Scottish Independence (2 Viewers)

[Jos Stratford]

But should funds raised in the rest of the UK be spent running reserves in Scotland ? That is a major point . I'm happy to respond to an appeal to fund a reserve abroad , but do I want my general subs diverted to reserves in what would be a wealthy country ?

I fail to see an issue here ...under the current situation, persons in say Herefordshire could equally say they don't want their general subs used to fund reserves in another county (and let's face it, the RSPB reserves are very much skewed across the country, so many people see their subs 'diverted' away from their area). So what that the current division in this example is an administrative county border and that the future one would be a national border, the end result is still a better land mass for wildlife. The geographic island of Great Britain and its associated islands are going to remain a unit in many ways and a conservation body that acts for the greater welfare of the whole unit has to welcomed both sides of any political border that runs across it.

 

[Andy1979]

Does anyone know what percentage of eligible voters in Scotland are 'Scottish', as opposed to English, or other?

Interesting that plenty of Scots don't have the right to vote for their own independance (as they are not resident and registered voters in Scotland) whilst plenty of English get to vote for the independance of a country they just happen to be living in...

I have lived in NI, Scotland and a couple of counties in England, and there will be plenty of people living in Scotland temporarily with work etc.

I don't suppose there is really another way of doing it, except asking the whole of the UK to vote!

Andy M.

 

[Andy Hurley]

Does anyone know what percentage of eligible voters in Scotland are 'Scottish', as opposed to English, or other?

Interesting that plenty of Scots don't have the right to vote for their own independance (as they are not resident and registered voters in Scotland) whilst plenty of English get to vote for the independance of a country they just happen to be living in...

I have lived in NI, Scotland and a couple of counties in England, and there will be plenty of people living in Scotland temporarily with work etc.

I don't suppose there is really another way of doing it, except asking the whole of the UK to vote!

Andy M.

Thats the reason for the vote, Scotland with always be a minority in the UK and therefore don't have a say in their own county. The Westminster Government decide how the taxes raised in Scotland are distributed and what the British foreign policy is to be, etc etc, why would we want the English to decide the charity status of an organisation in Scotland if independence because a reality?

 

[Birdspotter]

Does anyone know what percentage of eligible voters in Scotland are 'Scottish', as opposed to English, or other?

Interesting that plenty of Scots don't have the right to vote for their own independance (as they are not resident and registered voters in Scotland) whilst plenty of English get to vote for the independance of a country they just happen to be living in...

I have lived in NI, Scotland and a couple of counties in England, and there will be plenty of people living in Scotland temporarily with work etc.

I don't suppose there is really another way of doing it, except asking the whole of the UK to vote!

Andy M.

Initially I wasn't best pleased to find that non Scots living in my country could vote whilst Scots living abroad and the rest of UK could not!
However thinking about it I guess it would just be a complete logistical nightmare on top of what is one anyway!

As for letting the whole of the UK to decide Scotland's future, well that was never an option!!!

Tomm we have the leaders of the national parties coming up after the weekends shock poll to offer us sweeties from their overflowing baskets whilst they fly the Saltire over public buildings back home, in the vain hope we troublesome Scots come to our senses!!
Ask yourselves this, how can a country that has given so much to the World and the Union over 300 years come to the point that at least 50% of it's population wishes to move away from the UK!?

Anyway...we are all back off topic!

 

[lewis20126]

As for letting the whole of the UK to decide Scotland's future, well that was never an option!!!

I've always thought the English should be able to vote for independence from Scotland (and Wales, and N Ireland). There is no logical reason why a larger country cannot leave a union with a smaller one.

An English List would have a certain simplicity.

cheers, alan

 

[Birdspotter]

I've always thought the English should be able to vote for independence from Scotland (and Wales, and N Ireland). There is no logical reason why a larger country cannot leave a union with a smaller one.

An English List would have a certain simplicity.

cheers, alan

I agree, it's entirely up to each of the UK's nation's what they want to do....you wont see any argument from me on that!

 

[AlfArbuthnot]

Does anyone know what percentage of eligible voters in Scotland are 'Scottish', as opposed to English, or other?

Froma bit of googling, I think about 7% of the population of Scotland are born in England, and another 7% born abroad (about 400,000 each, out of a total population of 5.3 million). I don't know about Wales and NI, but presumably it's small.

17.2% of the overall population are under 16, so can't vote. Assuming that spread is equal across English and immigrant groups, that gives 3.7 million eligible Scottish voters, and 0.7 million 'other' voters, or 16%. So about 84% of eligible voters are born in Scotland.

On the latest poll, the potential break up of the UK (population 63 million) could be achieved by just 3.5% of its population expressing that wish. Quite a sobering statistic.

 

[Birdspotter]

Froma bit of googling, I think about 7% of the population of Scotland are born in England, and another 7% born abroad (about 400,000 each, out of a total population of 5.3 million). I don't know about Wales and NI, but presumably it's small.

