# An Independent Scotland? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 16, 2012, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871 "2012-10-16T11:48:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/201 "2012-11-08T08:58:27Z")
> [@Sandwich](#): > > The EU negotiations will be even more tedious. No the Spaniards won’t veto us. Yes, we will have to follow all the rules for a new entrant and won’t get any favours no matter how special we claim to be. If PP is the ruling party at the time yes they will, and let PSOE vote you in after the next change of hands. If it is PSOE, it will depend on the timing of our election cycle. ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/202 "2012-11-08T09:08:55Z")
I think you’re right Sandwich. It doesn’t matter how practical the arguments for or against independence are: it comes down to identity. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/203 "2012-11-08T09:32:36Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I reject your correction. Both spellings are valid. The Labor party is simply a organizational entity named after the common word “labor.” It’s not a human being. There’s no reason I should have to change to a British spelling just for that one word in a segment in which I’m otherwise not using British spellings. When we write of a ruling by a British court, we don’t feel obligated to use the spelling “judgement.” We are free to refer to Hammond’s department as the “Ministry of Defense,” instead of “Defence.” > > Thus, I shall continue to use either “Labor party” or “Labour party” as the mood suits me. Not so. The Labour Party in this context isn’t some lose descriptor, but rather the Proper Name of an organisation. It is akin to misspelling someone’s name. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/204 "2012-11-08T11:38:00Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Not so. The Labour Party in this context isn’t some lose descriptor, but rather the Proper Name of an organisation. It is akin to misspelling someone’s name. I disagree and you’ll have to live with it. In fact you’ll have to live with journalistic style guides that say that for American newspapers “Labor party” is the correct spelling regardless of whether the party itself spells it as “labour.” ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/205 "2012-11-08T11:48:10Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I disagree and you’ll have to live with it. In fact you’ll have to live with journalistic style guides that say that for American newspapers “Labor party” is the correct spelling regardless of whether the party itself spells it as “labour.” Associated Press styleguide? > [@](#): > > “British spellings, when they differ from American, are acceptable only in particular cases such as formal or composition titles: Jane’s Defence Weekly, Labour Party.” ---
**Author:** ![Cumbrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce7236/32.png) [@Cumbrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumbrian)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/206 "2012-11-08T11:55:25Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I disagree and you’ll have to live with it. In fact you’ll have to live with journalistic style guides that say that for American newspapers “Labor party” is the correct spelling regardless of whether the party itself spells it as “labour.” Which journalistic style guides would these be? New York Times [http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/gordon\_brown/index.html](http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/gordon_brown/index.html) USA Today [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/london/story/2012-07-23/olympics-transportation-strikes/56441078/1](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/london/story/2012-07-23/olympics-transportation-strikes/56441078/1) Washington Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/britain-appoints-top-police-chief-to-reexamine-past-inquiries-into-child-abuse-in-north-wales/2012/11/06/1f549f44-2815-11e2-aaa5-ac786110c486\_story.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/britain-appoints-top-police-chief-to-reexamine-past-inquiries-into-child-abuse-in-north-wales/2012/11/06/1f549f44-2815-11e2-aaa5-ac786110c486_story.html) Plus San Vito’s AP style guide. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/207 "2012-11-08T12:13:21Z")
I choose to follow my old copy of the AP stylebook prior to the change (when I feel like it). They might recently have changed their mind, but it’s not a law on high; it’s merely a style choice. And the arguments for “Labor party” are still the same regardless of which choice one might make in any particular situation. Labor party, Ministry of Defense, Organization of African Unity — there are organizational entity names based on common descriptive words. They’re not comparable to personal names of human beings or even corporate names that are used as trademarks. There’s no reason to switch from American to British spelling for these. ---
**Author:** ![Cumbrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce7236/32.png) [@Cumbrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumbrian)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/208 "2012-11-08T12:23:49Z")
> [@](#): > > I choose to follow my old copy of the AP stylebook prior to the change (when I feel like it). This is at least a better explanation than “I’m right so deal with it”. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/209 "2012-11-08T16:19:28Z")
> [@Cumbrian](#): > > This is at least a better explanation than “I’m right so deal with it”. Barely ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/210 "2012-11-08T17:05:32Z")
Associated Press Styleguide, 2002: > [@](#): > > **Labor Party** Not _labour_, even if British. Now the AP has since changed its mind, but that doesn’t mean I am subject some ethical imperative to also change mine. _It’s merely a style question_, not a question of moral fiber. All the condescension and tut-tutting is really over-the-top. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/211 "2012-11-08T17:15:56Z")
