...It's time

Very dangerous Mr Martin. Your language and inference in your poem and letter indicate openly that you have a major sized chip. Your poem is good but not that good and that is my opinion. Your letter is akin to propaganda coupled with romance - using lyrics taken from a Beatle song says it all. Maybe someone with such a definite, focused and biased view isn't appropriate to represent a country with their writing. That is certainly my opinion.

[2] Dav; An elegant and well argued conclusion.

Neil Craig..#1
The SNP may be in favour of the EU federation...but to comment that we would have less say is wrong...we would at least have a vote and our veto..we have no say at the moment..(see fishing negotiations no say not invited until the parliament demanded to be part of the discussions)...only independence will work.

Bill this is exactly the question. The smaller the unit the more its government can concentrate on local interests but the smaller the government the less likely Germany, being the largest EU government & clearly the most powerful (for example Germany gets away with running a budget deficit small countries got hammered for), is likely to notice us.

The same arguments could be made for independence for Shetland or indeed Coatbridge.

We currently have a share in the Uk's power, & indeed a disproportionate number of Scots ministers. Sometimes it does get cold out there.

Bill, "we would at least have a vote and our veto.." There aren't many areas left now where an EU member state can exercise a veto on the Council of Ministers, and there are constant attempts to remove those, eg recently on Justice and Home Affairs. Mostly it's Qualified Majority Voting. On the basis of its population, Scotland would have about 2% of the votes.

Grant McLean makes a good point. The Tories would get more votes if they backed independence. They certainly would have more chance of getting mine. Why does Conservatism and Unionism necessarily have to go hand in hand?