Scotland's Independence Vote Could Shake Up Industry

dcblogs writes: Scotland is not a major high-tech employment center, but it has good universities and entrepreneurial energy. About 70,000 people work in tech out of a total workforce of about 2.5 million, or about 3%. By contrast, financial services accounts for about 15% of employment in Scotland. But passions are high. "Honest, I've never been so scared in my life," said Euan Mackenzie about the prospect of separating from the U.K. He runs a 16-employee start-up, 1partCarbon, in Edinburgh, a platform that builds medical systems. "For tech start-ups, funding will be tougher to find and more expensive, there will be no local banks, access to EU markets and the freedom of movement will be curtailed," said Mackenzie. "As someone who enjoys risk and new opportunities, my company will remain in Scotland and make the best of whichever side prevails on Thursday, but the effect of independence on tech start-ups and the whole Scottish economy will be cataclysmic," he said.

Comments

at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[alen]

look on the bright side
who needs money when you can rid yourself of nuclear weapons?

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[halivar]

While continuing to be protected by UK's nuclear deterrent, so the principle of the stance is somewhat compromised.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[i kan reed]

Please, if this whole debate has made one thing clear, it's there will be no compromise.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

look on the bright side
who needs money when you can rid yourself of nuclear weapons?

And yet the plan is for an independent Scotland to join NATO which is quite keen on the "nuclear weapons are a useful deterrent" line.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Sockatume]

Which would make it different from the majority of Europe's nations in what way?

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[halivar]

UK's ground-based nuclear deterrent is local to the British Isles. Now I could be wrong, but that umbrella doesn't cover the rest of Europe, does it?

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Sockatume]

You seem to have misunderstood. Most of Europe's non-nuclear states are protected - de factor if not by treaty - by the European nations that are armed. Scotland would be an unremarkable addition to that list.

Part of being a nuclear power in a geographically close-knit federation is that your umbrella will cover people other than your allies. That's just the lay of the land.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Noryungi]

Even now, Putin is hovering over the list of first strike cities, ready and waiting to strike Glasgow and Edinburgh from the list. Let me save you, he whispers gently. Expel those weapons. You'll be so much safer.

Putin does not give a flying fuck about Scotland, he is got his hands full in the Ukraine.

Plus, an independent Scotland could sell Whisky to Russia, and I have never met a russian who turned down a glass of (good) booze. ;-)

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[GoddersUK]

The UK does not have a ground based deterrent. Our nuclear deterrent consists entirely of submarine launched ICBMs with one submarine in an unknown aquatic location at all times (which could be just about anywhere where the water is deep enough to hide a submarine). In terms of what it "covers" - the range is irrelevant in the sense that we're not going to nuke ourselves or our allies - it only matters in that the missiles can reach Moscow. In terms of whether we'd use them in the rest of Europe's defence (either through NATO, altruistically or through fear for ourselves) is the question of political guesswork, bluffing, double bluffing, prisoners dilemmas and so forth that is the basis of mutually assured destruction. The short answer is: who knows, the only way to find out is by "experiment"...

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Eunuchswear]

The UK has no "ground-based nuclear deterrent". The only nukes the UK fields are Trident.

Assuming Scotland (stays in, joins)(*) NATO then it will be protected by the US, French and rUK nuclear deterrents, just like all other NATO countries.

((*) delete as appropriate - It depends if Scotland is considered as a succesor state to the UK or not).

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[jeremyp]

The UK's nuclear submarines are based in Scotland.

All of the jobs at the naval base in Faslane will be gone along with the nuclear weapons. A future Scottish government might, therefore, decide to allow the UK to continue to keep its submarines there.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[u38cg]

Correct. There is a missile in Bumfukski with Glasgow's name painted on it. Kicking nukes out the Clyde won't change that.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[kilodelta]

Indeed - the U.S. Navy still has a pretty big presence in Scotland. It's how I ended up with a half brother there.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[halivar]

I was presuming that the nukes in Scotland would be moved south, as the Scots have made it clear they don't want them.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[strong_epoxy]

That's the first flag indicating the Scot's don't have the maturity to govern themselves, eschewing the weapons others will use to defend them without thanks or compensation. Cowards.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[LifesABeach]

Would you like some cheese with tha wine?

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[archmcd]

Indeed - the U.S. Navy still has a pretty big presence in Scotland. It's how I ended up with a half brother there.

Where's the other half gone?

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[albacrankie]

Still? I thought they had moved out in 1992. Or is there something other than the Holy Loch base?

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[xelah]

I would think that the UK government would not believe that an invader in Scotland would stop at the border. As such, it'd be far more likely to provoke a nuclear response to a conventional attack than, say, an invasion of Turkey (though, one would hope, NATO conventional forces would be a different matter).

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[albacrankie]

Could you explain how the Trident missiles help to defend me or my family? I prefer not to pay for them because I see them as pretty much fucking useless.

On the other hand, we frequently get low flying military aircraft over our house, on training runs. These don't come cheap either, but I see them as a useful thing to have and am quite happy to pay my share for them.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

To me, as a Dutchman, it is not obvious that being part of something bigger necessarily improves the security and autonomy of a small country in the first place. Traditionally we used to manage relationships with our more powerful neighbors (historically France, UK, and Prussia) just by making sure that they had no reason to ally against us, and "switched umbrellas" whenever it suited us. The price of European Union is less autonomy in choosing your ally for the occasion. If the reward is supposedly half a century of peace, then obviously Iceland, Norway, Switzerland etc. got that reward for free. If Scotland is spurned by the UK/EU, then the US, Russia, and China will stand in line to be its new best friends. An independent Scotland is perfectly safe, and nobody's enemy. Letting it leave the EU, with its gas reserves, would be just stupid.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[RDW]

I was presuming that the nukes in Scotland would be moved south, as the Scots have made it clear they don't want them.

Yes, but have you seen the recently leaked list of key military and economic assets to be targeted by Trident in the event of Scottish independence?:

(1) Alex Salmond's secret command bunker, 'The Salmon's Lair'.

(2) MIRV attack on all Speyside distilleries, centred on Glenlivet.

(3) The Edinburgh Woollen Mill Global Headquarters, Glasgow.

(4) The Gilded Balloon theatre, to neutralise the threat from Edinburgh Fringe elements, once and for all.

(5) Submarine detonation at Loch Ness, in an attempt to create a rampaging Godzilla-style radioactive monster.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[strong_epoxy]

Simple, trident missiles guarantee your enemies destruction. What you say? Scotland doesn't have enemies? Take away those missiles and we'll see about that.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

Putin does not give a flying fuck about Scotland, he is got his hands full in the Ukraine.

Of course he cares. Scotland leaving the UK creates a pastiche of legitimacy for Crimea leaving the Ukraine.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never met a russian who turned down a glass of booze. ;-)

Fixed that for ya.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[alex67500]

Yeah there will. That was just scaremongering to ensure they voted to stay in the Union.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[albacrankie]

For me, it's not about whether they guarantee my enemy's destruction, but whether they increase or lessen my own chance of destruction. Under the cold war, while uncomfortable, I believe they probably reduced the level of warfare. And I still think that three superpowers having such weapons may be a good thing. But for the life of me, I can't think of any circumstances in which the UK would actually fire one of these things independently of the USA or what a possible target might be.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as most of the English are concerned who are not currently bored of the whole thing now - a nuclear attack on Scotland would only have the beneficial outcome of raising house prices in the South-East

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Barsteward]

Moving the nukes to a UK port will have the same effect as leaving them in Scotland except Scotland site is a good one for escape to the atlantic. There are more worrying things coming out of the "Yes" campaign than location of nukes.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Grishnakh]

Am I missing something? Why would an independent Scotland be spurned by the EU? I thought this issue was about them separating from the UK; they should be able to then join the EU as a full member, and switch to the Euro currency if they wish (since right now they're still on the GBP just like the rest of the UK). An independent Scotland should in theory be a good thing for the EU, as a confederation works better with its members smaller and more equal to each other, rather than having a mix of small and large/powerful members, as the powerful members will be seen as bullies by the smaller members. An independent Scotland will reduce the size/power of the UK in the EU and add a new member that's on par with countries like Denmark, and maybe get more people on board with the Euro.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[ShanghaiBill]

Why would an independent Scotland be spurned by the EU?

It is unlikely they would be spurned, but it is also unlikely that they would be allowed to join with all the same exceptions that were given to the UK. They would have to join as a full, paying member.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Grishnakh]

So what's the problem with that?

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Muros]

You're missing the scare-mongering by many nations in the EU that have regions with aspirations of self determination, eg. Italy & Spain. They do not like the idea of other countries allowing break-away regions, and threaten barring Scotland re-entry to the EU as a warning to their own dissatisfied citizens. Even China has had a few politicians pipe up, because they fear the impact Scottish independence might have on dissidents in places like Tibet. Of course, it is all rubbish. Scotland has something far more precious to the EU than it's oil and gas, which only make a difference to the other constituent parts of the Union. Scotland has vast fisheries which are shared with the EU at large, over which it would gain sovereign control.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

SNP have stated they would remove nuclear subs from Faslane
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/07/trident-faslane-scotland-snp-cost

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Grishnakh]

I see, this makes perfect sense now. IMO, it'd be better if all these break-away regions broke away and became new countries. That's why they're in the EU, after all: the union facilitates free trade and a strong shared currency (in theory at least), so things would be better if all these regions broke away and then joined the EU as new member states, instead of their people constantly being angry that they're in an involuntary union with some other country they don't like so much.

BTW, which regions in Italy want to break away? I hadn't heard about that, though I'm familiar with Catalan and the Basque region wanting to break away from Spain.

Of course China would be against any self-determination; they're all about forcing people into a single union under an authoritarian government which only benefits one group.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[strong_epoxy]

Great! So we agree. We understand their purpose and value. And while benefiting from them, Scotland doesn't wan't to pay for them. Rather rely on others for their defense.

Again, the Scot's don't have the maturity to govern themselves.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Muros]

In Italy, mostly a region in the north. Here's a wikipedia link, I'm sure there's better information elsewhere. Venetian nationalism

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[nospam007]

"So what's the problem with that?"

The become a member they existing members have to vote them in unanimously.
And for some reason I'm thinking some countries might object and veto.

England obviously.
France, so not to give ideas to Corsica.
Spain, Basques and Catalans
Belgium, ...
etc

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Grumpinuts]

From Minutes of the UK Defence Select Committee...

http://www.publications.parlia...

UK'S TRIDENT SYSTEM NOT TRULY INDEPENDENT
    33. Acquiring Trident gave the UK a greater nuclear weapons capability than it could ever have achieved on its own. This enhanced capacity, however, had significant consequences.
    34. The fact that, in theory, the British Prime Minister could give the order to fire Trident missiles without getting prior approval from the White House has allowed the UK to maintain the façade of being a global military power. In practice, though, it is difficult to conceive of any situation in which a Prime Minister would fire Trident without prior US approval. The USA would see such an act as cutting across its self-declared prerogative as the world's policeman, and would almost certainly make the UK pay a high price for its presumption. The fact that the UK is completely technically dependent on the USA for the maintenance of the Trident system means that one way the USA could show its displeasure would be to cut off the technical support needed for the UK to continue to send Trident to sea.
    35. In practice, the only way that Britain is ever likely to use Trident is to give legitimacy to a US nuclear attack by participating in it. There are precedents for the USA using UK participation in this way for conventional military operations. The principal value of the UK's participation in the recent Iraq war was to help legitimise the US attack. Likewise the principal value of the firing of UK cruise missiles as part of the larger US cruise missile attack on Baghdad was to help legitimise the use of such weapons against urban targets.
    36. The most likely scenario in which Trident would actually be used is that Britain would give legitimacy to a US nuclear strike by participating in it.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Grishnakh]

Sounds like they need to start their own, competing union.... Maybe some other EU countries will abandon the EU and join their union instead, since this new union wouldn't be all about supporting existing powerful players.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

And China thanks you for doing that.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[angel'o'sphere]

The british claim, they have no ground based nuclear weapons.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Uberbah]

While continuing to be protected by UK's nuclear deterrent, so the principle of the stance is somewhat compromised.

That's okay, they'll just get themselves some Tiger Stones, they're about as relevant as your concerns over nuclear deterrence.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK's nuclear submarines are based in Scotland.

All of the jobs at the naval base in Faslane will be gone along with the nuclear weapons. A future Scottish government might, therefore, decide to allow the UK to continue to keep its submarines there.

No, they won't.

The SNP have said they will stick to a 5.5 year timetable to remove Trident from Faslane if Scotland chooses to become independent.

If the vote is yes tomorrow then there will be an 18 month period of negotation until the day of independence.
But the SNP have already said this issue will not be negotiable.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Smauler]

Which is one thing they'd obviously lose, in terms of work.

The UK has had a long history of subsidising Scotland. I'm not that fussed if they stay or go, save for the fact that the border may be more difficult.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Smauler]

Northumbria is a much older kingdom than Scotland (it includes part of Scotland too).

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[mcpheat]

There are only 520 jobs in Scotland that depend on trident according to MOD figures. Most of the rest of the 5000 jobs would stay as Faslane will be the headquarters of the new Scottish Navy.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[mcpheat]

There is no sensible site in the rest of the UK. They were all ruled out in the 1960s for Polaris and over the years have been encroached on by development whilst Coulport has tripled in size for Trident.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[ShanghaiBill]

England obviously.

Why would England object? England would benefit the most from having Scotland as a fellow EU member.

Re: at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

Independent Scotland will be spurned by the EU because they don't want to support separatist movements (such as Catalonia).

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Darinbob]

Why doesn't Scotland get to keep them? There would need to be negotiation on who gets to keep what, across the board. Like a divorce. The Scots have indeed been building and paying for these bases, they've been joining the armed services, etc. Who's to say Scotland is not a part owner of the submarines?

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[arglebargle_xiv]

While continuing to be protected by UK's nuclear deterrent

Deterring what, exactly? Bruce Forsythe, Cilla Black, Peaches Geldof, Jeremy Beadle, the entire cast of Geordie Shore, who needs nuclear weapons when you've got that as a deterrent.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

England?

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

To England, of course.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[jecblackpepper]

They are part owner of the submarines, however the Scottish Government say that they don't want them. They want Scotland to be nuclear weapon free. So as part of the negotiations both the rUK and iScotland would work out who gets what, but iScotland won't get the nukes.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[ultranova]

Simple, trident missiles guarantee your enemies destruction. What you say? Scotland doesn't have enemies? Take away those missiles and we'll see about that.

The problem is, your enemy sees your Tridents and gets some of their own to ensure their safety, and then we all get to wonder how long till someon sneezes.

People remember Cuban crisis as the closest we ever came to nuclear war, but the fact is, close calls are a common occurrence. Radars malfunction, phone lines go dead, and people push the wrong buttons. Our luck will run out eventually; we either build sufficient international systems that nations can afford to de-escalate their armies to non-nuclear status, or we'll die. And bullshit like yours is advancing the latter option.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

Doubt they employ Scotts anyway. Like in Ireland, the English don't really give a crap who works for them. The sub workers would piss off back to England where they came from..When England occupied Ireland, there were jobs for those of English descent - that's it..it wouldn't change too much but enough to make it worthwhile.

Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone

[Anonymous Coward]

in the US .. duh!..he was divided on independence.

Is that so?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cataclysmic? Only if the Haggis gets banned.

This isn't scaremongering.

[jez9999]

A lot of "yes" campaigners seem to have been sold on the idea that any warning of economic doom upon a "yes" vote is scaremongering, bullying, or "undermining the Scottish democratic process." Bullshit. Many intelligent people looking at this from a rational perspective have concluded that the "sweet spot" for Scotland is staying in the union and having devo-max; basically getting it both ways, with lots of self-government combined with a net financial income from the rest of the UK, as well as obviously ease of trade.

However, the pro-independence SNP are 100% blinkered on independence, at any cost. They will therefore paint warnings like this as lies designed purely to scupper their frankly loony picture of a prosperous independent Scotland, and a lot of Scots buy into it. Shame, really.

Americans might look on with bemusement; I can understand that. I guess it's a bit like Florida choosing to break away from the US, having a pro-Florida political party endlessly demonizing "them" (the rest of the US) as causing pretty much every economic and political woe Florida has going for it. As an English guy, I think this whole situation really sucks. If the UK breaks up, the whole of Britain will be worse off for it, but I suspect Scotland will take the bigger brunt of the pain. And given that it will have made the decision, it will deserve to.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more like Quebec constantly trying to leave Canada. A bunch of rich frenchies trying to have their own country but also want their citizens to keep their Canadian Government jobs, use Canadian currency, have access to free health care in other provinces and basically have their cake and eat it too.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Americans might look on with bemusement; I can understand that. I guess it's a bit like Florida choosing to break away from the US, having a pro-Florida political party endlessly demonizing "them" (the rest of the US) as causing pretty much every economic and political woe Florida has going for it. As an English guy, I think this whole situation really sucks. If the UK breaks up, the whole of Britain will be worse off for it, but I suspect Scotland will take the bigger brunt of the pain. And given that it will have made the decision, it will deserve to.

We do have something similar, although it is called Texas.

I have been following this with interest ever since I discovered the BBC World Service on one of the sub channels of Minnesota Public Radio. Being an American it doesn't seem to affect me but I would be for Scottish independence just because I think it would be neat to have a new country. In reality this doesn't seem to be a good reason for the Scots to choose it so it is probably for the better that I am not a resident of Scotland and instead an American.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new overlords from the United Kingdom of Little Britain and Northern Ireland.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Sockatume]

One one hand, you talk about economic-governance "sweet spots" which is a perfectly reasonable way of discussing this sort of issue; on the other hand you've drawn independence as some sort of discontinuous cliff-edge, which seems like exactly the sort of ridiculous hyperbole the "yes" campaign get so rightly chastised for.

Unfortunately all rationality aside, the "no" campaign have done themselves absolutely no favours in the debates, from choice of talking points to choice of speaker. (Has Darling never been in a debate before? You would think so from the way he was getting walked all over.) Salmond, against all odds given his hitherto remarkable inability to convey any sort of statesmanship, is winning the PR war. Make no mistake about that.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the UK is toast either way, its trillion-pound debt and massive yearly deficit are unsustainable even in the short term.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a fellow European (Belgium, not UK) it's funny to see the arguments being used by the "better together" campaign. They are all typically the same arguments used by the rest of Europe for increased European integration, which the same UK people are typically opposed to. I've heard people say "access to the larger common market within the UK is crucial for Scottish businesses" - with those same people asking for all kinds of exemptions on the European common market.

Your example of "Florida trying to break away from the US" is an interesting one. To me, it feels more like North Dakota splitting from South Dakota while staying within the US, which a lot of people would consider mostly a non-issue. If Scotland chooses to go for a future as an "independent state within Europe", I would imagine them functioning somewhat similar to Ireland, which is not functioning too bad as far as I know.

