Do you agree Scotland should be an independent country? Yes, but…
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said his planned referendum on independence will ask a simple question on whether the country should go it alone, though he didn’t rule out a third option of more power within the UK
Voters in Scotland will be asked: “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?” Salmond told the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on Wednesday as he put forward a consultation document for the vote. It will take place in the fall of 2014, Salmond told lawmakers.
“The next 2 1/2 years promise to be the most exciting in Scotland’s modern history,” Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party, said on the day Scots commemorate the birth of their national poet, Robert Burns. “The people who live, work and bring up families in Scotland should make the decision on its future. Our success should be in our own hands.”
Salmond fired the starting gun on the debate over who might get what from a break-up of the U.K. The SNP, which won an unprecedented majority in the semi-autonomous Edinburgh legislature last year, seeks to maximize revenue from North Sea oil and minimize how much debt Scotland must assume.
The opposition parties, including U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives, oppose independence. While Cameron also said he wanted a simple “yes or no” to independence, Salmond said previously there could be a third question on whether people in Scotland want more powers for Scotland.
A referendum on Scotland is clearly an issue for the people living in Scotland, said Cameron, who told lawmakers in London on Wednesday that the vote should be held sooner than Salmond has proposed.
Even so, what “everyone needs to understand is that options for further devolution, options for changes across the United Kingdom, are matters for all of the United Kingdom,” the prime minister said before Salmond’s announcement.
The UK government welcomed the fact that the SNP is proposing “a single, unequivocal question,” Cameron’s spokeswoman, Vickie Sheriff, told reporters after Salmond’s statement.
“First of all we need to get the legal situation sorted so they can actually hold a referendum,” Sheriff said. “We’re consulting on the legal position and that comes first as far as we’re concerned.”
A currency union between Scotland and the rest of the U.K. would work because the two economies are aligned, without the tensions and strains caused by the euro that is trying to marry “the Ruhr Valley with the tip of southern Greece,” Salmond told a news conference in Edinburgh.
Scotland would be a successor state within the European Union, not an accession state, Salmond said. An independent Scotland and the rest of the U.K. would be two entities with equal standing, he said.
“Multi-option referendums are generally not a good idea,” Matt Qvortrup, a senior lecturer at Cranfield University and an adviser to Salmond, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “When it is irreversible, there has to be a clear result, a straight yes or no.”
The inclusion of an additional question in the referendum, which will cost an estimated 10 million pounds and which will be overseen by the UK Electoral Commission, would be “fair and democratic” if there was an alternative that would “command wide support in Scotland,” Salmond told lawmakers. The Scottish government is also looking at extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds, he said.
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Long Live Scotland Republic
I'm pretty sure the debates will revolve around fear - and fear of the unknown is a strong motivating factor. I think that losing the UK currency and still having to repay their share of the national debt will be the deal breaker.
But you want to be part of the “English Falklands” and we wont let you
:-))))))
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FncCsbUHXgg&list=FLmXPTu1f8AdGlizWNiASx2A&index=149&feature=plpp_video
Culture from Brazil and our father Portugal!
As much as i often dislike his warmongering attitude , he has a point.
Alex's Future view of scotland being debt free is reliant on how scotland works at the moment. You take away those expensive defense contracts and add the fact that they will need to fund a armed force for themselves, it shows why mr alex shys away from answering such questions.
Plus he can repay the British Taxpayers money he's used to set up a network of 'Scottish Interests' departments in British Embassy's around the World, ready for his grand exit from the Union, plus he can find his own embassy Buildings too, we don't take lodgers (I can't believe the cheeky bastard has got away with using British Taxpayers money to promote a break up of the Union, what a cunt).
It would also be hands off the GBP Sterling too, we're not sharing our stability and economic well being through our currency with an Independent Scotland reaping the benefits, he can print his own money and call it the Scottish Groat, he'll need to if he wants to join the EU and the Euro, they might as well get used to mickey mouse names for mickey mouse currencies; stand on your own two feet I say.
He can keep North Sea Oil within Scotland's newly drawn UNCLOS Boundaries, he'll need it, there's fuck all else worth selling in Scotland, apart from Whiskey.
Just practising how I'll react if Scotland became Independent, it'll never happen.
There won't be much of that left when Orkney and Shetland foxtrot oscar back to Norway...........
We are Catholics!
We are Christians!
