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The Big Scottish Independence Debate


Laurence

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proof that the finances are stronger when we take control for ourselves.

 

I wouldn't go that far. Without dismissing it altogether, I would point out that:

 

1) The data was a snapshot 3 years ago, at the height of the recession, debt crisis and Eurozone crisis, and since which time oil revenues have continued their fall. 

2) What it shows is that even when oil revenues were higher than they are now, Scotland couldn't remotely balance its books.

3) All this is also before taking into account the massive additional costs that Scotland would instantly face as an independent country, and also before taking into account all the spending plans and promises.

 

 

You do kinda need to bear in mind that the FT, like all the MSM, bases their articles on GERS, which bases their results on the Government produced figures from the ONS and OBR....and, like the IFS forecasts, assume that an independent Scotland would continue to follow the policies and employ the same bloated administration as  Westminster currently does.  Most oil price forecasts are upward, with one of the exceptions being the OBR which has a political motivation to underestimate oil revenue.

 

Professor Sir Donald Mackay's report  in the Sunday Times 

http://wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/psdm.jpg  (link to Times article not to Wings one)

says that the Office for Budgetary Responsibility predicts oil prices far lower than even other parts of the UK Government. This OBR figure is used by Westminster to predict lower tax revenues from oil.

 

The OBR claims there will be £15.8 billion tax revenue from oil over three years. The Department for Energy and Climate Change predicts a higher oil price, and therefore £28.1 billion in tax receipts. This huge difference is between two departments within the same government.

 

And the OBR reaction to that report was to readjust their figures even further downwards. Go figure! The Scottish Government in their forecasts tend to use a figure in the mid range of the best figure and the worst one, afaik.

 

Anyone who thinks that we get independence one day and will have Utopia the next day(or ever) is the kind of person who thinks the OBR and the IFS are independent of Government and were not set up specifically to fudge figures and produce results to suit their agendas, while allowing the Government to pretend the results had "nothing to do with us, guv!"

 

At this precise moment, nobody can say massive additional costs that Scotland would instantly face as an independent country, because we won't know until after negotiations, what we will have and what we will have to find. Presently, the figures for start-up costs have a) been drastically exaggerated, if it is the Danny Alexander figures being considered and b) unless rUk does foot stamping and huffing, which would mean disruption to both economies just to teach us a lesson, any start up costs would be spread out over a few years and not be due on day one.

 

I prefer to think that, if we vote YES, Westminster will accept our decision, decide to adhere to the Edinburgh Agreement, and make the transition as pain-free as possible for both countries....after all, they have had plenty practice at releasing countries from their control since WWII, so can do pragmatic if they are faced with the necessity.

 

http://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/2014/07/24/tips-and-ideas/share-tips/tips-of-the-week/north-sea-incentives-to-boost-enquest-MIfvyVzluLyGAzDJtEGrmO/article.html

 

From the above link.......via wings  http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-unlikeliest-places/ (as the whole article needs subscription)  We think that Westminster has been deliberately downplaying the potential of the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) ahead of September’s referendum on Scottish independence.

and

According to the report, the UK economy could generate £200bn over the next 20 years through the recovery of only 3-4bn barrels of North Sea oil and gas. Many analysts believe that the potential is much greater.“

Edited by Oddquine
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Just pay the costs of Independence and use the famed Scottish prudence and thrift to save the bawbees to fund future interest payments. Smile :cheer01:

 

FREEDOOOOOOOOOOM!

 

We will if we must, Scarlet, but we're not about to let Westminster walk over us just because they think they own us.  They don't seem to realise that a Kingdom isn't a country but a Royal realm, and the Union is of two independent Royal realms, one of which was comprised of the Kingdom of Scotland, and the other of which was comprised of the Kingdom of England, plus their conquered adjuncts, Wales and Ireland. Westminster is not the Union, Westminster is  the Parliament of the Union....which, to me would indicate that the dissolution of the Union would mean the dissolution of the Westminster Parliament, just as the Scottish Parliament was dissolved in 1707 on the creation of the Union.  In that case, there would be no continuing UK, whatever it ended up being called, but two continuing states..which would kinda bugger up Westminster's contention that they could just continue being the UK in all International fora as a right, without the agreement of Scotland.