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[localhost8080]

No. Its like the USA wanting to rule itself instead of being ruled by the British.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Eunuchswear]

Oh yes it is.

there will be no local banks, access to EU markets and the freedom of movement will be curtailed,

Access to EU markets and freedom of movement are things to be negociated but "no local banks" - WTF?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[UnknowingFool]

Americans might look on with bemusement; I can understand that. I guess it's a bit like Florida choosing to break away from the US, having a pro-Florida political party endlessly demonizing "them" (the rest of the US) as causing pretty much every economic and political woe Florida has going for it. As an English guy, I think this whole situation really sucks. If the UK breaks up, the whole of Britain will be worse off for it, but I suspect Scotland will take the bigger brunt of the pain. And given that it will have made the decision, it will deserve to.

Well as an American guy I have to say that's not a good analogy. As much as the rest of the US thinks Florida is backwards, Florida was not another country rich with their own traditions when the US acquired it. Texas would be a better analogy. Also an English guy, I don't think you understand that you've not exactly treated Scotland very well and that's one of the reasons it wants to leave. Another reason is that much of oil England is harvesting is Scottish and they do not get what they think is a proportional amount from it.

Here's another view from another Englishman, John Oliver.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has no idea what is going on, I'm a little confused by a few things in TFS.

there will be no local banks, access to EU markets and the freedom of movement will be curtailed

What do they mean "no local banks"? There are no banks in Scotland? Or they have no currency all their own? And why would leaving Great Britain curtail access to EU markets and freedom of movement? Is Great Britain going to set up some sort of naval blockade around Scotland?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

... just because I think it would be neat to have a new country.

We get new countries all the time, it's just that most other countries choose not to recognize them. The newly created Islamic State and the Free Republic of Donetsk are 2 nice examples. There's an interesting vid on this from CP Grey, titled "how many countries are there?" (spoiler: between 190 and 210, dependong on how you count). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AivEQmfPpk

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jez9999]

Heh. John Oliver is about as English as George W. Bush. I wonder whether Jon Stewart would be quite so gung-ho about allowing those southern states to secede? Maybe a bit of patriotism would seep in all of a sudden...

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jez9999]

As a fellow European (Belgium, not UK) it's funny to see the arguments being used by the "better together" campaign. They are all typically the same arguments used by the rest of Europe for increased European integration

Scotland has a heck of a lot more in common with Britain than mainland Europe; linguistically, geographically, historically, and culturally, to name but a few. One union makes a lot more sense than the other.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[stdarg]

Many intelligent people looking at this from a rational perspective have concluded that the "sweet spot" for Scotland is staying in the union and having devo-max

What's the guarantee that will ever happen? I just read that the "vows" Cameron made to give more power and money to Scotland have caused quite a stir in his own party with MPs coming out and saying they'll vote against it.

basically getting it both ways, with lots of self-government combined with a net financial income from the rest of the UK, as well as obviously ease of trade.

Is it net positive? Are you sure? There's a lot of misinformation about tax flows because the No side isn't counting a lot of stuff, such as export taxes, the full share of oil and gas revenue from the North Sea, and businesses headed in England but doing business in Scotland. The Yes side is saying once you count that stuff, Scotland pays more than its fair share.

As for ease of trade and other such issues, name a single beneficial issue that can't be solved by treaty instead of by British rule. It's a bit silly to pretend that if Scotland separates, they'll suddenly be a hostile foreign country with no ties to England.

If the UK breaks up, the whole of Britain will be worse off for it, but I suspect Scotland will take the bigger brunt of the pain.

I think there will be short term pain, but Scotland will be better off in the long run as they gain control over their own resources. They should be a rich, high welfare state subsidized by oil and gas revenues. Like the Nordic countries.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[bigpat]

I think it is quite clearly scare mongering or worse, threatening. The UK government agreed to this vote and they should be making assurances that whichever the outcome that the UK government will do its best to facilitate a peaceful and mutually beneficial transition. Two independent states can share a currency... the EU proves that currency unions are possible. And if the EU were to exclude Scotland, then that would be the first time the EU will have contracted instead of expanding which would undermine confidence in the EU itself just as it was regaining it. Certainly there will be costs to establishing and negotiating a transition, but to assume a worst case scenario and that people will act in a destructive way against their mutual interests out of some sort of royal spite is not helpful.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jez9999]

What do they mean "no local banks"? There are no banks in Scotland?

Pretty much none Scottish-owned, no.

Or they have no currency all their own?

No. They use British pound sterling.

And why would leaving Great Britain curtail access to EU markets and freedom of movement?

Because they'd immediately be out of the EU and have to apply to rejoin, which would take at least several years.

Is Great Britain going to set up some sort of naval blockade around Scotland?

Could do, if they refused to pay their debts. Probably not though, as English politicians tend to be rather spineless. Wouldn't be surprised if they just gave Salmond half the British navy.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[IamTheRealMike]

As a fellow European (Belgium, not UK) it's funny to see the arguments being used by the "better together" campaign. They are all typically the same arguments used by the rest of Europe for increased European integration, which the same UK people are typically opposed to.

Don't paint all Brits with the same brush. Yes, some people in the UK are not keen on the current arrangements with Europe, largely because of the massive influx of immigrants in recent years (an issue Scotland has experienced to nowhere near the same extent). But the economic arguments for being in are strong and the EU in/out referendum debate has hardly begun.

I suspect the way things might go is like this - if there's a yes vote, the complications of cleaving the UK in two will soak up all spare Parliamentary time and political capacity for the next few years and push out an EU in/out referendum by some time. By this point the English will have realised that Scotland is desperately trying to get back in and being a part of the EU is a significant bargaining tool with the new iScotland. Seeing the effects of not being in the EU first hand will change a lot of minds, especially once the serious debates start going.

That said, local government isn't inherently a bad thing. It's just that the arguments for it in Scotland have been pretty weak. They're not overwhelmingly strong with respect to Brussels either, but with the EU it's more the general trend that worries people. Europe is trending towards centralisation and shows no signs of slowing down. The UK has been trending towards devolution for some time. So the two aren't exactly comparable.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Scotland lands control 1/3 the resources of the UK and has 1/13th the population, assuming a new independent Scotland would have control over those resources, a "No" vote is foolish(except to the rest of the UK)..

Scotland represents just 8.3% of the UK population.... Remember that number 8.3%..

Scotland has of the UK resources:
32% Land area
61% Sea area
90% Surface fresh water
65% North Sea natural gas production
96.5% North Sea crude oil production
47% Open cast coal production
81% Coal reserves at sites not yet in production
62% Timber production (green tonnes)
46% Total forest area (hectares)
92% Hydro electric production
40% Wind, wave, solar production
60% Fish Landings (total by Scottish vessels)
55% Fish Landings (total from Scottish waters)
30% Beef herd (breeding stock)
20% Sheep herd (breeding flock)
9% Dairy herd
10% Pig herd
15% Cereal holdings (hectares)
20% potato holdings (hectares)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Was just going to post the same thing. Thanks for saving me the time.

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[halivar]

No, THAT was like the Brits making us house and quarter soldiers, taxing us unduly for a war we helped fight for land we could not keep, and in general treating us like non-citizens. The Scots cannot say that without hyperbole; they're just bored, and this is something new and interesting.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[quenda]

I for one welcome our new overlords from the United Kingdom of Little Britain and Northern Ireland.

"Great Britain" refers to the largest of the British Isles, and "Little Britain" was Ireland in Roman times.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[gfxguy]

I can't predict what would happen, but your last statement is what I've been looking for in all this mess... in the short term, things like this are almost always painful, there's a lot of readjusting to do, but it's what happens in the long term that matters. I would applaud Scotland's secession as long overdue and, yes, as an American, believe that freedom and independence are just as important (if not more) than financial security.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[rioki]

You could say the same thing about Ireland. I think the Irish would disagree though.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[IamTheRealMike]

Also an English guy, I don't think you understand that you've not exactly treated Scotland very well and that's one of the reasons it wants to leave.

Scotland has been treated very well indeed. When it joined the Union its people were piss poor and its "government" was bankrupt. It's now a wealthy first world country, with lots of MPs in its Parliament, large amounts of money spent on its people and it's contributed multiple Prime Ministers and senior government figures.

Despite all that, a large number of Scottish people have repeatedly attempted to trash their own country and England too by blindly supporting policies that are - to put not too fine a point on it - communist. This is a part of the world where as late as 1989 an MP was trying to get elected by recalling "Red Clydeside". This is a part of the world where hatred of Thatcher is practically a national pasttime, although her crimes amounted to ending communist policies like massive state ownership of industry and trade union control. Scotland failed to adapt to deindustrialisation and failed so hard that decades after the rest of the country has moved on, lots of people there are still nursing a massive grudge.

Scotland's current state isn't because it was badly treated by England. Arguably the south of England saved Scotland in the 1980's. Leaving behind Soviet-style economic policies wasn't a choice, it was an inevitability, as the USSR would prove when it collapsed around the time Thatcher was booted out.

Now we see in the Yes campaign socialism rear its ugly head once again. The most common reason I've seen for voting for independence is that the nasty mean English vote Tory and Scots are fairer, kinder and more hard working than that. Even Salmond, the man who runs a political party that has basically mainstream economic policies, doesn't hesitate to take a giant dump on the English by implying that an independent Scotland would be a utopia of milk and honey once the hated Tories are overthrown. When asked what kind of spending cuts would happen post independence Sturgeon simply said "there wouldn't be any".

The reality is that Yes is campaigning on a framework of economic illiteracy. If they win independence, there are really only two possible outcomes - one is that the rest of Scotland manages to counterbalane the hard left somehow and Holyrood runs governments that look much like those in Westminster from an economic perspective. The other possibility is that disaster strikes and people who want to roll Scotland back to the chaos of the 1970's actually start winning elections, in which case Scotland will probably end up looking like Ireland did for much of the 20th century (dirt poor with large amounts of emigration).

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Skarjak]

I read your post in the same voice as the South Park "they tuk our jerbs!" guys. It was pretty funny. :)

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Alioth]

I don't see what the beef over immigration is -- it actually works both ways. There are about 1 million Britons living in Spain right now under the same rules.

What happens is this: older Britons who are more likely to be in poor health and a drain on the NHS, and who are frequently trying to dodge taxes move to Spain, and burden the Spanish economy (I know some of these people - they basically do everything they can to avoid paying any tax in Spain where they are consuming public services). Basically, economically inactive people who burden public services. In return, the immigrants we get from the EU are young, healthy, fit people who are eager to work and contribute, do not put a burden on the health service and contribute more than they take. A win-win situation.

The funniest thing I saw was a rant from a British person (in the Daily Fail of course) who had immigrated into Spain about how Spain was much better at keeping immigrants out than the UK...despite the fact that he himself was an immigrant into Spain!

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[OptimalCynic]

with lots of self-government combined with a net financial income from the rest of the UK

Which is why, as an Englishman, I sincerely hope that Scotland votes yes.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

warning of economic doom upon a "yes" vote is scaremongering,

Which it is, because there is no justification for the argument that it will cause "economic doom" - i.e. a case of pure FUD.

bullying,

Which it is, because the message comes down to, "Stay with me or I'll make it miserable for you."

or "undermining the Scottish democratic process."

Which it is, because obviously independence gives greater choice to the people of Scotland.

Many intelligent people looking at this from a rational perspective

Wow, aren't those ever a politician's rhetoric? "Many intelligent people" "from a rational perspective".

and having devo-max

Which means what, exactly? As much devolution as the UK are prepared to give them? OK... all of it, then. End of supremacy of Westminster Parliament. Everything else can be negotiated into treaties to keep the two nations working together.

lots of self-government

"Less".

combined with a net financial income from the rest of the UK,

Oh, this old chestnut. It's not what you have but what you do with it.

as well as obviously ease of trade.

Yeah, "obviously". If only there were some way to form free trade agreements.

independence, at any cost.

At any cost? You mean they're prepared to engage in violent revolution? No? OK then.

frankly loony picture of a prosperous independent Scotland

"frankly loony" - more empty political rhetoric. It's possible that Scotland is unique in the last hundred years among the countries choosing independence in that it will find itself ruined purely by the choice for its own government to have supremacy over that of another nation. The whole point in FUD, after all, is that you highlight a tiny possibility of something.

I guess it's a bit like Florida choosing to break away from the US,

That's nothing like what it is at all. You clearly have no understanding of US history, or possibly of Scottish history, if you think it's anything like Florida trying to secede.

having a pro-Florida political party endlessly demonizing "them" (the rest of the US)

England has become pretty fucking shambolic, and I speak as someone who has lived most of my life in England. But if you have little power, it's pretty damn hard to blame yourself for the big stuff, ya get me? So while it's only the more conservative media which tend to portray Salmond as endlessly tilting at England, to the extent that he actually does this, it's quite understandable.

If the UK breaks up, the whole of Britain will be worse off for it,

"will be". FUD.

but I suspect Scotland will take the bigger brunt of the pain.

"I suspect". Bit better. FUD.

And given that it will have made the decision, it will deserve to.

Any argument which comes down to, "And they deserve to suffer!" is a reductio which fails on ethical grounds.

It's embarrassing to /. that your post has received so much attention. It's not so much that it comes down on the wrong side (no choice to negotiate on equal terms, vs choice to renegotiate on equal terms) but that it's entirely empty rhetoric and scaremongering.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[OptimalCynic]

If they vote yes it'll be Venezuela on the Clyde. I can't wait.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[IamTheRealMike]

I don't see what the beef over immigration is -- it actually works both ways. There are about 1 million Britons living in Spain right now under the same rules.

I've never met anyone in the UK who has a problem with immigration from west European countries that are culturally similar to themselves. Most of the problems crop up with poorly integrated Islamic integration where you get entire neighbourhoods in some cities that look basically like Pakistan: people wearing veils, not speaking English, etc.

The other issue is economic, the UK didn't use transitional controls when Poland entered the EU to delay immigration, so it got a really really large number of Polish immigrants because they had few other places to go. The evidence suggests the UK benefited from this economically but given the sheer speed and scale of the migration it's not hard to see why people got antsy.

The same did not happen when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU so I'm hoping immigration will blow over in the coming years if the economy continues to recover. But we'll see. It's not a UK specific problem, there's anti-immigration sentiment in populations all over Europe.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Alioth]

I don't think it will take as long as you expect to rejoin the EU (the UK will continue to exist on Friday if the vote is yes, it's at least a couple of years away for the first day of Scotland as a new sovereign nation in the event of a yes vote). The EU will make sure that Scotland is in by that deadline - for one, the Spanish fishing fleets won't tolerate being denied access to Scottish waters.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[CreatureComfort]

Exactly. Technically they are correct, because, with no current independent Scotland, there are, of course, no Scottish banks. However, it is absurd to think that the new Scottish government, once it is formed, wouldn't have a set of well structured banking laws ready to be implemented as part of the initial implementation vote. There will also be a long line of financial interests ready to instantly start banking in a new Scotland, as soon as their chartering papers can be signed by the new bureaucracy.

The Vote No group's arguments about Scottish financial ruin are equivalent to them arguing that the streets are going to be in chaos the day after the vote, because there will be no legal speed limits, stop signs, or traffic control. The Vote No campaign is mostly financed by the existing oligarchs who are afraid they wont be fast enough and agile enough to become one of the new oligarchs.

Also, as far as movement across boundaries and access to markets, that is all part of what setting up a new government is all about, and it gets handled before formal independence and the coverage of the U.K. legal structure goes away.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[rioki]

The Royal Bank of Scotland is not Scottish? It is not clear who owns it, since it is publicly traded; but I don't think they would close down their HQ in Edinburgh, just because Scotland is now an independent country.

I honestly think the EU would be fully willing to integrate Scotland from day one. Some eastern European countries will probably complain, but that is just political blocking going on. I am pretty sure that they can turn something like Scotland can "inherit" their EU membership from the UK. (That is under the assumption that the Scottish government actually wants to.) Following that the EU would probably not mind adding Scotland to the Monetary Union and thus give them the EURO. More volume is basically always better for a currency.

In addition Norway is not in the EU and they seem to do well too... I don't get what the doom and gloom is. I understand both sides politically and emotionally, but I doubt that an independent Scotland will not be the end of the world everybody is painting.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pathetic bullshit. Firstly, Scotland has a higher per-capita GDP than the rest of UK (source: OECD). Secondly, it has 90% of UK's oil reserves. Thirdly, I see lots of english mass-media attacking the Yes campaign with third-world disinformation methods. All of that makes me think that it's you guys from England who should be scared of scottish independence, not the other way around. In a divorce, the weaker part is the one who refuses it.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jeremyp]

Also an English guy, I don't think you understand that you've not exactly treated Scotland very well and that's one of the reasons it wants to leave.

Can you give some examples in which England has treated Scotland badly in the last twenty years? Or two hundred years?

Another reason is that much of oil England is harvesting is Scottish

Actually, it is the UK that is harvesting British oil. Except it's not the UK, it's oil companies who then pay taxes to the UK. The taxes then get used all over the UK according to need. This is the way most Western countries operate.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jez9999]

Which makes it all the more hilarious that the Scottish Greens are supporting independence. Scotland's #1 economic crutch is basically going to be "drill, baby, drill!" How exactly does that fit their agenda again...? I guess all the million and one wind turbines will make up for it.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

...
And if the EU were to exclude Scotland, then that would be the first time the EU will have contracted instead of expanding which would undermine confidence in the EU itself just as it was regaining it. ....

Not true,

Greenland joined the EU with Denmark in 1973, but left again in 1985 after a referendum

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[chihowa]

From an American point of view, your whole screed reads like the "defense of slavery" essays of old. A single issue argument based only on economics and dependent on the presumed incurable ignorance of your unwilling subjects.

I don't really care about this vote either way, but after wading through your disdainful little piece, I'm rooting for the Scots.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jez9999]

I suspect the way things might go is like this - if there's a yes vote, the complications of cleaving the UK in two will soak up all spare Parliamentary time and political capacity for the next few years and push out an EU in/out referendum by some time. By this point the English will have realised that Scotland is desperately trying to get back in and being a part of the EU is a significant bargaining tool with the new iScotland. Seeing the effects of not being in the EU first hand will change a lot of minds, especially once the serious debates start going.

Then again, Scotland by that point will probably be in such a state that they would be a net recipient from the EU - meaning that unless the rUK pulls out, their EU contributions will be going to fund an independent Scotland that recently told the rUK to go fuck itself. Sounds like the best argument yet for leaving the EU. :-)

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

RBS announced last week they were leaving Scotland and moving to London if it votes yes so you're a little behind the times there.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[halivar]

Ask a protestant and they might not.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they ended up being owned by Lloyd's after all of their bailouts.

Of course I was too lazy to actually do a Startpage search.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[ThisIsAnonymous]

North Dakota and South Dakota are already split...they are entirely distinct states with their own taxes, governors, state laws etc.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Scotland wont get devo max. As soonas this vote is over the government in Westminster is going to take action to punish the Scots for daring to challenge their authority. There will be cuts. The MPs in Westminister will do everything they can to retain power, because how else will they be able to build fancy duck ponds and claim high levels of expenses?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying that soon all the Scottish will be fat and drunk?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your example of "Florida trying to break away from the US" is an interesting one. To me, it feels more like North Dakota splitting from South Dakota while staying within the US, which a lot of people would consider mostly a non-issue.

