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Scottish independence - as an Englishman, am I "wrong" not to give a crap?

Dexter Deadwood said:
I think it is a mistake to see Britain simply as a ‘poodle’ of the US, as though Britain slavishly follows Washington for the sake of preserving a special relationship. The situation is in reality more serious. Most client states feel bound by their masters; Britain is different in choosing to support US actions and in being willingly subservient. Many of the worst US policies are supported by British elites because the latter agree with the US quite independently, not simply out of loyalty to a special relationship.
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I'd agree with that.
 
Their was a very silly letter in one of brightons TA centres after brighton declared itself a nuclear free zone and wrote to the MOD demanding no nuclear weapons were based at the drill hall:facepalm:
Eventually somebody wrote back offically stating uk nuclear policy is a matter for whitehall and its policy to niether confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons at any mod base and if the army thought it operationaly neccessary to issue nuclear weapons to 6/7 Queens it would :D
Not exactly sure what a TA unit would do with a tactical nuclear weapon:eek:
 
kebabking said:
its somewhat off topic, but what definition of a 'world power' do you think the UK does not meet, and doesn't do so by some margin?

in economic terms the UK is a 'World Power' at number 7 in the world. in military terms the UK is a world power at perhaps number 2 or 3 in the world - its nuclear forces, navy and air power put it there, rather than just having several million barely trained conscripts. in diplomatic terms the UK is one of only 5 permament members of the security council. in cultural terms the UK is probably only second to the US - language, literature, film etc..

what of the above does not meet any reasonable definition of 'world power'?
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7th and 5th in the world eh? For now.
Ok maybe culturally we are still a player on a global scale, especially musically speaking I agree with that.
Firstly Military power, For what? Let's see if we are still 5th in a couple of years when the cuts really take hold, the Navy and Airforce are already being cut.
"the majority of the reduction in current spending on public services as a proportion of national income over three quarters is still to come. Much of it is due after March 2014. The OBR’s March forecast is that public sector net debt will peak at 76.3% of GDP in 2014-15. Accumulated national debt will be over 76% of national income in 2014-15 and still over 74% in 2016-17, It will not fall back to pre crisis levels for a generation." IFS.org
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People are tired of being dragged into confrontation all over the world, I'm sure lots of people would prefer the hundreds of millions is spent at home building hospitals and schools, building infrastructure and creating jobs, trying to rebuild some kind of industry.
Nuclear weapons, loads of countries have them, I don't think that makes us any great power, ten countries have 22,000 warheads. Enough to destroy the planet many times over, Who are we going to use them against? Someone who doesn't have them? Really? Or someone who does have them? Really? All it takes is one warhead and the Uk is fucked, It's not even worth pretending.
We are a tiny island compared to everyone else on that list. No longer is there a huge empire. We trudge around behind America and the EU like some playground bully. Our national debt is going to top TEN TRILLION in 2015. We have no industry left save the financial sector. It's the highest youth unemployment rate in 17 years.
Do you need me to go on? It's time to stop living in times gone by.

Anyway, I don't want to derail the thread, I may be wrong in your eyes but that's my opinion. No doubt many people do believe we are still some big player on the world stage...

If Scotland does go for independence I wonder where that leaves the Uk in those rankings.
 
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kebabking said:
not really - China, India and Russia are a slighty odd cases - Russia has a massive arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons with global reach, yet its conventional forces are regional at best, and despite the numbers of them, actually pretty limited. its Navy is a far greater danger it its own sailors than it is to anyone else, its Army is huge but relatively immobile, and its air force is largely obsolete. it has some 'world power' capabilities, but lacks many others.


China has about 30% more nuclear warheads than the UK, but unlike the UK a significant proportion of them are carried by tactical fighters and short to medium range missiles - so they are a danger to anyone near China, but not to anyone outside of a relatively small bubble. China, like Russia, has massive numbers, but the proportion of those numbers it can use against anyone it doesn't share a land border with is actually very small - again, like Russia, it has a large air force, but only a small proportion of that air force is modern (thats the bit they publicise..), and China also has very little in the way of 'strategic reach' - it has very little heavy airlift, or tankers, or AWACS, or electronic intelligence gathering.

India is similar - it has fewer nuclear weapons than the UK, and none of them have global reach, it has a massive conventional military in pure numbers, but only a thin crust of that military is modern or remotely mobile.

China is changing however - its cutting back on its Army and concentrating spending on its Navy, at the moment the PLA(N) is both limited in capability and reach, but that will change in the next decade - they are copying the USN model and going for large carrier battle groups, which will, certainly by 2025, be cruising the worlds seas. then they will truly be a world power..
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...tbf with our nuclear arsenal we are also an oddity. Sure, we can project force around the world, but without NATO and the US exactly what can we do with it? Afghanistan is hardly a sterling example of us projecting force into another country and then 'winning' there is it? Likewise Iraq. We have the capability to fight short, sharp engagements and win in the short term but we lack the the resources and manpower to do anything in the long term beyond policing actions from entrenched fortifications. We can't, for instance, run a full-scale occupation of another territory without assistance from allies and we can barely fight a foreign war on one front -and that's also with assistance from allies. Yeah, great, so we can potentially run a short, sharp war into one of those 'anomalous' states like China or Russia (if they couldn't retaliate with nuclear weapons) but inconveniently we'd be driven back into the sea by the sheer weight of numbers ranged against our military.

