If I were to do something to stop a Yes vote in Scotland

[Aggers]

I reckon that if Scotland decides they want to go it alone we should rebuild Hadrian's Wall.

[TheOstrich]

I reckon that if Scotland decides they want to go it alone we should rebuild Hadrian's Wall.

I used to argue that as well, Aggers, until I realised that by doing so, we'd be giving most of Northumberland to the Scots. I guess they could have Northumberland if they want, but we'd require compensation for it. No wonder they are saying there will be protracted negotiations ......

Are you voting for the Yorkshire First party in the EU elections, WM?

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/the- ... -elections

[Workingman]

Are you voting for the Yorkshire First party in the EU elections, WM?

No. I will vote UKIP.

I do not for a second believe in their EU stance, but I do think that a vote for them will make the ConDemLab triumvirate sit up and take notice of the wishes of the British peoples.

[cromwell]

Are you voting for the Yorkshire First party in the EU elections, WM?

"Yorkshire First"? How utterly ridiculous.
The long term aim of the EU is to split England into "regions" and crap like this is all part of the plan. Yorkshire First? A more honest title would be let's destroy England, or Brussels First; and it's all done under the guise of localism. What a joke.

[Suff]

I do not for a second believe in their EU stance, but I do think that a vote for them will make the ConDemLab triumvirate sit up and take notice of the wishes of the British peoples.

A lot of people in Scotland voted SNP for the same reason.

Now look where they are....

I agree with Cromwell fully about the break up of England. However Scotland is a very different case. Scotland was a country with a Monarch which decided, after it's Monarch had taken over the English throne, to fully unite with England.

Yorkshire was never a country and never had a Monarch. The two cases are completely different. However the more the English speak about them as if they are the same, the more the Scots believe that having Englandshire removed from Scottish decision making is a good idea.

[pederito1]

Judging by the "success" story of some other countries that have become independent eg Rhodesia they should heed the warning.

[Suff]

c est pas pareil as they say in my French class and in the bars here.

These were European colonist led countries who took themselves independent and were taken over by the indigenous majority. Who had no clue how to run the country.

Hardly the case in Scotland. But, again, all references of this type dive the Scots to a Yes vote. Every time the English say a word or write a word it shows their total ignorance of what Scotland is as a country or a nation.....

If the boot were on the other foot, the English would be far more likely to vote yes than the Scots and mainly on their own internal view of the rest of the UK, not from knowledge....

[Workingman]

Suff, this topic of references being made in a certain type of rhetoric is a two-way street. You asked in an earlier post about how the Scots would like to see themselves with regards to England. Well, from many of the posts I have seen on other blogs the answer would be "the enemy" for some of them, but that has always been the case for a small minority - on both sides.

There is quite a lot of empirical evidence that we in Englandshire, the ordinary man and woman on the street, would like for Scotland to stay as part of the Union. Unfortunately, most of what the Scots hear about what "England" thinks comes from the London bubbles of Westminster and MediaLand and they are not representative of the English nation. Maybe the Scots should be made aware of that.

As for my voting UKIP, I will only do it in the pointless EU elections for MEPs, never in a general election, and anyway UKIP will never get into power in Westminster. What I hope voting UKIP in the EU polls will do is give a huge kick up the backsides of the big three. If it works, fine, if not, who cares about MEPs?

[Suff]

All true WM, but then Scotland is having a referendum and the bubbles are interfering. Few Scots even care enough to actually research the situation themselves. If they did, they would probably vote Yes, very quickly and in huge numbers. However, as is the way, many of them can't even be bothered to vote.

So what is left? The media bubbles. North and South. Everyone is influenced by them, both English and Socts. But the rhetoric is often negative and the bubble slogans are often reflected in many other forums which the Scots may read.

It is the very negativity of the No campaign which is driving the yes vote. Sadly, boringly, predictable. But there you are.

As to the UKIP part. I know how you feel. Let me expand even more least people think WM and I are poles apart on this. WM believes in the idea of the EU but not the practical implementation as it is now. He believes that we should get behind it and push, not stand at the root of the tree with the biggest axe we can find. We both know that the EU parliament is a fairlyland vote which matters to nobody.

However my main feeling on this is that if people see that a truley huge surge to UKIP can actually upset the apple cart, then they may decide, for very tactical reasons, to vote UKIP in the General Election. In this way I see it impacting the Westminster elections. As success, even in such a pitiful sham as the EU parliament, brings in money, followers and votes.

I saw it in Scotland with the MSP's. The Scottish "Assembly" was, to all intents and purposses, a talking shop. No real powers, but a way to vent nationalistic feeligns. Oops. The SNP used the nationalistic feelings to drive power. They used the Scottish Assembly to bring in support and cash for campaigns. They used the budget and money they had as part of the "Government" they renamed themselves, to really bring true change to the Scottish workplaces and infrastructure.

The English will "never" understand the polictical impact of putting Dualling the A9, from Perth to Inverness, on the budget for the next 20 eyars, but few Scots will fail to recognise the investment in the ability of Scots to travel and work in their own country. The road is dubbed "the killer" as it has the highest fatality count, annualy, of any single road in Scotland.

Let me try and explain this anyway. Whilst the Loch lomond improvements aid the Tourists and the dual carriageway from Dundee to Aberdeen feeds money and people to the Oil businesses, the remainder of the country uses the A9 to link the central artery of the Highlands with the Lowlands. This road, as far as I am aware, has only received local government funding. Whilst the central belt, borders belt and truk routes to Oil, receive central government funding. Yet this road, which kills the most (even more so per vehicle count), is left without funding. Because that traffic is not important to England.

So back to the SNP and how they drove power. The rest, as they say, is history.

Whilst the EU parliament may not bring the power that the Scottish Assembly did, it still brings profile. If the UKIP were to take 50% of the seats in the EU Parliament, it would be difficult for any party to claim they were a bunch of nobody's in a nothing job, without revealing to the population at large that their "vote" in the EU was meaningless and that the "Parliament" was nothing more than an exceptionally expensive talking shop.

How do you spin that????

[Workingman]

ETA. It is tricky to argue positively for a negative, as the "No" campaign has proved. It has focussed almost all of its efforts on the downsides to independence, and dishing the dirt, rather than talking up the positives of remaining in the Union - there are some.

Why might that be? Why would the "No" campaign keep banging on magnifying the negatives when there is plenty of historical evidence that it is counter-productive? It is a tactic that has failed time and time again. These people are not stupid; are they, they must know such things?

If I was, even remotely, a conspiracy theorist I would be suggesting that they actually want a "Yes" vote for some perverse reason.