 

Part of the reason I'd prefer no Currency Union is that any Scottish Government in 2016 will have to balance their budget if we are obliged to go with sterlingisation in the short/medium term, though I suspect an oil fund will not grow very fast in the term of the first iScottish Parliament, if that is the case.

 

Have to say, whatever happens on September 18th, this has all been a lot of fun for those of us who are politically aware...and if we end up with a NO vote, I'll look forward to starting again on the 19th September (or maybe a few days later, after having a good greet and getting thoroughly blitzed) by working to send an SNP majority from Scotland to Westminster in 2015 (even though I'm not politically SNP). 

 

We'll get our freedom, if not this time, then next time (though I'd hope for this time, if only because i have been waiting for half a century to get a passport, as I will not have a UK one). :smile: 

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Why does the argument for no always have to be about money?

 

 

Only twice since world war 2 has scotland got the government we voted for in westminster and our democracy is worth more than any money we MIGHT make in the union.

Edited by Ayeseetee
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Why does the argument for no always have to be about money?

 

 

Only twice since world war 2 has scotland got the government we voted for in westminster and our democracy is worth more than any money we MIGHT make in the union.

 

Exactly, the fundamental issue is do we want to run our own affairs or do we want to continue to be dictated to by Westminster, everything else is secondary.

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Why does the argument for no always have to be about money?

 

1. A huge part of the Yes proposition is about money too.

2. Money is pretty damn important! A major role of government is to collect taxation and spend the money, it's rather fundamental and without money, governments can't do anything.

3. There are many other reasons most Scots prefer to be part of the UK,not least jobs and defence.

 

 

Only twice since world war 2 has scotland got the government we voted for in westminster and our democracy is worth more than any money we MIGHT make in the union.

 

Twelve times, actually, or 2/3rds of the time. For many that's not sufficient, which is fair enough, but it compares extremely well with other parts of the UK.

Edited by Yngwie
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Why does the argument for no always have to be about money?

 

3. There are many other reasons most Scots prefer to be part of the UK,not least jobs and defence.

 

 

Most scots dont want the defence in place just now with trident and the billions being wasted on aircraft carriers when we have no aircraft to put on them....

 

The proposed budget after independence is 2.5 billion a year and it would place scotland in the top six of NATO countries for spending per head on the armed forces (based on 2011 defence budgets)

 

Ireland and the Scandinavian countries seem to cope just fine with defence!

 

 

 

How many jobs are at risk if we stay in the uk and we get cuts to the nhs and education system since the english hate that we have free prescriptions and no university fee's?

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Most scots dont want the defence in place just now with trident and the billions being wasted on aircraft carriers when we have no aircraft to put on them...

 

 

A common myth, perpetuated by the SNP.  When you actually ask the people, only a minority of Scots want rid of Trident (confirmed by a very recent poll).  As for the aircraft carriers (built in Scotland, need I remind you) just remember that all the defence contracts we currently benefit from will dry up instantly when we lose our biggest customer.

 

The proposed budget after independence is 2.5 billion a year and it would place scotland in the top six of NATO countries for spending per head on the armed forces (based on 2011 defence budgets)

 

Youn buy a helluva lot of bayonets with that!  I would take that figure with a pinch of salt though. The SNP know they need to provide reassurance on defence to have any chance of winning the vote, but in reality I'd fully expect that figure to be slashed if/when independence happens.  When they are struggling to balance the books and pay for stated priorities like health, education, relieving poverty etc, it doesn't really fit that they'd spend so much on something they don't really believe in.

 

Ireland and the Scandinavian countries seem to cope just fine with defence!

 

 

We are all fortunate to have benefiited from a couple of decades with no direct threats, but who know's what's around the corner in future decades? If Russia takes a shine to our oil, there's not going to be much of a fight, whereas they wouldn't f*** with a nuclear UK and nor would anyone else.  Some strategic analysts predict that water shortages could be a cause of future conflicts, and we've got plenty of that.  More relevant to today though, is the threat of terrorism and I'd be pretty sure that the UK has better intelligence resources etc than Scotland would, by a considerable margin.

 

How many jobs are at risk if we stay in the uk and we get cuts to the nhs and education system since the english hate that we have free prescriptions and no university fee's?

