The floor’s highest-rated argument came from Yes, even as No won by more than two to one. That mismatch matters: the vote was decisive, but the room’s strongest single intervention treated Westminster’s veto as “suppressing basic democracy”.
No voters built their case around finality, mandate and the cost of reopening the question. One blunt voice said, “They had a vote. Ask me again in 100 years”; another argued that a fresh campaign “would divert focus from real priorities”. The emphasis was less on defeating independence than on refusing another constitutional detour.
Yes voters answered that a pro-independence Holyrood majority could not be dismissed as an ordinary electoral result. The floor’s most-respected Yes case appealed to “the right to self determination”, while another argued that Scotland had been “dragged out of the EU against its clear democratic vote”. The two sides were often addressing different tests: No wanted durable consent and constitutional stability; Yes wanted an immediate democratic mandate to test consent again.
That is where this debate sits inside the wider argument over devolution: whether autonomy is meaningful if the central government retains the final say on its limits. A Yes reply described refusal as turning “a voluntary partnership into a compulsory trap”, while No voices saw repeated votes as a route to permanent instability rather than self-government.
The chamber rejected the referendum, but its sharpest argument was not a defence of the status quo; it was a warning about who gets to decide when the question may be asked.
38 Opinions
Yes, let them overwhelmingly vote “no” again. They know exactly where their bread’s buttered.
They hade a vote a decade ago, and voted to stay. Furthermore, it's clear that there will be large amounts of foreign interference - when the US attacked Iran earlier this year and the Iranian bot farms went down many major pro-Independence accounts on platforms like Twitter stopped posting.
One one hand, I believe they should have the right to a vote + self-determination. We definitely need more regional devolution. That being said, it would lead to another brexit-like period of tedious negotiations. It’s also a fact that England (mostly London), essentially subsidises the rest of the UK. You can link this back to a lack of regional investment, but that is the current reality. Would also likely bring capital flight from Scotland.
They had a vote. Ask me again in 100 years.
Scotland does use a proportional voting system which is good starting point for a binding decision. There doesn't seem to be any definite trend in the polls, except that the number of "don't knows" is rising.
Yes, because they have the right to self determination. However, I believe that it will be harmful to both Scotland and Britain as a whole.
No, because they show none of the international law criteria for being an independent nation, which include, per the Montevideo Convention, effective government, the ability to look after your own people and something to trade. You can't just become a country because you "identify" as a country. (See also: "Palestine".)
Give England its first ,let's see what majority think first. We might vote to take England independent!!
No point. They had a chance and everyone can see how badly and corruptly the SNP have ‘governed’. The whole construct was yet another attempt by Labour to gerrymander our Constitution in their favour as usual they were inept. Grant a referendum on abolishing it & the woke talking shop in Wales. Only basis for another referendum is if a threshold of 75% of the electorate vote Yes as then there is overwhelming consent - but they won’t do that!!
To add further to my comment Andy Burnham has a duty to abolish Holyrood. Devolution is about bringing power to the people away from the centre. By definition Holyrood is only an extension of the centre. Devolve to every local authority in the UK.