[0762]

Heyyyyyy!!! That is absolute bullshit coming from someone who does not even live in Scotland and sample the true daily culture of Scots who live here and see it as it really is!! Shut it!!! Again, an argument without substance (old shit, read it before from the usual suspects!) and an insinuation, a false one, that is absolutey unqualified crap!! Sure, there are some extreme factions that are present up here but they are miniscule in the overall scheme of things in a Scottish culture that is multicultural and pluralist with strong roots that have been embedded here for a long, long time. My wife is English from Kent and she'd scoff at such an inaccurate and stupid, unqualified suggestion!!! We live here and we are qualified 100% to know the FACTS re our own country!! Utter garbage!! And BTW the Scottish Nationalism title should be amended to civic nationalism because that is what it is!!! If you lived up here, you'd realise that fact and why so many people vote for the SNP!!!!!

The SNP is leading you up the garden path you can't see it! If Scotland became independent how would you close the £13bn deficit, increase taxes? reduce public spending? or both? How would you afford the £55 million a day to be a member of the EU if you joined? It would cost you £450 million to set up departments for an independent Scotland and that is just over 5 years.

Too wee, Too poor, Too stupid. Yeah, we've heard it a million times over the years.

Westminster on the other hand is doing such a fantastic job. Have you seen the UK debt figures from the exchequer ?

The UK debt is trillions of quid and I'd point out that Scotland is actually subsidising some of that debt when one looks at the GERS figures on public expenditure under debt! Contrary to unionist claims that the UK generously donates to Scotland every year out of "the goodness of its heart", just for the pleasure of our company, we are paying public sector debt interest annually and it is well over £3B - last year it was £3.6B!! Note Scotland has almost no borrowing powers!! So we are subsidising badly managed UK debt! So Scotland is subsidising the UK's debt repayments even when Scotland didn't run up any of those debts!!
Ahhh say many unionists but the UK spends more money per head on Scotland than it does in the rest of this wonderful union - so we did run up that debt eh!!?? As the UK gave more than it received from Scotland in taxes and we owe that money - not to international banks but the UK. So it is effectively a loan that Scotland is paying back!!? THE PROBLEM IS THAT IS NOT ACTUALLY TRUE!! Because in 2013 a unionist professor called Brian Ashcroft attempted to calculate the cash balance between Scotland and the UK in a move to prove that Scotland HAD NOT effectively had its oil money stolen by Westminster. Unfortunately for him, he discovered that in fact it had!!! He deserves credit for publishing the data when he found that up to 2012 SCOTLAND HAD CONTRIBUTED £68B MORE TO UK COFFERS THAN IT HAD RECEIVED BACK IN SPENDING!!! That included the Scottish block grant (controlled by Holyrood) and all spending by 'wasteful Westminster" "on behalf" of Scotland!! Now in real terms that £68B surplus would be worth a lot more as UK govt expenditure "on Scotland's behalf" includes a considerable amount of spending on things Scotland "didnae ask for" incl eg several billion quid for the Iraq war! And since most of the surplus was accrued early in the period, it would've earned billions, prob tens of billions, more in interest or investment/other returns!! Every penny of that £30B is cash that subsidised the rest of the UK with, rather than keeping it in Scotland and spending it on stuff we want!!!
Far from being a "leech" on UK finances, Scotland is still, even after a decade-long financial crisis, the PFI burden and with oil revenues close to zero due to "spectacular UK mismanagement", nearly £30B "in the black"!!! We'd be one of the most economically healthy nations on the face of the planet!! Any avid Scot with an interest in a positive future for our country, PLEASE NOTE AND DIGEST IT!!

That's fine matt!! You do what you believe in but stop preaching about it eh!! There are lotsa other folk who have contrary views (millions n millions within our population incl those predominantly in parliament) also with good references to back it up as you'll have read in many threads in this "extensive" OP!

That's a bit rich asking him to stop preaching about what he believes in!!!  You "preach" all the time, and you have every right to, doesn't make either of you right but it is your respective opinions!!  By all means debate someones opinion, even dismiss it if you like, but this is a forum, particularly this thread, where those differing opinions can and should be allowed!!

That is also rich coming from you as well Saint Charles Owl!! You do your own level of preaching!! It's a human trait and don't bother saying you never do it either!! I call it a passion for something I truly believe in and I'll bet you are no different in that respect!! However, I'll criticise misconceived "preaching" and I'd say that is prevalent amongst a helluvah lot of people who have some kinda affiliation to Brexit and the extreme word like "hate" is very significant in their dialogue!!

I don't "preach all the time", nothing like it and I'm not gonna bother referring to thousands of examples of that very fact - lets add some accuracy to that comment eh and move on!! Nuff said!!