Why Does Scotland Want To Be Independent?

[Rhyfelwyr]

Gah! What a mess this whole thing is. I am staunchly pro-Union, but I am not engaging with the national debate on this topic because I don't like what I am hearing from either side, and I reject all the language and axioms that their arguments rest upon. I also won't vote in the referendum.

I mean, are they serious?

What happens when they go belly up and Der Fuher gets the shetlands?

There's no reason for things to go belly up. Depending on the outcome of the North Sea oil controversy, Scotland could actually be financially better off independent of England. If the outcome doesn't go Scotland's way, it would be a bit worse off. Not sure what you mean about Shetland, it wouldn't have a better claim to most of the oil than mainland Scotland - oil aside, I don't think anybody would notice if Shetland left.

I thought it was the Scottish Crown that inherited the English one.

Well in 1603 a Scottish monarch became King of England, but there never was a union of the crowns. For our purposes, the relevant date is 1707, when acts were passed by both the English and Scottish Parliaments, ultimately abolishing the latter.

what ?! when ?! really ?! ah! Damn British, i mean Great Britain only used Scotland for taxes and manpower for war & colonization.i hope Scottish people be free from the 350 years of colonization!!
Hope freedom & independence for Scotland & Kurdistan, thw two torned & colonized nation by the bloody hands of Great Britain!! but not the only ones!!

Scotland has never been colonised by Great Britain (by which I guess you mean, England).

Do you know that a Union was first proposed by the Scots? They actually tried to force England to create a British state about 50 years before it actually happened (Cromwell's short-lived creation aside) - look at the 1643 Solemn League and Covenant the Scots signed with the English Parliament, and the 1648 Engagement they signed with Charles II.

The whole idea of a British identity originated in Scotland, and was consolidated by the plantation in Ulster. For hundreds of years people in Scotland and England saw themselves as British. That is why Scottish independence is wrong - carving up Britain would be like carving up Kurdistan!

Oh, and the Referendum is going to be on the 18th of September next year.