The SNP has my full support
May 2, 2007Tomorrow is the big day.
Parliamentary Elections in Scotland. The Scottish National Party may achieve the majority, meaning they will organise a referendum in 2010, in which they will ask the Scottish people if they want independence from England. The SNP wants to model Scotland after the Scandinavian welfare state.
The SNP has my full support (for whatever that’s worth). Scotland is a proud and old nation, very, very distinct from England. Scotland is not a region; they are a country, with an old heritage.
Let’s hope the SNP wins tomorrow.
Politics | 
Wales too. They are different, with their own (dying) language too.
Comment by Eugenia — May 2, 2007 @ 7:22 pm
I don’t understand why anyone would want to undo a peaceful unity that has lasted 300+ years. It’s not like they’re being persecuted, in fact, pretty much everyone has bent over backwards to accommodate each other, especially by giving each member of the UK it’s own parliament.
Comment by Andrew — May 3, 2007 @ 7:58 pm
Andrew, I agree with you, I would not want to see “two different countries” instead of one. What I would like to see is a confederated Europe. Whatever was a “country” before, it should be somehow connected to the whole. This way, it would be nice to have Scotland and Wales as their own “country” within the EU, because in reality, for the CITIZENS, it would not change much.
But yes, if there was no EU, I would not want them to split up. But now that there is and most things won’t change in the lives of people after split up, why not?
Comment by Eugenia — May 3, 2007 @ 8:17 pm
There used to be a Scottish comedy programme on the BBC and one of the characters was a Scottish racist who became apoplectic with rage when anything English, connected with England, or that he thought could be construed as connected with England was mentioned. I used to think this was fantasy and quite funny in the same way Alf Garnett (English xenophobe) worked himself into a frenzy over issues of, for instance, immigration.
The problem is, I see a lot of Alf Garnett and his Scottish alter ego in modern day Scots and Scotland. The independence brigade seem to base their core beliefs around a romantic (perhaps “Braveheartish”) notion of nationhood, together with an underlying irrational hatred of England (though they always like to dress it up as something else since outright racism is uncool nowadays). There is also an insularity of the “Fog at the border - England cut off !” mentality - Scotland seems to be a goldfish bowl intent on nationalistic navel gazing. It would be fine if England had induced this but actually the UK spends a lot more per person on the Scots, than the English. All a bit sad really.
IIRC, according to Andrew Neil (Scottish TV pundit) Scotland receives about the same back as is taken from oil revenues in that region of the UK so it’s not being short changed in that area either.
It would be depressing to see the UK “Balkanised”, rather like when a family breaks up. The Scots aren’t discriminated against and have substantial powers since devolution; but so many of them are tied to romanticism, irrational anti-Englishness, and nationalistic self absorption that I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen at some point in the future.
Comment by Phil — May 3, 2007 @ 9:49 pm