Except that North and South Dakota already are separate states. Maybe you were thinking of how some people want to divide up California into separate starts.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[DarkOx]

That and as much noise Lloyds and RBS are making about moving to London assumes the will have time before the generally leftist Scottish government nationalizes them. That is not something I think they were planning but I would not be surprised at all if someone gets that idea when they make moves to flee.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say this is more like Canada and Quebec, Texas has the right to succeed if its so chooses, but it lacks a the sort of hardcore us -vs- them native/ethnic slants of scotland and quebec to make something like that happen. /texan

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jez9999]

Um yeah, but surely with their Washington DC overlords like every other US state? How is that any more "acceptable" than London being overlords of Scotland?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[petermgreen]

So-far I haven't seen a good answer (that is an official answer from someone with the authority to make the descision) to the following questions

1: will the independent scotland be allowed to stay in the EU? if so will they choose to do so? if so will they get the same exemptions the UK gets or will they be forced to join the euro and the schengen area to maintain their EU membership? If they choose not to stay in the EU what will their relationship with the EU and UK be? if scotland is forced into the schengen area will the rest of the UK follow them?
2: in the event that the UK government refuses to let scotland have a currency union (which is what they are saying at the moment) and they are not forced into using the euro what will they do? will they use the UK pound unliterally? will they create their own currency but peg it at 1:1 with the UK pound? will they create their own currency and let it free-float? will they join the Euro?
3: in the event that scotland does not keep the pound which if any of the following groups will have their bank balances automatically or forciblly converted to the new currency? scotish people using scotish banks? english people using scotish banks? scotish people using english banks.
4: how will citizenship be handled (this is especially important if scotland ends up not in the EU). Will people get to chose? will they be forced to one side or the other based on where they lived at the time of independence? will people who want it be able to get dual english/scottish citizenship.
5: what will the impact on transportation and other infrastructure be? this is especially important if the answer to question 1 requires the construction of border controls at the scotish border.

Have I missed the answer to those questions or are the scots basically voting on independence without knowing the details of how it will work? how have these issues been handled in other country breakups?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[IamTheRealMike]

How Scotland voted is a matter of historical record - and they have consistently voted for policies so bad that no mainstream political party in any western country supports them any more. The same arguments crop up today, indeed "let's break away from the neoliberal consensus" is one of THE main arguments being made for independence.

When basically every political leader in every country has walked away from such policies because they didn't work, and bringing them back is a keystone of the whole campaign, what else are people supposed to think? Thatcher was decades ago, she is actually dead. People who still blame all their problems on her are as close to "incurable" as seems possible to describe.

BTW whatever happens it looks like at least half of Scotland is going to disagree with it. So even if the vote is for independence, they're hardly "unwilling subjects", especially as they want to keep large parts of the union.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[albacrankie]

But, but, all those resources make us an obvious target for evil countries who would like to exploit us. Aren't we much safer to share those resources with a friendly and mature country in return for their protection, guidance and economic skills? Especially a country that has the clout to negotiate on our behalf with those devious Europeans.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[xelah]

The Royal Bank of Scotland is not Scottish? It is not clear who owns it, since it is publicly traded

Isn't RBS 64% owned by the UK government? I know it was 81% earlier this year, but I think UKFI sold some.

but I don't think they would close down their HQ in Edinburgh, just because Scotland is now an independent country.

They've said they will: http://www.heraldscotland.com/...

I honestly think the EU would be fully willing to integrate Scotland from day one.

I'm sure the EU will let Scotland in. I don't think that's really the question (I really wouldn't take those who say that Scotland will be blocked seriously) - it's more about what other countries will want in return, and whether other countries with secessionist movements will want it to do it the hard way or the easy way. Countries in international bodies don't tend to agree to anything without getting something they want, even if it's not related. So, Scotland may find it hard to get all the exemptions the UK has and the budget will be up for negotiation. In theory new states are supposed to join the Euro and Schengen (which I would like but would drive UKIPers and the UK Conservatives insane), but I'm sure they'll be able to avoid that if they give something else up and take longer over it. But I imagine that the worst part for Scotland will the uncertainty whilst it's negotiated. Businesses will hate that.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[UnknowingFool]

So a man who was born in and lived in England until he was 27 (2005) is as English as George Bush. I see. So what makes you English and not him?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Royal Bank of Scotland is not Scottish? It is not clear who owns it, since it is publicly traded; but I don't think they would close down their HQ in Edinburgh, just because Scotland is now an independent country.

R.B.S., Bank of Scotland (part of Lloyds) and Clydesdale Bank (part of National Australia Bank) are the 3 banks authorized to issue Scottish pound notes. All 3 have all publicly stated they will move their headquarters to England in case of a No vote. Probably not many jobs would move, but their official HQs would.

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[localhost8080]

No taxation without representation.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jandersen]

Before you start comparing Scotland's wish for independence to anything, you might check up on the historical background, so you understand why it is many Scots feel strongly about the issue. Florida wishing to break away from the US doesn't really compare - for one thing, they don't have 1000+ years of history as an independent nation, nor did they hold back the Romans 2000 years ago; to my mind that's got to count for something.

Personally, I don't think it means the end of the world, objectively speaking, whether Scotland stays or leaves. The fact is that the two sides are about equal in size, so whatever happens after the referendum will necessarily have to reflect that - seeing that Scotland and the UK are democratic nations. And it has been clear for a while, that the UK needs a shake-up in some form or other any way.

If Scotland does break away, there are some things that will be more difficult, of course; but other things will be better. It can work very well - I can't see why not. If they stay, there will still have to be changes - again, that can work very well. I don't have a vote in this referendum, but if I did, I would probably vote no because it seems more comfortable in the short term - however, if the yes side wins, I wish them all the best and feel that we should support them in getting the best out of it.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[clarkkent09]

What will UK be called if Scotland secedes? United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[towermac]

Even if the scaremongering has been overdone (this from the perspective of an American spectator), TFS is piling on: "...there will be no local banks."

That is just silly, unless Scotland intends to outlaw banks. I don't think they do.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jez9999]

I don't see what the beef over immigration is -- it actually works both ways. There are about 1 million Britons living in Spain right now under the same rules.

England is one of the most densely-populated countries in the world. Part of the beef over immigration is that we need to build 100,000s of new houses every year because there are more and more and more people, and some of us would actually quite like to stop before we get to the stage of sea-to-sea housing developments.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Princeofcups]

Americans might look on with bemusement; I can understand that. I guess it's a bit like Florida choosing to break away from the US, having a pro-Florida political party endlessly demonizing "them" (the rest of the US) as causing pretty much every economic and political woe Florida has going for it.

We have a Scotland, but here it's called Texas.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[clarkkent09]

I wonder with 4 million voters who tend to overwhelmingly prefer Labour to Tories gone will Labour eventually cease to be a factor in the UK elections? UKIP: right, Tories: centre-right, Lib Dems: centre-left, Labour: loonie left.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[RaceProUK]

United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland, probably, given Britain = England & Wales (in a manner of speaking anyway).

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[AmiMoJo]

In Scotland it's arguably the other way around. The UK benefits from Scottish oil and renewable energy. Scotland would be better off keeping it for itself. Unfortunately a lot of the oil wealth has already been squandered.

Scotland also leans much further to the left than England, but ends up with very right wing English governments and policies. Devolution of power has helped a bit but ultimately only independence will fully protect them.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[rapiddescent]

google "weebluebook"

I don't claim to have the answers (see book above),

1: The 2016 in/out referendum for the entire UK (depending on tomorrows referendum outcome) to leave/stay in the EU is so much more important. Scots (according to polls) prefer the EU. the centre right politics more prevalent in England are less affectionate to the EU.

2: There are 3 sterlingisation methods described in the Scotland Future book. There are two types of pegging; but the downside for the UK with sterlingisation is that Scotland would not be liable for any share of the UK accumulated debt. Many are seeing the "We will use Sterling" as a game play tactic to force George Osbourne into a corner. The Treasure have already confirmed that the debt belongs to the UK and only the UK. This would leave Scotland with a new currency but with tremendous assets and no liabilities. Many Yesser Scots prefer this - but many in finance would prefer to see a shared currency and for Scotland to continue to be responsible for debt, a shared currency is cheaper to do business in.

The Euro is off the cards because you have to be in the ERM for 2 years with your own free-standing currency. remember when the Uk tried that before?

3: I don't know

4: Citizenship is covered in the Scotland Future book. It's the individuals choice to up until your grand children to have UK, Scots or both. My grand kids will be Scottish only citizens.

5: there are no border controls in the rest of Europe, or on the Irish border, not sure why this is a being played as a big issue. If there are controls, it will probably be on the English side only. Whilst driving in Ireland I had been in Ireland for a few miles before I realised I was on the south side of the border (a road sign had the speed limit in km/h)

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Eunuchswear]

Why would they "flee"? Banks are in business to make money, and you make money by doing business, not by closing the shop. If RBS, Clydesdale and the Bank of Scotland make the insane decision not to offer banking services in Scotland then someone else will.

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

England isn't a country. The UK is a country.

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK is ranked 51st in population density - Vietnam is more densely populated! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing the effects of not being in the EU first hand will change a lot of minds, especially once the serious debates start going.

If you're implying that Scotland's independence would mean they're no longer in the EU, I think that you're badly mistaken - no one I know has even considered that as a possibility.

Scottish people are EU citizens, just cause one state inside the EU splits up into two isn't going to change that. I think the article 49 ("joining the EU") isn't applicable, it's article 48. Spain will complain a bit, but they won't be able to stop this just cause the EU constitution is missing some "what if" clauses.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because every bank in Scotland has already lined their walls with explosives tied to the "Yes" button?

I fully expect that there will be issues sorting citizenship and taxes, but don't lie about the fact that you're going to take your ball and go home if Scotland becomes independent, the only one making that choice is you.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[AmiMoJo]

Thatcher destroyed manufacturing and industry in the whole of the UK. The north of England and Wales were trashed just as badly. She did that to Scotland, as well as the Poll Tax which caused riots. All the stuff she privatised has gone to shit - energy companies, the railways, British Telecom... Now they see Cameron privatising Royal Mail and the NHS too.

Her policies failed utterly and lead to the global financial crash a few years back. In the end she was such a liability her own party had to get rid of her. Scotland would do well to get away from her legacy.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Richard_at_work]

but the downside for the UK with sterlingisation is that Scotland would not be liable for any share of the UK accumulated debt.

I'm afraid you have fallen in Salmonds trap - debt and currency are two entirely separate things, they are not linked in any manner and while Scotland can *refuse* to take its share of debt, that refusal is not automatic based on not taking the currency.

A countries debt is denominated in the currency that country uses, but its not linked to it in any other way.

If Scotland do refuse to take its share, then it will have a poorer credit rating on the international funds markets because of it.

The Treasure have already confirmed that the debt belongs to the UK and only the UK.

No, what the Treasury did was confirm that the entirety of the debt was safe, it would be serviced by the UK even in the event that Scotland refused to take its share - they did this because it eliminated pre-referendum uncertainty about the financial situation, and prevented pre-emptive financial issues surrounding borrowing rates when lenders refuse to lend to the pre-referendum UK on the basis that it may not get its money back.

Again you have fallen into Salmonds trap by accepting his statements at face value - the UK just guaranteed the entirety of the debt, but that doesn't have any standing as to exonerating Scotland from its share when it comes to post-referendum negotiations. This isn't the school yard here.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jabuzz]

E.U. laws require financial institutions to be headquartered in the country with the most customers. Over the centuries of union those Scottish banks such as RBS, Bank of Scotland etc. all now have more customers in England than in Scotland. To continue to legally operate in the remainder of the U.K. those banks will have to shift their headquarters. The end result is no banks that are headquartered in Scotland, and no local banks.

All the banks have announced/leaked plans to relocate their headquarters to England in the event of a Yes vote.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't this be a good move for England (and Wales)? It would seem that a smaller proportion of MPs would then be socialist/communist leaning, allowing for a more reasonable economic approach in the rest of the UK. Scotland might become much worse off, but in balance, the UK would improve.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[dandelionblue]

Actually, RBS plans to do exactly that in the event of a Yes vote:
http://www.theguardian.com/bus...

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[KeithJM]

Right, but in this analogy DC represents the EU. A better example would have been Northern California splitting from California, but staying in the US.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[petermgreen]

there are no border controls in the rest of Europe, or on the Irish border, not sure why this is a being played as a big issue

There are border controls between the UK and france becasue the UK is not part of the schengen area. Normally EU countries are required to join the schengen area but the UK and the republic of ireland negotiated themselves an exception.

If scotland joins the EU and is unable to negotiate an exception from the schengen area and the rest of the UK decides to remain outside the schengen area then scotland would be required to implement border controls with respect to the remainder of the UK.

If scotland does not join the EU then I'm not sure what the situation would be but I expect there would need to be customs controls but possiblly not full border controls.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the vast majority of Americans would be all in favor of any southern state that wants to leave, or all of them. It would be one huge fucking financial burden off of the rest of us.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Scotland has been treated very well indeed. When it joined the Union its people were piss poor and its "government" was bankrupt. It's now a wealthy first world country, with lots of MPs ...and Iceland accomplished the same thing without anybody's help. They were by far the poorest nation in Europe a century ago and now they are one of the richest. They even recovered from one of the worst financial shocks any country has suffered, and they did it faster than anyone thought remotely possible. The best thing they ever did for themselves was freeing themselves from Denmark. They never would have had the legislative freedom to solve their own problems if they had to get Copenhagen's approval.

The viability of small homogenous countries is an artifact of globalization and an educated populace. The world has changed in 300 years. Scotland can do just fine on its own. England needs them more than they need England.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[silanea]

[...] Scotland has a heck of a lot more in common with Britain than mainland Europe; linguistically, geographically, historically, and culturally [...]

For some definition of "in common", yes.

• Language? Well, Germany, Austria and parts of Switzerland, nothern Italy, northeastern France and a couple of smaller regions share one language, in one form or the other. Not much of an argument.
• Geography? If by that you mean location, Germany and France are right next to each other as well. If you refer to the type of geography displayed, Scotland has more in common with Bavaria or Tyrol, or some of the eastern European countries, than with most of England.
• History? Sure. For the most part a history of antagonism, war and the exertion of power. Like, say, Germany and Austria.
• Culture? Sure. Like any other geographically close region there is a certain portion of shared culture.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anubis IV]

What I have to say doesn't really change what you've said, but for your own future reference and information, there isn't any way for North and South Dakota to split from each other without leaving the US. They're already separate states and have been for as long as they've been states.

The last time they were part of a common political entity that was itself also a part of the US was when they were collectively known as the Dakota Territory (1861-1889), back before they became states. And, at least if Wikipedia is anything to go by, it's sounds like their becoming separate states wasn't exactly a non-issue, since it was a power play being made by one of the political parties to increase the number of seats they held in the US Senate (each state gets two Senators, so splitting the territory instead of accepting it whole meant doubling the number of Senators).

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[dave420]

And most decent people don't have a problem with lots of people from Pakistan or Bangladesh. It's just racists and xenophobes who have such ridiculous, childish attitudes towards their fellow human beings.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[DarkOx]

Oh I don't either bank is threatening to stop or even reduce banking service available but to move their head quarters. Which dictates where the tax revenue goes.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[kaatochacha]

I once suggested, in my youth, that the United States annex Canada because it would be "neat". I was appropriately castigated for making important decisions based on silliness

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[IamTheRealMike]

I wonder with 4 million voters who tend to overwhelmingly prefer Labour to Tories gone will Labour eventually cease to be a factor in the UK elections?

Nah. I don't think it'll make much difference in the long run. Labour will simply continue to adopt the policies that make the Tories more popular, and then find other ways to differentiate themselves.

A big part of the reason for the widespread disillusionment with UK politics is that Labour and Conservatives were traditionally very different, with Labour representing the (to use obsolete lingo) proletariat and the Tories being the party of the bourgeoisie. When hard-left economics became totally discredited and abandoned by the mainstream, Labour had to find a new identity. Blair did the most to make the party electable again with his New Labour campaign, but he was only partially successful in his reforms. Once Brown replaced him the party immediately returned to the high spending policies old Labour was traditionally associated with. The public sector increased in size in a fairly short space of time and when the economic crisis hit, Labour couldn't credibly claim they had truly learned the lessons of the 70's. With Scotland's strong preference for voting anything-but-Tory, the result was a (rare, for the UK) coalition government in which the conservatives were left with the rum job of explaining to people why they were paying more to get less.

Ultimately, Labour will complete the reforms started under Blair and old Labour will be consigned to history. If Scotland leaves that process will happen much faster. I don't know what their primary differentiator would be in future but it looks like they might be trying to seize "Higher taxes to pay for the NHS" as their own territory - not a bad strategy, I'd think, although it's one that's easily replicated by other parties too if it proves popular. At any rate, they'll find some way to justify their existence and sometimes that'll be enough to win elections. Then the process will go into reverse and the Tories will struggle to justify why they should replace the incumbents given that their policies are pretty similar.

A lot of people find the new status quo of political parties that mostly agree on things to be somehow indicative of decline or moral decay. I don't really see it that way. I see the politics of the 20th century as utterly dysfunctional - riven with unresolvable ideological divides. Now that Marx has been put behind us, the new politics is about disagreement over relatively small things. This isn't a sign of a society in decline, it's a sign of a society that's largely at peace with itself.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Royal bank of Scotland and Lloyd's have already stated that they will move their headquarters to London in the event of a yes vote.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[rogoshen1]

Tis okay, the UK will keep the banks, and Scotland will keep London's police force.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[IamTheRealMike]

Thatcher destroyed manufacturing and industry in the whole of the UK. The north of England and Wales were trashed just as badly. She did that to Scotland, as well as the Poll Tax which caused riots. All the stuff she privatised has gone to shit - energy companies, the railways, British Telecom... Now they see Cameron privatising Royal Mail and the NHS too. Her policies failed utterly and lead to the global financial crash a few years back.

That's the view that sums up the Yes campaign, indeed. But is it realistic?

Let's start with "Thatcher destroyed manufacturing and industry". I find it to be a very misleading way to phrase things. At the time Thatcher came to power, heavily nationalised UK industry was already destroying itself. It had high costs, low productivity, large chunks of it were unprofitable and it was dominated by incredibly militant unions who didn't care about any of this at all, because their wages were being subsidised by tax and the printing of money. Being unprofitable is not some minor debating point. Enormous numbers of people in the UK were being paid to uselessly dig holes in the ground. There was no purpose to this. In the absence of subsidies, nobody would have wanted the rocks that were being dug up. Other people in other countries were doing it better.

And it wasn't just mining. At the time Thatcher came to power the British state also owned shipyards, steel works, a furniture removal company and the Gleneagles Hotel ..... just to name a few.

None of this made any sense. It had happened because the post-war governments believed full employment mattered more than inflation. The result was openly Marxist trade unions realised a weak government with an addiction to money printing could be turned into an ATM via nationally organised strikes. By the 1970's the UK was a basket case. It was suffering electricity blackouts, trash was piling up on the streets uncollected, railways didn't work, even emergency services and hospitals were striking. The country was one of the poorest in Europe and being called "ungovernable". The strikes were wildly unpopular with over 80% disapproval ratings of the strikers being common.

