Independence

[framheim]

What are your thoughts on it? Good for Scotland? Good for England? Will it help relations between English and Scots? Can we afford it? Is it ultimately inevitable? Are the SNP and Alex Salmond capable of achieving it alone or will they rely on Solidarity, SSP and the Greens?

[Guest onlynik]

Good idea, as long as we can stay in europe.

[Camie]

I agree. It would be good for Scotland in the short run at least. I am unsure about us affording it with Scotland's declining population etc but I personally think in the past few years Scotland has coped much better than England, even to the point that you can say we are living a better quality of life.

[Pierre Von Mondragon]

I am glad this has been raised, as it is a point I have been pondering upon recently. I still don't know how I would vote on this should a referendum on it come about. On the one hand it would allow us full responsibility for our collective fates, and would finally put an end to whinging about the English controlling our economy etc, and as a bonus would prevent the darkness of another bleak Thatcherite epoch. On the other hand it may encourage a little Scotlander mentality, replete with excess nationalism, attitudes which I despise. Another point, what of the BBC? If I thought that independence meant that we had to lose the BBC, then I would definitely vote against it. It has been, I think, one of the better influences on my life, and one I am not prepared to lose; think about it, name one good programme that has ever come from Irish TV. I would move to England before being parted from it.

[HairyScaryMark]

The SNP are pretending to be popular all of a sudden. They lost seats at the last Scottish Parliament Election. Might as well have not bothered at the last Genereal Election.

If they get more seats in hollyrood next year, it will be largely becuase Labour are despised by a decent minority and the Lib Dems have been useless ever since Meinz Capmbell took over in Westminister. In other words, they could gain power through people failing to turn out to vote for other parties.

I am mostly in favour of Scottish Indepdence. Largely becuase I believe Scotland is a more forward thinking country (with the exception of old firm fans). There could be a real chance to make social progress and improve the living standards of Scottish people through indepdence. We could become politically more like a Scandanavian country, who are usaully said to have the highest standard of living in the world.

[SteveCrisis]

As much as I would like to see it happen I reckon it would have to be very carefully thought through.

Key concerns are obviously revenues, taxation, health and defence.

Petroleum Revenue Tax would generate huge revenues for a sovereign Scottish State, as it currently does for Westminster, but would Westminster gladly loosen and relinquish its grip on this? For those who aren't aware PRT isn't the same as corporation tax.

As Scotland has a relatively small population other forms of taxation would have to be increased. As for funding local councils would a return to the rates system be ideal, would council tax be retained or would the powers that be actually succumb to the notion of a local income tax?

Scottish NHS hospitals, the long-standing ones not those done on the PFI, seem to be fairing a lot better than those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. To maintain this record the Scottish NHS would have to receive priority funding. Again, it's back to taxation unless everyone wants to go private and end up paying market prices for prescription medicine.

Defence: a National Infantry, Navy and Airforce. How would the budgets be funded if income tax and other direct and indirect taxes were to remain the same? On the other hand if they were increased dramatically something would have to give to sustain growth.

[delboy]

i favour scottish independence if only so the scots can stop blaming the english when everything goes tits up! no seriously having spent a considerable amount of time living there it always felt like a different country to my homeland. i know a lot of people worry about whether scotland could finance itself but if you think about it, scotland is on the same par (terrain, population, resources etc) as scandanavian countries and they do alright for themselves.

[HairyScaryMark]

Taxation can be increased in a number of areas (oil, top rate income tax, green taxes etc) and decreased in others (such as bottom rate income tax and inheritance tax). Scotland has something like 85% the UK average income. I think it is near enough (when combined with Oil wealth) that taxation would not need to be dramatically increased to fund public spending.

We may have a relatively low GDP in Scotland, but it isn't drastically far off Finland and they still manage to fund a generous social securtity programme.

In the case of indepdence, Scotland should negotiatie control of all or most of the UK armed forces, stationed in Scotland.

I don't think there is any reason why Scotland shoudln't actually improve as an indepdent nation. Many, such as myself probably fear that it would be poorly managed and the incompetance, seen in Hollyrood is evidence this would happen.

With relation to the EU. We must remember that Switzerland and Norway are the richest countries in the world, and not members of the European Union. Sweden also rejected the Euro currency and is possibly economically stronger as a result.

The practically and high risk apsects of starting a new currency could be a prime reason for Scotland joining the Euro.

[Guest MDP]

would have been a go od thing if it happened a good few years back, all the oil would have made scotland a very rich country, whereas enngland benifited largley from it too

[HeinzHines]

Everyone who is in favour of a scottish independence always brings up the Scandinavian issue about being of similar size, population etc....

The difference between those countries and Scotland is.....that they have money.

You cant have high tax without high wages and scotland has no product to base increased wages upon (Oil has long since been owned by the French and Americans).

[Sam_b]

The independance question is a difficult one, especially for socialists I think. Both the SSP and Solidarity call openly for the formation of an independant socialist Scotland, yet there are large numbers within such organisations that are against this.

