How many people who are NOT citizens of the UK, think Scotland should be independent

legojenn,
The English do not take care of the Scots, and never have, and that is why there is a call for independence. Vice versa would actually be more accurate. The successive Westminster Governments have drained this country.
I must admit that I am surprised by the lack of knowlege of Scotland shown in some replies and I asked the question because I thought that in the USA people were more aware of the world outside the US. In saying that though, the last time I was in the USA someone suggested to me that Scotland was a place in the North of England so maybe I shouldn't be too surprised by some of the replies.

 

Dear Mairead,

Sorry to disappoint you, but average Americans are among the most insular of all peoples, knowing little or nothing of the world outside the US, or even their own part of the US. Educated people are, of course, the exception, but that might be 20% of the population. The US has always been large and diverse enough - geographically, economically, and culturally - to absorb the energies and concerns of most of its citizens. We haven't had to go abroad, until very recently, to do business, or to come into contact with exotic places and peoples. I'm 60. When I was young, most Americans hadn't even heard of the countries now dominating the news. We're adapting quickly, but we haven't the centuries of experience with internationalism made necessary for smaller countries.

So, sad to say, most Americans' ideas of Scotland are vague, and have to do with kilts, bag-pipes, and whiskey. This despite a large minority of Americans being of Scots origin.

Re Scotland and the UK, the issue is part economic, part emotional. A sober assessment must be done of the economic consequences of separation. What is the flow of money and goods between the two? How might an independent Scotland do in a rapidly globalizing economy? What would the consequences be for national defense? What would be the political status of an independent Scotland?

I don't know the answers. (I'm an American, after all.) But these pragmatic calculations must be made before acting on understandable emotions of pride or resentment.

Best wishes for you and for Scotland.

 

Gee, can you be more vague?

Which replies specifically were wrong? How were they wrong?

 

You puzzle me. The Six Counties are still part of the United Kingdom, although I think we now have a clearer sight of the time when they won't be.

Nevertheless Belfast is, was, and (barring dramatic techtonic shift) always will be in northern Ireland, and its natives Irish (from the north).

A simple majority in the Scottish Parliament could declare independence tomorrow. There is no such majority, and is unlikely to be one in the forseeable future. I suppose that's why the separatist minority take comfort from foreign opinion (and foreign films).

 

Scotland should be independent if they want, just as any other country.

 

They are moving East, too, and it's been going on for many, many years. Wales is going to be hit very hard by the public sector cuts, relying heavily on those jobs since the former main industries were catastrophically shut down for predominantly political reasons (with little done to help encourage other employers to come in and take their place). While I'm far from being entirely happy at the direction of the current coalition government in that respect, it would have been a whole lot worse if the Tories had actually got a majority!

That said, the south east of England is looking after itself, as it always does. It isn't just Scotland and Wales that suffer, of course, but we are never considered as 'important' or 'worth considering' in such times, since we are never likely to vote Tory anyway. 'Middle England' (which is mostly around the south east anyway!) is the key interest group politicians need to address for their own benefit, and their interests and opinions will rarely coincide with ours.

There is another way, though - perhaps the answer isn't for Scotland (and/or Wales) to leave the union, but for all of the rest of us to get together and simply throw the south east of England out, since they are the ones causing the problems! Split England roughly along the Tees-Exe line (or perhaps more of a Bournemouth to Kings Lynn line, or something) and chuck the south eastern bit out of the union! Alternatively, we could get together with the Irish, Cornish, Manx and Bretons and have a federal celtic state. It might not be as rich or influential as the UK (in the short term at least), but at least we'd actually get on with each other and respect each others' interests and opinions!

In fairness, it should be noted that the 'separatist' party is in government in the Scottish Parliament, albeit a minority government (and not necessarily voted in by entirely due to secessionist policies). It is a minority, but it certainly shouldn't be regarded as an insignificant minority, or one that couldn't conceivably become a majority in the foreseeable future (although I don't think that is 'probably', it is certainly 'possible').

