In this week’s No to Yes column, we get the perspective of two people who live overseas on the constitutional argument. They explain why our unique culture and the shambolic Tory government mean Scotland would be better off going it alone.
First up is Guillermo Bisio, a 52-year-old administrative employee in Buenos Aires, Argentina:
FIRST of all, I want to clarify that I am Argentine. But still I think I have a small grain of sand to contribute.
In 2017, my oldest son went to work at a hotel in the Highlands, the Carrbridge Hotel. And once there, he literally fell in love with Scotland.
He was fascinated by the country of the thistle. Every time we spoke he told us more and more about the country, in the end he transmitted his love for Scotland.
Finally I decided, together with my wife and my youngest son, to go visit him and get to know the country that my eldest son spoke to us with so much love.
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Until then I thought that the issue of independence was a crazy idea of a few fanatics, I did not understand the advantages of independence – until I set foot in Scotland.
We all fell in love with the people, the landscape, the country.
We visited Inverness, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Now I fully understand the spirit of freedom that I felt, you have a 100% original culture, totally different from the English one.
Now I wonder why you allowed the English to dominate you for so many years.
I do not understand why you are afraid of economic viability as an independent country.
What do Ireland or Denmark have that Scotland doesn’t? Nothing.
You can be like them or even better. My son (who has an Italian passport) in great pain left Scotland for fear of Brexit. I think his soul is still crying with grief.
Now my son is thinking of moving to Ireland – if only to feel a little bit closer to the Scottish spirit.
My son, like so many other immigrants who love Scotland and were willing to make it their home, was forced to leave by the crazy policies of Boris and his people.
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Finlay Murray, originally from Carrbridge in the Highlands, is 33 and works in IT infrastructure management in Zurich, Switzerland:
BEFORE the EU referendum I believed Westminster was capable of reform and we could see a more federalised UK with regional parliaments for England.
I thought that this would help fix the broken system of half-implemented federalism and provide all areas of the UK greater freedom from a top down Westminster approach of rule.
The EU referendum was really the line in the sand for me. I live on the continent and I am staunchly European and do not identify with the path England has pushed on us.
The mismanagement of Brexit and frankly the disastrous mismanagement of the UK since the EU referendum has done nothing but reinforce my new pro-independence stance.
There’s a lot of talk about “making the good case for the Union” yet no-one really goes on to do that.
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Scotland was promised that the best way to secure its place in the EU was as part of the UK ... what empty words those were.
There is a clear mandate for another independence referendum considering the fundamental changes to the UK since 2016.
The UK Conservative government is wrong to oppose another independence referendum as people have the right to change their minds and polling clearly suggests they have. I can only assume they fear the result.
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