Two weeks today the island of my birth could be split in two, nearly 2,000 years after the Romans did the same thing and over 300 years since reunification. Alex Salmond wishes to turn the clock back to the days of Roman rule, but I say no thanks to separating Scotland from the rest of the UK.
I say …
Yes please to all the people on the island of Great Britain living together as one …
Yes please to Team GB in the Olympics …
Yes please to the keeping Union Jack …
Yes please to keeping the BBC …
Yes please to no border controls within Great Britain …
Yes please to keeping my United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland passport …
Yes please to the best of both worlds, local control to the regions and countries of the UK and to working together internationally in our interlinked world …
Yes please to living in a place where you can be proud to be British and English/ Scottish/ Welsh/ Northern Irish/ Cornish/ Londoner/ Geordie/ Brummie/ Essex/ Wessex/ Mercian/ Northumbrian/ Liverpudlian/ Mancunian or any other label you wish to have, because it’s Britain …
Yes please to not feeling a foreigner or alien as an Englishman every time I’ve visited Scotland since 1970’s school trips …
Yes please to the political union that is necessary, for a monetary union within the UK. Alex Salmond just does not get it. It’s simply not possible to have monetary union without any form of overarching political union. Alex wishes to ditch the political union, but keep the monetary union. He wants an independent Scotland that is dependent on the Bank of England as the lender of last resort. He wants an independent Scotland to be bailed out the rest of the UK if things wrong. Basically he wants an independent Scotland to be dependent on England …
And yes Alex Salmond, I do have the right to a have a say, this Scotland decides vote effects me living in England.
People on this island of Great Britain have worked, lived and loved alongside each other for 1000’s of years, and that includes my great-great-grandmother Marion McArthur, born in Edinburgh in the 1830’s.
So no thanks to separation and yes to keeping the island of Great Britain as one United Kingdom.
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Eleanor Bell, Jacqueline Bell, Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera, Muriel Stewart, Jenny Goodall, Jill Baston, Anne Margaret Winstanley, Yvonne Boyd, Colin Drysdale, Geoffrey Brown, Maureen Turner, Nicholas Lee, Chris Bicknell, Martin Goodall, Anne-Marie Lee-Cann, Joanne Sturmey
Comments
Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera David and let us not forget the debt we owe to Scotland for making sure that we are not totally dominated by Toryism!
I visit Scotland (The Highlands) as much as I can for it is truly a wonderful place, and although there is something terribly romantic about the thought of an independent Scotland, it is realistically not sensible for the reasons that you have mentioned and many more.
I hope that the citizens of Scotland choose to remain a part of our historical union, and assist the entire nation to rid ourselves of the Conservative Party that if Scotland breaks away will continue to have a negative influence north as well as south of the border.
Jacqueline Bell I am English.. I went to university in Wales and then lived in Wales for a further 2 years. I have lived in Scotland for 33 years. I see myself as British with a freedom to travel across the border to shop in Berwick (nearer to my home than Edinburgh)or to live,work, study across EU or wider afied with my British passport. I have been a community councillor since 2000 except for 5 years as an East Lothian councillor.
I feel the UK has benefited from cross fertilization of the skills and knowledge of its citizens across the nation. Westminster is not perfect but I feel that as with the arguments in the 2014 Euro elections it is better to reform from within and look at a more federal structure for the whole UK rather than Scotland cut off . I am concerned that the land of milk and honey promised by the SNP will not come at a cost of higher taxes, service cuts and a nation divided. Westminster does have a 2nd chamber and process. We have already seen decisons taken at Holyrood e.g. court closures in SNP loaded committees without being discussed in the full Parliament. There is no 2nd chamber to knock back poor legislation. Some peopple on the doors seem to think that independence can be tried and if it doesnt wortk Scotland can rejoin the union. That is not the casse. There is no going back.