Scotland today

[Space Voyager]

Predictions; Yay or Nay?

 

My prediction is yay. I was in UK back in 1995 via Interrail and I remember two girls, who allowed me and my former GF to set up a tent in their backyard, telling us how unequal the Scots feel in UK. Allegedly in England you could have troubles to get your Pound's worth in stores and bars if the Pound was made by the Bank of Scotland. But they demanded we always stick to a Pound is a Pound should we get into such situation. So, now or never...

 

Frankly I think that only fragmented to the smallest interests can world begin to unite under consensus of all parties involved. War drawn borders can never be fair and will always leave someone dissatisfied, leading to unrest at some point in time.

[FullAuto]

As it stands today, SV, it's going to happen. Maybe not soon, but as long as we have a government who treat Scotland as the dirty stepchild (and to be fair, even if the Tories corrected their behaviour, the perception would last for many years), the Scottish government will be able to leverage that against any possible negative repercussions, and quite frankly given the disastrous social changes being made by the Tories currently, the Scottish will almost certainly not be worse off when they are independent. They're far ahead of the rest of the UK concerning renewables, they have considerable fossil fuel reserves in their waters, and their social care system is more intact. Independence could be a very small issue which changes very little, but we currently have a political atmosphere that does not lend itself well to even-handed dealing.

 

I wish them all the best.

[Space Voyager]

How far back did you dig, FA?! Thanks for finding the thread and replying.

 

I was pretty surprised that Scotland voted against independence last year. As you wrote, it may happen in the future, but I can't see the Scottish leadership organizing a referendum on the issue every two years.

 

In what way does UK treat Scotland badly?

[FullAuto]

I was pretty surprised that Scotland voted against independence last year. As you wrote, it may happen in the future, but I can't see the Scottish leadership organizing a referendum on the issue every two years.

 

IIRC it was a vote with a good turnout, but a narrow win was scraped by the No vote, and I think a large part of that was down to some intense scaremongering on their part, very little of which was true. A good portion of Scots, quite possibly a majority, would like to remain as part of the UK if their country starts getting equitable treatment.

 

I think the Scottish government will propose referendum after referendum until they get the result they want, in the current climate.

 

In what way does UK treat Scotland badly?

 

Scotland has suffered historically from poverty and it's economy has always been vulnerable; this has only increased in the 20th century, and it has a fair amount of both poor rural areas, islands, and poor urban areas, all of which can be very expensive to support properly with infrastructure and social care. This support has largely not been forthcoming, especially from Tory governments who have gone out of their way to get rid of the UK's industry, in which Scotland had a considerable hand. Scotland is, for those reasons and others, absolutely impossible for the Tories to crack politically (it's only very recently the SNP has had widespread success, Scotland was a Labour stronghold for a long time) and so they feel they lose little by ruling it with what, at best, is benign neglect.