Thick American here with a question. I was recently on Dougie MacLean’s webpage, where I found out that he’s very much in favor of separatism. What I already knew is that he was recently made OBE. If the vote goes through, and Scotland becomes independent, does he have to give up his OBE status? Does Sean Connery have to give up his knighthood? All those honors came from HM, right?
Last time I was in Glasgow I was told to “fuck off back to England”. Just about any other country/nationality would have been considered unacceptable, but the people at the party I was at just shrugged their shoulders. That’s how it is in Scotland, I have come across a lot of anti-England stuff and very rarely is it like “a sporting rivalry”.
The weird thing is, I am half-Scot (my Mother coming from Renfrew).
For the record, almost my entire extended family up there (and with my Mother being the eldest of eight there is a lot of them) is pro-Independence. I always refer to myself as British due to my split England/Scotland parentage and this seems to really gets the back up of people, especially those in my family, who refuse to see me as anything other than English.
The plan is to keep the Queen as Head of State, and retain an honours system:
http://www.scotreferendum.com/questions/will-the-queen-grant-honours-in-an-independent-scotland/
I expect that existing honours are going to be unaffected.
I grew up in the Appalachians, and I call shenanigans. Never saw any evidence of this. Hardly any American cares enough about pre-1776 history to give a damn.
I see. Thank you.
I kinda knew someone would argue with me on this. What can I say? There are arseholes everywhere. My ex-wife is English, lived in Glasgow for many years, and does not report strong anti-English sentiment there at all.
Just realised this post is perhaps ambiguous. The “arseholes” to which I refer are the people who would tell a total stranger to “fuck off back to England”.
Here’s some Glasgow Rangers fans commenting on Scottish Independence (NSFW for language).
Maybe the Scots should be independent, just because, contrary to what I had assumed, they apparently speak no English.
It’s a pretty nuanced and thoughtful viewpoint :smack:
OK, so the Scottish independence debate is essentially yet another contest between the country’s Catholic/Jacobite faction (who will vote Yes) and the Protestant/Williamite faction (who will vote No) - this whole exercise is just a Rangers vs Celtic match with pretensions?
Aye, 'tis braw!
It’s called Scots.
Not really, no. There’s very few (very, very few) Jacobites for a start, but I’d be interested to see a breakdown of voting intentions along Catholic/Protestant lines, if anyone has ever done one.
Still, on the topic of tricky accents, here’s a Rangers supporter who got interviewed on the BBC prior to the UEFA Cup final in Manchester a few years ago. He managed to get the word “cunt” broadcast on national TV, largely I think because the editors didn’t really understand what he was saying.
I wondered having seen the clip to what extent the Catholic/Protestant thing would come into effect. I suppose, at the very least, Scottish Independence makes Northern Irish exit from the rump UK perhaps a tad more likely, so Celtic supporters/Catholic Irish descendants may be more inclined towards it than their fellow country people from the other tradition.
I know there’s a degree of joking going on here, but they’re clearly speaking English, just with a strong Scottish accent. It’s not Scots.
However, *might *also traditionally vote for the Labour Party, which, with the Tories, is against independence, (although there is now a group called "Labour for Independence).
I’m honestly a bit clueless about sectarian divide - like football, I’m just ignorant about it. Not sure it how much it matters, although I do reckon there will be some noisiness from Orange Lodge types. They’re good at noise.
My computer is a bit too temperamental for me to start at page 1 of this thread, so your post here might be part of a long-running joke. Just in case it’s not, well, no, forget about Jacobites and forget also about Rangers/Celtic.
(With my computer’s belief that it is May 2007, I wonder whether I will even get a vote. You know, might be dodgy if I’m in a different time universe or something). :eek:
Well, I was actually being serious when asking about the Rangers/Celtic (Protestant/Catholic) comparison on this issue, though I was being intentionally absurd by calling them Williamites and Jacobites.
Of course, once Scotland is independent, we’ll have to talk about the Highlands seceding from the Lowlands . . .