Wow, there's a good chance Scotland will vote for independance! :O I think they're making a mistake by splitting up from the UK.

Yes, but Ireland was only part of the UK for a relatively short period of time, were treated terribly with the enactment of the penal laws and fought for their freedom. It's very different. It is now 2014 and all are friendly including Ireland and the UK.

And lets not be biased here. The Monaghan bombings by british loyalist terrorists were the worst attrocity in the last 100 years on Irish soil. IRA = sumbags pretending to be Irish and using it as an excuse to cause trouble. UVF/UDA - scumbags that are loyal to the queen and have killed hundreds of people just for being Irish. The difference is, the media don't talk about them. Nowadays they are the equivalent of ghetto thugs and their violence is minor. There are about 20 times more murders in Chicago alone every year than the entirity of the Republic of Ireland. The North isn't much worse either.

History aside, don't tag modern day idiots as "Irish" when they are born in Northern Ireland which is 1/6th of Ireland but claimed by the UK. If it's claimed by the UK then they are from the UK whether it suits or not. If Canadian terrorists were bombing Canada because they wanted to become part of the US, they are still Canadian. Then if US terrorists were killing Candians, they would be US citizens. Why the UK media try to flog it that the UVF and IRA are Irish is beyond me.

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.

Please also stop refering to me as 'stupid' or 'dumb'. I know the facts, significance and ideas you are putting forward, sorry for missing the last sentence. This doesn't mean I want my flag to change. 

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.

Should be interesting the vote - can't see I am a fan of Alex Salmond but he sure knows how to run a campaign even if what comes out of his mouth are lies,lies and more lies. Scotland if it goes it alone will not have their future in their hands even though they think they will do. It will be in the hands of the EU/UK and whoever else wants to dictate to them. People their need to realise there is no going back.

I am not in Scotland so won't be voting. As a UK citizen i think its a complete waste of time/money/history for Scotland to want to leave a succesful country like the UK but if they chose to do so then its their choice. They live with the consequeneces.

Well, the demograhic of Ireland has only changed with the massive amounts of eastern Europeans living there now and many asian students. Religion has stayed mostly static with most people being christian. When the flag was created, the English monarchy hadn't even invented their religion yet so that the king could get divorced/ remarried after murdering his wife/ wives.

Ireland, in all respects is a very diffferent place. If anything, Scotland with a GDP almost the same as Ireland but with A larger population will be fine in the long run but will hurt for a few years. If the UK then leaves the EU, you can expect a world of hurt to fall on Londons financial sector who will up and leave for Dublin to use it as a gateway to Europe. This has already happened with regards to the IT world with google, facebook, yahoo, msn, linkedin etc etc all setting up their headquarters there.

Definitely no.

Definitely.

If the majority votes yes then it'll never be reversed.

Independence isn't all it's cracked up to be. Plus, the political policies in the UK are finally taking a turn for the better (slightly).