The Scottish Government

First Minister Alex Salmond

Friday, November 30, 2007

We in the Scottish Government believe that sovereignty in Scotland lies with its people.

That is why our manifesto for the Scottish Parliamentary elections this year promised to provide an opportunity for the people to consider the concept of Scottish independence in a referendum during this Parliament.

As First Minister, it is my responsibility to explore and lead discussion on the options for constitutional change. I lead the first Scottish National Party Government to be elected in a devolved Scotland, so I will put the case for independence, its benefits and opportunities.

However, I also recognise there is a range of other views in our country and represented in the Parliament. The national conversation on our future is to allow the people of Scotland to debate, reflect and then decide on the type of Government which best equips Scotland for the future.

It is 10 years since the referendum to establish the Scottish Parliament. We have seen the potential of a Scottish Parliament to respond to the wishes and needs of the people of this country. But we have also seen the limitations of its current responsibilities.

I believe it is now time for us, the people of Scotland, to consider and choose our own future in the modern world.

Alex Salmond, First Minister

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Comments

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• 361. Dr. Colin Watson - Edinburgh

  Tuesday, August 14, 2007 23:58

  Anyone who has elected to run their own business will appreciate the motivation and committment to success which this brings. Come hell or high water the flexibility and authority is there to find solutions and success.
  
  Having spent several years trying to encourage a Labour MSP to provide a Bill to end antisocial deployment or management of nuisance high hedges, seven years have simply illustrated that an MSP beholden to the previous Executive, in turn beholden to Westminster Labour had so little authority that absolutely nothing happened.
  
  This was Scotland until May 2007.
  
  Already the the skies seem bluer and the sands whiter, as Scotland's Government sees Scotland to be a land of unlimited perspective.
  
  If we cannot attain our future on our own terms through independence then we must be a pretty dismal lot.
  
  The Labour election disaster showed our response to being brainwashed into frustration.
  
  Let Alex Salmond's conversation with the people proceed apace to bypass the depression of the old order !
  
  

• 362. George Innes - Glasgow

  Tuesday, August 14, 2007 23:58

  Scotland's politics have been dominated from London for ever, I suppose people with the information at hand can determine a date. Imho past governing bodies have done less to improve the lot of the Scottish people than they have to further their own ends. Surely the SNP can't do any worse than these self serving scallywags.
  If we are a mature sensible thinking people who have the interests of Scotland at heart, then surely INDEPENDENCE is the only way forward.
  
  

• 363. Phil - Wales

  Wednesday, August 15, 2007 00:01

  This is not just a question for the Scots, I am from this same lump of rock which makes up the UK. I was born with British NATIONALITY and if some body wishes to remove a part of my birth right they can think again. Down with petty tribalism. Scotland just like England and Wales belong to us all (just ask the Scots who chose to take up there right to live on other parts of this island)

• 364. Neil Smith - British Columbia

  Wednesday, August 15, 2007 00:01

  As a former member of the Scottish Tories (now 7 years in Canada) I have to say independence is an option that deserves more consideration that it used to. Ian Lang (remember him?) used to refer to devolution as a slippery slope to indepedence back in the day - well, those Conservative gents were quite correct it seems. However, their central assumption - that it was a bad thing - may not have been. For whatever reason, our nation seems to lack drive and is always far too ready to engage in a culture of 'blame the "English" government' when things don't go the way we'd like. Independence is the true way to prove that we can do things better. Personally, I'd like to see Britain with a Federal constitution and Scotland with a government as powerful as the Canadian Provinces we live under here, with some control of its resource revenues. However, I'm not stupid - we'll be independent before that ever happened.
  Will I get to apply for a Scottish passport?

