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TFN is published by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh, EH3 6BB. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Registration number SC003558.
Nicola Sturgeon has announced she will be seeking a second referendum on Scottish independence between autumn 2018 and spring 2019. Is it a good idea to be opening up the Scottish independence debate in the middle of Brexit negotations? Is the United Kingdom broken anyway? Will a second independence referendum make it easier or harder to created a fairer society? What do you think. Please let us know by voting and leaving a comment.
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almost 8 years agoTo quote The Proclaimers "I can't understand why we let someone else rule our land"
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almost 8 years agoOur charity like most is already struggling with fundraising. Of note is the amount of UK businesses and organisations that are turning down our applications compared to before the first referendum. The constant grievance and anti-UK sentiment stoked by the SNP in both Holyrood and the House of Commons is having a direct affect on how we deliver a service by making potential funders much more wary about giving to us.This referendum is obviously a ploy to take people's minds off how poorly the SNP are running devolved matters such as education and the NHS before the council elections. Unfortunately Ms Sturgeon has likely never thought much about the third sector other than how they can be used to further her dream of independence.Remember she joined the SNP at 16 when they quite rightly deserved the Tartan Tory moniker, she could instead have joined Labour. The fact that both she and (ex Conservative candidate) Tasmina Sheik can sit so comfortably in the same Party should at least ring some sort of alarm bell for anyone who thinks some sort of progressive Scotland is the one the SNP are really fighting for.They'll tell individuals and organisations anything for their support and the evidence from last time is that they will continue to be completely shameless about it.
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almost 8 years agoAs long as nationalism exists there will never be peace, only division and duality. Perhaps the SNP should listen to the Dalai Lama. He says:"I’m Tibetan, I’m Buddhist and I’m the Dalai Lama, but if I emphasize these differences it sets me apart and raises barriers with other people. What we need to do is to pay more attention to the ways in which we are the same as other people."
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almost 8 years agoI do not doubt many have the best wishes of the most vulnerable at heart in seeking another referendum, to hold one so soon after the last sets a dangerous precedent. If we do not respect the democratic votes of others, how can we expect them to do so for us in the future? As for those that need help the most in our society, all another referendum ensures is that for the next two years at the very least, just like the last five, the focus of political debate and public energy is on constitutional matters as opposed to their needs and priorities.
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almost 8 years agoYou should limit the voting on this by IP address. I just voted five times in a row and it accepted them.
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almost 8 years agoDo not want to be in europe. Dissatisfied with the way myself and others are treated. Dissatified with the lack of jobs, housing, how our services are. The complete disrespect for scotland, our culture, our way of life, development and investment of this country. Instead politicians seem to be only interested in themselves and climbing the ladder.
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almost 8 years agoSelf determination, autonomy and the power to make decisions in life has been shown to improve people's health and wellbeing. It's the same for communities and for Scotland. Here's to campaigning for a progressive, humane and inclusive independent Scotland.
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almost 8 years agoThis referendum is less about blood and soil nationalism and more about the failure of uk govt to reform even after so many warnings. I voted no last time and yes this time because we are back to future. The desire of 17.4m people to take us backwards to the rose tinted sunny uplands that never existed before is a fantasy to far for me.
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almost 8 years agoOf course it's not a good idea, unless you're a one trick pony party with one agenda and a list of failures in policy to hide. THEN it's a good idea. Keep trying to get your single goal at the expense of millions of people. Break away from your biggest trading partner. The EU referendum is a lesson: Don't leave a simple Yes/No question to millions of people who have no idea of the consequences of a Yes vote because the realities of the question are so huge, with so many unknowns it is impossible to be sure about your vote. This is devisive nonsense. The SNP have no mandate for this referendum. Go back to the last election and look at the results again. Go back to the last independence referendum, and looks at the results again. Can we be assured that if the vote is reversed, those who voted No and lost can get another referendum to reverse the decision just because they didn't like the result of the first? Of course not. But that is what this stupidity is calling for. At best it is childish mischief making and at worse, it is the destruction of a country (or two) because of the nonsensical argument of people with a personal agenda that has nothing to do with bettering the country. Lest we forget, last time round the SNP claimed their monetary policies would work. Now they accept what they said last time was rubbish, so they've changed it this time. What makes them think they're right this time? This is wrong on every level.
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almost 8 years agoSo do we just keep holding an Independence Referendum until the SNP get the result they want? There is only so much blame that can be laid at the door of Westminster for the shambles that are the public services in Scotland. The SNP would do well to look to sorting out education, social care, the police, etc. The SNP must and should take their share of the blame, but they won't - it's never their fault. They are pushing forward another referendum to hide their faults and their absolute failure in running this country.
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almost 8 years agoEvery person who has voted in this small poll or written a comment below wants what is best for Scotland, especially the most vulnerable. How best to help them? A few facts as background. The Scottish economy has only grown one third the rate of the rest of the U.K. Since spring 2015. Some of that is due to lower oil prices, some must be due to businesses and households holding back on spending here as they worry about a neverendum. For those who remember Quebec's referenda, think about the adverse impact on Montreal as concerned businesses simply moved sticks to Toronto. Some years we benefit from higher oil prices, some years we suffer from lower ones. Last year Holyrood figures showed we spent about £15 billion a year more on public services than all the taxes raised in Scotland, and that includes oil taxes which are close to zero presently. In other words we are currently 'borrowing' from the rest of the UK to pay for our education and our NHS spending. £15 billion is about 10% of all we create in Scotland in a year - so if we leave the U.K. where does that money come from or do we cut services even more? Could going into Europe solve our problems? Yes we trade a lot with Europe, but our trade with the rest of the UK is four times larger than our business with the EU. If anyone worries about the effect of a hard Brexit, isn't a hard Scexit four times as bad? The sad truth is that the Scottish economy is growing very slowly, which means little wages or employment growth, which at the end of the day we need to support our charities. How is a referendum in 18 months time going to solve that?
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almost 8 years agoI'm sorry Rose Burn, but that bleakly cliched, self-hating summation of our current situation needs to be challenged. Yes, Scotland had a trade deficit of £15 billion last year. But no, we were NOT bailed out by our generous benefactors at Westminster, no matter how much they want you to believe that. The trade deficit across the UK for the same period was £133 billion. Where on earth do you think THEY got the money to bail us out? You have to remember that the duties and other revenues from our food and drink exports, for instance, are accounted by the UK Treasury as 'British' (bless them) because they are required to leave Britain from English ports rather than Scottish ones. Which is why the revenues from whisky sales don't show up in Scotland's trade figures. Pulling the rug from beneath that little bit of 'creative accounting' would more than plug the £15 billion gap all by itself. And it's really only the tip of the ice-berg. The simple fact of the matter is that Scotland has been propping up England for more than 40 years, including essentially bankrolling the Thatcher era when that psychopathic harpy laid waste to our traditional industries and channeled the wealth from our natural resources through London and the South East - where it still goes to this day. It's been happening for so long that we've become inured to it. We just sit here with our stupid mouths hanging open, gobbling up the lies they feed us about how we're subsidy junkies. You really need to wake up.
