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Scotland out of the Union?


cleanerg6e
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My nephew in laws parents are moving from Perth (Scotland) to Australia for two reasons. Firstly their two sons now live on this side of the world. Stewart here in Australia and his brother Ewan in New Zealand and with no other surviving relations in Scotland so their mum and dad have decided to move out here.

The other reason for their move here is as Stewart's dad John told me is the impending vote for Scottish independence.

He said that many Scots think that the gas or oil in the North Sea is Scotland's but it actually belongs to the English. He also said what has Scotland got to export in great quantities: Scotch Whiskey and that's it.

He said that the independence of Scotland would be a disaster for both countries as they are both so intertwined with each other.

I told him if an independent Scotland found itself in a disastrous situation then they would probably run off to become a full member of the EU. Then they could swap English friends for German masters. He said that was highly likely.

Roy.

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The old cry of "Home rule for Scotland." My Father was from the North of Scotland and I grew up with it. I have a lot of friends throughout Scotland, and it seems to me that the Highlands and Islands in the North are yes voters, whilst the Southern areas are no voters. Even living in the North of England we hear little of what is going on up there, but my own take is that there are still too many unanswered questions for it to go ahead successfully. Westminster states that the Scots will not be able to use the pound. Europe says that it doesn't want a small newly independent country joining them. What about the infrastructure? Health services, State benefits including State pensions, roads, rail, power, and all of the other things that are regulated by Westminster? Yes, the oil and gas too. Even Scotland's share of the National Debt has been questioned. What about Police and Fire services, not to mention the Army, Navy and Airforce. Customs, Fishing control, Immigration, Emigration, Border control, Passports etc. All of these things need sorting out before separation can take place. Business leaders are questioning the position. Currency values and Stock Market are in a bit of a limbo. I can't see the Monarchy being very happy about things either. What will happen to places like Balmoral?

On a sillier not, does the World really want to see the Union Flag being reduced to a red asterisk on a white background when the Saltire leaves the Union?

On a personal level, I can't see it happening. I think the Scottish people are too sensible to vote yes and put their faith in Salmond. I hope that I am correct.

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Well Roddy I agree with you and I guess the Royals would have to make to with Sandringham. Balmoral would become the Prime Minister/Presidents residence. As the Scots are supposed to be frugal with money they could furnish the place with items bought at a "Scottish pound shop". Genuine Scottish antiquities......made in China.

We've had calls here for Australia to become totally independent from Britain. In other words swap the Governor General for a President. But it has failed time and time again, because the people want to choose who is the President of Australia. But the politicians want to choose the president.

The Queen even asked the one time Prime Minister John Howard (a staunch Monarchist) if Prince William could be Governor General and Howard said NO! because the people would never accept a foreigner as home based representative head of state.

Despite that most over here adore the Royal family, maybe because we don't have to pay for them.

Here we are already more or less independent now as important legislation isn't put before the sovereign for her approval. Even when the Governor General Sir John Kerr sacked the Labour Government of Gough Whitlam in 1975 he only phoned the sovereign the next day to tell her what he had done and that there was no going back. Whitlam never forgave Kerr as Kerr was a Labour man who sacked a Labour government.

Our present GG is Sir Peter Cosgrove an ex army general. The main task is to swear in new governments so, "oh sh#t the latest bunch of self centered idiots". All of them have highly inflated egos and find people taking them seriously simply because they have the letters MP after their name.

Roy.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well Scotland has voted to remain in the union for the time being, well that's what Salmond said at his defeat speech. But he won't stop trying to push for full independence. In the campaign for the yes vote he was the only one that us lot on this side of the planet saw. No other person from the Scottish Parliament seemed to be making a huge media push. Which made me think that a totally independent Scotland was being pushed extremely hard by Salmond because there was something in it which would benefit him personally.

When Salmond said that an independent Scotland would continue to use the pound, I laughed. I thought "you really think that Westminster is going to continually give money to what would be a foreign country and would amount to foreign aid?"

It reminds me of Yes Minister with the honours. CMG, KCMG, GCMG, the order of the garter, the knight of the thistle. The minister wanted to know who they gave that one two, Scotsman and donkeys. His PPS said that there was a difference. The minister responded that his PPS obviously hadn't met the SNP.

To award the "Thistle" apparently a committee sits on it.

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I have been wiping a few tears from North of the border today. Westminster does at last seem to acknowledge the amount of feeling for independence in Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland, and even the outer reaches of England. I live in the north of England and am 300 miles from London, but only 90 miles from Edinburgh. Is it any wonder that even here we feel hard done by on the Westminster spend per capita, and want more say in what we get and where we spend it? I can see the UK splitting up administratively sometime in the future, but under a common constitution, and the Union Flag. That's a bit like the USA where there are base laws, but each State does it's own thing somehow. That works for America, but in Russia (my wife is a Russian girl) they try to do it all from Moscow and it is open to all the abuses and corruption going. I know the UK is much smaller than either of those, but we are historically four separate nations that were over run by the English and with much of the land still owned by the English wealthy. It doesn't make for good bedfellows.

I usually try to avoid discussions around politics, religeon and football, because they never end in agreement, but this once Great Britain, has slipped to a shadow of it's former self over not much more than half a century. I am now also old enough to feel that I have seen the changes, and know how it could be.

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Yes Roddy here in Australia we have separate states which all have their own government. You have a house of commons and a house of lords. We have a house of representatives and a senate in each state. It's a legacy of our old colonial days before federation in 1901.

The trouble is that each state has different laws so what is law in New South Wales isn't law in Victoria.

We even have different laws in each state regarding how to enter an exit a roundabout on the roads. In NSW to go straight through one doesn't need to indicate but in Queensland one has to indicate right on entering the roundabout then indicate left on exiting.

For a "nation" of only 23 million people we have three levels of government federal, state and local and unlike the UK you have to turn up at polling booths even if you only have your name crossed off the list of eligible voters. If you don't then you get fined $500-1000 dollars.

Each state guards it's so-called property very jealously like the time southern Queensland was experiencing water shortages due to a lack of rain and the then prime minister John Howard wanted to build a long water pipe from northern New South Wales to southern Queensland and the New South Wales premier at the time said "over my dead body you will. That's New South Wales's water not Queensland's. So much for being a nation.

Australia isn't really a nation just a loose confederation of waring tribes.

Roy.

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  • 1 year later...

Catching up with old threads is interesting, at school in Inverness we were shown most of the oil coming in near Peterhead came from the Norwegian sector of the north sea. We were not shown that the international law on marine borders between adjoining countries means that 70 miles off the coast of Aberdeen you're back in England. Draw a line along the English / Scottish border and carry it on out to sea...

As for Scotland using the pound, Ecuador El Salvador and Zimbabwe use the US Dollar you can do so with out permission you just buy dollars on the international market.

As some one who would hate to see Scotland in trouble, I think independence would be a disaster, its the hidden subsidies they would lose, the British armed forces pensions are done in Glasgow, faslane which the SNP hate is a Huge source of money to the area, as is another nuclear base at Dounraey, the tax offices at Dundee which do a lot of English taxes.

And then there are odd things like the BBC, which I guess Scotland would take its bit. But the purchasing power of 6 million is somewhat less than 66million. So if you think the programming is bad now....

Any way anyone else think if you gave everything to Sturgeon she'd still say you hadn't given enough?

Well its about another month before my next excuse to wear my kilt, but not yet to do with railways. I'm working on restoring a model railway (for someone else) that was built on Tiree , when that is finished I'll probably be the first Kilted model railway exhibitor in Norfolk.

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