Scottish Independence vote - Yes or No?

[Hedra42]

[e-mail] said:

Hedra42 said:

On the subject of the flag, I reckon that will be a debate just as fierce as the vote for independence, although a bit more fun. There are valid reasons for keeping it as is. For one thing, the union flag was never formally accepted as the flag for the UK so it could just be used as a generic flag used to represent all the nations that inhabit the British Isles - which, of course, includes Scotland.

That said, I think if Scotland do leave the union then the UK should still have a flag representing its constituent nations. It also will give the opportunity to include Wales in the flag for the first time ever, either incorporating the cross of St David (yellow on black) or the colours of Wales's current flag, red white and green.

The British Isles as a Geographical term is similar to saying North America and it includes Ireland. The British Isles are just two chunks of land that even at one time were recognized solely as undet the control of the Irish. This would be the reason, for example, as to why Scotland is called Scotland. "Scot" is the Latin word for Irish. Can we fly the old Irish flag for sentimentality? No! Because that is history/past and would be ridiculous.

Seeing as Ireland is not part of the UK, I would have to simply say NO, the Union Jack cannot and will not be used to represent all of the Nations of the British Isles. To use it as such would be like using the US flag to represent all of the Nations of North America.

Also, the current Union Jack flag only uses symbols that are also only symbols from a certain part of history. The UK should keep the flag  and use it simply to represent their kingdom. It's pretty straight forward. Scotland would not longer be part of the "kingdom".

The current union jack contains the cross of St Patrick the cross of St Andrew, and the cross of St George. These crosses represent the patron saints of the island of Ireland, of England, and of Scotland. I'm not saying it should be used as a banner for the British Isles - for one thing, Wales isn't even represented on it (it was regarded as a Principality at the time the Union Jack was devised) and in my opinion should be updated - my point was that it was never officially accepted even as a union flag, so there is no ownership over what it should represent.

But you raise a good point about history/sentimentality nonetheless - in the same vein, you could question that given the changing demographic of the isles in general, should the Christian crosses still  be used to represent the countries, unified or seperate, at all.