17.2% of the overall population are under 16, so can't vote. Assuming that spread is equal across English and immigrant groups, that gives 3.7 million eligible Scottish voters, and 0.7 million 'other' voters, or 16%. So about 84% of eligible voters are born in Scotland.

It's been estimated that some 650K Scot's live elsewhere in the UK, who can't vote so had they been able to vote they would have been a sizeable number to swing the vote either way.

 

[Capercaillie71]

Interesting that plenty of Scots don't have the right to vote for their own independance (as they are not resident and registered voters in Scotland) whilst plenty of English get to vote for the independance of a country they just happen to be living in...

I have lived in NI, Scotland and a couple of counties in England, and there will be plenty of people living in Scotland temporarily with work etc.

I don't suppose there is really another way of doing it, except asking the whole of the UK to vote!

You are right - there is no other way of doing it. The only way of working out who in the rest of the UK would be eligible to vote would be to create a separate status of Scottish citizenship before the referendum.

It's only right that English, Welsh, Irish, Polish etc. people living in Scotland have a vote too. Impossible to filter out those who are here for the short term and those with a longer commitment here. There is a campaign group called English Scots for Yes.

The whole of the UK voting wouldn't work. What if Scotland voted yes but that was swamped by a no majority in England?

 

[ApusApus]

Getting off topic again! We all have our views on the pros and cons of the situation but maybe we should just focus on the birding and wildlife issues .............. otherwise we'll have to rename the Forum.


Shane

 

[Andy Hurley]

Unavoidable I think in a thread titled "Scottish Independence" 9 days before the vote ......fair point...back to lists!

I refer you to the answer given a few pages ago

 

[ApusApus]

I refer you to the answer given a few pages ago

No, it's avoidable if you want it to be? If you feel the desperate need to comment on the SIV then there are more appropriate forums on the Web IMHO?


Shane

 

[Andy Hurley]

No, it's avoidable if you want it to be? If you feel the desperate need to comment on the SIV then there are more appropriate forums on the Web IMHO?


Shane

You are right of course, it should be discussed in Ruffled Feathers and brought back on topic

 

[cheshirebirder]

Apart from the conservation benefits which should be paramount, don't you already use these reserves? You will still be able to visit an independent Scotland you know; it'll take our corrupt and incompetent builders years to build "Hadrian's Wall II".

Yes ,and I can visit reserves in a huge number of other countries . The difference is I don't expect to fund them all

 

[Farnboro John]

Me too ... letting them become the latest independent nation on the European stage :t:

Not forgetting that recently independent nations on the European stage are mostly running for the cover of NATO's umbrella right now, that greasy Alex wants rid of Trident but inisists he wants Scotland in NATO and that a precondition of NATO membership is fully accepting that it is a nuclear armed alliance. (Sorry: off topic!)

John

 

[Foxy]

It's funny how the binding issues seem to mirror the political ones: when it suits they want to be independent but when it comes to currency and defence they don't really want to be. And similar arguments are reflected in funding reserves in 'another country' but perish the thought we might lose a few ticks. At some time we may have to acknowledge it's another country and live with it just as the European mainland has to with its political borders

 

[njlarsen]

In the spirit of independence, the default should be that BOU/BBRC voluntarily relinquish assessment of Scottish records to the appropriate Scottish body. However if Scottish birders then collectively determine that they wish to maintain the status quo, I don't see whay that would not be possible. There may be some procedural issues with regard to the Scottish List and whether the Scottish parliament and legislators would accept recommendations (eg on "firsts") from a cross border institution.

cheers, a

Do you really think that ANY legislature would care about a list of bird in the territory? That does not seem to be the case in any of the places I have personal knowledge about.

Birdlife Denmark has a local rarities committee to look at individual records, but has accepted that there are too few people interested in taxonomy to have a committee on taxonomic decisions. Therefore that country relies on other authorities for that type of decisions. Ideally, the two countries possible after a split due to the Scottish referendum would agree to either use the same taxonomic authority, or even better, to empower the European taxonomic committee to be the authority making decisions for the entire area after a split.

Niels (who obviously has no personal interest in this matter)

 

[McMadd]

If an independent Scotland has folk of Salmond's ilk in charge you can kiss wildlife goodbye!

Remember he's Trump's rentboy and SSSI's meant nothing in Aberdeens...

 

[DMW]

Do you really think that ANY legislature would care about a list of bird in the territory?

Yes. The British list has significant legislative importance, since it is the legal underpinning for determining protected status, exotic status etc. For example, how can you determine that an introduction of a non-native species is illegal if there is no official list of natively-occurring species?

 

[djludlow]

I've always thought the English should be able to vote for independence from Scotland (and Wales, and N Ireland). There is no logical reason why a larger country cannot leave a union with a smaller one.

An English List would have a certain simplicity.

cheers, alan

An English does have certain simplicity but looking at BUBO not many birders keep one . How many would there be over 500 ?