HawBawJaws wrote:

From memory, the snp never mentioned a border, it was Westminster. Think millibland tried to show he would be a strong leader by saying he'd put troops in the North of England or something similar. Sure I remember some prominent political type saying they'd rebuild hadrians wall, quickly dropped it when someone pointed it that'd bring the border further south.

hahaha, that's exactly the sort of retarded shite I'd expect from our politicians

I'm not asking these to be a WUM, just becasue the question was asked earlier and I don;t know the answer

I'm surprised by Scotland being a net contributor, massively so

But yes those skillsets can be reused in "better" industries, but they often aren't

monkey wrote:

I don’t see how the border can work post-Brexit. You’ll be in the same position as NI. Custom checks.

That doesn't have the same baggage as in Ireland, there's no suggestion of snipers or roadside bombs. There are far less crossings and property splits as well because it's a historical border, not a 20th century line on the map.

There has to be a hard border if you go WTO I think and no hard border is a part the Good Friday Agreement, that's the problem. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Andorra and EU have the customs union.
We didnt want to be in the Customs Union so had to have a border.

cockbeard wrote:

If I'm honest I always thought that the Irish border question was put there by the EU as a reason to not leave. After all you can drive straight though Andorra without any checks, so why should Belfast be any different? Looked like scaremongering to me

You're completely wrong on this one. Sorry man but it was always a real and obvious issue.

Everyone here understood that before the referendum.

kneecap wrote:

cockbeard wrote:

If I'm honest I always thought that the Irish border question was put there by the EU as a reason to not leave. After all you can drive straight though Andorra without any checks, so why should Belfast be any different? Looked like scaremongering to me

You're completely wrong on this one. Sorry man but it was always a real and obvious issue.

Everyone here understood that before the referendum.

Fair enough, I don't doubt it was seen as a potential issue, especially by you guys living there. I simply thought it shouldn't be an issue for the reasons already given

cockbeard wrote:

HawBawJaws wrote:

Being able to control our own borders - we actually need more immigration in Scotland, not less, like the rUK seems to think, There's more of course, but I'm fucked today and riding a massive slump of depression, so that's all my brain can come up with just now.

Borders, thats the shitty reason s dickheads down here voted to leave the EU, seriosuly, don;t gain independence then sling it away on arguments like that

Except he's arguing the opposite. Scotland needs more people. Scotland has no control over their ability to let more people in, as the UK Govt controls that. So they face skills shortfalls and can't address it.

A point was made earlier about Westminster paying for everything in Scotland, like education and prescriptions etc - if there was even a tiny shred of truth in that, dyou not think Westminster governments, particularly the one we have now, would be desperately trying to get rid of us?? Why are they so keen to not only keep us in this union, but to actively ignore our right to question our place within it?

Come on. Clearly Scotland as a whole is worth more to the UK in it. We've got something like 90 percent of the uks fresh water, almost all the oil, a fair chunk of tourism, renewable energy, exports unique to Scotland..... And as mentioned, value is extracted from Scotland and recorded in London (again, whisky, oil all our other exports).

But for me, forget all the financial arguments etc, it's simpler than that.

I never bothered with politics before 2014, for the simple reason I saw no point. My vote, as a Scotsman, is effectively worthless in comparison to an englishmans vote. The indyref was the first time I saw a chance for my vote to have a direct and hopefully positive impact on my life. Unfortunately, it didn't go the way I hoped at the time, and it did break my heart.

But since then, me, and an increasing number of Scots have watched what's been happening in Westminster with increasing incredulity and abject horror. Every day since the indyref, I've seen or read something thats made me think 'what in the Jesus suffering fuck are these idiots doing now??'.

Scotland and England are 2 clearly different countries and people. And that's fine, everyone sees things differently. But it's not fine for the wishes of one nation to be forced on to another. And the UK is a union of nations, we're not just a region. It seems like only England is allowed to consider itself an actual country within the UK, we're just a small region.

(sorry, head's still up my arse, so firing off on tangents).

Basically, England wants brexit? Fine, you shooty in. Wales, you want to tag along with them? You sure? You sure you're sure? OK, don't say we didn't warn you. We'll leave you to it.

I'm fucking done with the UK. I've watched as my country has tried to develop into a forward thinking, welcoming, innovative place that tries to care for its citizens. But we're tied to a bunch of lunatics down south that want the exact opposite. Stop the fucking bus and let us off.

I'm fairly certain as well that one of the reasons the SNP did go for free prescription is because means testing is stupidly expensive, so free prescriptions don't actually cost all that much.

Watching the responses to the SNP at PMQ's for the last few years is a strong enough arguement for leaving.

Lot to unpack there, but one thing I'd like to ask - why wouldn't we keep the oil??? Its in our waters, why on earth should we compensate ruk for keeping it when we leave?? There's gold and silver in the ground around Loch lomond (albeit not much) do we need to compensate for that as well??

I think the compensation will flow the other way - specifically ruk paying us for the use of faslane and coulport until they figure out somewhere else to store trident subs and warheads.

Edit: you know I love an analogy.

So, you're living in a house on UK Street. You and your family make up roughly 10% of the population on the street. One of your neighbours has more folk under their roof, makes up about 60% of the population of the street. The street has a communal patch of grass, that requires upkeep. Your bigger neighbour says that although you're only 10% of the population, you're responsible for 60% of the upkeep costs. But, they get to decide how often the grass is cut, what the hedges should look like, you have no say in the matter whatsoever. What would you say? Because that's a very broad generalisation of the so called deficit that Scotland has.

Another example, coming back to your point about Scotland compensating ruk for taking oil revenues with us.

So, arsehole bigger neighbour has been using your broadband ever since you had it installed. You haven't been able to do anything about it, because there's more of them, they've just bullied their way into using it. You eventually get fed up, decide to move house. When you leave, are you compensating the neighbour because they need to get their own broadband now??

Diluted Dante wrote:

Yeah, there's no way we'd have any claim to natural resources within Scotlands territory.

If the UK wanted to keep any military installation in Scotland, they'd have to pay for it. The SNP seem keen on Trident fucking off though.

It's the biggest bargaining chip we have.
Ruk: 15billion Black Hole, you can't leave!

Iscotland: OK, we're leaving anyway, and you can come get trident when we do.

Ruk: but we don't have anywhere to keep it, can't we leave it where it is?

Iscotland: sure, for 15billion a year.

One of the things that really fucked me off this week was a colleague in work who had decided to vote Tory because they wanted Brexit done. They had voted leave and said that they wanted to 'get back control of the country from the EU telling us what to do'.

Immediately followed up by saying that they just didn't see why Scotland wanted to be independent.

Pfft, every unionist politician in Scotland (except the tories of course) was pretty much the same, especially the lib Dems. 'we want another EU referendum!' indy supporters 'cool, us too, take it you're up for another Indyref as well?' libdems: 'oh no, don't be silly!' and they got an absolute doing for it.

Fair enough mate. I think I'll stop trying to engage with you about this subject now. I know you created this thread with an 'educate me' intention, but tbh, you're coming across the exact same way as the 'too wee, too poor, too stupid' types I see on twitter and in the msm every day. I don't think you wanted any kind of insight, or were ever prepared to take any on board, you've already (IMHO) decided us gaining independence is a daft idea.

And hey, if we do, and it does turn out to be a daft idea, then hey ho, it's on us.

Much love.