Kiwisarg same as,
she wont go anywhere, and if, and thats a big if, the scots vote for it, then they will get exacly what they deserve,
salmon is a lier and a fool, and anti british,
he does not want scots to be ruled by an elected goverment 600 miles away,
but is quite willing [but wont tell the truth] to let the scots be ruled, by an un-elected goverment, 1,000 miles away in europe,
he insults his own people, who should have been made to play ball from day one, insted of 300 years of take, and as soon as we hit the bad times, he want to jump ship,
[scotland] if you go, the union will be no more, you cannot ever come back as scottish,, ]
paper bag.
paper wraps stone .
Far from habile luminaries buttressing the resplendent descriptions they provide of their nation and society by comporting in a manner commensurate to such depictions, I am forced to suggest a posteriori, that in fact they evince the opposite of strength with such behavior: one of individuals with deep-seeded insecurities which at the slightest perception of threat or real affront resort to apodictic argument, or otherwise merely to derogate themselves—and that which they bruit about along with them—by settling for petty insults and ethnic epithets.
And in the end, it is an underwhelming way of trying to prove what one says is the way things are.
Am I concerned if Scotland leaves the UK? I am not. The benefits to the rest of the UK, particularly England, are incalculable. You see, dog's breath, the United Kingdom, unlike argieland and the fish king's Scotland, lives in the real world. And what, dog fart, was the result of Ireland leaving the UK? Thousands of its citizens left their country for World War 2 to join the British forces or work in British factories. Whilst argies carried on in their usual cowardly way. And even gave refuge to argie war criminals. Presumably so that they could learn nazi methods. And how well argies use nazi methods. Including “The Big Lie”.
Regarding Scotland, Salmond's approach is turning more and more English to be anti-Scottish. Hard to believe that the numbnuts actually believes that 5 million Scots are going to come out ahead of 52 million English. Perhaps he should send people running around the world spouting crap like CFK does? Perhaps Salmond should note how far CFK's “grand plan” has got her?
Almost every day Salmond is made to look more foolish. His latest? Free trade, a common currency and a social contract. Except none of those are possible. No free trade because Scotland is not an EU member and will take at least 2 years to become one even if the UK doesn't object. No common currency, unless he wants his economic policies set by England. No social contract because we're not interested. Oh, and he wants to take the Scottish regiments. But he can't do that because they are regiments of the British Army. He could have the individual soldiers, but no equipment. No tanks, no AFVs, no helicopters, no weapons, no ammunition, no uniforms, no underpants, no socks, no boots.
And nothing is what CFK is going to get. Except for two fingers!
Long live the free Falkland Islands!
Forget the fact that Argentina was as far removed from WWII battlefields as geographically possible, forget the fact that unlike South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc, Argentina was not part of any Commonwealth and thus required to militarily succor anyone; forget the fact that neither the allies nor the axis presented Argentina with any tangible benefit whatsoever in joining such an emprise...
I know its a shock, but nations are driven by self-interest. None which existed for Argentina to become extricated in a World War.
No, Argentina after the war took many of the Nazi war criminals in, why? They had all the stolen loot from their criminal conquests of other countries.
A bit like now if CFK and her minions have their way over the Falklands (there are no Malvinas). History repeating itself don't you think?
I have rebutted them a trillion times in the past in other arenas of discussion: mentioning Argentina and the absconding Nazis, ignoring it is the 4th largest Jewish nation ex-Israel; mentioning Argentina and her alacrity to ensconce absquatulating Nazis, ignoring the UK and US red-carpet welcoming to Nazis who openly furthered your science... These talking points are a touchstone of people who have no intention of ever being remotely towards Argentina. So I already know I am wasting my fingertips in continuing my stricture.
And also a typical way of circumventing my original comment of Argentina and WWII itself, as your reply merely shoehorned post-war realities which do not disprove what I expressed.
You say:
”Far from habile luminaries buttressing the resplendent descriptions they provide of their nation and society by comporting in a manner commensurate to such depictions, I am forced to suggest a posteriori, that in fact they evince the opposite of strength with such behavior: one of individuals with deep-seeded insecurities which at the slightest perception of threat or real affront resort to apodictic argument, or otherwise merely to derogate themselves—and that which they bruit about along with them—by settling for petty insults and ethnic epithets.”
I say:
What the hell are you talking about? ;-))))
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pxeRT8pcTo
I would agree with that. The cowardly act was declaring war just as the war was won.
You have an astute observation. I don't necessarily agree, but it is well-conveived. Points to you.
Argentina declaration of war was clearly symbolic, and it was done because at the time it served her interests. What a shock, again, that countries act out of self-interest, and many times such decisions carry as a consequence an air of cowardice.
Neither Argentina nor your country, whichever it is, is free from such instances in its history.
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