 

I'm pretty sure the trend is that expenditure and jobs in those areas are rising pretty much every year, despite the recent recession.

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Most scots dont want the defence in place just now with trident and the billions being wasted on aircraft carriers when we have no aircraft to put on them...

A common myth, perpetuated by the SNP. When you actually ask the people, only a minority of Scots want rid of Trident (confirmed by a very recent poll). As for the aircraft carriers (built in Scotland, need I remind you) just remember that all the defence contracts we currently benefit from will dry up instantly when we lose our biggest customer.

The proposed budget after independence is 2.5 billion a year and it would place scotland in the top six of NATO countries for spending per head on the armed forces (based on 2011 defence budgets)

Youn buy a helluva lot of bayonets with that! I would take that figure with a pinch of salt though. The SNP know they need to provide reassurance on defence to have any chance of winning the vote, but in reality I'd fully expect that figure to be slashed if/when independence happens. When they are struggling to balance the books and pay for stated priorities like health, education, relieving poverty etc, it doesn't really fit that they'd spend so much on something they don't really believe in.

Ireland and the Scandinavian countries seem to cope just fine with defence!

We are all fortunate to have benefiited from a couple of decades with no direct threats, but who know's what's around the corner in future decades? If Russia takes a shine to our oil, there's not going to be much of a fight, whereas they wouldn't f*** with a nuclear UK and nor would anyone else. Some strategic analysts predict that water shortages could be a cause of future conflicts, and we've got plenty of that. More relevant to today though, is the threat of terrorism and I'd be pretty sure that the UK has better intelligence resources etc than Scotland would, by a considerable margin.

How many jobs are at risk if we stay in the uk and we get cuts to the nhs and education system since the english hate that we have free prescriptions and no university fee's?

I'm pretty sure the trend is that expenditure and jobs in those areas are rising pretty much every year, despite the recent recession.So your poll is gospel and speaks for most scots while the snp facts should be taken with a pinch of salt?

How many people took part in the poll and what area where the people from because I could do an independence poll outside celtic park and get an almost 100% poll for yes.

I keep having to remind labour voters that a vote for yes isn't a vote for the snp...

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Wait when you say defence do you mean defending our borders or the foreign illegal wars based on false pretenses?

 

 

 

179 uk soldiers dead

 

Between 126,691 – 141,611 Iraqi civilians dead

 

4489 dead us soldiers

 

 

Meanwhile this lying war criminal is free and making millions

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10551183/Tony-Blairs-fortune-boosted-13m-by-bumper-year.html

Edited by Ayeseetee
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I mean defending ourselves, obviously.  We will however, as a member of NATO and the EU, continue to do out fair share in foreign wars, like it or not.

 

deaths by country

  • Australia — 2
  • Azerbaijan — 1
  • Bulgaria — 13
  • Czech Republic — 1
  • Denmark — 7
  • El Salvador — 5
  • Estonia — 2
  • Fiji — 1
  • Georgia — 5
  • Hungary — 1
  • Italy — 33
  • Kazakhstan — 1
  • Latvia — 3
  • Netherlands — 2
  • Poland — 30
  • Portugal — 1
  • Romania — 4
  • Slovakia — 4
  • South Korea — 1
  • Spain — 11
  • Thailand — 2
  • Ukraine — 18
  • United Kingdom — 179

 

It's funny you mention fairshare.... we have more deaths than the rest of the list combined!

 

 

Under nato rules you have to be attacked for every state to goto war and we didn't get attacked so NATO was not officially involved so I don't know why you bring them up?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-National_Force_%E2%80%93_Iraq

 

 

Nato members offically not involved (some may have a few casualties on my above list but they were not offically in iraq):

 

canada

 

greece

 

turkey

 

hungary

 

estonia

 

latvia

 

Lithuania

 

romania

 

slovakia

 

slovenia

 

albania

 

croatia

 

 

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As for trident and nuclear missiles they will become irreverent in the coming 10 - 20 years and will be replaced by rail guns that fire a solid lump of metal at super high speeds causing the same damage as a nuclear bomb without the radiation.

