Well people are starting to ask my which way I'm voting and in fact a friend got quite stroppy about it the other day ! So from now on I have decided that if I do make my mind up one way or the other then I'm not going to say which way !
And
"Better Together" have just put out an advert about an undecided woman voter - I didnt see it on television so had no idea what people were talking about but the
"Yes" campaign then decided to parody it so now I am thoroughly confused what the advert was meaning to say in the first place but something sexist I believe about a woman who wasn't making up her own mind but was going to vote the same as her husband. Not sure what that is all about at all....
Ah well, to put a stop to this idea that
Undecideds or
Don't Knows are in some way less intelligent or less abreast of the issues or just haven't bothered to think about it, I decided to gather all my pro and con arguments and show why being a Don't Know is a very valid position indeed. Anyone who can help solve these conundrums please do so !
Point 1 - Nuclear Weapons
I dont want to see the upgrade to Trident as its too expensive and we would be "in the pockets" of the Americans and I would also love to see the Trident submarines and missiles moved from the Clyde and I'd love to see nuclear weapons eradicated worldwide .....
BUT ........
I remember going to CND meetings and wearing my CND badge and used to argue for the removal of nuclear weapons...they are dangerous, even just from the point of view of possible accidental use....but the pragmatic opinion that you end up coming round to is that they may also be functioning as a deterrent and have perhaps stopped others using them by merely being there.
But we also need to be careful as some state which has nuclear weapons could well be taken over by extremists who wont even care if we have a deterrent....
And finally I am pretty sure i have heard these submarines need a deep water port... so would they really be able to be transferred to England. And in the grand scale of things whether they are on the Clyde or some other river in the UK we would probably all be eradicated anyway if these weapons were used...
And as for the people who argue they should be kept because of 1,000 jobs (which are probably mostly taken by navy personnel from Portsmouth anyway) then that has got to be the worst argument for keeping a weapon of mass destruction that I have ever heard !
And finally it seems to me that guns are the biggest horror in the world nowadays - guns in the hands of the wrong people.
OK so those are just some of the lengthy pros and cons for
Point 1 !!
Point 2 - Cross Border Links - family and jobs - a reason to vote No Perhaps ?
Many people who live in Scotland have family in England - children,.parents, grandparents. The situation at the moment is that if you were born in Scotland you would get both passports but so would your children but the problems may well start to arise when those children's children then need a passport. Where would they live ? Would they no longer have the right to live "across the border" from wherever they are living ? If we are all members of the EU as at present which has an open border policy then this might not matter very much, but again we don't know what is going to happen about the EU. So this seems like a possible future problem. And of course we are so used to working in England or Scotland from both sides of the border - people freely move to find work, not always by choice but this could become more difficult and finding jobs in the other country could also become more difficult.
Point 3 - The EU - a reason to vote Yes perhaps - but based on a lot of assumption and guesses
The European Union - now I am not a great expert on Europe at all. I love visiting Europe and would love to speak more languages - I have spent 20 years learning French and love to speak it. So Europe as a continent is a place I love. From an economic point of view I know there is the European Trading Community or Common Market - this seems a good idea - as long as everyone sticks to the rules which I believe other countries do not always do ! And now there is the EU. This is where I get a bit lost but I do like the idea of it, but I dont like some of the things I hear such as expenses scandals where money seems to go missing, overpaid diplomats etc. and I dont like when our representatives such as those who failed Scottish fishing-
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/YOU+HAVE+NO+BALLS+MINISTER%3B+Cod+Crusaders+blast+Government+fisheries...-a0109051708
Perhaps being a smaller country we would be more in touch with issues such as
fishing which are really relevant here and a lot of
jobs and
trade were based on it and maybe these could be brought back....
But overall I like the EU and would love to work there !
But ...............and this is probably the biggest reason I would have for aYes vote !
We dont know how rUK would vote if David Cameron gave in and gave them a vote as to whether to stay in the EU or not. I have strong suspicions that even though numerous production jobs are here purely because we are a base for companies to trade in the EU, this would be ignored by those who would turn out to vote and I suspect it would be a vote to leave the EU....
so that would be in my opinion not a good thing.
And meanwhile we are quite pro-Europe in Scotland or perhaps dont think about it much at all. At one point the Highlands were zoned as a region for extra development by EU money and I know there have been quite a number of projects which were supported with EU money - mind you even that didn't manage to get us a dualled A9 road....
BUT ...........
To finish my European tour .... the
EU itself is being difficult about whether Scotland would be accepted as a member even though we are quite pro-Europe. This is because some of their countries such as Spain also have regions who are pushing for Independence. I dont know the history of their claims but certainly Scotland definitely did exist as an Independent country previously so we do have a good claim.
Manuel Barroso (who he ?!!!) has said it would be extremely difficult but then the Attorney General says this is wrong !
