I bet you actually keep it bright and sharp in case an unsuspecting Sassenach should conveniently cross your path one dark night.

I agree it won't happen. That's because what Scotland needs, wants and votes for do not matter - I disagree with your comment that every citizen matters. We do not matter because what England wants, we all get.

Sturgeon may well not care about other UK citizens (I do not know), but if that's the case I'm glad. I'm glad because in this asymmetric union, caring only about Scotland is our only protection. Brexit is the perfect illustration of that.

I rather suspect that's why they do so well electorally.

Lots of media coverage as you say on the 60% figure. I have no connection to the SNP - I have no idea about the next referendum (other than I will be voting for independence, having supported the union in 2014). They will call it when they believe they will win it.

It's interesting that Sturgeon is asking for even more powers from the UK.

Is she doing a Tim Farron and assuming that when the people of Scotland voted in the Independence Referendum, they didn't actually know what they were voting for when they said in an overwhelming majority that they wanted to remain a part of the UK?

It was a spelling mistake in the context in which it was used as was the others you ignored/didn't notice.

What Scotland needs and wants is not actually that different to the rest of the UK.

"what England wants, we all get" That f*cking bullsh!t and you know it. Most of the country didn't vote for this horrid Tory Government so how about you stop acting as if you are the only ones.
More than half of Scotland rejected Independence and nearly half didn't vote for the SNP but they still have to put up with the SNP constantly crying and threatening to leave.

You have a proportionate representation to your size just like everyone else. The way the electoral system works in the UK each MP in Westminster represents roughly the same amount of people.
You have less because there is less of you. We shouldn't have less of a say simply because you expect your voices to be louder than everyone elses.


It is asymmetric due to Population differences. That is no ones fault, and it certainly isn't a reason to give the 6 million people in Scotland a voice greater than 6 million people in England.


That's because they've whipped up Nationalism and the fact that most people are dumb, they will believe anything they are told. This applies all over the world.


They have no chance of winning another referendum, they know this. That is why they haven't called another one despite the pathetic excuse they put in their manifest.

They haven't even attempted to address the reasons people voted against Independence, they are just ignoring them and that is why those people will not vote for Independence in any forthcoming referendum.

It was a grammar error.
The word was not misspelled but rather misused. It was incorrectly used in place of a similar word. Many people incorrectly use affect and effect.

With respect I was calling out tiggertiny and his reasons for not highlighting the GRAMMATICAL errors used by ENGLISH posters such as 'loose' instead of 'lose' and 'Iron' instead or 'Irn'....both words in their own right but not used correctly in the context in which they were posted just as 'affected' wasn't, just a couple of examples without scrolling back.

I apologise, I thought you were talking about something else.

Hardly. Half the 'country' may not have voted for the current English government, couldn't care less. The point being that the English can vote the westminster administration in or out as they wish. Good luck to the Scottish in that respect.

Why the hell should we 'have less because there are less of us'? We should be happy with existing as a vassal because there are so many more of you? To hell with that.

I suspect your comment regarding the intellect of voters accounts for the full English brexit we are going to endure. After all, there are so many more of you.

Finally, the one refreshing thing about a Scottish Independence referendum is just that. For once your number will make sod all difference (I imagine we will still have the hysterical whining, pleading, love-bombing, last minute visits from the three stooges or whomsoever - and the other cheek of that arse, the threats and intimidation.) But we will decide, either way.

Even Nicola Sturgeons own Brexit Advisor told her it isn't viable

http://www.businessinsider.in/nicola...w/56088708.cms

Nicola Sturgeon's Brexit adviser told us why her single market plans are 'politically, technically and legally' unviable

Why would she care about that? The SNP have a history of ignoring things they don't wan to hear even if they really should take notice. EU Membership, Police Scotland's VAT exemption, Single Market plans. The list probably goes on.

Why should Scotland's opinion matter any more than that of Essex or Greater Manchester or Cornwall? They are just a region of the U.K. - if they wanted to be an independent nation should have voted for that in September 2014.

Their endless demands and attempts at blackmail are just getting boring now.

It isn't the English Government, it is the UK Government. All of the UK elect MPs to represent them in Westminster. Each MP represents roughly the same amount of people.


So you think Scotland should have the same amount of voting power as England despite England having more than 10 times as many voters?

Your issue is entirely self created. You are the one putting yourself in a box and making it look like you are outnumbered. When it comes to UK issues we are all the same. We all have an equal voice as a member of the UK electorate.

The problem isn't the system. The problem is people like YOU! You are the one that is complaining the system is unfair because of reasons you have come up with.
You are the one making out it is Eng v Sco when it isn't.

You don't like the system because you are in the minority so expect things to change to favour you over everyone else. If you vote for minority parties that have no chance of having any real power or influence that is your choice. But you are not hard done by because of that.


That comment applies to a lot of people, no place within the UK (you could argue the world) is free of dumb people who vote without having any knowledge about what they are voting for. It applies in General Elections, it applied in the EU Referendum and applied in the Scottish Independence referendum.


The number of English will stop being the issue, another group will just take it's place. Your problem doesn't seem to be with England having more voting power, it is with voting for the losing side, being the minority rather than the majority.

Do you really think Scotland will be a great place for all of the people that will have rejected the SNP's shambles of an Independent Scotland.

But then this whole sorry tale is perfectly summed up by your fellow Independence supporters, who called people who did not vote the same way as them traitors.
The system isn't the problem, England isn't the problem, Brexit isn't the problem. Bigots are the problem.