 

 

 

that's a small one just make it 100 times bigger with a steel girder sized object as ammo and you can only really compare it to a decent sized asteroid and of course the Americans have already thought about the idea putting one into orbit in the future and using the heat and force from the entry into the atmosphere to make the impact radius even bigger!

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Cool - but can't they base it at Faslane?  :wink:

If we stay in the Union, and if it ever exists and works, they probably will, because I don't suppose the mindset which decided that the casualties, in event of a nuclear accident/strike due to Polaris/Trident, would be more acceptable to Westminster in Scotland than in England, has changed one iota...and given a beezer of a big airgun, with a nearly equivalent damage capacity to Trident, would be just as much a first strike candidate in any world power pushing and shoving........we'll get it! Guaranteed! :wink:  

 

Why else do you think Caithness got Dounreay and Vulcan....it wasn't to help the local economy....but because sure as hell Westminster wasn't going to put a prototype "anything dangerous" in overpopulated England......underpopulated Scotland means less collateral damage if things go wrong....and Scotland is easily ignored by Westminster if they don't vote SNP (which is why we, if there is a NO vote, must vote SNP in large numbers in 2015, if only to force Westminster to actually look at Scottish devolution again....and maybe even the whole broken UK version of "democracy"....though I'll not be holding my breath.)  

 

Otherwise, we become North Britain, and all those ProudScotsbut No voters will, along with the rest of us become the inhabitants of just another region of England and we will lose our identity.........because if we vote against independence, we are accepting that Westminster is correct, and Scotland died when the Union was agreed. We may not think that we will be accepting that..but I'll bet £100 I can't afford that, if we vote NO, further devolution will, if it comes at all, never be more than the ability of a Scottish Government (if we even retain Holyrood)  to make Scotland the most highly taxed part of the UK, or be obliged to roll back the support for education, the NHS, those hit by Westminster welfare/benefits cuts etc......or go the privatisation route.......because while we may not think that by voting NO, we are bowing down to the subservient position we have held within the Union for the last 307 years.....sure as hell Westminster will assume that!  Betcha!

 

I also suspect we will then lose our national teams, as the home nations having separate teams, and therefore separate representation in the likes of football, for example, has always been a problem for some countries in FIFA. (Mentioned because this is a football forum, after all.)   .

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Tommy Sheridan will be at Farr Hall tonight, worth popping along to but I'll be at the Yestival in Lossie!

 

Yestival was good, wasn't it?

 

Someone gets it.........the whole grass roots thing. For once a pretty decent article..........

.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/11/third-scotland-referendum-radical-left-politics?commentpage=1

 

Hope, regardless of outcome, the new political energy we are seeing continues to flourish. Reminds me a lot of the hustings in the 1970s/1980s, before the US version of "doing" politics by advertising and via the media took hold and removed the ability of  those not politically active to participate in elections. .Politics used to be reasonably good fun, before it ended up coming down just to the ability of advertising companies, the bias of the media....and the lies of the politicians.

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 http://wingsoverscotland.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-scottish/  

 

Copied and pasted in full and no comment required from me.

 

What does it mean to be Scottish?
Posted on August 03, 2014 by Ryan Miller 

The above is a deceptively simple question and one to which the answer, of course, is as varied as the people you might ask it of as we approach September’s vote.

The debate so far would suggest that at one end of the scale, we’re a nation of poor wee souls, much safer shackled to a United Kingdom that gifts us stability and security in the face of choppy global waters and saves us from the hassle of making crucial political decisions for ourselves. At the other end, we’re a proud nation of untold prosperity, a nirvana of wealth and social justice primed to emerge after our divorce from our oppressors in Westminster.

For anyone in between and still grappling with their identity, the Economist helpfully informed us recently that being Scottish means painting a Saltire on your face, wearing a Jimmy hat and shouting at nothing in particular. Glad that’s sorted then.

The truth is that very few of us will see ourselves in these broad-brushed caricatures of Scottish identity. I certainly don’t. In fact, the more I force myself to think about it, the clearer it becomes that I don’t have a bloody clue what it means to be Scottish.

Or at least I didn’t until last month.

For much of last month I watched the news from Ukraine and Gaza unfold with growing horror. I watched families and lives devastated by the actions of people they have never met for reasons they will never understand. I watched worlds blown to smithereens in the shape of aircraft debris raining from the sky and family homes obliterated by mortar shells. And one more thing.