There was no way these industries were ever going to be world-beating titans ever again.

Thatcher was elected to fix this state of affairs, and she did, by making the painful choice to take away the subsidies and start targeting inflation instead of employment.

By the time she left the UK was a stable and prosperous first world nation once again.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Koreantoast]

We do have something similar, although it is called Texas.

Not really. Less than 20% Texans are polled to be in support of secession. That falls in line with the national average of all US citizens who want their states to cede, from New Englanders wanting to join Canada to Silicon Valley types fantasizing about their own libertarian utopia.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

No it has not didn't you fight a war to decide that issue?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Barsteward]

Scotland might lose all that oil if the Orkneys/Shetlands independence movement ever gets going..

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[geekoid]

Texas can't secede. The original agreement was changed decades ago.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[IamTheRealMike]

Not really. Less than 20% Texans are polled to be in support of secession. That falls in line with the national average of all US citizens who want their states to cede

Well yes but watch out for that. When the independence campaign began in Scotland support for a Yes vote was sitting around 20% (I think?). After many months of campaigning it's reached about 50%.

So don't assume that the status quo in the USA will remain. The big difference is that when independence is not actually on offer, there's no real point to answering yes in the polls. Once it becomes possible and people start legitimately campaigning for it, opinions can change pretty fast.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Barsteward]

The "no" campaign had a difficult task because Salmond was been making a load of promises with nothing to back it up e.g. saying they'll have sterling currency union even though he's been told by UK government it won;t happen, auto acceptance into EU etc etc

so they've had to refute these claims so it comes over negative. Salmond has created the emotional cry for independence where the No campaign have had to use the intellectual approach which always loses against emotions because a lot more people make emotional decisions rather than considered ones.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

No it should read UKIP too racist , xenophobic and loony for the tories, tories Loony right LKib dems virtually extinct, Labour more right wing than George Bush

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Richard Dick Head]

For those of you just tuning in, "rUK" is a term scots use to denote the "rest of the UK" aka England and Wales.

Google isn't helpful with this one, you have to ask someone lol

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Grishnakh]

Americans might look on with bemusement; I can understand that. I guess it's a bit like Florida choosing to break away from the US, having a pro-Florida political party endlessly demonizing "them" (the rest of the US) as causing pretty much every economic and political woe Florida has going for it.

As an American, I'd be happy to see Florida secede from the US. We'd be better off without them. Let them deal with their own problems.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[u38cg]

Most of those numbers are incorrect, if not downright false.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Arent you forgetting she did it on a credit bubble that went 'pop'!

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jez9999]

I live in England NOW. I'm not a complete tosser who's sold his soul to the Americans and The Daily Show and Jon Stewart.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Grishnakh]

There's nothing silly about such debates.

I'd like to see the US and Canada both break apart and reform into new, smaller nations. I think, for the residents in many of the new nations, life would be better than the current state. I think perhaps 6 new nations would be a good number; one nation would include the pacific northwest areas of NorCal, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and maybe Yukon and Alaska. The American southeast would be a single nation, and maybe the southwest too. The US New England states plus the Canadian Maritime provinces would be a single nation. With these regions separated from each other, we wouldn't have all the infighting we have now between clashing cultures (e.g. highly religious values in the Bible Belt versus socially liberal values in the northeast and northwest).

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Grishnakh]

Yes, just remove "Scotland, " from the name.

Of course, Scotland can never secede from Great Britain, unless they dig a big canal on the border and turn their country into a separate island.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Grishnakh]

To me, it feels more like North Dakota splitting from South Dakota while staying within the US, which a lot of people would consider mostly a non-issue.

Huh? It's nothing like that at all. North Dakota and South Dakota are already split, and have been for a very long time. They're entirely separate states with no more relationship with each other than they have with Minnesota or Montana. They just happen to share part of their name.

Perhaps you meant "it feels more like Upstate New York splitting from NYC while staying within the US." (Which would actually be a great idea IMO.) We've actually done this before, sorta: during the Civil War, West Virginia broke away from Virginia and formed a new state so it could remain in the Union. We've also had many other states form by seceding from other states: Tennessee, for instance, used to be part of North Carolina, and Kentucky used to be part of Virginia. At one time early on, the 13 Colonies annexed everything to their west, all the way to the Mississippi River, drawing borders at the north and south mostly along latitude lines (or rivers, in the case of the Ohio river); later, these territories broke away and formed new states.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more like Quebec constantly trying to leave Canada. A bunch of rich frenchies trying to have their own country but also want their citizens to keep their Canadian Government jobs, use Canadian currency, have access to free health care in other provinces and basically have their cake and eat it too.

Not quite. Unlike Quebec, Scotland can join the EU. Quebec would not have the same options. EU is what makes independence much less radical than the Quebec referendum.

Anyway, Quebec could have used Canadian currency. There is no problem with that. Plenty of other nations use foreign currencies because their local ones are not palatable enough. What they could no longer have is keep Canadian Federal government jobs.

The big program would be that Quebec would no longer get any transfer payments which would put Quebec at a *substantial* deficit, lowered credit rating, and in an immediate fiscal crises. If Scotland is receiving any substantial monetary inflows from the rest of the UK, they may face the same problems.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[mvdwege]

Oh, those grapes are sour.

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always heard that and I don't know if it was changed but I have a problem with " the right to secede". The colonists didn't have the right to secede from England but did anyway. I think any large enough or influential enough group of people has the "right" to secede if they have the power/will to back it up-rule of law be damned.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, no.

Britannia minor is Brittany, in the north west of France.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[HiThere]

I thought most of the oil had already been pumped out...of course, that was before fracking...

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. It's more like july 4 1776 for the USA. Scotland should get their freedom.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Miamicanes]

We do have something similar, although it is called Texas.

Not quite. The treaty under which Texas-the-Lone-Star-Republic joined the USA gave it the right to secede at will... and it did.

After declaring independence, Texas proceeded to join the Confederate States of America, actively participated in warfare against the USA, and was conquered along with the rest of the CSA by Union troops & annexed by the USA as a vanquished military district.

Had Texas remained neutral & kept out of the war, it could have legitimately asked to rejoin the USA after (or during) the Civil war under freely-negotiated terms. As a conquered enemy land, Texas was in no position to negotiate anything.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[HiThere]

Charles Stoss seems to believe that Britain is extracting wealth from Scotland. Perhaps he's wrong, but an earlier post above voiced the same opinion...and also agreed that DevoMax was the better choice...but one which had been manuvered off the ballot by politicians.

I think that Stoss is hoping that the nationalist party will become a lot less radical once they get the vote for independence. I don't know them (I live in the US and don't have any close ties to Scotland), but I'm a bit dubious about that.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Thumper_SVX]

If you know Irish history you'll know that's not true. Generally the populous of the North are the ancestors of British settlers and hence Protestant. Thus their history is actually separate.

While they've had a shared history for a while, that's not always been the case. And culturally the two "halves" of Ireland (majority are actually Nationalist) have little truly in common. Lignuistically they all speak English mostly as a method of simplifying trade and cross-border relations; there are only a very few small pockets of Gaelic-native speakers in Ireland any more and even then they tend to be much older and therefore less likely to be around very long.

The issue of increased Irish integration comes down to one of both tradition and economics. While the UK may not be the best horse upon which to hitch your wagon, economically-speaking it's probably better than the rather horrible train-wreck of the Irish economy. Tradition simply comes down to the fact that as mentioned above nearly all Unionists are the Protestant descendants of the "Planters".

And contrary to popular belief in the US, the strife has nothing to do with religion. Not all Unionists are Protestant, while not all Nationalists are Catholic. There is crossover and diversity among those two groups... though true, religion does provide a handy "cheat-note" for those unfamiliar with the real history of Ireland.

Disclaimer: Northern Irish Protestant here, living in the USA. Though curiously far better educated on the history of Ireland than most of my family or peers I went to shcool with :)

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[chihowa]

I'm not attacking your facts and your logic is just as sound as the pro-slaver's logic was. I'm also not saying that Scotland is a vassal state. I'm only saying that your entire premise is false.

The post you responded to stated that "I don't think you understand that you've not exactly treated Scotland very well and that's one of the reasons it wants to leave," to which you responded that Scotland was poor before and would still be poor if they were left to their own devices. The argument that self-determination can't be trusted to the Scots because you know better is exactly the same argument made in favor of slavery.

BTW whatever happens it looks like at least half of Scotland is going to disagree with it. So even if the vote is for independence, they're hardly "unwilling subjects", especially as they want to keep large parts of the union.

Many slaves in the US weren't happy about losing their "job" and being cast out on their own, so I guess they were hardly "unwilling subjects".

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[HiThere]

Well, as a Californian I'm on the fence about that split. (Not that that's the one people were trying to get on the ballot. The North-South split actually makes *some* sense. And has ever since the Supreme court decided that the Californian Senate couldn't be elected based on geographic considerations rather than population considerations. (Even after the split, though, the agricultural areas would be underrepresented...for cetain definitions of underrepresented.)

In the current situation it feels as if the Southern counties are using their dominance in population (i.e. representation) to pillage the Northern counties...though that's a bit more extreme that what they are actually doing. But as the drought deepens, the folk in the North are forced into severe water control measures, and the folk of the South are still watering their lawns and letting the overflow flow down the gutter. And some farmers are being forced to cut down parts of their orchards because they can't afford enough water for all of the trees. (So even in the North, the city dwellers are less pressed than the farmers.)

That said, even were such an amendment to pass (in the state) it would need the concurrence of the feds. (I don't know the details, but such an agreement is unlikely.)

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me like Scottish people are represented both in Parliament and the Scottish Parliament?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[HiThere]

Yes, it's the way most contries operate. The most benefit goes to the politically well connected.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it's a bit like Florida choosing to break away from the US

Not really. American identity is just about the only thing Floridians actually have IN COMMON. Statistically, almost everyone in Florida who's over 30 was either born somewhere else, or has parents who were.

In European terms, think of Britain as Ohio, Germany as New York, and Spain as Florida circa 1970. 25 years from now, native-born elderly Spaniards will be totally nostalgic for the gold old days when their neighbors at least spoke some dialect of Spanish (even if it was the wrong one), and they didn't have to be fluent in English just to order lunch at McDonald's without getting their order totally fucked up by the cashier.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition Norway is not in the EU and they seem to do well too...

Hmmm, I think it has something to do with oil (which of course Scotland has too). However, without oil, Norway would undoubtedly have become an EU member long ago. To be precise, when Sweden and Finland joined (in 1995) and Denmark already was. Those countries are just slightly different flavours of "small, wealthy social democracy". I say this as someone who is born in one, has parents from another and grown up in the remaining two - I'm about as Scandinavian as you can possibly be :)

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

The rejoining is sort of ironic. Not quite as ironic as how the former Yugoslavia broke apart and now they're all eager to join the EU and agree to have the borders they fought a bloody war over be pretty much lines on a map and road signs but nothing else.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Ash-Fox]

the EU proves that currency unions are possible

You do realize the Greeks are in a miserable situation because they are not allowed to create their own currency and devalue (like Iceland did not too long ago) to recover?

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is a raghead a human being?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[ShanghaiBill]

Texas can't secede. The original agreement was changed decades ago.

Yes. The new rules on Texas secession were settled at the Battle of Palmito Ranch.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Uberbah]

Hmm, citation vs empty tautology, which to choose....

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree with your premise that "infighting" between different cultures is bad. There is great value in both economic and cultural diversity. The free exchange of ideas between different people is a core American value and I suspect that it is the same way in most other free nations.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Ash-Fox]

The other issue is economic, the UK didn't use transitional controls when Poland entered the EU to delay immigration, so it got a really really large number of Polish immigrants because they had few other places to go. The evidence suggests the UK benefited from this economically but given the sheer speed and scale of the migration it's not hard to see why people got antsy.

Some of us have other reasons to be antsy.

I lived in Poland for over a decade, I was forced to have a visa and such when legally I wasn't required because I am an EU citizen. I was regularly told that I was stealing Polish land, taking the food out of their children's mouths, taking their jobs away by people who learned that I wasn't Polish. I learned Polish, could almost speak like a native.

I eventually moved to the UK, I participated in the Polish communities, listened to how a vocal minority wanted to demand there be Polish news papers, Polish radio stations, mandatory lessons to teach other children about Polish culture etc. I do remember once instance, I was in a job agency searching for a job, when one of the staff commented in Polish that I shouldn't be there to her colleague once she found out I was not Polish.

I don't think the majority of Polish people are bad people, I don't think the majority of them are xenophobic. I do feel antsy about them because I have been mistreated by many Polish people and their government and I have seen preferential treatment employed by Polish communities as a sort of solidarity against true integration into UK society.

I believe that people pick up on these signals and is part of the reason for the dislike.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Uberbah]

That's easy. Scotland is the last western country in existence that's arguably feudal in nature.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Totally agree. Just wanted to add how maddening it is hearing Salmond & co. demonising the "no"s, whilst essentially planning to rob the rUK of the ability to control our own currency.

I'm fucked if I'm going to have "a foreign country" having a say in our currency if they get independence... especially since I don't get a vote in this.

Anyone who isn't familiar with this debate might be entertained by this video; Andrew Neil grilling Nicola Sturgeon on currency earlier this year.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

The managers of RBS have already said public they will move HQ to London in the even of a yes result.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[UnknowingFool]

I see. A man who moves overseas for a job gives up his nationality and heritage in your eyes. So is David Beckham not English? Is then Sir Patrick Stewart only half a tosser as he spends part of the year on Broadway with his American wife and part of the year in England.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Grishnakh]

You think infighting is a good idea? To waste time and energy constantly debating whether Creationism is real or not, or whether women should have equal rights?

Cultural diversity isn't a problem. People in different regions can maintain their own, separate cultures and be happy on their own, instead of having to constantly fight with other people in neighboring regions about whose culture is better and should be dominant. What you're advocating is not cultural diversity at all, but either cultural imperialism or a morass where no one is happy because no one gets to actually have their own distinct culture.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Citizen of Earth]

If the UK is divisible, then so is Scotland. What do the people who live near the oil think about independence?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[bigpat]

You could argue the same thing for Detroit... if only they could devalue the Detroit national currency and print their way out of debt then they wouldn't have needed to go into default/bankruptcy and technically ruin their credit rating.

Or they could just settle on a budget that is actually sustainable and not have to borrow at a rate that is outpacing the growth in tax revenue.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[angel'o'sphere]

Scotland already has its own currency, it is called the Scottish Pound, issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
I believe they have that currency since several centuries ...

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Ash-Fox]

You could argue the same thing for Detroit... if only they could devalue the Detroit national currency and print their way out of debt then they wouldn't have needed to go into default/bankruptcy and technically ruin their credit rating.

Pretty certain Iceland's credit rating is better now than what it was prior to devaluation.

Or they could just settle on a budget that is actually sustainable and not have to borrow at a rate that is outpacing the growth in tax revenue.

Which isn't really possible when the economy of Greece is that vastly different from the big earners of the European Union (let's not forget that the EU politicians took their membership despite all the EU auditors and advisers saying they would not economically fit).

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[angel'o'sphere]

Did not know that the english speak a celtic dialect ... or craft Wiskey for that matter.
Afaik Scotland has more in common with the people from Brittany, France and Galicia, Spain than with the english ... but well, I'm from mainland Europe, what do I know?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[simonreid]

and 90% of the battered Mars Bars.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Rising Ape]

Did not know that the english speak a celtic dialect

Most Scots don't either - less than 2% speak any Scottish Gaelic.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Give RBS and the others The Boot and start up some honest credit unions instead.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wales has already gone part way there. The rest of Ireland is already independent. It probably doesn't makes sense for England to declare independence from the UK if it's effectively the only one left.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of a region where people largely agree about social / moral / economic systems has never been realized and never will be no matter what scale you look at. Every region will have misogynists, creationists, etc. The only way to address the existence of these ideologies and their negative impact on society is to discuss them because it is impossible to define an area that excludes them.

If one isn't happy because others don't conform to their ideal systems of thought, I suggest that they will never be happy.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[angel'o'sphere]

The greeks are in that shit for various reasons.
The main one is: they are all tricksters, cheaters and betrayers. It is basically a greek sport since Homers time, so no one really cared until it backfired.
You heard about the island with 5000 inhabitants and 4000 of them blind? One or two years ago the health care insurance made a survey turned out there was only one single blind man on the island.
If you go to the greek archiples in a sailing boat it is strongly advised not to make funny radio calls: 'We have a problem!', other boat: "What the fuck, your GF does not like to give you a BJ at the rudder?", "No, it is far worse!", "Shut the fuck up, what is it then!?", "The beer is empty!".
Funny? No, not really, sad is: two hours later a coast guard boat from the greek coast guard comes along side and and they shout: "prepare to be boarded, we got your emergency call about having a problem".
The end of the story is: they escort you into a harbour and demand a 'security certificate' from you, that the ship is safe and well equipped because "they have on protocol your: we have a problem' radio call". Needless to say that the authorities in the harbour are unavailable for 3 days or more so you have to pay for being in the harbor and anything extra you 'do' there. The security certificate bottom line costs about 3k Euro.

Or the other story, you land with an airplane in Chania, Krete, Greece. You like to take the bus from the airport to the town. The driver and ticket seller throw you out of the bus. If you try to stay inside they throw out your luggage. They 'proclaim' the bus only has accidentally stopped at the 'clear to see bus stop' and force you that way to use a cab. Likely the cab of a relative ...

Oh, and btw. there is mo law preventing Greece from making their own currency, actually they 'threatened' to do so for quite some years.

The problem with Greece and the euro is: they simply became greedy. The last time I was in Greece a coffee in a random bar costed like 15 cents(euro), that is roughly 15 years ago, perhaps 17, just one or two years before the Euro.

So for 'western' tourists the country was cheap. In Germany you pay about 2.50 Euro per coffee. At that time around 1.10 Euro.
Guess what you pay now for a coffee in Greece? A random Coffee in Athens? It is likely more than 2.50 Euro. They try to rip off tourists, figuring how expensive a coffee is in Paris, London or Berlin. But a tourist there shrugs, and tells himself: first, that was my last visit to Greece, and second, I only take one or two coffees a day, instead of my usual 6 or 8.

What is happening, or has happened, is: the greeks are fucking themselves over.

Oh, and I can tell you minimum a dozen more 'fraud' or 'corruption' or 'abuse of power' stories I experienced in Greece! However the boat story is the one why no of my friends is going to visit the country in the foreseeable future.
You don't plan to make a vacation for 3k Euro as a two couples and come home with -6k or lose your own boat to the coast guard. That is ridiculous ... I guess if Angela Merkel have had similar bad experiences the greek would now have their own currency ...

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of "yes" campaigners seem to have been sold on the idea that any warning of economic doom upon a "yes" vote is scaremongering, bullying, or "undermining the Scottish democratic process." Bullshit. Many intelligent people looking at this from a rational perspective have concluded that the "sweet spot" for Scotland is staying in the union and having devo-max; basically getting it both ways, with lots of self-government combined with a net financial income from the rest of the UK, as well as obviously ease of trade.