I believe independence is very much the aim of the SNP, but in the meantime they are also campaigning for gradual increases in the power of the Scottish Parliament. I believe they are fully aware that they don't currently have a majority of the Scottish people persuaded on the case for full independence, but I don't think that's going to stop them campaigning for it as the long term goal.

 

And I notice that the defence bases in Scotland are being slowly and sytematically moved down south too, particularly the RAF bases. Lossiemouth being the latest to lose out. All part of the defence cuts so they say, but whose defence I wonder.

 

Same thing is happening here. The new Defense Academy at St Athan was 'shelved', the Passport office in Newport is likely to close (meaning that the 'local' passport office for South Wales will be in London, apart from the fact that it's the second largest employer in Newport), Coast Guard services are being destroyed (with 2 of the 3 stations closing and the other becoming daytime only, so the entire coast of Wales will be covered at night from the Southampton/Portsmouth area - they plan to have 2 stations in south east England (that one plus Dover), and one in Aberdeen! There's a bit of clear evidence about their priorities!), and so on.

It's the accumulation of all these things that does the damage to an area and its economy, and you can bet that the the cuts will be made in areas well away from London and the South East, and well away from areas where the Tories might actually have some parliamentary seats to lose!

Actually the best option to reduce public spending, in an era when communication across long distances is more or less instant and electronic (so there's no budgetary considerations for horses and carrier pigeons!), would be to move all of the administration well away from London and the South East, sell off the valuable properties there, and buy significantly cheaper ones elsewhere (in places where you also don't have to pay extra 'London Living Allowances' for the staff). There is just no need to have everything centralised around London. No need at all. For example, wouldn't a 'Ministry of Agriculture' be better off in a place where there is some?!

You can bet that ain't gonna happen, though! It's only a matter of time before someone suggests that it would be more 'cost effective' to shut the DVLA in Swansea and move it to Essex or Kent, or London of course, instead! The only answer is ever increasing devolution to the point of at least proper federalism, with all of us carrying out all of these decisions and operations for ourselves, and London being unable to rob all the rest of us blind for their own benefit (not just Wales and Scotland, but the North and West of England too).

 

i think they need to send more protestant settelers until you change your mind.

 

Religion shouldn't come into it.

 

Self-determination is the very cornerstone of democracy imo. If 60% of Scots vote to be independent than independent they should be.

 

If they are already represented fairly in their current democracy, then they already have self determination.

 

Not if they wish to be independent they don't. A small population with small representation within a larger governing body often gets ignored. We have the same issues here in the US where the federal government consistently treads over the desires of individual states.

 

Why are you entitled to be a separate nation just because you want to?

Should I personally be allowed to carve off a mile of land (or more!) from the US and declare it my own Republic? If not, why?

 

There's a difference between one person wanting to be his own nation and millions of people wanting the same thing. Did the US not have a right to be its own nation just because it wanted to? What about Ireland, do they deserve to be their own nation or should they just rejoin the UK?

 

Scotland already is a 'nation', with its own national and cultural identity (separate and different from that of England), and its own history. It is also already defined geographically as a 'country'. What it isn't is an independent 'state'. The same is true of Wales. The UK is not, and never has been, a 'nation'. It is a single state 'union' comprised of several 'nations', each with their own identity and background, each with their own geographical country, and each with their own values and public opinions as to how their own country should be run. Although we do have some things in common with each other, the separate nations/countries within the UK also have many things which are significantly different from each other.

The inherent problem with UK democracy and statehood is one of population. The population of England is such that in any democracy that covers England (population approx 50 million, 533 of the 650 parliamentary seats), Wales (population approx 3 million, 40 parliamentary seats), Scotland (population approx 5 million, 59 parliamentary seats) and Northern Ireland (population less than 2 million, 18 parliamentary seats) together as one, the English are free to run the affairs of all 3 nations according to their own values and agenda, irrespective of the views of the people of Wales and Scotland.

