and 2. is nuclear energy, green sustainable power and the environment.. These rise above political parties for me.

Another subject close to my heart is positivity. You either live in fear of everything from not getting a result on a Saturday to we are doomed if we change anything. People have a terrible fear of change even though a current situation is bad for them. Or you live in hope where you embrace change and see opportunities.

Some years ago I was in Dublin then travelled around Eire for two weeks was very impressed with the positivity of the people and the 'can do' attitude. They took on personal responsibility and blamed no-one but themselves for their lot.

At the end of the day we can all argue about economy, taxes, border patrols and other such detail but the bottom line is what does your intuition tell you based on the knowledge and experience you do have?

I'll be voting Yes.

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As things stand, I'll be voting no. I'm not interested in the party political nonsense, as I completely 'get' that if independent, in 10 years we could still have an SNP Scottish Govt. or we could have a Labour Scottish Govt. etc.

BUT - to an extent, you have no option but to listen to party politics given that the only main political party who as a whole support independence are SNP, and so almost exclusively they have been / will be presenting the case for independence. Given that logically, if the yes vote were to pass, that would also mean that the majority (not all - so don't nitpick) in the referendum have been persuaded by the case put forward by the SNP and therefore it's most likely that in the initial first term as an independent nation that we would have a SNP Govt. at least for the short - medium term.

In any case, as I said, I'll be making my choice (currently no given the hard evidence available) based on the substantive issues of long term sustainability of defined strategies relating to areas such as the economy, defence, international commitments (including the EU), health, education etc.

I'll take each of these in turn as things stand:

The economy - I would like to see a robust set of projections (not spin and rhetoric - which is entirely what we've been fed so far), on how our economic model would look post independence. This is not a stand alone issue either - it is very much dependent on our coninuation within the EU or EEA. Currently, with limited tax raising powers, whether the previous Labour Govt. or the current SNP Govt. the vast majority of the budget for the devolved areas in Scotland comes from a block grant given to us from Westminster. As such, dividing that budget is relatively straightforward as it is a (relatively) predictable income, that doesn't fluctuate significantly dependent on external economic issues such as the global economic meltdown - we have been relatively insulated from that in Scotland in a central Govt. sense. I want to know what each party would do with a fluctuating economy that isn't so easy to predict. However, regardless of who would likly be in power initially, I would like to see these predictions from all of the major parties, supporters of independence or not. This is because if they are being responsible, the other unionist parties should still be prepared for independence, even if they don't support it. Until I see that we can support ourselves in black and white, and not with buzzwords and rhetoric about oil etc. I cannot vote for independence.

Defence - The issue of armed forces, trident etc. is one thing as it is relatively easy to set a broad policy for this, but there is more to defence than frontline and nuclear capabilities. What will happen for example to the current MOD contract that gives BAE in the west of Scotland almost its entire workload? Will that contract run to completion and then not be renewed? Will work be moved down south? We could be talking about thousands of jobs with virtually no other area of shipbuilding left for those individuals to go to. Beyond that, what would the transitional arrangements be for the move from a UK defence strategy to a Scottish one (whatever that might be)?

International Commitments - Particularly the EU / EEA. In spite of the rhetoric presented otherwise, we NEED to be in the EU, free trade without import / export taxation is vital, certainly in the early stages of an independent Scotland as we can't afford for all of our imports to have a price hike to take into account the legal taxation that could be applied. Our imports would certainly outweigh our exports, so this would result in huge financial problems. In addition, the likes of Prestwick and Aberdeen airports would no longer be subsidised as they currently are by EU funds, so the cost of flights from these airports would raise significantly (they would have to, to allow for the raised landing taxes that would then be charged to still make those airports viable and break even, otherwise they WOULD be unsustainable). Those are just a couple of the hundreds of reasons we would need the EU. Speaking as an EU and constitutional law expert, our ongoing membership, or lack of eligibility to continue without re-application to the EU is not certain either way - both sides have presented opposing viewpoints, and there is in fact (oddly) supporting law for each side of the argument - I would like to see the issue resolved with 100% certainty one way of the other before making my choice.