I read about a father in Gaza gathering the remains of his two-year old son in a shopping bag.

The hours of news coverage I’d watched and images of grief and destruction I’d seen up until I read that tweet were horrific, but there was something otherworldly and unfathomable about them. My world does not involve passenger planes being shot out of the sky and guided missiles annihilating families in their homes.

But I do have a two-year-old son. I worry about him a lot. About him banging his head on the table, watching too much television, not eating enough fruit, sticking his finger in electrical sockets and even about him peeing on the couch.

I don’t ever worry about having to gather his remains in a shopping bag.

The tweet made me feel physically sick, maybe because I have a son the same age, or maybe just because I’m a human being. I watched more news. Rumours emerged that the Malaysian Airlines plane was destroyed by pro-Russian separatists wielding military-issue weapons cataclysmically more sophisticated than the people firing them. Scrolling bars on the screen revealed more children killed by bombs in Gaza for the crime of playing on the beach.

Politicians fell over themselves to condemn one side or the other, depending on which dog they backed in the fight. David Cameron lambasted Hamas for their role in the escalating violence in the Gaza strip; Barack Obama took pot shots at Russia for their role in supporting separatists in Ukraine and, less than 24 hours after the fragments of plane smouldered on the ground and the children were bombed on the beach, the world settled back into the familiar rhythm of powerful people in suits blaming each other for the world’s ills.

Until I read another tweet. The second in one day to stop me in my tracks and change my perspective; 140 characters that made me realise what it means to be Scottish – or at least what I want it to mean.

While Cameron, Obama, Putin and Netanyahu took to our television screens to blame someone else for the bloodshed, Scotland’s government released a statement of its own. Humza Yousaf, Minister for External Affairs and a man I’ve never heard of before and confess to know nothing about, made me feel very proud to be Scottish.

In the statement Yousaf spent little time apportioning blame for the bloodshed (and the little he did was cast upon both sides) and focused instead on the victims, offering refuge and sanctuary in Scotland for Palestinians and people displaced as a result of the conflict in Gaza.

Approaching the referendum, it would be much easier for the government to take a back seat on this dangerously divisive issue, trot out the expected platitudes and move swiftly on to more parochial matters. Immigration, after all, is a toxic political grenade and the media demonisation of refugees and immigrants across the UK means that the government’s offer to accept refugees from the conflict in Gaza is certain to get a mixed reception at best.

But isn’t this what we’re all about as a nation? Isn’t this the social justice I hear people on both sides screaming out for?

I have referendum fatigue. I have a craving for knowledge that has been thwarted by claim and counter-claim about the economy, defence, Europe, currency, borders and oil. I have drawn my own conclusions that, on many of these fronts, nothing much will change significantly.

Men in suits will still blame each other for the world’s ills, we probably won’t have borders, we probably won’t have nuclear weapons in our waters, we’ll probably still use some version of the pound, we’ll probably stay in the EU. Oil, at some point or another, will definitely run out.

All of this matters, of course, but none of it will dictate my reasons for voting Yes in September like what Humza Yousaf and David Cameron have done in the last 24 hours will. Their respective responses to the atrocities in the Gaza strip has solidified in my head what I’ve known in my heart from the outset of this debate – things won’t change until we change them.

We can’t vote for the status quo and hope for something new and improved to emerge as a consequence. We can’t expect to have our faith in politicians restored until we take the chance to ensure that the ones that serve us are the ones we voted for. We can’t condemn those who use violence as a means of resolving conflict while we sit with nuclear weapons on our waters.

Let England lurch to the right. Let Nigel Farage cosy up to the BBC and disseminate his politics of intolerance. Let England leave the EU and close its borders. We don’t have to be part of that.

Let us define what it means to be Scottish as a willingness to welcome and embrace a father who has just had to collect the remains of his son in a shopping bag as a result of a conflict fought by people we don’t know for reasons we’ll never understand.

Edited by Oddquine
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I read about a father in Gaza gathering the remains of his two-year old son in a shopping bag.

 

 

This is depressing and for anyone that deals with the horrid world we live in by making sick jokes like me highlight this sentence: Was it a bag for life?

