Scottish Independence and Scotland's Future
Referendum is on 18 September 2014
Our intention here is to provide reading material under the topics listed below.
I've taken the position that everyone knows the current state of
Scotland with its currently devolved powers within the UK and within the
EU. The question is thus - "Would Scotland and the Scottish people
benefit from being an Independent country?"
Historically Scotland has
benefited greatly from the Union in 1707. 10 Prime Ministers of Great
Britain have been Scots and many more Scots have been in the Cabinet.
Some 800,000 Scots of the current generation currently reside in the rUK.
The rUK is our largest export market and we sell more to them than we do
to the whole of Europe.
The SNP have made it very
clear that should we vote for independence that they would ensure that
Scotland remains in the EU. I will state here that in my mind that
simply gives away our independence to a non democratic institution so
why on earth would we want to give up on Westminster, our largest
market, to be run by the EU where we would have less say that we
currently do under the UK?
This is not a party
political situation... it's about the future of Scotland and its people.
I personally have made a point of reading papers produced by the SDA
Think Tank where they work on the principle that Scotland has voted for
Independence and so their papers are based on how Scotland should be run
as an independent nation.
I personally take the
view that to win independence only to give up much of that independence
by retaining the pound and membership of the EU is not in Scotland's
best interest. However that is the view of the current SNP government.
Should that still be their view when we come to the vote then you need
to decide what is the best choice to make.
Everyone in Scotland must
make an effort to learn about what is at stake as our future, and that
of our children, will be decided by your vote.
I recommend some additional reading...
History
of England and Scottish Connections
This provides you with some reading on the history of England and our
relations with them. In particular you might read the book "The Scot in
England". The History of Ulster
While this is a 4 volume publication you might go to the foot of this
page to read the single volume book on "The Scot in Ulster". The
Union of the Parliaments of England and Scotland 1707
This is a short article which provides some
good background on how it came about and provides a view on the benefits
or otherwise.
So it is for this reason
that this section of our site will try to explain the options and
provide information for you to consider. I will say that most of
the reading I provide below is to papers and articles from other web
sites and the media.
It's not my job to
recommend which way you vote in the referendum and so I am just trying
to provide interesting reading for you to consider prior to making up
your mind. I might also state the obvious that you need to be wary of
what you read as both campaigns will obviously try to spin their own
views and already we are seeing the results of this in the media.
As this is a vital
referendum on the future of Scotland for generations to come it is vital
that you be as well informed as possible before you make your vote.
Correspondence
This is where we will post some of the correspondence we get in.
Independence Debate
Where we find general articles to do with the debate on the referendum
we'll post them here.
Reference
Documents
Due to the Realm of Scotland web site closing down we've rescued some of
their reference documents with their permission.
This comment system requires
you to be logged in through either a Disqus account or an
account you already have with Google, Twitter, Facebook or
Yahoo. In the event you don't have an account with any of these
companies then you can create an account with Disqus. All
comments are moderated so they won't display until the moderator
has approved your comment.
