Channel 4 News: 'Alex Salmond Defiant on Scottish Army Question'

Source:Channel 4 News- Alex Salmond: Leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party in Britain.

"Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public-service television network with headquarters in London, a National HQ in Leeds and creative hubs in Glasgow and Bristol.[1] The channel was established to provide a fourth television service to the United Kingdom in addition to the licence-funded BBC One and BBC Two, and the single commercial broadcasting network ITV. It began transmission on 2 November 1982, the day after Welsh language broadcaster S4C's launch. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA),[2] which was established in 1990 and came into operation in 1993. In 2010, Channel 4 extended service into Wales and became a UK-wide television channel." 

From Wikipedia 

"SNP leader Alex Salmond says an independent Scotland would not have sent troops to Iraq." 

From Channel 4 News

When you look at the United Kingdom of Britain you see four native people's living there, the English of course living in England, the Scottish living in Scotland, the Welch living in Wales and the Irish living in North Ireland. These people are spread out and of course Britain is a diverse country both racially and ethnically, but Britain is still about 80% english and around 10% Scottish.

But even with all of this diversity and the fact that Britain is basically made up of four different Nations. And those States believe they can all govern themselves. Britain has a very centralized government, not even a federal government, but one government that governs the whole country and controls most of the tax revenue. 

One of the reasons why Britain's taxes are so high even compared with the European Union because their national government controls so much of their tax revenue, unlike the European states where most of them have federal government's, as well as state or provincial government's, as well as local government's. 

And I believe this is a big reason why Scotland, Wales and North Ireland which are all basically provinces or states inside of Britain, have all been calling for more autonomy in how they govern themselves. 

 These States would like to raise their own tax revenue, tun their own schools, law enforcement, build their own infrastructure, run their own health care, etc. The things that most state or provincial government's get to do as a state or province. A lot of things that Canadian provinces get to do or American states get to do as well. 

Instead of all the power in Britain being centered in London at Westminster, that Britain goes to a to more of a federal system, where England, Scotland, Wales, and North Ireland have much more authority to govern themselves. And they all have their own state government's effectively with an executive and an assembly, and their own judicial system. 

What the UK Government could do is be there to do what most national government's do, but the states are able to govern themselves as well. With these states still being able to send their reps and lords to the UK Parliament. And have their representation there and work in partnership to some degree in how the country is governed. 

Instead of the UK Government trying to govern this big country of 62M people, small in land, but with a large population, by themselves and doing everything on their own. If the UK Government would give their states autonomy in how they run their affairs, then I believe there would be less call for independence for these States. Because they would feel that they would have more of a say in how they govern themselves and more freedom to live their own lives.