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-barroso-incorrect-on-eu-1-3313437.
BUT.....all members of the UK are EU citizens so I don't see how they could turn us away. And anyway its the whole UK which is currently a member. That is not going to exist if there was a YES vote so both Scotland and rest of UK would have to re-apply.
Oh and while I remember .... would they really be likely to refuse us when our coastline lays claim to a huge percentage of EU fishing rights - here is some interesting reading:
http://www.businessforscotland.co.uk/controlling-our-future-scottish-fishing-and-the-need-for-independence/
Point 4 - ALREADY HAVE THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS ?
Just remembered this at the last minute but its another important point. It came to me while people were saying why is Alastair Darling leading Better Together - he is not even in Scottish Parliament.. Why is it not for example the Labour leader of Scottish parliament or even the Conservative leader... anyway the point is that we have it
quite good at the moment. We have a Scottish Parliament with quite a few powers and control of quite a few budgets. We dont have income tax changing powers at the moment - many would say perhaps thats a good thing as SNP have lots of ideas for spending it ! But we do have a fairly protected
NHS compared with stories of what is going on in England. And Southern Ireland seem to be entirely private healthcare like in the US so we are really quite lucky. We have no
tuition fees if we attend Scottish universities but then does that mean our Universities are having to cope on lower budgets which wont be good in the long run. We do also have access to some UK wide research budgets which affect University research too, but again I'd say that these funds might just re-jig a bit afterwards if it was a YES vote. But also with regards to education I do believe there has been a massive reduction in college places this year. So although the Universities may be OK, if you were aiming for
college its maybe not so good. And there is also a personal care thing which we have plus no prescription charges - I'm not too sure of the details. And the SNP have managed to find funds to stop the worst of the Bedroom Tax effects.
BUT....... overall, the Scottish Government has managed to balance the books and maybe this Status Quo is a bit of "THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS" ? We could maybe fight for the Devo-Max option for the future ? Especially if the Yes vote is high but doesnt actually win ?
Point 5 - Scandinavia - is it really so good or is this just more Scandi Fiction ?
We are told that we should emulate the Scandinavian or Nordic countries (Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and to a lesser extent Iceland). We keep hearing how wonderful they are to live in. They come top of a lot of league tables for happiness, wealth inequality etc.
This would involve higher taxes to pay for all the additional public services such as increased childcare. This is called the Common Weal method I believe ‘
BUT..... all is not quite what it seems !
Firstly they are now finding that there is quite a high incidence of mental illness in their teenagers due to this regime where there is less time with family. Read more here :
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/apr/21/childcare-expert-jonas-himmelstrand-tories
http://www.barnensratt.se/index-en.htm
And in
Sweden, parents find that due to the high taxes it is now a necessity to have two full time well paid jobs just to be left with one reasonable amount of salary after taxation. Its not a choice - there is no option - its a necessity = not so good. Would be better to have flexibility to cope with differing family circumstances.
And...I have also heard that to be an entrepreneur and maybe run your own business and make money in Sweden is quite frowned upon. The only people who are "allowed" to make money are either footballers or if you win the lottery then that is OK. Now I don't think that is a good idea. We have become used to the idea of entrepreneurs in this country - its one of the few pluses that resulted from the Thatcher era. So whether its a small one man or one woman business or a business which expands to take on many more people, this is seen as good in this country and I believe we should have a taxation system to support this.
The Scandinavian countries have a tradition as working as a community together and community ownership and co-operatives work well - but would this transfer here ? I have heard it said that we are now too individualistic (as a result of the 80s?) for this to work successfully.
And also some in the SNP are hopeful we could join an alliance with these countries - but do they want us ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03s6pjv
Point 6 Tax evasion / avoidance - Tax Havens
This is something which should have been sorted out world-wide. We should not have countries such as Belgium or Ireland or the Channel Islands, Bahamas, Cayman Islands etc acting as low tax economies where companies can base a subsidiary as a means of lowering their tax bills. It hasnt been stopped when we have been "Better Together".
BUT.... then again I'm not sure "Uncle Alex" will manage any better !! But this is a big problem and as we all face austerity measure and cutbacks the question is why are we putting up with this ? And why are we putting up with bosses of companies being paid well over a million pounds so they can go an buy ski chalet businesses and charge us a pile to go there as well ! This system needs overhauling. Its depressing that there actually is wealth there but its just not being distributed at all.
So there you have it.
Those are six immediate reasons which make it hard to decide how to vote, although the first one is slightly tied in with government policy at the time rather than a definite reason for being an Independent Country.
If you are Undecided - why not make a similar list - maybe it will help you to decide ? Maybe it helped me !! And send me your list if you'd like others to see it and I could publish it - or you could add it as a comment here. We could well be the ones to make a difference. Who knows it could well come down to one vote - its a big responsibility really !