However, the pro-independence SNP are 100% blinkered on independence, at any cost. They will therefore paint warnings like this as lies designed purely to scupper their frankly loony picture of a prosperous independent Scotland, and a lot of Scots buy into it. Shame, really.

Americans might look on with bemusement; I can understand that. I guess it's a bit like Florida choosing to break away from the US, having a pro-Florida political party endlessly demonizing "them" (the rest of the US) as causing pretty much every economic and political woe Florida has going for it. As an English guy, I think this whole situation really sucks. If the UK breaks up, the whole of Britain will be worse off for it, but I suspect Scotland will take the bigger brunt of the pain. And given that it will have made the decision, it will deserve to.

About 10 years ago Czechoslovakia split.
There were dire warnings about the ability of the smaller and poorer Slovakia to survive.
Separation came 5 months after a parliamentary vote.

At the time the GDP of the Slovakian half of the country was 60-something % of the Czech half.
Now, the GDP in each country is equal.

The scaremongering factor has been massive.
Scotland has 8% of population of UK.
It receives 9% of revenue [This is oft trotted out as evidence of favoritism by other parts of the UK, but is a simple result of its rural and remote countryside. Services cost more to deliver in rural areas and the settlement known as the Barnet formula takes that into account]
Scotland generates 10% of GDP

This last stat is one reason why there is so much scaremongering - it would blow a hole in UK gov budgets which are already set to deliver massive cuts on 2015 as the government claws back revenue to pay for the debt taken on in the financial crisis.

As an English guy, you really have little idea (it seems) of the reasons why Scotland might wish to go independent.
Here are my top 3

* getting rid of the tories (Scotland has not voted for a Tory government in the last 20 years but has suffered many years of their policies)
* the chance to exit stage left from the UK which tries and fails on the world stage. Well meant perhaps but hideiously badly judged all to often. Our involvement in the Iraq wars and other horrendous torture/rendition/intelligence practices will no longer be done in my name or with my tax dollar.
* the chance to put in place economic policies which actually suit Scotland and are not determined by the SE of England
* getting rid of Trident - a scandalous waste of money.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[angel'o'sphere]

E.U. laws require financial institutions to be headquartered in the country with the most customers.
Care to quote the law? I have trouble finding something like this with google.
Sorry, the rest is just nonsense.
Why should a bank refuse to have customers in Scotland?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Sique]

Umm yes. Ptolemy called the greater of both islands "megale Britannia", and the smaller one "mekra Britannia" (e.g. Great Britain and Small Britain).

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would imagine them functioning somewhat similar to Ireland, which is not functioning too bad as far as I know.
I live in Ireland, you insensitive sarcastic clod.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Sique]

It's even more complicated. Ireland has experienced one wave of viking and two waves of english settlers. The vikings settled around Dublin in the 9th and 10th century, until they were beaten by Brian Buro in the Battle of Clontarf. Then after the normannic conquest of England, the Normans set also out to conquer Ireland in the 11th and 12th century, and the King of England became Lord of Ireland, and normannic and english earls were ruling Ireland. But with time, the english control of Ireland lapsed, as the Kings of England were occupied with their territories in France and the battles in the Hundred Years War. The english earls became more and more irish, started to wear irish clothes, intermarried with irish aristocrats and even started to talk Irish Gaelic.

But after the loss of the Hundred Years War and all their continental territory, the english kings started to look into Ireland, especially Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. They managed to revive english rule in Ireland, and they started to send settlers from England, Wales and Scotland to Ireland. Those were the New English, compared with the Old English who came 400 years earlier. Most North Irish Protestants are the descendants of those settlers.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Britain will be worse off but the Scots have an egalitarian ethos inconsistent with the British approach. My prediction is that Scotland will flourish if Britain allows it. There are probably enough Chavs in Britain to slap Scotland into submission. The bemusement accusation is spot on. I thoroughly enjoyed listening the the fellow that stole the Stone of Destiny describe the Westminster meeting to decide what to do about it. "A shiver ran through the benches looking for a spine to go up."

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[mcpheat]

Now that is pure scaremongering. There is absolutely no support from the residents of the Islands for leaving Scotland. Bernard Ingham has admitted he made it up in the 1970s.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[jez9999]

As an English guy, you really have little idea (it seems) of the reasons why Scotland might wish to go independent.

I agree on that, mainly because I don't think there are any good ones.

* getting rid of the tories (Scotland has not voted for a Tory government in the last 20 years but has suffered many years of their policies)

Well they don't just afflict Scotland and it's not fair to judge the entire rest of the UK as if we all support the Tories, but whatever, I'm done arguing about this. I would just make a passing comment, though. Without one of those evil Tories, David Cameron, Scotland wouldn't be having an independence referendum. No, really - he had absolutely no requirement to hold one. Really quite ironic. He should probably be on the new Scottish flag. :-)

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep completely agree. Thatcher was a very bitter pill, but if you remember the UK in the 70's then you'll remember a country mired in shit, with blackouts, strikes strikes strikes, and government after government being forced out though its inability to deal with the stranglehold of strong and unopposed unions with no accountability. They asked for a cure, and they got it.

If you've ever owned a British Leyland car from the 70's - maybe a nice Morris Marina or a Princess, then .... well, that pretty much sums it up. By the 90's, we were back in business.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't be so sure - the Spanish are very sensitive to Scotland declaring independence because they're worried about their own regions (Basque, Catalonia) using a Yes vote in Scotland as a catalyst for their own campaigns. Spain haven't said they'll block membership, but they've certainly hinted that it could be difficult and drawn-out: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/17/spain-independent-scotland-years-eu-membership

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[mcpheat]

They've said that they will move their Registered Office, not their headquarters. Lloyds currently has them in different places, so there is no problem in doing that.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Little Britain history? Scotland was DEPOPULATED by the Brits after 1707. Except when Scottish immigration was forbidden so English lords would have slave labor. But harvest failures caused laws to change in order to "encourage" immigration. The treatment of the Scots was pure exploitave brutality. Look up the Highland Clearances.

  To call your confidently phrased opinions questionable is gross understatement considering your outrageous misrepresentation of the Scottish experience as a British territory.

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[riverat1]

Since when is an Anonymous Coward a human being? /snark

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

The EU won't let Scotland in because Spain will veto because of Catalonia.

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of EU Foreign ministers have said that Scotland would "have to apply" to be in the EU.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Grishnakh]

The idea of a region where people largely agree about social / moral / economic systems has never been realized and never will be no matter what scale you look at.

I'm sorry, that's hogwash. Small countries like Iceland or Andorra do not have any huge rifts in thinking between different groups of people. There's lots of small European countries where people get along just fine because the population is small and homogenous. Infighting becomes more and more of a problem as countries grow larger and more diverse.

Every region will have misogynists, creationists, etc.

The Scandinavian countries don't seem to have too many problems with misogyny, and creationism is something that's almost completely confined to the USA and some third-world countries. There's no significant number of creationists in western Europe, except perhaps among some immigrants (and even that's doubtful).

If one isn't happy because others don't conform to their ideal systems of thought, I suggest that they will never be happy.

It's not about others conforming to your thoughts, it's about whether those people have the ability to force their systems of thought on you through the law. Here in the US, even if you think Creationism is crap, if you live in certain areas, you might find Creationism forced on you because the voting public in those areas demands it to be taught in school to your children. In countries where no one believes in Creationism, this isn't a problem, so no one has to waste time with it just like they don't have to waste time debating whether the world is held up on Atlas's shoulders and whether the Titans created it, or any other such nonsense. When you live in a country where most people are like you and share your culture, you don't have to argue about silly crap like this all the time, like we do in America where we've been arguing whether this idiocy should be taught in schools for well over a century now.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I assure you there's plenty of political debate in both Iceland and Andorra, even if you are not familiar with the topics of debate.
Even the Scandinavian countries have social issues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Sweden.
Unless you require that you always maintain the majority view in the country where you live, there's always the possibility of suffering from bad laws.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Darinbob]

So if Quebec left Canada, wouldn't the Canadian government offices in Quebec become Quebec government offices? Thus they get to keep their government jobs. Unless you mean those French speakers outside of Quebec could become Quebec citizens while holding government jobs in Ontario?

Of course they share the currency, that's normal, that's what Scotland is planning. Regions have split off from nations in the past, this sort of thing is not entirely hypothetical. You end up with negotiations between two governments, deciding who gets to keep the nukes, what happens with national services, etc. This is like a divorce in a way, you don't have the spouse who wants to leave get no possessions except a bathrobe since they used to be equal partners. Similarly a province or region used to be partners with the other parts of the country, they paid their taxes, the used their labor, they contributed their resources.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

UK manufacturing output rose under Thatcher. In real terms, it rose about as fast as it had, on average, in the two decades before her. However, this was accompanied by a sharp fall in employment, as manufacturers learned to consider efficiency rather than just output and employment.

Non-manufacturing output rose much faster.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Darinbob]

It's not like you were actually making a decision. Unless somehow you actually had the ability to make that happen.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Darinbob]

Texas already seceded from Mexico. If they did it again people would start to think Texas is wishy washy.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[AmiMoJo]

There is plenty of room, especially in the north. The problem is no-one wants to live there, and houses in the south cost too much. Immigration might make it a little worse but the basic problem has nothing to do with it.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[AmiMoJo]

I'm not saying that there were not problems, but there was more than one solution. She decided to smash it all. Look at Germany now. Strong manufacturing and industrial base. Recovered from the financial crisis a lot faster than we did, with real jobs and real wage rises. The average UK citizen is still poorer than they were in 2008.

Also, some things don't have to be profitable. The NHS, basic utility services etc.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[AmiMoJo]

The Poll Tax? That alone shows just how little the Tory party thinks of Scotland.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Grishnakh]

Oh please. According to your own link, "The study "Antisemitic images and attitudes in Sweden", conducted by Henrik Bachner and Jonas Ring, revealed that 1.4 per cent of the population disagrees with the assertion that "Most Jews are probably decent folks"." I never said you'd get 100% agreement on anything, but 1.4% of a population being anti-Jewish is statistically insignificant, and certainly not an indicator of a major problem or disagreement in the society.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Darinbob]

Why not give them some of the navy? Scots helped pay for it and helped build it, and Scots are serving in it.
Banks aren't a problem, they don't have to be nationalized banks, just have private banks. The branches are already there and much of the deposits too I suspect. Setting up a national bank is harder but not insurmountable, they'll probably keep a joint national bank for awhile.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're addressing a single point of the evidence and not the body. You can also see http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2013/05/swedens-riots. Certainly Scandinavia is not some utopia of homogeneity (nowhere is).

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[C0R1D4N]

They would have to move the capital to either the Pitcairn or Falkland Islands!

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[C0R1D4N]

Any state can secede, but no state can secede UNILATERALLY which is an important distinction. If a state wants to secede they can't just get the approval of their own citizenry, but that of the rest of the country. The process to do this is through constitutional amendment. If the south had gone this route 150 years ago, the map would probably look a lot different today.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Grishnakh]

It seems from there that there's a big issue over immigration, and that's about it. Obviously, for a long time, Sweden has had a very liberal immigration policy coupled with a very strong welfare state, which resulted in hordes of illiterate immigrants flooding in and getting on the dole; eventually, the natives tired of this and voted for politicians who clamped down on the gravy train, and the immigrants are angry.

A difference of opinion on a single issue isn't a sign of non-homogeneity. Non-homogeneity means different groups of people having very different cultures, such as the Swedes and their Muslim immigrants, who appear to stand at around 14% of the population now, so if you mean that, then I'll agree that Sweden is no longer homogeneous, but it was until recent decades.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Barsteward]

Not really, i think the movement is small at the moment but the Scotlands was in the beginning http://www.independent.co.uk/n... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... http://www.shetnews.co.uk/feat...

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Eunuchswear]

but to move their head quarters. Which dictates where the tax revenue goes.

Balls. Do business in a country, pay whatever taxes the country wants to levy.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[rioki]

I think you sort of misunderstood what I meant. My name is Sean Farrell and that should almost tell you everything you need to know. I am US-American and German by Nationality and currently living in Germany. Looking at the British isles, culturally England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are quite similar; at least in contrast to the rest of Europe. If you take an Irish, Scottish, Wales and English person and put it in front of, say a French and ask him where they are from, he would have serious problems answering correctly.

The point I was trying to make was that, in response to GP, yes from the outside they (Scotland / Ireland respectively) seem quite similar with England, but if you ever mention that in a Pub you probably will wake up ER.

On the other hand Northern Ireland / Protestant, the situation is different; most will claim some form of English or loose affiliation with England. This being, because they factually are (decedents of) immigrants form England. But then again, who really is "Irish", the Celts who originally settled there, the Viking who came later, the English immigrants that came later.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Xest]

"This would leave Scotland with a new currency but with tremendous assets and no liabilities."

This is absolute stark raving nonsense. Debt is the opposite of assets, both things are valued in sterling currently. If you opt to leave the UK with no debt, you opt to leave with no assets that were paid for with that debt. This means that yes Scotland absolutely can vote to leave with no sterling debt, but it also leaves with no sterling assets - that means no frigates, no eurofighters, no hospital equipment, no public sector IT equipment as they're all assets valued in sterling, just as the debt is valued in sterling. You can't take one and not the other and I'm astounded so many of you Scots believe Alex's nonsense codswallop that's so easily disproven.

That blue book is like a kind of nationalist Bible - and like the Bible it's a book of fairy tales for gullible folk to believe and made follow you with.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Xest]

"Thatcher destroyed manufacturing and industry in the whole of the UK."

Christ, not this broken old meme. Thatcher didn't even come close to destroying manufacturing in the UK, the UK is still the 9th largest manufacturer in the world in spite of the trend towards manufacturing in poorer nations where labour is cheap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

That's right, the GDP value of UK manufacturing is about 4 times that of commonly cited manufacturing powerhouses like Taiwan.

So can this meme die already? It's not true, it's not even close to true, and it's never been true. The only manufacturing Thatcher killed was those industries that were unprofitable and being subsidised by the tax payer and hence were a drain on everyone's pocket.

There are plenty of better reasons to hate Thatcher like her overuse of military in civilian situations, her anti-European stance and her overly conservative views on almost everything else, but economic policy? she simply cannot be faulted there, she modernised our economy and made us as prosperous as we are.

The same is true of the Tories now, they've done fuckloads wrong such as being way too close to Murdoch and having helped derail press regulation but you'd have to be a special kind of idiot to argue their economic policy has failed- we're the fastest growing G7 nation, the nation most firmly into it's recovery and with the best trajectory on reduction of unemployment in the West.

This debate on Scotland, and too many others are being had on myths and legends like you just made and it's tiresome because as in this case the statistics paint the exact opposite of what you're claiming. The UK is still a global manufacturing powerhouse- you cannot claim a country in the top ten out of 203 to be anything else.

Objectively the UK is doing incredibly well relative to just about every other nation in a similar position right now, that's not something to bitch and moan about and yet you and the Scots are doing exactly that- frankly nothing will ever please you because you're unpleasable, even with our excellent growth and great reductions in unemployment it's still not good enough for you.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[towermac]

I know, big banks.

I have never been to Scotland. Here in the US, there are, I guess, thousands and thousands of 'local' banks. Spread across the country, generally serving local customers. Not that they can't land a big international client, there's just a lot more small banks than there are big fish, who are likely to do business with bigger banks anyway.

The Bank of Senatobia Mississippi was (still is I'm sure) a really good full service bank. Our country is littered with banks just like it.

I understand there will be no giant international banks with headquarters in Scotland in the event of a yes vote; they are going to move their headquarters. The phrase "no local banks" just has to be wrong, and sounds like scaremongering.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Thumper_SVX]

:) Fair enough, and I apologise. Yeah, context is hard in text. Not knowing you or seeing any context myself, your comment could easily be viewed as being a facetious remark from someone just familiar enough with Irish history. Myself I like to correct people like this because I honestly think Irish history is absolutely fascinating and I encourage people to learn something about it.

I agree though with you and the other respondent to my note; the history of Ireland is incredibly complex. These Americans think they have it bad with the Native Americans... that's a cakewalk historically speaking to understanding most of the migrations, invasions and wars that have occurred throughout most of Europe. But yes, I agree that from an outside perspective the British Isles seems pretty consolidated culturally. But at the same time I would note that a lot of this is due to an homogenisation of culture within the British Isles mostly due to English-language media, movies and so on from the US. Culturally while most of Europe is tending to lean more "American", the BI in general is far further along that path and sometimes even accelerating mostly due to the commonality of language with the USA.

Still, thanks for the response :)

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Thatcher have anything to do with the recovery since 2008?

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU do REALIZE the Quebecians are French descended and thus this attitude makes perfect sense. WILL concede Unibrouie brewery makes top notch Belgian ales tho.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

you forgot to mention if we ie Texas secede the new nation is split into 4 separate new countries

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[beastofburdon]

You may want to rethink that idea.
Just think about this. Imagine the extremely religious and militaristic southern states with their own military and nuclear weapons. Now imagine that there would be virtually no one to contest the idea when they decide that the gays and atheists in the north-east need to be put to death.

Now you just need to think about this. When they are their own country they will look upon the other country next to them the same way they look at those in the middle east. It will be US against THEM. It would be less than a decade before they started a war with one of the other countries.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[stoatwblr]

"The UK benefits from Scottish oil and renewable energy."

The income from oil tax revenue is lower than the extra expenditure on Scotland.

If Scotland goes it alone and keeps the oil revenue, it will still have to find at least 20% extra money internally.

After the 3 Stooges (Cameron/Millband/boringone) made unsustainable promises if Scotland votes "No", I'd imagine that most of the english population started wishing the scottish will vote Yes.

If Scotland votes yes, it will hurt both countries, but the rest of the UK will recover quickly. Scotland is likely to face extended periods of extreme austerity, possibly as long as 20 years.

If Scotland votes no, the rest of the UK will hurt (scotland gets even more disproportionate funding) and it won't stop hurting.

In 12 hours we'll know the results.

Re: This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's crap. As it says on every Royal Bank of Scotland (and Bank of Scotland, and Clydesdale Bank) note, they are so many "Pounds Sterling". The Pound Scots ceased to exist after 1707, which was probably just as well as you needed 12 Pounds Scots to buy one Pound Sterling.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[david_thornley]

A lot of parties get less radical when they're actually in power and have to (gasp) govern. Besides, if the nationalists win independence, they've gotten what they most cared about, and can relax their focus.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[david_thornley]

Constitutionally, secession of northern California would require majority votes in the US Congress and California Legislature.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Grishnakh]

Just think about this. Imagine the extremely religious and militaristic southern states with their own military and nuclear weapons. Now imagine that there would be virtually no one to contest the idea when they decide that the gays and atheists in the north-east need to be put to death.

You don't think the northeast would have its own military and nuclear weapons too?

