Scottish independence campaign: live
Comment of the Day

September 12 2014

Commentary by David Fuller

Scottish independence campaign: live

Here are the opening two samples from this global coverage:

18.50 The Guardian joins the FT and the Scotsman against independence.

In Britain, in Europe and even in the world as a whole, we are indeed better together not better apart. Nationalism is not the answer to social injustice. For that fundamental reason, we urge Scots to vote no to independence next week. But voting no cannot be a vote against change, and there is now at last the real hope that it can be a vote for reform and decentralisation in Britain. The Scots have laid down a challenge to everyone in these islands, and even to Europe too. Better together, yes. But we must all, together, be part of a better future.

18.30 An historic mistake... a new Great Depression...

Deutsche Bank, the global investment bank, has issued the starkest warning yet about the risks of separation.

Everyone has the right to self determination and to exercise his or her democratic rights. But there are times when fundamental political decisions have negative consequences far beyond what voters and politicians could have imagined. We feel that we are the threshold of one such moment. A "Yes" vote for Scottish independence on Thursday would go down in history as a political and economic mistake as large as Winston Churchill's decision in 1925 to return the pound to the Gold Standard or the failure of the Federal Reserve to provide sufficient liquidity to the US banking system, which we now know brought on the Great Depression in the US. These decisions – well-intentioned as they were – contributed to years of depression and suffering and could have been avoided had alternative decisions been taken.

David Fuller's view

You will see plenty more international press coverage by scrolling down this article. 

This referendum is a hugely important event for not only Scotland and the United Kingdom, but also Europe and the USA.  A yes vote would obviously be good for the Scottish National Party, but Scotland itself?  I doubt it, for the many reasons discussed here in recent weeks and also in the article above.  It would obviously weaken the United Kingdom which is the USA’s most reliable ally, in a time of increased tensions and uncertainties, from Eastern Europe to the Middle East.  It would add to the EU’s problems by reopening separatist issues aggravated by the extensive credit crisis recession.  It would also roil stock markets.

I am also concerned about the question that people in Scotland will be voting on: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” Being asked to provide a yes or no answer this question sounds like a challenge, at a time when Scotland already has a considerable amount of independence.  I think the question should have been: Should Scotland remain a member of the United Kingdom, yes or no?  This would have been less controversial. 

See also: Scottish independence referendum poll: the latest tracker.

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