The people of Manchester have spoken and it’s official... we’re joining Scotland.

A whopping 72 per cent of those who responded to our online poll reckon we should secede from the UK and join an independent Scotland.

‘New Scotland’ might seem a little pie-in-the-sky but M.E.N. readers voted overwhelmingly to jump on board with our tartan friends north of the border and go it alone.

The extraordinary call for Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle and every other northern community to be ruled from Edinburgh instead of London has now been backed by thousands.

A staggering 12,000 have now signed the change.org petition with the #TakeUsWithYouScotland hashtag taking Twitter by storm.

And the vast majority of the nearly 1,500 readers who voted in the M.E.N. poll said they would like to up-sticks and join the Scots in going it alone.

The left-field constitutional suggestion is growing in popularity, with scores of Mancunians of the opinion we’d be better off as ‘McMancs’.

MORE:

MORE: How the M.E.N covered the movement from the start

MORE: Take us with you Scotland! Twitter responds to petition for 'New Scotland'

READ: Some of the benefits to 'New Scotland' ... and a few reasons against

The M.E.N’s Twitter account and Facebook page have been bombarded with hundreds of people backing the plan and and plenty against it.

Andy Harris posted: “Yes. Free prescriptions, free higher education, free hospital parking, free dental treatment. Do I really need to go on? Count me in!”

Gary Hilton added: “I’d rather be part of Scotland than bowing to Westminster. Plus Scotland is a great country with great people. Most people I’ve met south of Birmingham have little in common with my own ideology.”

Alejandro Hall-Patterson said: “Haggis on the menu everyday. I’m in.”

Toni Marshall posed a decent question, asking: “But who will be king of the north?”

That crown, surely, would go to Noel Gallagher.

Victoria McEvoy has already put herself forward for the job.

She said: “I will nominate myself to be Queen of the North.”

Despite some giddy at the idea of supping Irn-Bru and strutting around in kilts, not everyone is convinced by the idea.

Samantha Brown asked why Manchester would join Scotland when our region has been handed its own historic devolution deal.

Laura Mellor posted: “If this actually happened I would leave Manchester. I have never heard something so ridiculous.”

Adam Dean raised a good point about Manchester’s football teams, pointing out that the move could mean United and City playing in the Scottish Premier League.

Colin Parry offered perhaps the most philosophical view on the issue.

He posted: “Does it matter who you are? English, Scottish... we are all one in the end.”