 

what is even more depressing is that the uk sells those child killing weapons to isreal

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/05/uk-arms-trade-israel-britain-gaza

 

 

More forgien blood on westminster hands so whats new?

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http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/200-celebrities-back-no-vote-4018123

 

 

 

Mostly rich english people with no vote want scotland to stay... I thought we were a drain on resources?

 

 

 

Plus having people like simon cowell and piers morgan telling people to vote no is pure gold maybe they should re-animate thatchers corpse for her opinion

 

:lol:

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Those who read this thread will probably already be aware that there's a debate coming up - here in Inverness - on Wednesday 20th August at Eden Court.

Not quite as 'heavyweight' as Salmond v Darling, but still two big players. Scottish Secretary Alastair Carmichael will be debating against the SNP's John Swinney.

There will be less than a month until polling day, so it's sure to be heated!

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Alex Salmond writing in the Sunday Herald about currency choices. Spoilt for choice re currency threads on here.....but it doesn't really fit either of them .so

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/if-the-no-camp-think-telling-ordinary-scots-they-have-zero-entitlement-to-a.25003848

 

A couple or three quotes from it:-

the language of the No campaign on the issue of what currency an independent Scotland should use is perhaps more revealing than they had ever intended.

Their obsession with a "Plan B" says it all. Implicit in that formulation is settling for what is second-best, and in this case what would be second-best for Scotland.

Having spent my entire political career fighting for what I regard as being in the best interests of Scotland, I am not going to settle for second-best on currency or anything else.

 

and

 

The Scottish Government commissioned a group of eminent economists, with two Nobel laureates - Joseph Stiglitz and James Mirrlees - among their number, to look at the currency options for an independent Scotland, and their detailed report was published last year.

It concluded that retaining sterling in a formal currency union is the best option for Scotland. It is also the best option economically for the rest of the UK.  As such, the No campaign's tactic of saying no to a currency union makes absolutely no economic sense.

 

plus

 

It is simply impossible for the Westminster establishment to follow through on their campaign rhetoric about blocking Scots using the pound. They can however deny Scotland continued use of the Bank of England, which is a shared asset that Scottish taxpayers have contributed to since it was nationalised in 1946.

The Bank of England itself holds the title to over a quarter of the UK's entire national debt of around £1.3 trillion. And it is all that debt which Westminster would be agreeing to take on board in its entirety if Scotland was denied continued use of the central bank.

 

Seems impeccable logic, to me, however much I don't like the idea of a Currency Union, and in the short term, is the sensible way to go, until we can decide for ourselves about our currency choices going forward.

 

Bear in mind that, since 1946, the UK itself has used pretty much all the currency options for Scotland given in the White Paper, up to just stopping short of joining the Euro at the ERM stage.  It is only since 2002 (I think)  that it has become a fully independent freely traded currency.

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Interesting piece from Billy Bragg here:

 

Aug 08, 2014 09:50 By John Dingwall 0 Comments
ENGLISHMAN Bragg is renowned for his activist edge and says he hopes a vote for Scottish independence would shake up the rest of the United Kingdom.

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Billy Bragg is appearing at Belladrum this weekend
BILLY Bragg is looking forward to a new England if Scots vote for independence in the upcoming referendum.

The former soldier’s music career has been intertwined with political activism since he first enjoyed success in 1983.

“I’ve always had an activist edge to what I do,” said Bragg, who heads to Scotland today for the Belladrum music festival in Beauly, Inverness-shire.

“The Scottish independence debate is a manifestation of the failure of the Westminster system that only offers us two viable parties of government. People are getting a bit fed up with it.

“You can see with the rise of Ukip and the failure of anyone to win the last election, that the offer that we are getting is no longer attractive.

“Many of us live in constituencies that never change hands so our views are taken for granted and not expressed. I live in west Dorset, which has been Tory since 1886 and as a Labour supporter that doesn’t help me.

“But I come from a town that has been Labour since 1931 and that doesn’t help the Tory voter who lives there, so I understand his point of view as well.

“We need to change that and sadly Westminster is showing no signs of trying to address that issue.

“My hope is that a Scottish Yes vote will act as a catalyst that would force the remainder of the UK to come to a new constitutional settlement that makes all of our votes count.