• 365. I Russell - East Renfrewshire

  Wednesday, August 15, 2007 00:01

  We need this debate, and the idea of 'the conversation' seems reasonable to me. What is blatantly unreasonable is for the opposition parties to attempt to kill the debate and deny the people of Scotland their say. My guess is that this will backfire on them - watch 'the coalition of the unwilling' disintegrate. I want to hear how independence will benefit Scotland, and I also want to hear the alternatives. So far, the only mature voice is Alex Salmond's. The wailing parties should be ashamed.

• 366. Neil Smith - British Columbia

  Wednesday, August 15, 2007 00:02

  As a former member of the Scottish Tories (now 7 years in Canada) I have to say independence is an option that deserves more consideration that it used to. Ian Lang (remember him?) used to refer to devolution as a slippery slope to indepedence back in the day - well, those Conservative gents were quite correct it seems. However, their central assumption - that it was a bad thing - may not have been. For whatever reason, our nation seems to lack drive and is always far too ready to engage in a culture of 'blame the "English" government' when things don't go the way we'd like. Independence is the true way to prove that we can do things better. Personally, I'd like to see Britain with a Federal constitution and Scotland with a government as powerful as the Canadian Provinces we live under here, with some control of its resource revenues. However, I'm not stupid - we'll be independent before that ever happened.
  Will I get to apply for a Scottish passport?

• 367. Phil - Wales

  Wednesday, August 15, 2007 00:02

  This is not just a question for the Scots, I am from this same lump of rock which makes up the UK. I was born with British NATIONALITY and if some body wishes to remove a part of my birth right they can think again. Down with petty tribalism. Scotland just like England and Wales belong to us all (just ask the Scots who chose to take up there right to live on other parts of this island)

• 368. Stuart Allen - Great Britain

  Wednesday, August 15, 2007 00:02

  Am I the only person who really doesn't understand scottish/welsh/english nationalism? I have today just driven from Orkney to Oxford with absolutely no bother. We live on one tiny island in the Atlantic, half the size of Iowa at the last reckoning... Are we really going to turn into three squabbling regions moaning and groaning. How our competitors on the world stage would love that... I love my country, the fact that Bruce, Wallace, Livingstone and Smith can be placed alongside Shakespeare, Darwin, Newton, Cook, Wilberforce as people from our national past. I love the fact that scots, irish, english, welsh, to say nothing of poles live on this island/UK. I love the fact that you can in the same day as watching Highland games then go watch a bit of cricket. I love the fact that my children can go to university in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Oxford, London, Swansea. I love London and I love the highlands. You lot be you little englanders or little scotlanders really are a parochial bunch because the reality it that england or scotland will never be the match of GB, and yes I don't mind that GB is run by another GB who happens to be a scot.

• 369. Norman Russell - Aberdeen

  Wednesday, August 15, 2007 00:04

  Having just watched Newsnight Scotland and listened to the "Unionist" views it would appear to me that they still have not learned their lesson, CONSULT THE PEOPLE, do not just come out with the usual trite comments that "the people of Scotland do not want independence", please have some faith in our people and let them have a view. In particular Cathy Jamieson is trotting out the same old scare mongering rubbish that the Labour Party have been bleating before and since they lost the election, they even go on about how only a minority of the Scottish electorate voted SNP and how this is a minority Executive, but if they look back to the last two elections they were also in a minority but thought that they had the mandate to TELL the Scottish public that "We know best" and to sit down like good little children and have no view. Thank God that the new Executive are engaging with us at last, if the Unionists are so sure that they would win this referendum, then lets have it! Or could it be that they are not so sure and are frightened to ask in case the public do say yes to Independence?

• 370. norrie - glaschu

  Wednesday, August 15, 2007 00:07

  why is it that out of the various nations in the world that we are being told that we do not have the capability to run our own affairs?
  if we were to say that about any other nation in the world would it not be seen as racist?
  the other question that you have to ask is if the pro unionist partys are so sure that Scotlands people have no desire for independence then why have they such a strong aversion to a referendum?
  I think if you ask yourselves the questions and look deep before answering then you will find the answer
  saor alba

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