Pearl Harbour is the wrong name. So is Labor Party. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/212 "2012-11-09T13:39:51Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I choose to follow my old copy of the AP stylebook prior to the change (when I feel like it). They might recently have changed their mind, but it’s not a law on high; it’s merely a style choice. And the arguments for “Labor party” are still the same regardless of which choice one might make in any particular situation. > > Labor party, Ministry of Defense, Organization of African Unity — there are organizational entity names based on common descriptive words. They’re not comparable to personal names of human beings or even corporate names that are used as trademarks. There’s no reason to switch from American to British spelling for these. So you’re just being a dick for being a dick’s sake. Got you. Understood. I’ll keep that in mind for any further times I see you write anything on here. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/213 "2012-11-09T13:56:30Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Pearl Harbour is the wrong name. So is Labor Party. You know what else is wrong? BBC announcers saying “leftenant” when referring to a US military lieutenant. It doesn’t bother me in the least when they use that pronunciation for one of their looies, but it’s quite annoying when they use it for the American rank. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/214 "2012-11-09T13:58:24Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > The scenario raised by BunnyTVS was could “the rest of Britain…get the demarcations altered.” I was purely pointing out that a post separation England\* would have the military power to conceivably force such a change, but as I also said “changing the demarcation is physically possible, but seems diplomatically extremely unlikely (and hell, they’d be as well just invading Scotland and getting the land and water too)” > > - should really be “England, Wales, Northern Ireland” but I was lazy I agree with your point. However my post wasn’t intended purely as nit-picking pedantry. The question of what happens to shared national institutions (such as the UK navy) is relevant to this discussion. I am genuinely curious as to what happens when a modern country splits peaceably. There are of course precedents, but not very many, and I suspect each case is different. Czechoslovakia didn’t have a navy, but it did have an army. What happened there? Did each new country keep the forces that happened to be stationed on its territory? Did they swap Czech soldiers for Slovak soldiers? At the time of the Union, England bought out Scotland’s national debt. Will Scotland have to take on its share of the UK’s debt if the Union breaks up? ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/215 "2013-02-13T04:21:59Z")
Oops a bit Zombie. Never mind ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/216 "2013-02-13T06:09:45Z")
> [@](#): > > “About three thousand years ago,” [Merlin] said [to Arthur], “the country you are riding through belonged to a Gaelic race who fought with copper hatchets. Two thousand years ago they were hunted west by another Gaelic race with bronze swords. A thousand years ago there was a Teuton invasion by people who had iron weapons, but it didn’t reach the whole of the [British] Isles because the Romans arrived in the middle and got mixed up with it. The Romans went away about eight hundred years ago, and then another Teuton invasion – of people mainly called Saxons – drove the whole rag-bag west as usual. The Saxons were just beginning to settle down when your father the Conqueror arrived with his pack of Normans, and that is where we are today. Robin Wood was a Saxon partizan.” > > \ > > “Uther,” he said at length, “your lamented father, was an aggressor. So were his predecessors the Saxons. But if we go on living backward like that, we shall never come to the end of it. The Old Ones themselves were aggressors, against the earlier race of copper hatchets, and even the hatchet fellows were aggressors, against some earlier crew of esquimaux who lived on shells. You simply go on and on, until you come to Cain and Abel. But the point is that the Saxon Conquest did suceed, and so did the Norman Conquest of the Saxons. Your father settled the unfortunate Saxons long ago, however brutally he did it, and when a great many years have passed one ought to be ready to accept a status quo. Also I would like to point out that the Norman Conquest was a process of welding small units into bigger ones – while the present revolt of the Gaelic Confederation is a process of disintegration. They want to smash up what we may call the United Kingdom into a lot of piffling little kingdoms of their own. That is wny their reason is not what you might call a good one.” > > He scratched his chin again, and became wrathful. > > “I never could stomach these nationalists,” he exclaimed. “The destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.” – T.H. White, _The Once and Future King_ I can ever stomach nationalists either. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/217 "2013-02-13T06:26:48Z")
Fair enough. Just a bit funny that the U.K. nationalism is all right. Also, damn these nationalists! I can absolutely see that the U.S.A., Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, India - oh and many other countries - are now feeling so very terribly sad and are queuing up to be governed from Westminster again. ---
**Author:** ![martu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@martu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martu)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/218 "2013-02-13T09:27:31Z")
Who said UK Nationalism is all right? The point most of us anti-secession people are trying to make is that working together is a better option than working apart. Is it perfect at the moment? No. Could more be done to make it fairer for the whole of the UK? Yes. But let’s do it together not apart. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/219 "2014-01-14T02:05:49Z")
The referendum on Scottish independence will be Sept. 18. Wiki has a good article: [2014 Scottish independence referendum - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014) Of course, money is a key concern: [Treasury promises to honour UK debts up to date of Scottish independence | Scottish independence | The Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/13/treasury-uk-debts-scottish-referendum). This article mentions in passing that polling has consistently showed only about a third of Scottish voters favor independence. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871/220 "2014-01-14T03:59:23Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > This article mentions in passing that polling has consistently showed only about a third of Scottish voters favor independence. Och, laddie, but they two-thirds, they are nae **True** Scotsmen! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-independent-scotland/637871.md?page=12)