Russia is militaristic to a far greater degree than the South and has nuclear weapons, and is extremely anti-gay (far more so than the South), and we don't see them running around killing gay people all over Europe.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[mcpheat]

The difference is the Scottish independence movement was supported by people living in Scotland whereas the petition was created and largely signed by people living outside Shetland and Orkney.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

and Northern Ireland

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah that seems to work so well when applied to Google, Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon.

Re:This isn't scaremongering.

[rioki]

No offence taken. It was very condensed and had

No True Scotsman

[rmdingler]

There is a long and complex history between England and Scotland, and it's difficult for someone outside the drama to weigh in.

But, it smells like a nationalistic cry for independence above all other considerations.

Be careful what you wish for, as you just might get it.

Re:No True Scotsman

[itsdapead]

But, it smells like a nationalistic cry for independence above all other considerations.

There's also a big party-political divide: In UK general elections, Scotland generally returns a substantial majority of Labour MPs. At the last UK general election, Scotland elected 1 Conservative MP and 41 Labour MPs yet the UK still got an (effectively) Conservative government.

From the English perspective, it would be hard for Labour in their current form to get into power without votes from Scotland.

That's really a symptom of the problem of the disproportionate influence of London on UK politics. The departure of Scotland (or significant concessions on devolution in the event of a "no" vote) is likely to create pressure from Wales, NI, the north of England etc. for more local powers.

Shit. We're gonna turn into Westeros :-)

Re:No True Scotsman

[unapersson]

Pretty much all Labour governments that have been elected would have had a majority even without the Scottish votes.

#scotfree

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, you can be sure that large numbers of the English buying public will boycott your products, just because. #scotfree

Re:#scotfree

[Noryungi]

Plus, you can be sure that large numbers of the English buying public will boycott your products, just because. #scotfree

Fine, if Scotland becomes independent again, the French will buy all the Scotch whisky they can get their hand on!

On a more personal note: "Votez 'Oui', amis écossais ! Juste pour emmerder les Anglais !". The Auld Alliance shall rise again! ;-)

Re:#scotfree

[halivar]

I dunnow... the French have killed a lot of Calvinists since then...

Re:#scotfree

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds fun, maybe then you can go bankrupt together whilst the UK economy continues to completely outpace both of yours.

Thinly veiled campaigning

[codeButcher]

Ahhh, so the one-sided emotional campaigning ("Think of the ch... checkbook!") has made it to /. too.

Re:Thinly veiled campaigning

[u38cg]

I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to consider the practicalities of a major upheaval.

Re:Thinly veiled campaigning

[i kan reed]

Yeah, actually, when it comes to emotional manipulation, as a non-Scot on the internet, you pretty much only see the yes side doing that. I mean, I don't need it because it doesn't involve me, but I haven't heard even the most singular of pragmatic reasons for a yes vote.

Which makes me drop it in the same mental bin as "south will rise again" fuckwittery.

Re:Thinly veiled campaigning

[stdarg]

Yeah that sounds great, but the editorializing along the lines of "this will be cataclysmic to the Scottish economy" is ridiculous.

Re:Thinly veiled campaigning

[u38cg]

Sadly, the chances are it will be cataclysmic. Scotland's spending and tax revenues balance at the moment only through using oil money. Oil will last for ten, fifteen, twenty years if we're lucky. Then we will be sitting on an NHS with an aging, sicker population. No-one - and I really do mean no-one - has a cogent explanation of how Scotland will deal with this.

Re:Thinly veiled campaigning

[Blue Stone]

The post doesn't even pretend to be balanced, which is a shame as this may possibly be /.'s one and only Scottish Independence post.

Of course there are risks involved and uncertainty, but the English Tories, champions of the NO vote (do not split) are the ones demanding a split from Europe, using the same arguments that the YES campaign (for an independent Scotland) are using to rally their cause! They're also the ones who decry "dependency" and act as if the entrepreneurial spirit is chief among all human traits, while trying to shut down such blooming attitudes in the Scottish people who wish to set out on their own and make a go of things.

The Right wing English part of the NO campaign seem to want soverignty above all else for themselves (with regard to Europe), while telling everyone else (the Scottish 'splittists') that's a bad idea!

Re:Thinly veiled campaigning

[Anonymous Coward]

Fishing, agriculture, tourism, tech. Scotland would manage just fine.

Re:Thinly veiled campaigning

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yeah that sounds great, but the editorializing along the lines of "this will be cataclysmic to the Scottish economy" is ridiculous.

I'm not so sure. The uncertainty alone is likely to affect businesses, it's not clear what currency they will be permitted to use, etc. They're also basically undergoing a Socialist revolution of sorts and we have never seen one of those improve the economy of a country, though quite a few such revolutions have ruined them.

FWIW, I have ancestors from Scotland from the Clan Campbell out of Argyle.

Re:Thinly veiled campaigning

[codeButcher]

Call me fazed by politics, but in the moods I get when my vitamin D levels drop too low, I imagine that WHATEVER side wins, it will be carefully calculated to be the outcome that gives the maximum financial gain to those who already hold the majority of financial power. The whole Yes/No hullabaloo is just to keep the production units (euphemistically called "voters") complacent in the notion that they actually had enough power to bring about the change simply by drawing a little cross mark.

Talking of changes. I caught some wind of the promises made by some British politicians about greater self-determination for Scotland if the No vote wins. Isn't that a bit belated though? Like the boss who counter-offers when you want to resign to take up alternative employment - if your work is worth that, why didn't he raise your salary before?

But in the end, it's just some musings about first world problems...

Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign says

[halivar]

They say that if they default on British debt obligations (as they say they will if they don't get "fair share" of Bank of England assets), they can still secure loans from the continent. It is unlikely that anyone in Europe will spite UK this way, and there is no way Brussels is going to take another debt-laden country. Without admittance to the EU, they're going to find it hard to secure the financing and trade deals they're going to need to make this work. This is a case of optimism and boredom triumphing over reason.

Don't worry about no local banks

[Dareth]

Don't worry about no local banks. Just remember, we agreed to not accept live pigs in payment.

May you live in interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a curse, of course, but one has to wonder how many of these stories are FUD. Nothing is going to happen tomorrow. Scotland will remain part of the UK. The media have made sure of it by stressing the risks and avoiding the opportunities. Nevertheless, Scots should compare the effort to keep them in the UK with the attention and appreciation they get when they're not about to split.

FUD from start to finish...

[Noryungi]

So much FUD, so little time...

funding will be tougher to find and more expensive... Really? If your ideas are interesting, Kickstarter will be happy to take on your project.

no local banks... Really? That does not make any sense. The best you can do, then, is to start your own bank in Scotland. Agreed, that is not an easy project to undertake, but, remember... "That's where the money is"! Besides, the City is a den of thieves, Scottish people should vote "Yes" just to get rid of the whole sorry mess.

access to EU markets and the freedom of movement will be curtailed... Really? Even though the leaders of the SNP, campaigning for independence, have said repeatedly that they would apply for EU membership right away? Why would they do that, now, since the EU is in a deep economic and institutional slump, is completely beyond me, but still...

Seriously, this is FUD, pure and simple, from Mr McKenzie. A bit of advice for the "No" camp: you can probably have much better, and much more convincing arguments than that. If this is the best you can do, you deserve to be roundly beaten by the "Yes" camp.

And, on a more personal note: "Votez 'Oui', amis écossais ! Juste pour emmerder les Anglais !". The Auld Alliance shall rise again! ;-)

(That last line said firmly tongue in cheek, of course).

Re:FUD from start to finish...

[Sockatume]

That's all well and good, but Kickstarter campaigns, banks, and EU membership don't happen overnight. I imagine that the interviewee is thinking about his business situation twelve months from now, not four years down the road.

Re:FUD from start to finish...

[Ash-Fox]

Why would they do that, now, since the EU is in a deep economic and institutional slump, is completely beyond me, but still...

The EU has a bunch of sad laws that discriminate against non-EU countries for trade. This has hurt the UK quite badly when it came to trade with other common wealth countries that weren't part of the EU. The way Australia got screwed was pretty bad and I think people that remember still hold it against the UK to this day.

Re:FUD from start to finish...

[Anonymous Coward]

So fear, not a sense of opportunity, is guiding him?

Re:FUD from start to finish...

[jez9999]

And, on a more personal note: "Votez 'Oui', amis écossais ! Juste pour emmerder les Anglais !". The Auld Alliance shall rise again! ;-)

And, on another personal note, "Va te faire foutre, connard." Wait until Brittany is demanding to leave France because they have Parisiens so much. Wonder whether you'll be laughing so much then.

Firmly tongue in cheek. Of course.

Re:FUD from start to finish...

[Noryungi]

The EU has a bunch of sad laws that discriminate against non-EU countries for trade.

Oh really? Care to back that assertion with facts and links?

Oh right, you can't, because the EU is one of the most open market in the world.

This has hurt the UK quite badly when it came to trade with other common wealth countries that weren't part of the EU.

The UK has been nothing but a pain in the arse since day one of its membership. Screw them. Read this if you dare.

The way Australia got screwed was pretty bad and I think people that remember still hold it against the UK to this day.

Oh, you mean Australia? The country that is one of the biggest trade partner of the EU? Gosh darn, those poor Aussies sure got screwed in those deals. Which deals, by the way? Again, lots of innuendo, but not too many facts and figures, if I dare say so myself.

Re:FUD from start to finish...

[Noryungi]

I commend you on your mastery of French, my dear "Jez"! I am impressed that you can use Google Translate!

I'll let you know that Brittany has never been an independent Kingdom, unlike the Kingdom of Scotland, but rather a "Dukedom". Its claim to independence are therefore very much in doubt. And don't get me started on Corsica, OK?

Re: FUD from start to finish...

[cecom]

Yep, a kickstarter campaign will work miracles for a medical systems startup. Good one.

Re:FUD from start to finish...

[Ash-Fox]

Oh really? Care to back that assertion with facts and links?

Sure, but it'll have to be when I'm back home and not working in my client's offices. Which will be two weeks from now (internet is locked down and I'm only doing Slashdot while blocked in my work).

The UK has been nothing but a pain in the arse since day one of its membership. Screw them

There is nothing wrong with being eurosceptics. Next you're going to say that there is no legitimacy behind arguments like the European Union auditors not signing off on accounts for years (is it 10 now) in a row and that if they were a bank, they wouldn't have been shut down (hint: they would have or at least had their managed completely changed). Or how the people being unable to vote on European presidents is meant to be democratic for the European states etc?

Oh, you mean Australia? The country that is one of the biggest trade partner of the EU?

That is now, you're quick to forget history.

Gosh darn, those poor Aussies sure got screwed in those deals.

They did in the 1970s. They could have been more prosperous if they hadn't found significant issues ending getting locked out from much trade.

Re:FUD from start to finish...

[Anonymous Coward]

"the leaders of the SNP, campaigning for independence, have said repeatedly that they would apply for EU membership right away? Why would they do that, now, since the EU is in a deep economic and institutional slump, is completely beyond me, but still..."

The real question is why they would do it AT ALL, if they care about independence. A country can be independent, or part of the EU.

Re:FUD from start to finish...

[Sockatume]

Both, I'd imagine. Real human beings tend to have conflicting drives and views on a subject that they tend to resolve, unlike - say - political campaigns which attempt to present One True View of the Situation as the only reasonable possible take.

Re:FUD from start to finish...

[jez9999]

Yeah, I won't. Otherwise then you might have to tackle Normandy, Berry, Foix, the part of the Basque region and Catalonia that are in France and wonder how you would feel if they voted to break away from your Glorieux Pays.

Re:FUD from start to finish...

[angel'o'sphere]

I like to point out that Catalonia belongs to Spain, not France.
But of course all the regions you name will be sooner or later autonomous 'states' in the EU.
And many more, like Lorain, Alsace, Bavaria etc.

Re:never ending wmd on credit holycost never ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Ach! I cannae understand ye! Teek off, ya wee fairy!

it is all going to go horribly wrong

[dominux]

The yes campaign is telling people they can keep the pound and join Europe. Not gonna happen, it isn't for Scotland to decide. 28 countries have to decide they are totally cool with a bit of the UK splitting off and joining Europe. That means 28 countries have to want to set a precident for bits of themselves splitting off, declaring independence and joining Europe. They have to also decide that they are totally cool on Scotland having an opt out on the Euro that nobody else apart from the UK has and nobody else likes.
The rest of the UK doesn't particularly want a currency union with Scotland, and it wouldn't be popular with the Eurozone countries to have a more formal sterling zone (they don't care about the small overseas territories, but a second full size country in a currency union would be a big deal).
The No campaign says independence would be bad for Scotland and bad for the rest of the UK and everyone else.
The Yes campaign says independence would be good for Scotland and bad for the rest of the UK and everyone else.
They both agree that independence would be a massive pain in the arse for everyone outside of Scotland, and they are 50:50 on how much of a complete and utter pointless pain in the arse it will be within Scotland.

Re: it is all going to go horribly wrong

[localhost8080]

Scotland is already part of the EU, what are they going to do, tell all the People who live here already that they have to move out?

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[Dynamoo]

On the EU membership.. I would expect the concept of Scotland being a successor state would apply despite the posturing of certain EU members. Countries that break away from each other in this way (think Czech and Slovak Republics, the CIS) tend to retain the obligations and memberships of their predecessor states, which would mean that both the UK and the UK-sans-Scotland would both be EU members. It might end up as a legal fight in the courts to establish EU membership for Scotland though.

However, if they are not EU members and find themselves even temporarily outside the EEA (the European Economic Area that consists of the EU and EFTA countries) then that could effectively stop the free movement of people, goods and capital. It's possible that people from Scotland would need a visa to enter the UK unless a bilateral agreement could be make (such as the UK/Ireland agreement that exists outside the EU). This has the potential for being absolutely catastrophic.

The currency is also difficult, it has been argued that the Scots could have a once-side currency union with the pound sterling even if the UK did not agree. This sort of system already exists in the Isle of Man and Channel Islands, but those are not independent states as such (but nore are they part of the UK). However, there are only a quarter of a million people on those islands and Scotland has more than 20 times the population and 25 times the GDP, so it's a different league altogether.

But the clincher for me would be the sheer amount of paperwork involved if I were Scots. Am I Scottish or English or what? What about my family members? Where will my bank account be? My pension? My job? How do I get across the border? Even if everything goes smoothly, there is an immense amount of effort needed from citizens of the UK to straighten out all these details.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[Noryungi]

The yes campaign is telling people they can keep the pound and join Europe. Not gonna happen, it isn't for Scotland to decide.

It is for Scotland to decide! They can apply for membership any time, just like Turkey, for instance.

28 countries have to decide they are totally cool with a bit of the UK splitting off and joining Europe. That means 28 countries have to want to set a precident for bits of themselves splitting off, declaring independence and joining Europe.

Errr... Ever heard of the Czech and the Slovaks?

Czechoslovakia split in two (peacefully) and both halves joined the EU right away, and were welcome with open arms, if memory serves well.

I don't see why Scotland would be rejected, especially since the UK has been a pain in the arse ever since it joined the EU. As a matter of fact, many countries in the EU would welcome Scotland just to piss off the Brits. And even more so since the UK is set to vote on leaving the EU in a couple of years!

They have to also decide that they are totally cool on Scotland having an opt out on the Euro that nobody else apart from the UK has and nobody else likes.

The Euro is not the EU, and vice-versa. There is a ton of countries that are EU members, but still have their national currencies. But don't take my word for it, click here instead

The rest of the UK doesn't particularly want a currency union with Scotland, and it wouldn't be popular with the Eurozone countries to have a more formal sterling zone (they don't care about the small overseas territories, but a second full size country in a currency union would be a big deal).

You are not making any sense - again, the currency you use is totally independent from EU membership itself.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[IamTheRealMike]

I don't see why Scotland would be rejected, especially since the UK has been a pain in the arse ever since it joined the EU. As a matter of fact, many countries in the EU would welcome Scotland just to piss off the Brits.

New countries can be vetoed by another other. Most people talk about Spain in this context, but the UK could do it too if Salmond were to play hard ball (and the evidence suggests he would).

You are not making any sense - again, the currency you use is totally independent from EU membership itself.

No, adopting the Euro is a requirement for new entrants. Countries that were previously part of the EU and did not adopt were grandfathered in and don't have to change, but for new entrants it's not optional.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[Noryungi]

No, adopting the Euro is a requirement for new entrants. Countries that were previously part of the EU and did not adopt were grandfathered in and don't have to change, but for new entrants it's not optional.

It's actually the reverse: you have to be an EU member before you can adopt the Euro as your local currency.

Again, there are countries (Poland comes to mind) that are EU members, but retain their local currency. The zloty, in the case of Poland.

As far as I know, membership in the Eurozone is optional.

I personally believe Scotland would be best served by gaining its independence, ditching the Queen, proclaiming the Scottish Republic, ditching the british pound (replacing it with, let's say, the Scottish pound), kicking the British banks out, creating its own (strongly regulated) scottish banking system and applying for EU membership. But that's just me.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[91degrees]

No, adopting the Euro is a requirement for new entrants. Countries that were previously part of the EU and did not adopt were grandfathered in and don't have to change, but for new entrants it's not optional.

But the requirement is not to do so immediately. A country can effectively hold off forever.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[R_R]

Errr... Ever heard of the Czech and the Slovaks?

Czechoslovakia split in two (peacefully) and both halves joined the EU right away, and were welcome with open arms, if memory serves well.

Czechoslovakia split in 1993. The Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic both joined the EU in May 2004. Hardly right away...

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[Alioth]

But ERM 2 is a pre-requisite of joining the euro, and there are no deadlines to join ERM 2, so Scotland could delay joining the Euro forever despite committing to adopt it by simply never joining ERM 2.

Re: it is all going to go horribly wrong

[jeremyp]

No it isn't. The UK is part of the EU. If Scotland leaves the UK, it leaves the EU. Yes, it will cause some practical difficulties but these would be only a few of the many practical difficulties that need to be resolved in the transition period.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[AmiMoJo]

There will be plenty of time to sort out EU membership before Scotland becomes independent. The date isn't even nailed down, it's just expected to be within a couple of years of the vote.

As for paperwork, it's hardly unprecedented. As you point out quite a few other states have split. Everyone just has to decide which side they want to be on before the deadline in a couple of years, and indicate that choice. Since there will almost certainly be a currency union anyway it isn't likely to matter if you have accounts "over the border". The actual border will be open and free to cross, just as it is now.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[dominux]

you have to be an EU member to join the Euro, but to be an EU member you have to commit in advance to joining the Euro when you meet the criteria. You can't join and say you don't have a committed intention to join the currency. The UK has an opt-out negotiated some time ago. The yes campaign seems to think they can go independent and have the Bank of England as their central bank and have their share of the national debt underwritten by the UK treasury.
This is kinda like a teenager who lives at home and has free use of the family car pretty much whenever they want. Teenager decides they are leaving home, getting their own place and taking the car. That isn't the deal.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[will_die]

last I saw, poland was schedule for Euro switch in 2015 and the reason for the delay was they had not meet all the qualifications for EU membership

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

It is for Scotland to decide! They can apply for membership any time, just like Turkey, for instance.