Health - Currently, we have the free prescription service. This is great, however I don't want to retain that basic benefit at the expense of frontline services, which are currently stretched to breaking point. I already know for a fact that in several areas the NHS are not meeting various legal obligations due to being stretched on a frontline staff basis, and this is due to a combination of financial mismanagement from individual healthboards (actually mainly due to trying to stretch funds that aren't there to cover a budget that is significantly more than what they have coming in - not easy!!), and not enough funds being brought into the NHS to begin with. So what will the NHS financial model look like post independence? Brilliant that new hospitals such as the Southern General are being created, but will that continue? Will it be at the expense of areas such as the near closure of the RAH kids ward and other hospitals that have already closed? Again, I want to know. I also want to know what will be done about the scandelous costs that many pharmaceutical companies charge for their products, often life saving ones, and effectively holding health services to ransom as they have no choice but to pay up? Again - no rhetoric - firm plans and figures.

Education - The area that I work in - currently, education (further and higher) is again being stretched to breaking point. There have been forced mergers, discrimination in entry criterias stemming from central government policies, reduction of part time and evening provision as it's not 'cost effective' (apparently higher education is now a consumer product), closed doors to many adult learners that want to come back to retrain. Many institutions are struggling in the current environment, I want to know that the long terms strategy is for this.

That's all I have time to discuss - I have other issues linked to all of the above and more, but ultimately what it comes down to is that I want to see more facts and hard policy and less rhetoric and party political in fighting, spin and bullsh*t.

Until that happens, I will not be voting for a leap into the unknown. I am a generally neutral person on most issues, as I base my decisions on facts. I am open to change in general, but not under the current circumstances.

Congratulations Sir. This is by far the most well thought out and presented post I have seen on this subject not only on the forum but anywhere.

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If we are independent what income would scotland actually get and don't say oil as it is owned by British petroleum as when we split from Britain we lose our right to the money

Everything that it can generate. At the moment we send all of it to London and get a fraction of it back.

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As things stand, I'll be voting no. I'm not interested in the party political nonsense, as I completely 'get' that if independent, in 10 years we could still have an SNP Scottish Govt. or we could have a Labour Scottish Govt. etc.

BUT - to an extent, you have no option but to listen to party politics given that the only main political party who as a whole support independence are SNP, and so almost exclusively they have been / will be presenting the case for independence. Given that logically, if the yes vote were to pass, that would also mean that the majority (not all - so don't nitpick) in the referendum have been persuaded by the case put forward by the SNP and therefore it's most likely that in the initial first term as an independent nation that we would have a SNP Govt. at least for the short - medium term.

In any case, as I said, I'll be making my choice (currently no given the hard evidence available) based on the substantive issues of long term sustainability of defined strategies relating to areas such as the economy, defence, international commitments (including the EU), health, education etc.

I'll take each of these in turn as things stand:

The economy - I would like to see a robust set of projections (not spin and rhetoric - which is entirely what we've been fed so far), on how our economic model would look post independence. This is not a stand alone issue either - it is very much dependent on our coninuation within the EU or EEA. Currently, with limited tax raising powers, whether the previous Labour Govt. or the current SNP Govt. the vast majority of the budget for the devolved areas in Scotland comes from a block grant given to us from Westminster. As such, dividing that budget is relatively straightforward as it is a (relatively) predictable income, that doesn't fluctuate significantly dependent on external economic issues such as the global economic meltdown - we have been relatively insulated from that in Scotland in a central Govt. sense. I want to know what each party would do with a fluctuating economy that isn't so easy to predict. However, regardless of who would likly be in power initially, I would like to see these predictions from all of the major parties, supporters of independence or not. This is because if they are being responsible, the other unionist parties should still be prepared for independence, even if they don't support it. Until I see that we can support ourselves in black and white, and not with buzzwords and rhetoric about oil etc. I cannot vote for independence.

