The basic issue

It’s easy to forget, in the hurricane of fear brewed up by the press (not including the Shetland News) and the political establishment, what we’re voting for on Thursday.

The fundamental question is about whether Scotland should be an independent country, in the way that France, Belgium, Norway, Holland, Australia, Germany, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Thailand, Denmark (and so on and so on) are independent countries.

The question we have to answer isn’t about nationalism or identity. It isn’t about the SNP or Alex Salmond. And it isn’t about what kind of money we use, some multi-national bank shifting one of its offices to London, or the apocalyptic reaction of the bonds market.

All these things are part of the debate, and the fact that there has been such widespread discussion of them during the last few years has been one of the triumphs of the referendum campaign.

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When we vote tomorrow what we have to decide is whether we support the democratic principle that countries should be able to govern themselves. That’s the basic issue.

No sensible person questions the right of other countries to do this, so why should we deny our country the right to do exactly the same thing.

Mark Ryan Smith
Bixter