The last time we were able to project 'hard' power in order to maintain military control over another territory was at the height of the British empire -and even then that was down to vast technological superiority and the personal greed of local elites. We are now seeing the same pattern with the current hegemon. The difference is that technology is easier to come by for the people fighting against countries like the US and UK so the tech gap is somewhat narrower. Also, thanks to squeamishness about brutal policing operations and subsequent massacres by the military from the civilian populations in countries like the US and UK, the ability of those military apparatus' to project force to the fullest extent they can (like empires did ever anon until the late 20th century) is somewhat curtailed due to pesky things like popular democracy and uppity citizens who feel they have the right to protest against such horrors. The only constant since our 'glory days' is the personal greed of local elites and that particular factor only has one loyalty -and it isn't to the crown or, nowadays, the state department...

We have a highly trained but relatively small military (and it's getting smaller all the time). We're still living under the illusion that we are somehow still a world power because we (or rather our elite) refuse to face reality. The only true world power at the moment is the USA and we are largely along for the ride.

Oh, and China may have a smaller, less capable navy than us at present, but at least their aircraft carriers have planes...
 
Does Scotland receive funding from London? Will independence actually save england money?

Does anyone believe the average Scottish person will notice if they gain independence?

What about the Welsh? Does their assembly mean they are sort of independent?

Who pays the benefits? DWP ? so many questions...
 
Rooter said:
Does Scotland receive funding from London? Will independence actually save england money?

Does anyone believe the average Scottish person will notice if they gain independence?

What about the Welsh? Does their assembly mean they are sort of independent?

Who pays the benefits? DWP ? so many questions...
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Yes but all of these are easily answerable with google.
 
Rooter said:
really? I would have thought a thread in a topical forum may have provided me with some deeper insight.... nevermind.
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OK, but these are really basic questions that have asked and answered a thousand times. But if you insist:

1) Scotland receives funding from the UK government. But money raised through Scottish assists go straight into the central exchequer. So it depends who you read but most sources believe Scotland about breaks even so independence probably wont save any money for the rest of the UK
2) Of course. Do you think anyone from the republic of Ireland still thinks they're in the UK?
3) Wales has a devolved assembly which has some powers but Wales is still part of the UK, as it stands there are no plans for a vote on whether Wales should cede from the UK
4) Local and national government, this will be the case regardless

Now there are questions that people should be asking are regarding the viability of a sterling zone, Scotland's relationship with the EU etc etc.
 
Rooter said:
really? I would have thought a thread in a topical forum may have provided me with some deeper insight.... nevermind.
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As you are so very new here, you may not know that there is a very long thread in the appropriate sub-forum, with over 1000 posts, which has discussed your questions repeatedly and at length.
 
I feel unable to contribute much to this thread until I've also read the main thread in the Scotland forum ... will get around to this some time ahead of the referendum ... :D

Just for now though :

Despite a half way convincing link posted by geminisnake earlier, I find it VERY hard to rid myself of the gut fear that if Scotland goes independent, people in England (and in Wales too, for the time being) will be at far greater risk of perpetual majority-Tory government.

And we're likely to be retiring back to England eventually -- chances stronger in the long term than staying here in Wales. And while we still remain in Wales, there's implications for us here as well.

In all respects other than selfish ones though, I have no problems at all with Scottish independence in principle. But would devo-max be any worse for Scotland?

I do accept I need to read up more, and I intend to.
 
Personally I think Scottish independence in inevitable I just think that this vote has come at a bad time with the widespread economic gloom, the high profile roll the Scottish banks (yes, I know they are Scottish only in name) played and the problems Ireland and other smaller EU economies have suffered. I think all of these factors will make enough Scottish voters worried enough to vote No this time around.
 
Positive outcome of yes vote: Somewhere to migrate to when tories/labour finish breaking up the NHS.

Positive outcome of no vote: The gloomy expression on the face of smug Trump-felator Salmond.
 
Migrate to Scotland? Here in SW Wales it has rarely stopped raining since New Years Day, but we are able to take comfort from : at least its not quite as bad in Wales as its been in Scotland! :eek: ;) :D
 
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William of Walworth said:
Migrate to Scotland? Here in SW Wales it has rarely stopped raining since New Years Day, but we are able to take comfort from : at least its not quite as bad in Wales as its been in Scotland! :eek: ;) :D
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It's been the best winter I can remember here, so far. Mild, occasionally wet, but nothing severe.
 
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