Wales and Scotland have been effectively run as 'colonies' of England (although the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly have improved that somewhat since they started in 1999). The UK parliament is inherently overwhelmingly dominated by the interests of England, and always will be, particularly in times of Conservative government (since they are unlikely to win any significant number of seats in Scotland or Wales (which don't have very significant numbers of seats to be won anyway), so don't really have to care about losing votes there!).

It's not a case of suddenly simply wanting to be a 'separate nation'. Scotland already is a 'separate nation'. What is being suggested is that it also become a separate 'state' so that it can be democratically run according to the values of its own people, not according to the values of the larger and more populous 'nation' next door!

It's significantly different from the situation with the states and 'union' in the USA, where they can group together democratically in various ways to effect decisions, and no one state has the power to outvote all of the others put together. It doesn't matter what Wales and Scotland want (and Northern Ireland, of course), they simply cannot outvote England within the democratic process. Even if the North and West of England are added to the vote of the 'Celtic fringe', it is still the most populous south eastern area that is very much in control of the democracy (and that is why, in difficult times, it is that south eastern area that gets its interests looked after at the expense of the rest of the UK).

Democracy is fine as a system when applied to a single 'nation' of people with broadly similar cultural and political values. It becomes a problem, though, when it is being applied to a multi-national 'state', with one of those nations being in total and absolute control over the others. That is the UK situation, and the UK has never been an entirely happy 'marriage', nor a 'marriage' of 'equals'. In a very real sense, Scotland and Wales are not democratic at all (apart from the very recent and quite limited powers of their Assembly and Parliament) - they are not run according to the will of their own people, but according to the will of the people of another country and nation - England.

 

Let's put the democratic problem into a US context, just for illustration purposes. I've tried to make the relative numbers as close as possible to the UK numbers (at about 75% of the UK totals), but obviously they are not precise.

Let's say a new country was formed from 4 existing US states/territories:
California (pop. approx 37 million)
Puerto Rico (pop. approx 3.7 million)
New Mexico (pop just over 2 million)
Hawaii (pop less than 1.5 million)

A total population of about 44.2 million, of which nearly 85% are 'Californians'.

Now lets separate them by history, culture, historical native language, such that they are all distinct and separate nations. Let's say this is manifested in a political context so that (purely for hypothetical illustration purposes - this isn't supposed to be real!) the population of California is generally predominantly 'liberal' in outlook, and the other 3 are predominantly 'conservative'.

Let's give them one parliament, with democratic composition according to population, so that about 85% of the parliament are representatives of the people of California.

What are the chances of the people of Puerto Rico, New Mexico and Hawaii being politically run according to the predominantly 'conservative' principles of their peoples? I would say not a great deal!

What are the chances of the representatives of the people of California simply ignoring the needs and desires of the people of the other nations, since they are pretty much insignificant in numerical terms? Probably pretty high!

Would that be a sensible way for the peoples of those 4 'nations' to organise themselves on a political and democratic basis? Would it be understandable that the people of the other 3 would start to consider that being under the effective power of the people of California was not in their best interests when it comes to having their own ideals followed by their government?

That's the kind of situation we have in the UK - 4 nations altogether, politically dominated entirely by one nation with a much larger population, that has a different culture and consequent political agenda from the others, and in practical terms almost total political power over the others. That's why some people in the other nations believe that the best way forward for the future is separation.

 

Two great posts there Cenydd, maybe the good citizens of the USA and the rest of the world will have learned something from it.
Also like to add, that Scotland is one of the oldest nations in Europe and was a nation on it's own while England was a broken country ruled by many small Kings.

 

I'm with George Galloway on this one. It would be better for Scotland to remain within the Union. But a Union that is Socialist would also be nice.

 

Leaving aside the (eminently challengable) assumption that there is more conservatism in Puerto Rico and Hawaii than in California -

- you must be aware that Lloyd George was not elected purely by Welsh voters, nor Ramsay MacDonald purely by Scots voters? Wales and Scotland are both, as you point out, small subsets of the UK whole and as such it's relatively easy to characterise each Welsh or Scots elector as a special-interest, post-industrial exception from the national norm. But it's just as easy to isolate the north-east, or Lancashire or Yorkshire, or the south-west. You probably haven't followed the psephological data from Durham and Northumberland over the elections of the last few decades - for shame! - but I have, and I have noted that my people, my "nation", have voted gainst the national trend to a far greater extent than either Welsh or Scots. We swung much further left during the rightward-tending Thatcher years than any other territorial expanse of the United Kingdom.