We have to realise, like any ethnic group or state, that Scotland has a right to self determination, just like Palestine, Chechnya, Quebec etc. However, understanding their right to this doesn't necessarily mean that it is a wise move to put into practice. By making an independant Scottish state we alienate the workers down south who we have a lot in common with, through trade union links, strieks, similar goals etc. Time and precious money for an independant capitalist Scotland would be spent on a separate Scottish army, renegotiation into the EU and NATO, and suchlike. An indepenndant socialist Scotland would either be a short-term success but end up a collosal failure (socialism in one country is entirely a manufacture of Stalininsm), or a failure from the start which cries out for capitalist neo-imperialist countries to invade it and reclaim it.

Don't get me wrong, I would'nt shed a tear for the breakup of the British State, but some thing need to be taken into consideration!

All that and Braveheart re-runs. Don't laugh, there would be.

[framheim]

some good points made so far, both for and against.

i'm waiting to be persuaded on independence. i'm been swaying towards it for a few months now and can see quite a lot of benefits. it also wouldn't be a surgical seperation, i'd imagine we'd still share many things one of which may be the bbc.

on the subject of defence, would scotland need a large independent armed forces? surely without the commitment to uk's worldwide operations there would be some scope for scaling down scotlands military and reinvesting that money into other areas like education, health and other areas of the economy. i'm not saying military personnel should be laid off or decommissioned or whatever military types call it but perhaps just wind them down to a more appropriate level.

also from my understanding if scotland was independent we wouldn't need to renegotiate entry into the EU as we'd already be a member. should the uk break up then each state would enjoy the same status as was previously given to it's parent state. we would have equal rights to england in the EU.

i think one of the key things about an independent scotland is it would be able to set it's own foreign policy and immigration policy. at present the uk government is trying to slow immigration while scotland faces a declining population and lack of skilled workers. i think it's fairly obvious that an independent scotland would reverse uk immigration policy to a degree and welcome increased immigration thus boosting our economy and our workforce.

i also think independence has particular relevence in the north east of scotland. the scottish parliament and the uk government hasn't been very successful in safeguarding jobs in the fishing industry. would an independent scotland have been able to negotiate a better deal in europe? should an independent scotland be involved in the common fisheries policy?

would there be higher taxes? there might be different taxes but the infrastructure in scotland is tiny compared to what our taxes go towards now. not too mention revenues from our oceans and land. and of course the oil.

i think the union has done some good. obviously we've benefitted from a large amount of english, welsh and irish workers and brains coming to scotland(as they have from scots going to their countries) and in 1707 scotland was close to bankruptcy for a variety of reasons(some contrived perhaps and others were just fools errands). i think scotland is certainly capable of standing on it's own but is it to our advantage? it's certainly worth discussing and i believe at the very least we need more power for the scottish parliament so that scotland can get the focus it deserves.

[Pierre Von Mondragon]

Oh yes, will we get our twentieth of the bomb, do we want it? Depends if we get beat by Costa Rica et al again.

[Swingin' Ryan]

I'm all for it. I've always thought Scotland should be an independent country within Europe, given our similarities in size and exports with many Scandinavian countries, it doesn't seem to make sense that we're connected to England based on an Act of Union signed 300 years ago, and a geographical attachment.

I also think that the SNP have some great ideas, they're one of the few left-of-centre parties that don't have utterly ridiculous policies. I think Scotland (along with Northern Ireland and Wales), get a raw deal in British politics, which has become a consequence of being controlled by a Government who has it's interests firmly in it's own soil. Holyrood doesn't feel like a Scottish affair with Labour in charge, if anything it feels like a further means of control from Westminster.

[delboy]

mind u if scotland does get independence we could see history repeating itself with the scots squabbling amongst themselves so much that the english will have to come in and sort it out (again!)

[soundian]

mind u if scotland does get independence we could see history repeating itself with the scots squabbling amongst themselves so much that the english will have to come in and sort it out (again!)

We'll just have to kick your arse back out (again)

[delboy]

We'll just have to kick your arse back out (again)

just try it laddie, spending all next week in my adopted homeland, you'll all be relived to know i am not going near the granite city

[soundian]

just try it laddie, spending all next week in my adopted homeland, you'll all be relived to know i am not going near the granite city

Fuck, better let immigration know.

[delboy]

Fuck, better let immigration know.

my visa has been approved!

[The Milner]

my visa has been approved!

what numpty did that???!!!

[Shaki]

My worry is that the voting public are largely uneducated on the matter and you'd get a lot of people screaming "freeeeeedom" solely on the basis of their extreme (and often misguided) nationalism as opposed to political/economical awareness.

I personally have no idea what would be best and would have to do a lot of investigation into the pros and cons (perhaps even outwith aberdeen-music.com!) of an independant Scotland before making up my mind.

I currently can't be arsed doing that so I say Britain is fine for the meantime.

[soundian]

my visa has been approved!

There goes the neighbourhood.

Try and keep the noise down while your here.

[Guest NULL]

I refuse to show my passport/driving licence at any border crossing in the uk EVER

[Guest DustyDeviada]

what numpty did that???!!!

My guess is that he's sleeping with the Home Secretary.

[delboy]

its not what you know its who you know