Defence - The issue of armed forces, trident etc. is one thing as it is relatively easy to set a broad policy for this, but there is more to defence than frontline and nuclear capabilities. What will happen for example to the current MOD contract that gives BAE in the west of Scotland almost its entire workload? Will that contract run to completion and then not be renewed? Will work be moved down south? We could be talking about thousands of jobs with virtually no other area of shipbuilding left for those individuals to go to. Beyond that, what would the transitional arrangements be for the move from a UK defence strategy to a Scottish one (whatever that might be)?

International Commitments - Particularly the EU / EEA. In spite of the rhetoric presented otherwise, we NEED to be in the EU, free trade without import / export taxation is vital, certainly in the early stages of an independent Scotland as we can't afford for all of our imports to have a price hike to take into account the legal taxation that could be applied. Our imports would certainly outweigh our exports, so this would result in huge financial problems. In addition, the likes of Prestwick and Aberdeen airports would no longer be subsidised as they currently are by EU funds, so the cost of flights from these airports would raise significantly (they would have to, to allow for the raised landing taxes that would then be charged to still make those airports viable and break even, otherwise they WOULD be unsustainable). Those are just a couple of the hundreds of reasons we would need the EU. Speaking as an EU and constitutional law expert, our ongoing membership, or lack of eligibility to continue without re-application to the EU is not certain either way - both sides have presented opposing viewpoints, and there is in fact (oddly) supporting law for each side of the argument - I would like to see the issue resolved with 100% certainty one way of the other before making my choice.

Health - Currently, we have the free prescription service. This is great, however I don't want to retain that basic benefit at the expense of frontline services, which are currently stretched to breaking point. I already know for a fact that in several areas the NHS are not meeting various legal obligations due to being stretched on a frontline staff basis, and this is due to a combination of financial mismanagement from individual healthboards (actually mainly due to trying to stretch funds that aren't there to cover a budget that is significantly more than what they have coming in - not easy!!), and not enough funds being brought into the NHS to begin with. So what will the NHS financial model look like post independence? Brilliant that new hospitals such as the Southern General are being created, but will that continue? Will it be at the expense of areas such as the near closure of the RAH kids ward and other hospitals that have already closed? Again, I want to know. I also want to know what will be done about the scandelous costs that many pharmaceutical companies charge for their products, often life saving ones, and effectively holding health services to ransom as they have no choice but to pay up? Again - no rhetoric - firm plans and figures.

Education - The area that I work in - currently, education (further and higher) is again being stretched to breaking point. There have been forced mergers, discrimination in entry criterias stemming from central government policies, reduction of part time and evening provision as it's not 'cost effective' (apparently higher education is now a consumer product), closed doors to many adult learners that want to come back to retrain. Many institutions are struggling in the current environment, I want to know that the long terms strategy is for this.

That's all I have time to discuss - I have other issues linked to all of the above and more, but ultimately what it comes down to is that I want to see more facts and hard policy and less rhetoric and party political in fighting, spin and bullsh*t.

Until that happens, I will not be voting for a leap into the unknown. I am a generally neutral person on most issues, as I base my decisions on facts. I am open to change in general, but not under the current circumstances.

The only problem with this is that all of these points are dependent on the party in charge and any solution presented on all points will be temporary.

Independence really is only about one long term decision which is who should control how Scotland brings in and spends the money it generates and the decisions which affect Scots. Should it be Scotland or another country. It's really as simple as that. Anything else is political bullshit IMO.

Here's an example. Let's say we gain independence.

Take Defence.

If the Tories win the following election we'll see a continued reduction in the armed forces.

Labour will probably do the same.

SNP are talking about increasing it and changing the focus on what they do.

Which one should you base your independence decision on?

I'd say neither.

You can take any of your other points and you'll find 3 different answers from the Tories, Labour and SNP.

Again which do you base your decision on?

Again I'd say logically you can't base it on any of them.

This is the reason why I've always stated that independence is about who we want controlling the decisions which affect Scotland. Do you want it to be Scots elected by Scots and answerable only to Scotland or do you want it to continue to be taken by another country where a few token Scots have a say?

To me, this is a total no brainer.

Edited by oaksoft
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