So, if you're basing your argument for national separatism on present-day concerns of groups of people within the existing nation-state then many definable regions/districts within the United Kingdom are suffering from the tyranny of the majority rather more than are Wales and Scotland.

But if you're basing your argument for national separatism on mediaeval-revivalist romanticism, then we'll have to drag out St Cuthbert's banner and get mediaeval on everyone's arse:



I've mentioned to Scots Nationalists before that Erik Bloodaxe died fighting for Northumbria on the battlefield, he didn't vote himself out of existence after a failed central-american colonial enterprise...

 

While the Scottish Parliament and Welsh assemblies are an improvement over the situation that existed prior to the enactment of the Scotland Act, 1998 and the Government of Wales Act, 1998, the legislatures are not sovereign. Unlike federations like Canada, the US and I assume Australia, where the federal government and the states/provinces have scope for legislation under the division of legislative powers. The feds cannot legislate in the areas that provincial/state jursdiction and vice versa. The UK national legislatures are just extensions of Westminster and have some authority delegated from London. That delegation can be revoked at any time by legislation. In federations, legislative authority cannot cannot be unilaterally revoked. Constitutions may have amending formulae for negotiang divisions of powers, but one level cannot take one away from the other.

My previous post was a bit over the top and is more of a comment on the Sovereignty movement in Quebec than anything. That being said, Scotland and Wales, despite their long histories probably have less of a claim for soverignty than Quebec, Texas or Western Australia does. Each of those states/provinces have a degree of sovereignty over their affairs. Scotland and Wales do not even have that.

Really, I don't see any advantage to an independent Scotland for any non-emotional reason. Look at Ireland. It was independent for 75 years of horrible poverty, with people emigrating like rats of a sinking ship. With a little money from the EU and some shady tax and banking rules, they managed to have a decade and a bit of prosperity and now worse off then in the 80s. I think being part of a bigger country would soften the blows a little. Though the UK is suffering a little now, I think that you are probably better off in the union than outside of it.

 

Sadly I don't have the time to decimate the ignorance in this thread, so for now all I can say is this.

Scotland is a country. It is 2000 years old and more. It has never not been a country. There is no question of it being anything other.

Scotland united with England because a couple of hundred years back, it was having an economic crisis and had neither the finance nor the inclination to continue the pointless warring with England. England joined for similar reasons.

It joined the Union because it was beneficial at the time.

Now, it's not beneficial. We are up (*)(*)(*)(*) creek without a paddle and the Union has cushioned us from bloody nothing.

How could our situation be worse? The English can't run a tuppeny menage. They're making a total arse of government.

Nobody in Scotland voted Conservative. But the Government in Westminster is run by the Conservatives.

It does not represent the wishes of anyone in this country.

As to nationhood etc, Scotland has always retained a separate legal system, education system, it has separate health care, different culture, it's a completely different country and if any of you ever take the time to come here and go to England, you will never ask again what the difference is between the two. (Cenydd, I've not been to Wales for years man, but sure it's equally distinct).

For the intellectually challenged, you can think of it this way - Europe is full of countries which are members of the EU. They are different countries. The UK Union is nothing more than that, to Scotland. It's temporary. There is no emotional attachment involved and it in no way affects Scotland's status as a different country.

By the way, the first person to be monarch of both Scotland and England was...Scottish.

 

If it is already a separate country, then what exactly is the problem?

 

Think similar to the case with Puerto Rico and the United States.

 

Puerto Rico is not considered a separate nation. It is part of the US. Puerto Ricans have US citizenship.

Using that analogy, Scotland is not a separate nation. It is part of the UK, which we recognize as a nation.