It's Like A Teenager Leaving Home....

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-24437333
I have to pay for my own what?!

[Quizmonster]

The phrase, the United Kingdom should, in full, be the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is now a province and Wales was a principality, so the only two kingdoms involved in the formation of the entity were those of Scotland and England.
If one of these erstwhile separate 'kingdoms' should leave the union, it's hard to see how the only remaining one can - even with Wales and Northern Ireland attached - still call itself the United Kingdom.
In addition, the earliest recorded use of the words 'Great Britain' was in 1604, at the time of the union of the crowns of Scotland and England. Again, therefore, it seems inappropriate that either phrase, "the United Kingdom" or "Great Britain" could be logically applied to a union without Scotland in it.
I am writing purely in terms of what words actually mean, as I do not think the inhabitants of Scotland will vote for independence next year. However, I really cannot see how current names can rationally just stay as they are if they do.

[emmie]

it doesn't matter about the name, this is about Scotland having it's own armed forces, does that mean only Scots can be in it?

[sunny-dave]

I suppose the Scots are assuming they can have the same free-loading status as the Channel Islands and all the other wastes of space, which contribute bugger all (but are are happy to shelter under the UK umbrella when it suits them) whilst reserving the right to run off to collaborate with and appease anyone who looks like they might actually have a bigger gun ...

[emmie]

how could England stand by if they were invaded, their armed forces won't be large, why would anyone want to invade of course, but then it's the gateway to England, so who knows. It's all Alex Salmonds fault, that oaf should be shoved in the stocks and have rotten tomatoes pelted at him, not so much for his love of Scotland, but his self serving grandstanding persona.

[askyourgran]

Wait until Alec wants to go nuclear.

[Gromit]

// Alex Sammond... that oaf should be shoved in the stocks and have rotten tomatoes pelted at him, not so much for his love of Scotland, but his self serving grandstanding persona. //

He wants pull out of an arrangement where rules and regulations and budgets are set by a load of foreigners in another land.

The same arguments as the anti Europe protestors give for leaving the EU.

If Sammond is an 'Oaf' then Farage and anyone else who wants to go it alone must be an 'oaf' also.

[Old_Geezer]

There is a difference in scale, and I suspect more, in wishing to be out of a continent wide mass getting pushed into being one whereby folk of different cultures get to agree what is foisted on everyone, and wanting to be out of a union that unites an island or so into a decent sized nation.

[Gromit]

Old Geezer,

To some, it doesn't unite.

The dominant majority will say it does, but the smaller minority think they are being subjugated. In the very same way that people think we are being subjugated by Brussels.