“Not just the 10 per cent who live in the swing constituencies in middle England where the parties pitch all their votes.”

Bragg isn't the only celebrity to back a Yes vote.

Controversial comedian Frankie Boyle is one of many active supporters of independence on Twitter. He recently spoke about his pro-yes leanings with fellow comedian Kevin Bridges.
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Bragg admits he changed his mind about Scottish independence after taking a more traditional stance against it, when referendum terms were originally being shaped.

He said: “I originally had the more traditional leftist view that it would be a betrayal of the working class if Scotland left.

“But politics has moved on a lot since then.

“I see things now less in terms of class politics and more in terms of freedom resting in the individual being able to hold those in power to account.

“If you can’t hold those in power to account, you are not really free.

“There’s a number of areas in the British constitution where those ideas of accountability need to be enhanced.

“Not least in how we hold the bankers and corporations to account and how we hold global capitalism to account.

“This isn’t the traditional leftist narrative I learned during the miners’ strike. Conversely, in our country, socialism has always been about how to hold capitalism to account.

“It is about refounding the ideas of a fair society and how we do that.

“You have the chance in Scotland to change the landscape, to bring something new into being. If you are complaining about the status quo and you have a chance to change it and you don’t change it, then you have to ask yourself, what are you really complaining about?”


Bragg will discuss his politics further when he arrives at the Belladrum music festival this weekend, alongside acts such as Tom Jones, Razorlight and Frightened Rabbit.

He is performing on the Garden Stage tomorrow afternoon before taking part in a talk at the festival that night.

“It should be good fun,” he said.

“One of the reasons I chose a festival like this is that festivals tend to be in places you haven’t played for a while and I don’t think I’ve played up here since the 80s. At Belladrum, I’ll be playing solo in the afternoon, which is always a good time. Everybody is pretty chilled out.

“In the evening, I’m doing a little chat. I’m being interviewed in a little tent somewhere. I’m here the whole day.

“It’s not one of those ones when you appear and disappear before you get a chance to catch the vibe.

“I’ll be checking out some of the other acts although I haven’t worked out who is on yet. I’ll be getting a sense of the place.”

Bragg first enjoyed significant success when Kirsty MacColl covered his song A New England.

He later fronted the Red Wedge collective of musicians, who tried to engage young people in left wing politics leading up to the 1987 general election.

Before that, he was a vocal supporter of the 1984-85 miners’ strike.

But after he recently tweeted “go for it” to Scots who are thinking of voting in the September 18 referendum, he found himself criticised by old Labour pals and Tories alike for speaking out in favour of independence.

“The traditional left dabbled in a dozen types of socialism but they think there’s only one kind of patriotism or nationalism,” he said.

“So I get people who have a knee-jerk reaction to nationalism.

“I get people who mistake a referendum on independence for a referendum on the SNP. I have to argue with mostly Scottish Labour people who are very, very upset about the referendum. I also get people who think it’s only Scottish votes that have held the Conservative party at arm’s length in the last 60 years.

“They don’t understand that Scottish Labour MPs don’t make a huge difference.

“England is quite capable of electing a Labour government and we shouldn’t be scared of a Tory hegemony.”

He’s also critical of the No campaign, which he sees as being steeped in hypocrisy.

“I can only respond from an English perspective. But it has been very disappointing.

“They have not recognised the urge for greater accountability at a more local level that’s behind this.

“All these unionist Tory MPs who don’t believe that Scotland should have a say over the laws that it makes are the same people who don’t believe that Brussels should have a say over the laws that Britain makes.

“They want us to leave the European Union for exactly the same reasons they’re telling Scots they should remain part of the UK.”

He added: “You would imagine that people disappointed in Westminster will take the opportunity to change it.

“It seems to me that those who want independence in Scotland are looking forward to a different future, whereas those who want to remain with the status quo are clinging to the past, to an imperial idea of the past and we need to wake up from that.

“We in England are not going to do it on our own.

“We need Scotland to kick us out of bed and we might get our act together on that.

“There’s a post-British thing going on in Scotland and we in England would like to have a bit of that pie as well.

“Your independence might wake us up from our old imperial dream.”
Edited by dougiedanger
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