A dinosaur rears it's head

[The Real PapaBear 0]

But I'm not just talking about the finance that we bring to the UK, I'm talking about the influence we bring with our votes. It will be much, much harder for the rest to out-vote the South East if we're not there. That concerns me. When I look at the UK I don't see an us and a them, just an us.

 

OK, so, in other words (I'm wary about using quotation marks, so I'll just paraphrase), the votes from Scotland are to be used to help the minority in England defeat the legitimate democratic choice of the majority in England?

 

That's actually kinda not very nice, Thinker. You may want to mull that one over.

[Thinker 885]

OK, so, in other words (I'm wary about using quotation marks, so I'll just paraphrase), the votes from Scotland are to be used to help the minority in England defeat the legitimate democratic choice of the majority in England?

 

That's actually kinda not very nice, Thinker. You may want to mull that one over.

 

I'm happy for democracy to be enacted across the whole UK, and to cast my lot with the rest.

 

You're portraying England (with no mention of Northern Ireland and Wales) as a single, separate entity which it plainly isn't - It's composed of regions effected by differing issues and with different voting habits. Some of them have much more in common with parts of Scotland than they do with each other. For example, the problems and aspirations of folks from the traditionally Labour voting urban areas of both Greater Manchester and Greater Glasgow are much more similar to each other than they are to those of either Conservative voting, rural East Anglia, or the Liberal voting Highlands and Islands. The Scotland / England border isn't the dividing line for me.

 

I think we could probably keep this argument up indefinitely without agreeing and we're going round in circles somewhat, which can't be very entertaining for anyone else on the forum - so I'm going to sign off with these thoughts. We've obviously both looked at the question of independence and due to our differing circumstances come to different conclusions. Probably, I guess, due to the spread of my family I have a wider ranging view of what constitutes my country and who my compatriots are than you do. I feel a much stronger connection to those places down South where I regularly visit relatives than I do to, say, Aberdeen or Inverness and I don't want any political separation to change that.

 

There are perfectly sensible, logical and ethical arguments both for and against independence; being for it doesn't make you a parochial England-basher, being against it doesn't mean you've been "got at" by scaremongers. I'll respect your point of view and I'm sure that you'll respect mine.