Pick a better example. Turkey has been an "equal footing" candidate since 1995 and had aspirations since the 60s (of course, it wasn't called the EU then but EEC and ESCS).

28 countries have to decide they are totally cool with a bit of the UK splitting off and joining Europe. That means 28 countries have to want to set a precident for bits of themselves splitting off, declaring independence and joining Europe.

Errr... Ever heard of the Czech and the Slovaks?

Czechoslovakia split in two (peacefully) and both halves joined the EU right away, and were welcome with open arms, if memory serves well.

Your memory doesn't serve you well. Czechoslovakia split in 1993 and both joined the EU at the same time a decade later when the EU was on an expansion spree. Think Catalonia and Spain. Do you really think Spain would say "yeah, go ahead and set such a precedent!"

I don't see why Scotland would be rejected, especially since the UK has been a pain in the arse ever since it joined the EU. As a matter of fact, many countries in the EU would welcome Scotland just to piss off the Brits. And even more so since the UK is set to vote on leaving the EU in a couple of years!

All it takes is one country vetoing it so it doesn't matter if all others want Scotland to join. However, the UK considering such a vote, is more of an unknown factor since the timing is also crucial. The UK could stay just long enough to veto it and then Scotland would have to wait another decade before a new membership application would be considered. But that would be really, really spiteful so I doubt it. A Spanish veto would be guaranteed at least until the Catalans have forgotten their independence ambitions, so maybe another century or two from now...

They have to also decide that they are totally cool on Scotland having an opt out on the Euro that nobody else apart from the UK has and nobody else likes.

The Euro is not the EU, and vice-versa. There is a ton of countries that are EU members, but still have their national currencies. But don't take my word for it, click here instead

The rest of the UK doesn't particularly want a currency union with Scotland, and it wouldn't be popular with the Eurozone countries to have a more formal sterling zone (they don't care about the small overseas territories, but a second full size country in a currency union would be a big deal).

You are not making any sense - again, the currency you use is totally independent from EU membership itself.

Sure, it's independent. But until Scotland is first accepted as an EU member and then a eurozone member, it would be an unilateral adopter. Just like Ecuador uses the US Dollar (and Kosovo and Montenegro use the euro), which means that they have nothing to say about their own monetary policy.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[dominux]

It is for Scotland to decide! They can apply for membership any time, just like Turkey, for instance.

sure, they can apply the day they become independent.

Errr... Ever heard of the Czech and the Slovaks?

Czechoslovakia split in two (peacefully) and both halves joined the EU right away, and were welcome with open arms, if memory serves well.

memory doesn't serve that well, they finalised the split in 1993 after the velvet revolution and then in 2004 both the Czech Republic and Slovakia joined the European Union.

I don't see why Scotland would be rejected, especially since the UK has been a pain in the arse ever since it joined the EU. As a matter of fact, many countries in the EU would welcome Scotland just to piss off the Brits. And even more so since the UK is set to vote on leaving the EU in a couple of years!

this is a reasonable point.

The Euro is not the EU, and vice-versa. There is a ton of countries that are EU members, but still have their national currencies. But don't take my word for it, click here instead

yeah, I know, but it is now the case that a commitment to joining the currency is a condition of joining the union.

You are not making any sense - again, the currency you use is totally independent from EU membership itself.

well we will find out in due course if there is a yes vote. I just can't see the rest of Europe being particularly excited about a region wanting to split out and join but not wanting to have the euro, pay it's debt or have it's own central bank. Right now Scotland is just looking like a smaller and more annoying version of the UK.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[Citizen of Earth]

I can't understand why the UK is playing along with the 50%+1 idea. It is illegitimate. All Constitutional changes require a supermajority and this is the most fundamental of all Constitutional changes. Canada dispensed with the 50%+1 foolishness after the 1995 Quebec referendum with the Clarity Act which quashes all hope for legal secession (since no more than 40% of Quebeckers have ever really supported secession). A simple 50%+1 majority would surely disappear in the face of the years of economically disruptive negotiations, capital flight, and population flight. (On second though, the latter might help the Yes side.)

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they will satisfy the qualifications before Greece does, though ;)

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

No. As soon as you meet the criteria (all of which are definitely in your economic interests) you must join (because the EU has contributed to fix your economy). Or secede the EU, I guess.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[angel'o'sphere]

On what delusioned world do you live?
Why should Scotland not have an opt out on the Euro? Hint: they are not even in! And yes, every Euro country can leave the Euro at their own will, nothing prevents them.
Oh, perhaps you did not notice, but UK, England, Scotland etc. are not in the Euro zone, they still have their 'pound'!
Btw, the majourity of the EU has book law. 'Precedence' only happens if 'top courts' rule 'beyond the law' ...
So regardless what is happening, it hardly is a 'precedence' !

Re: it is all going to go horribly wrong

[angel'o'sphere]

Of Scotland leaves the UK, they are still part of the EU, unless they decide otherwise: after they have left.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[91degrees]

There's no requirement to join the ERM II. ERM II membership is one of the requirements before joining the Euro.

Joining the ERM wasn't in the UK's interest. It probably isn't in Scotland's interest. Sweden certainly seems to be happy to hold off.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[psymastr]

It is for Scotland to decide! They can apply for membership any time, just like Turkey, for instance.

Sure. That doesn't mean they will be accepted. For a new member to be accepted there has to be a unanimous decision of the existing members and many of them have indicated clearly that they won't agree. Baroso has made it clear that it would be "very difficult" for an indpendent Scotland to be admitted to the EU.

Errr... Ever heard of the Czech and the Slovaks?

Czechoslovakia split in two (peacefully) and both halves joined the EU right away, and were welcome with open arms, if memory serves well.

Your memory does not serve well, since those countries split up in 1993 and were accepted into the EU in 2004.

The Euro is not the EU, and vice-versa. There is a ton of countries that are EU members, but still have their national currencies.

The Euro is not the EU but it is pretty close. There are two countries (UK and Denmark) that have been given the option to refrain from joining the Euro. Those exceptions were granted many years ago and no more such exceptions will be given. For all other EU countries joining the Euro is mandatory. The reason some of them have not joined is that their economies have not yet approached the indicators necessary to be accepted. They continue to be obliged to strive to attain those indicators.

You are not making any sense - again, the currency you use is totally independent from EU membership itself.

As I said, no it's not at all independent, it's closely related and you have no idea what you are talking about.

Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong

[Xest]

"I don't see why Scotland would be rejected, especially since the UK has been a pain in the arse ever since it joined the EU. As a matter of fact, many countries in the EU would welcome Scotland just to piss off the Brits."

Yeah, one small problem with your nonsense fantasy- the Brits have a veto. So if any European nation decided to piss the Brits off the Brits can just screw their plans with a simple veto.

It only takes one country to say no, and Scotland's entry is automatically denied.

"The Euro is not the EU, and vice-versa."

It doesn't matter, that's not even what he said. The euro is controlled by the EU and that's all that matters, if the EU doesn't want Scotland in it then it wont get in it, the fact the two aren't completely aligned doesn't change that.

"You are not making any sense - again, the currency you use is totally independent from EU membership itself."

No it's not, all new member nations are put on a roadmap to joining the euro, you cannot join the EU anymore without also engaging in a plan to join the euro. This is even true for existing EU nations such as Sweden- they're obligated to join the euro at some point. The UK is the only exception because it's big enough to have been able to negotiate what Sweden couldn't - a euro optout. If a country with an economy over two times the size of an independent Scotland can't argue for an opt out then how the hell would Scotland do so do you think?

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Richard_at_work]

Its not the Bank of Englands assets that Salmond wants, its the Bank of England itself. He wants to be able to retain the BoE as a lender of last resort, while maintaining a say in how Sterling fiscal policy is created - inflation controls, interest rates, ability to borrow at a base rate etc etc etc.

Without the BoE, Scotland would need to set up its own lender of last resort, or risk having less foreign investment as Scottish banks have to borrow on the standard market, which is a lot more expensive.

There is no positive to the rest of the UK to allow an independent Scotland to continue to have access to the BoE in the capacity it wants to, which is why the Westminster government parties have all ruled it out - Salmond mean while continually pushes the fact that "Ireland was allowed to have a currency union with the UK when it was granted independence in the 1920s" but ignores the fact that the Republic of Ireland did not actually have a currency union as it had no say in fiscal policy in the few short years where it actually used Sterling as its currency, it simply just used Sterling like any person on the street does. Then they pegged the Irish Pound to Sterling for the next 50 or so years, again with minimal fiscal decision making as a result.

Salmonds other argument is that Scotland cannot be held liable for any debt that the rest of the UK has already acknowledged responsibility for, which Westminster did the first time Salmond made his threat because any doubt over that would cause fiscal policy difficulties with foreign markets - but that doesn't mean foreign lenders cannot view Scotland as a higher risk as a result, because it is after all refusing to take a portion of the debt it helped create.

Whatever happens, Friday is going to be very very interesting - if its a "Yes" then Salmond starts making his demands and then runs into difficulties where he insisted there wouldn't be any (currency union, which he has insisted all along would happen, despite being told time and again that it wouldn't, and membership of the EU, which Salmond has again insisted would be nearly instant while major EU politicians and leaders have said a newly independent Scotland would be required to apply to join as a new member state, the same as any other new member state seeking membership).

If its a "No", Salmond won't back down but will probably use it to fuel more dissent toward Westminster, insisting on another referendum in the near future.

Ho hum, the weekend is going to be fun.

The opinion of an ignorant

[Thanshin]

I know essentially nothing of the subject but that won't stop me from giving my opinion.

The benefits of independence are social/cultural/emotional while the benefits of staying together are practical/economical.

I believe they should just stay while using the current situation to get more "practical independence", i.e.: more control over the union's government, taxing and expenses.

Re:The opinion of an ignorant

[Ash-Fox]

I believe they should just stay while using the current situation to get more "practical independence", i.e.: more control over the union's government, taxing and expenses

They actually receive a lot of control over that through the Scottish parliament. The interesting thing is, if it wasn't for the rest of the UK, Scotland could not afford their welfare state (which is high due to people living in a lot of remote locations with little business prospects).

Re:The opinion of an ignorant

[Anonymous Coward]

England has been propping up the failed Scots since the start of the union. Almost 20% of the "Scottish" people have moved south to England to improve their lot. The sooner England gets this monkey off if its back, the better the nation will be.

Dear Scots, please vote yes and go back to your own country. Thanks, England.

Re: The opinion of an ignorant

[localhost8080]

This is a myth.. Scotland generates more money than it gets back through the barnett formula

Re:The opinion of an ignorant

[BringsApples]

I know essentially nothing of the subject but that won't stop me from giving my opinion.

Satirical
Language
Addressing
Someone
Here
Delivering
Opinions
Thoroughly

Re:The opinion of an ignorant

[Thanshin]

Really? I thought it was : Spotless Legitimist Accurate Smothened Heraclidan Double-barreled Objurgatory Tenser

Re: The opinion of an ignorant

[Ash-Fox]

This is a myth, the Barnett formula does not effect public expenditure (including welfare).

Re:The opinion of an ignorant

[AmiMoJo]

The problem for Scotland is they get screwed by the government based in London on a regular basis. It's always worse with the current lot in power (Tories). The only way they can be sure that will never happen again is by becoming independent.

Anyway, they will still be in Europe, so still part of a big group, and still able to trade with the rest of the UK more or less as before.

Re: The opinion of an ignorant

[localhost8080]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki... read the first paragraph.

Re:The opinion of an ignorant

[jez9999]

Evidence, please, that they "get screwed" on a regular basis? There was the Thatcher era, where they got hurt because anywhere that had powerful industrial unions did (not just Scotland, by any means). Apart from that, for the past few hundred years of union, Scotland seems to have done pretty damn well out of union.

Re: The opinion of an ignorant

[Ash-Fox]

From the same article:

The formula is not applied to all public expenditure, but is the default option if no other decisions are made.

Re: The opinion of an ignorant

[localhost8080]

Yeah, so if the UK remove £2.2Bn because they don't want the NHS, then Scotland get £2.2Bn wiped and cant spend any on the NHS

Re: The opinion of an ignorant

[Ash-Fox]

Or the Scottish parliament can decide otherwise. Although you'll see Northern Ireland Assembly making many more different positions than the Scottish do to the rest of the UK.

Re:The opinion of an ignorant

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

The problem for Scotland is they get screwed by the government based in London on a regular basis. It's always worse with the current lot in power (Tories). The only way they can be sure that will never happen again is by becoming independent.

Why, are you not going to have anyone in power? Or do you believe that having Scottish people in power will prevent Scottish people getting screwed?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't want desire independence, and keeping the existing system is best, but I'm concerned that because you've used the words "Tories" and "London", that you may be letting your heart make decisions.

The words "Tories", "Thatcher", "London" and "Westminster" have been consistently used by the Yes campaign to rally support. I think it's worth being rational and accept that who ever is in power is probably a total c*nt! :D

not about economics

[Anonymous Coward]

Not taking sides here but does everything have to be about money?
While there will be difficulties maybe they are willing to pay that price for independence.
Do we all have a "for sale" sign on our heads?

I am not saying I would vote yes but I would base my decision on something more than monetary gain! (or am I alone in the world?)

I am not a brand
I am not for sale (but will work for money - not the same thing)

p.s. hope it works out for Scotland either way, nice people.

FUD before the vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the media blackout for about a month now, other publications are trying to sway the voters, like this one. Of course, jurisdiction allows that, but interesting to see ./'s bias.

Take the long view

[JanneM]

Charlie Stross recently posted a very good take on this: This is a permanent change. Whatever happens during the first few years is basically irrelevant, compared to the long-term results. Did Norway separating from Sweden cause short-term economic upheaval? Does that matter at all a century later?

This is a long-term change, not a short.term one. Any voter should consider the probable situation twenty or fourty years from now, not whatever happens in a year or two.

Re:Take the long view

[jez9999]

Any voter should consider the probable situation twenty or fourty years from now, not whatever happens in a year or two.

What, you mean when they're on their deathbed? Yeah, that'll be really useful for them during the bulk of their lives.

Re:Take the long view

[Anonymous Coward]

It will be useful for their grandchildren and generations to come.

Re:Take the long view

[Sockatume]

Rather raises the question of why we went from devomax from full-independence-or-nothing in the space of twenty-four months. When the referendum was first mooted I'd just accepted a job in England; I've not been able to return to my home country to vote in arguably the most important political decision in my homeland, and I'm feeling railroaded.

I sometimes cynically wonder if Salmond didn't decide that he needed to push through independence before his retirement, lest he be seen as a failure. At the current progress rate it was going to happen in my lifetime, but it would've been one of his successors, and not him, that got the credit.

Re:Take the long view

[DerekLyons]

Charlie Stross recently posted a very good take on this: This is a permanent change. Whatever happens during the first few years is basically irrelevant, compared to the long-term results. Did Norway separating from Sweden cause short-term economic upheaval? Does that matter at all a century later?

Yes it matters a century later - because what happens in those first few years sets the stage for what happens a century later. Historical events don't 'just happen' and then toddle off into the history books without leaving long term effects, real and "imaginary" (psychological).

Re:Take the long view

[nojayuk]

As you say you had just accepted a job in England before the referendum was announced. I assume you moved to England and now live there, not in Scotland. It's your homeland but not your home any more.

Like you I'm born Scottish but I live in Scotland and I'll be voting in the referendum tomorrow. I rent my property from someone born and raised in Yorkshire, who went to Cambridge University but who moved to Scotland to live and work thirty years ago and they'll be voting tomorrow as well. Other people I know who have moved to Scotland from England will also be voting. I also know other folks like yourself that decided the high road to England and better-paid employment was for them and they're not getting to vote either because they don't live in Scotland any more.

Re:Take the long view

[Anonymous Coward]

All men die. Not all men truly live.

Re:Take the long view

[Anonymous Coward]

We've been voting short-term for generations already, look where that took us.

Re:Take the long view

[Altus]

if the referendum passes, what country will Sockatume be a citizen of? England or Scotland? What passport will he have?

What about the fellow you are renting to? I am quite curious what the impact would be on people who have moved between the two areas.

Re:Take the long view

[mvdwege]

Rather raises the question of why we went from devomax from full-independence-or-nothing in the space of twenty-four months.

No it does not. For fucks sake, I'm a Dutchman, I don't follow the UK news daily, and even I know that it was the Unionists who insisted on a two-alternative referendum. Salmond as negotiator offered Devo-Max as a possibility and was shot down.

What is it with you guys? Is reading and checking facts for yourself really that sodding hard?

Re:Take the long view

[Uberbah]

Charlie Stross recently posted a very good take on this: This is a permanent change.

East and West Germany might disagree.

Any voter should consider the probable situation twenty or fourty years from now, not whatever happens in a year or two.

They're probably looking off at finally getting free from feudalism. Half the land in the country is owned by less than 500 families, which they lease out to the serfs, I mean renters, for a profit.

Re:Take the long view

[nojayuk]

"if the referendum passes, what country will Sockatume be a citizen of? England or Scotland?"

No idea. It's one of the many things to be decided after the referendum and, presumably, independence in a years time or so if the vote is 50% + 1 for "yes".

"What passport will he have?"

No idea. See my previous response.

Independence means change, a lot of change over quite a short period of time. I expect a lot of handwaving and making shit up in a hurry about nationality, passports, currency, military affairs, border controls, representation in various supranational groups, embassies, tax offices, laws and judiciary, health and welfare, schooling, funding for assorted aspects of government, the whole nine yards. Usually independence is accomplished after a lot of bloodshed and burning when anything seems better than heads on pikes and clashing bands of armed marauders looting the countryside. Look at the mess the slaveholder's revolt in America in 1776 left in its wake after all.

Re:Take the long view

[Anonymous Coward]

Any voter should consider the probable situation twenty or fourty years from now, not whatever happens in a year or two.

What, you mean when they're on their deathbed? Yeah, that'll be really useful for them during the bulk of their lives.

Well, if they are not selfish then they should be asking themselves what is best for their children and grandchildren.

Re:Take the long view

[Anonymous Coward]

Give us a good reason why the normal rule, place of birth, shouldn't apply.

It's simple. If you were borne in rUK and have lived the last 10 years - or whatever arbitrary limit you set - in Scotland, nothing changes with your passport, and you automatically (anything else would just be spiteful) get a permanent residence permit. If you were born in Scotland and live there, you get a new passport.

If you were born in Scotland and have been living in rUK, you get a new passport, and an (again anything else would just be childish spitefulness) automatic residence permit. If you were born in rUK, and live in rUK, no change.

Why are everyone trying to make things so much more complicated than they are?

Re:Take the long view

[Altus]

I agree with you, that model for citizenship makes a lot of sense, but it means that a person living abroad would end up being a citizen of an independent country and had no input into the creation of that country... also someone who is living there now but was born in Wales would not end up a citizen and does get a vote. Seems kind of odd, thats all. I don't have any skin in the game so I don't really care but it does surprise me that it might work out that way.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Noryungi]

Ah yes, but you forget a couple of things here...