You are going to get mobbed for saying that! Apparently Scotland is a Country, despite ceasing to exist as a Country hundreds of years ago just like England when a new Country was created in their place, the Kingdom of Great Britain.

It, like England, Wales and Northern Ireland became a region of what is now the UK at that point, separated by what used to be the Country's borders. In reality they have not been Countries for hundreds of years. They were superseded by the Countries that were formed when they came together in union.

It is only tradition that has meant we continued to call them Countries, even though they don't have Country status is any legal sense (UN Recognised).

Sturgeon couldn't blackmail a paper bag, her bluff has been called and surprise no referendum has been called, just more and more threats.
Threats that people can see are hollow and are getting increasingly tired of.

Ireland is a nation - people fought and died for their right to be independent of the U.K.

Scotland despite being offered independence on peaceful terms via a vote decided it didn't fancy it. That just really makes it a region without the cajones to be a nation.

Still they gave the world curling so that makes up for it.

Let's have a heated debate.

Why post it here. English dominated forum.

We will decide No again. The SNP are a busted flush, the whole threats over EU membership while the Scottish public services crumble is nothing short of hysterical and the biggest political success of the SNP is to breath new life into the Scottish Conservatives. The constant anti-Tory whining of the left wing factions that infest the nationalist movement s increasingly falling on deaf ears. Swings of 21% in Alex Salmonds own Constituency....

Half of Scotland didn't vote for the SNP what do you suppose those voters do?

Smoggy, you make some interesting points which we could sum up with the term democratic deficit, which is what applies here. It's very easy to pontificate with the weight of numbers behind you, when you benefit from the system.

Scotland and England were never completely subsumed into each other, among many other things, the former retained its own separate legal system and the Bank of England kept its name - there was no 'Bank of the UK'. (So my money can be refused in what you tell me is another part of my own country. Where else in the world does that happen?). We are different, for lack of perhaps a better word, countries.

So, 5M in Scotland can't be compared to 5M in England. You are comparing two different things, they are not equivalent.

Actually I have only been on the losing side once. I 'won' the independence referendum (the right vote for me at the time) and I 'lost' the EU referendum. I certainly wasn't calling no voters 'traitors' considering I was one of them. I have no problem losing a democratic vote. I've never voted SNP (maybe never will) but the point is, my vote for the SG counts - my vote for westminster doesn't. Nearly every Scottish MP is from one party and they may as well play candy crush for all it matters.

The Brexit vote was so big, so big to me that I saw the broken system I had previously supported. The colour coded map of the outcome reinforced it. The system IS the problem. England hasn't got the problem, because the system (of course) favours it.

I am no bigot, my belief is 'we're a' Jock Tamson's Bairns'. But you and I are in separate societies which are very different and I feel the direction of travel is not bringing us closer.

We are still in a union, but it feels an uncomfortable one. There are only a small number of percentage points holding it. Why do you think so many people feel like that?

You ask me if I think 'the shambles of an independent Scotland will be great'. Well, thanks for your good wishes fellow UK citizen, but I don't know. I rather suspect however, like the Irish, we won't be beating a path back to you once it happens.

(I am assuming you are English/based in England).

Excellent post Varys.

You can look at it another way, over half of Scots voted for parties other than the SNP at Westminster thier reward? Just 3 MPs. The less than 50% of Scots who voted for a local minor interest party got 53 seats at Westminster then moan their MPs have no influence the rest of voted for national parties but our voices aren't being heard either. This is the not the fault of the UK but of a flawed electoral system coupled with flawed voter logic.

If the SNP hadn't routed Labour they'd have been sitting on at least 272 MPs possibly more that would have a totally changed the dynamics of the parliament and the Labour leadership, it's doubtful you'd have Corbyn, every Tory rebellion would have brought the risk of the Government collapsing it would have resembled a parliament more like 1992 and less like 1983.

If I was to highlight every error it would be a full-time job.

Is the poster involved Scottish? I have no idea and frankly don't care.

So what you want is to disenfranchise English voters and make their votes worth less than Scottish voters? Thanks for that!

Does Scotland, not the SNP, Scotland the country and the people who live there, actually care about the EU that much? I suspect it was a remain vote there due to:

- The fear of a second referendum happening if brexit occurred

- Little to no campaigning by Vote Leave/UKIP in Scotland (no Nigel bus or Boris 350 bus)

- UKIP having a bad reputation in Scotland thanks to David Coburn

- So few Scottish MPs/MSPs coming out in support for Brexit, only now has a few SNP MSPs like Alex Neil who also claims a number of other SNP MSPs support Brexit. There was also rumours that at least one SNP MP voted Brexit (I think there could've been more)

Shame for the millions of Scottish Brexitors who are ignored by the Scottish Government.

2017 Scottish Council elections should be interesting to see if SNP are maintaining their support or if the Scottish Conservatives are catching up on them.

I'd hardly call 55.3% an overwhelming majority! I realise you want to spin things to suit your bias but that is just a ridiculous statement!

not really, the polling done after the 2014 election suggested that the EU was 8th out of ten options when people were asked what influenced their vote most

its ludicrous to suggest that it makes any sense to leave a union within the UK to join one with the EU when culturally, logistically and economically we have far more in common and far high inter-dependencies with the UK than we will ever have with the rest of the EU

it suits the SNP's grievance politics however to play up the importance of the EU whilst ignoring the greater importance of the links with the rest of the UK