First of all, Scotland would be one of two EU nations to produce its own oil and gaz (the other is Norway). That gives it A LOT of leverage, especially since they can't possibly burn all that fuel in Scotland itself.

After the initial shock, you can bet dozens of countries (China? Japan? others?) would send delegations to Scotland to finance pretty much everything they want, provided they get a piece of the North Sea action (so to speak).

Second, there is a very common doctrine in newly-formed nations to refuse to honor all debts contracted in their names before independence. Hence, whatever debt the UK had, Scotland can now refuse, since it is now independent. That would blow the whole of the City of London to smithereens (which is a very good reason to vote Yes if you happen to be a Scot).

Combine the two, and you have a newly independent country, with zero debts and very interesting natural resources. Give it a little time, and investors from all over the world would beat a path to Scotland's door, checkbooks in hand.

Sure, the economic transition would be quite difficult, especially if the SNP persists in its own silly plan of keeping the Queen, keeping the pound (soooo stupid this one!) and applying for EU membership, but Scotland has a lot going for it.

Whether it can avoid the natural ressource trap is something else again, of course...

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[bigpat]

I think it would be fairly cynical of the English side to allow a vote on independence and then screw over Scotland as an 'I told you so'. The best thing for everyone would be to facilitate a peaceful and mutually beneficial transition. That means cooperating with the Bank of Scotland to keep the Pound if they want to and doing nothing to make EU membership difficult. This isn't some sort of armed rebellion. The UK agreed to this vote. If the remaining UK screws over Scotland out of regret for allowing independence, then it would hurt the UK just as much as it would Scotland.

Ho hum

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, Scotland lands control 1/3 the resources of the UK and has 1/13th the population, assuming a new independent Scotland would have control over those resources, a "No" vote is foolish(except to the rest of the UK).

Re:Ho hum

[u38cg]

Yes, but a startling proportion of that 1/3 is vertical. Or loch.

Re:Ho hum

[jeremyp]

Most of the land that Scotland controls is mountains and other wilderness which isn't economically productive. Sure, it would get a lot of the oil, but that is a finite resource and when that's gone, what's left? I suppose they can turn themselves into a giant Highland Theme Park.

Re:Ho hum

[localhost8080]

Wind. And Rain. == windmills and hydro energy.

Re:Ho hum

[Ash-Fox]

Which is stupid expensive to build, maintain. Nuclear power is cheaper and don't require fossil fuels to back it up.

this issue transcends money

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think that when the Irish Republicans were fighting (and dying) for their independence from the UK that they ever once thought, "But what will the economic implications of our independence be? What will our credit rating become??"

No, of course not! And Ireland's economy today is about as good as it's ever been (which is to say, so-so). At least people aren't starving by the millions now.

Scotland MUST vote for its independence. If things don't work out, they can always rejoin with England (England would bend over backwards to welcome Scotland back if it ever came to that). The two countries are still going to be connected at the hip; they're still going to have the same amount of trade as now.

It's like pondering how much money you'd sell your children for-- You wouldn't sell your children for any price under any circumstances. What the Scottish gain from independence is at least a chance to preserve their culture and genetic heritage. These two things are so much greater than any economic consideration.

Re:this issue transcends money

[IamTheRealMike]

Do you think that when the Irish Republicans were fighting (and dying) for their independence from the UK that they ever once thought, "But what will the economic implications of our independence be? What will our credit rating become??"

Probably not, but it's hardly a surprise that people who were practically Marxist guerillas didn't fully think through what they were doing.

Post independence Ireland's economy went down the shitter for a loooooong time and lots of people were very miserable. Emigration was rampant and Ireland became a place supported by remittances, like a third world country. It wasn't until they modernised their economy that things started to improve.

Scotland MUST vote for its independence. If things don't work out, they can always rejoin with England (England would bend over backwards to welcome Scotland back if it ever came to that).

This is like saying someone MUST divorce their spouse because they can always just get back together. I think you'll find this campaign has huge potential to wreck relations between Scotland and the rest of the UK. In the short run it won't just make Scotland poorer, it'll hurt everyone. Not to mention that the most common justification for independence can be summed up as "the English are nasty and unfair and everything wrong with Scotland is their fault".

With respect to trade, unfortunately the independence negotiations could be very complicated and nasty if they vote yes, as Salmond has promised the moon including things he knows he can't get. When he's told - again - he won't be able to get the things he wants, he'll once again blame the English and start trying to make the breakup as nasty as he can to try and save face. A trade war or widespread unofficial boycotts are not exactly unthinkable.

Heck, I wasn't planning on going on vacation to Scotland any time soon but I wouldn't have been against the idea. But after watching all of this?? Why would I go somewhere where apparently 50% of the population are quasi-Marxists who think all English people suck?

Re:this issue transcends money

[AmiMoJo]

Can you name something Salmond won't get? It all seems fairly certain that he can get things like a currency union, EU membership, rid of Trident etc.

Re:this issue transcends money

[IamTheRealMike]

Can you justify that statement at all? Currency union has been categorically ruled out and the UK population (outside of Scotland) strongly supports that move according to opinion polls.

Re:this issue transcends money

[Uberbah]

Because Ireland did so well under the yoke of British Imperialism.

This is like saying someone MUST divorce their spouse because they can always just get back together.

Hardly. That some countries have done "poorly" after throwing off foreign rule is not a knock against independence. It's a knock against imperialism.

Re:this issue transcends money

[Xest]

Just about everything how will he get currency union? it takes two to agree and one side has ruled it out meaning it's a no go. How will he get EU membership? Spain's PM has said he'll veto.

The only thing Salmond will get are about 8.9% of the UK's assets,

I know you think the Bank of England is an asset, but it's not, well, the building is, and the walls are, but then so is Hollyrood as much an English asset in that respect, but no, everything else that "is" the BOE is employees, and political policy- you can't go independent and say you want sway over our public sector employees and our political policy as a sovereign nation - upon independence the policy splits and British currency is British policy, Scotland loses access to that on independence - if you want to retain a say in British policy it's simple, vote no, because what you're asking for is not independence.

Debt isn't the BOE, debt is a negative asset just like a bunch of fighter jets are a positive asset, on independence you only get to take your population share of each of all these assets, including the negative ones like debt. Now, you could leave the debt with the UK but then you leave equivalent value assets with the UK like fighter jets and leave yourself with no defence, no hospital equipment and so on, but that's upto Salmond and his Scots to decide whether they'd rather have assets and debt, or no assets and no debt, what he doesn't get is fantasy world assets and no debt because debt is just another asset (again, albeit a negative one). Other negative assets that are more tangible might be for example nuclear power plants that require decommissioning soon- assets come in both flavours and you don't get to pick and choose which you do and don't take unilaterally.

Re:this issue transcends money

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why nearly everywhere in Africa is a shining beacon of stability, freedom, and democracy despite having had decades of independence because it's all imperialism's fault.

That's also why you support Russia's invasion of Ukraine, because imperialism is bad.

Wait what? you make zero sense in all your arguments. As usual.

Re:this issue transcends money

[Uberbah]

That's why nearly everywhere in Africa is a shining beacon of stability, freedom, and democracy despite having had decades of independence because it's all imperialism's fault.

Yeah. It is. Victim blaming is always BS, no matter who is the victimizer or who is the victim.

That's also why you support Russia's invasion of Ukraine, because imperialism is bad.

1) Russia hasn't invaded
2) Even if they did, it would be a million more times more justified than any American intervention you can name
3) Russia are the only ones fighting the illegal coup financed, planned and supported by....western imperialists!

Wait what? you make zero sense in all your arguments. As usual.

Because you're obviously a right wing troll so divorced from reality that you could jump off a ship and insist that water is dry.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[IamTheRealMike]

they can still secure loans from the continent ... it is unlikely that anyone in Europe will spite UK this way

I rather think they would. Banks are not known for national alliances trumping profits, assuming lenders care one way or another (they don't).

Scotland will find it very hard to raise the funding it needs in the markets if it goes independent, but that'll be because Salmond seems to think walking away from their share of the UK debt is a viable option at all. I expect that if they did that, they could tell lenders that was a one off and they fully intend to repay debts accumulated by the new country, and I expect that lenders would buy it (after all HMG will still pay off the old Scottish debt).

But if they are actually stupid enough to do that they'll have made an enemy of an economy much larger than theirs, their largest export market, a country they're heavily dependent on for the basic infrastructure of running a government and a country that could veto their entry into Europe. Scotland really does NOT want a nasty, vicious divorce from the UK, but Salmond doesn't appear to be thinking that far ahead.

Additionally, raising funds would be tough because a significant part of the yes campaign appears to be predicated on the belief that post-independence Scotland will veer hard to the left. In the 1970's the north of the UK was practically communist and it appears many there still hanker for those times. A half-country that just pissed off its most important partner and is determined to re-run the Soviet experiment is not gonna be a good credit risk no matter what national allegiances one may have.

An independent Scotland would boost the IT sector

[Anonymous Coward]

With an independent Scotland, I think there would be a need in the new Scottish administration for hundreds of new IT systems to replace the UK ones (or at the very least lots of customization to existing systems), and in the remaining UK there will probably also have to be countless hours spent extracting/disabling the Scotland-specific parts of public IT infrastructure.

Re: Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign s

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine scottland not joining the EU right away.
I do think they would need to join the euro once they meet the criteria for joining just like every new member state.

Scotland third time lucky

[kooky45]

A lot of people think that Scotland is walking blindly towards independence without knowing what they're doing. I'd like to remind them that Scotland has voted for independence twice before but both times it's been blocked. In 1914 Scotland voted for independence from the UK, but then the First World War started and it was conveniently dropped. In 1979 Scotland voted again for much more local power through devolution, but some dodgy rule dictated that at least 40% of the total registered electorate had to vote for devolution, and even though they got the majority winning by 51.62% Yes to 48.38% No the vote was overturned because the Yes vote comprised only 32.9% of the total possible vote. So this has been a long time coming.

Re:Scotland third time lucky

[gsslay]

In 1914 Scotland voted for independence from the UK

No such thing occurred. All you can say is that some in Scotland voted for a party which had a policy of Scottish home rule. That party then prepared a bill, which didn't propose independence, only devolution. Unfortunately the First World War intervened before it progressed through parliament. By the end of hostilities there was no appetite from anyone to restart the process.

some dodgy rule dictated that at least 40% of the total registered electorate had to vote for devolution, and even though they got the majority winning by 51.62% Yes to 48.38% No the vote was overturned because the vote was overturned because the Yes vote comprised only 32.9% of the total possible vote

I think it's quite a sound policy that only 32.9% of the electorate shouldn't be deciding what happens to the country. Particularly when people were told before the vote that not voting was equivalent to voting no. Think of it like this; 48.38% of those who voted made the effort to vote no, when they actually didn't have to do a thing. And those who did need to make the effort (the ones who wanted a change) only amounted to less than a third of the population.

Re:Scotland third time lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

> dodgy rule dictated that at least 40% of the total registered electorate had to vote for devolution

I don't think it's unreasonable to require that enough people actually support the issue, given that it will affect everyone.

I have never been there

[rossdee]

But I do have very distant Scottish ancestry.

I would support and 'Aye" vote. For too long the English have ruled over Scotland after beating the Jacobites at Culloden.

If they can't use the Pound after independence, they should switch to the Kilogram - its worth 2.2 times as much.

Re:I have never been there

[Anonymous Coward]

You basically just summed up the referendum, on one side you have people who have bothered to look into the number and facts to see what things would be really like, and on the other you've got the yes voters that've just watched Braveheart way too much.

Re: Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign s

[halivar]

Because no European country will countenance legitimizing break-away countries, as many of them currently struggle with.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[jez9999]

The UK agreed to this vote.

Cameron ageed to this vote. Most UK citizens would not have. There was no good reason I can see for Cameron to have agreed to it.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Anonymous Coward]

"First of all, Scotland would be one of two EU nations to produce its own oil and gaz (the other is Norway)."

I've seen this so many times on the internet. Norway is NOT a member of the European Union.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[cardpuncher]

>Scotland can now refuse (to honor all debts contracted in their names),,,

Indeed it could. And the rest of the UK could in retaliation destroy bridges, roads and other publicly-funded assets to an equivalent value if it wished and impose an excise duty on all Scottish exports to collect the interest.

Both would be equally senseless and neither will happen.

Re: Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign s

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the principle of consent of the governed? Any sizable enough group of people living in a geographic area should have the right of self determination.

Whoops

[Bruce66423]

1) Statement of fact: Norway is not in the EU 2) Scotland will not be independent on 19th September, it will have voted to seek independence. It will have no control of its taxation, until that is agreed. It would be logical for the rUK government to inform Alex Salmond on 19th that at an imminent date the cash from UK wide taxation will cease to be paid to the Scottish government that keeps it going until it agrees to accept its debt. 1st January 2015 or the start of the new fiscal year spring to mind. 3) Until full independence, all state power will remain in the hands of the UK government

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Bruce66423]

"If the remaining UK screws over Scotland out of regret for allowing independence, then it would hurt the UK just as much as it would Scotland." Certainly not. Scotland is a small country whose screwing over would barely effect rUK, but who could bring the Scots to total chaos in days. We merely want to ensure that they pay their debts; they are the ones who raised the prospect of using that as a threat - we need to ensure that they don't even think about it.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[91degrees]

I guess there's probably other things the UK could do. Ultimately, Scotland isn't going to get independence until an agreement that both sides will accept is reached. The UK will not budge on currency union, or allow Scotland to simply shrug off the debt, and I wonder if sanctions could be imposed.

If the independence talks do stall, presumably it will be negotiated with a third part mediator. Perhaps I'm biased, but I don't see a third party accepting Scotland's demands here as reasonable.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[stdarg]

Scotland will find it very hard to raise the funding it needs in the markets if it goes independent, but that'll be because Salmond seems to think walking away from their share of the UK debt is a viable option at all. I expect that if they did that, they could tell lenders that was a one off and they fully intend to repay debts accumulated by the new country, and I expect that lenders would buy it (after all HMG will still pay off the old Scottish debt).

I don't understand how Scotland will be given any share of the UK debt. The UK will still exist, so the UK will have the debt.

In the 2 years before actual independence I'm sure there will be negotiations about the issuance of new debt obligations to repay the UK for their investments in Scotland, but that will be new debt, not a sharing of old debt. If Scotland refuses to pay, they would be breaking their obligation to the UK, not to the UK's creditors who have no relationship to Scotland.

Whether that obligation will even exist will depend a lot on how people view Scotland's contributions to the UK. They get a tiny proportion of revenue from the North Sea oil and gas, but in my mind it would be fair to count what they didn't get as part of their contribution to the UK. How do the numbers look then?

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[u38cg]

No, I'm afraid you don't understand a few things. Firstly, Scotland's oil is small beer on the global stage. The North Sea produces ~1.5m bpd, OPEC alone is something like 30m. Scotland could turn off the taps and the planet wouldn't even blink.

So, the inrush of global partners wouldn't happen. More to the point, why would they rush to jump into bed with a government that has already stood up and said it is seriously considering reneging on UK debt? Which, by the way, is not the norm for newly independent countries and would be remembered by the markets. If they lent at all, they would certainly require paying for it. You really want to pay Greek interest rates on your government debt?

Think Venezuela, not Norway.

Big problem, laddie

[Anonymous Coward]

There is another, devastating problem. Without the moderating effects of English speakers, the Scottish dialect will quickly deteriorate to some completely incomprehensible gibberish. Mind you, there are no certified interpreters for Scottish (only for English!). Nobody will understand them anywhere but in their home country. Good luck with the forthcoming EU negotiations!

Is Mackenzie related to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nancy Pelosi? “Civilization as we know it today would be in jeopardy if the Republicans win the Senate.”

Re:Is Mackenzie related to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds good to me!

It would be even nicer if we could speed the demise of "civilization as we know it today" by kicking stupid and corrupt politicians like Pelosi herself out of office.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[IamTheRealMike]

Slicing up assets also means slicing up debts. Or would you be OK with all Scottish pensions being vaporised overnight because the UK still exists, so the UK will have the pensions?

It could shake up the construction industry

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll be a hell of a job putting Hadrian's wall back up :-)

1914 vote?

[Bruce66423]

Naw - there was a bill before Parliament that disappeared when war started, but no vote, unless you can provide me with evidence to the contrary

I imagine the interviewee is a No campaigner

[Anonymous Coward]

being paid to stir. I can't think of any other reason for this kind of inane crap.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Noryungi]

No, I'm afraid you don't understand a few things. Firstly, Scotland's oil is small beer on the global stage. The North Sea produces ~1.5m bpd, OPEC alone is something like 30m. Scotland could turn off the taps and the planet wouldn't even blink.

Bzzzt! Sorry Wrong Answer! Try again.

And I quote: "The largest field discovered in the past 25 years is Buzzard also located off Scotland, found in June 2001 with producible reserves of almost 64×106 m (400m bbl) and an average output of 28 600 m to 30 200 m (180,000-190,000 bbl) per day." (Source here).

It's not just the production that counts - it's also the size of the reserves, the fact that Scotland is very close to its primary market (the EU) and its own stability.

And, if you happen to believe that Peak Oil is almost upon us (and there is no reason to believe otherwise) then that Oil is going to be more and more valuable as time passes...

Think Venezuela, not Norway.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[IamTheRealMike]

The best thing for everyone would be to facilitate a peaceful and mutually beneficial transition.

Of course.

That means cooperating with the Bank of Scotland to keep the Pound if they want to and doing nothing to make EU membership difficult.

That would mean agreeing to underwrite and subsidise someone else's heavily socialist spending policies in perpetuity. The English taxpayer already suffers from paying tax that is then shipped to Scotland and used to give Scottish and rest-of-EU students free education, but not English students. There is no way in hell they will agree to crippling tax rises to fund a country that just told them to shove it. And this was made clear to Scotland throughout the campaign.

Once that happens, Salmond will argue that being told to fund his own policies is "English bullying" just like he's done throughout the campaign, and this terrible bullying is a reason to refuse to take on any debt. This will immediately alienate all English voters even moreso than Salmond already has done.

The UK will then have multiple ways to respond, because it's in a much stronger negotiating position; it's a much larger economy and already has all the infrastructure a country needs, whereas Scotland doesn't. As a trivial example, Scotland would be dependent on London to administer welfare until it's managed to commission and build its own IT systems. Does it want a smooth transition there? OK, time to go to the markets and borrow the funds to pay the UK for those services. There are many other examples like that.

Re:This is bullshit from start to finish

[Bruce66423]

"There are and will continue to be plenty of banks in Scotland."

In order for banks to lend, they must have deposits. Given the risk of holding money north of the border, a 'Yes' vote will generate a stampede of cash south on Friday. There may be banks, but they won't have any money to lend

"There is and will continue to be freedom of movement".

Really? If Scotland has left the EU, then it will be necessary to impose border controls

"There is and will continue to be access to European markets."

Only if you get to renegotiate membership of the EU. Good luck with that until you've agreed to pay your share of the UK's debts, and then only if you are nice to the Spanish

"Scotland has and will continue to use The Pound, and there is nothing the UK government will be able to do to stop them."

Sterlingisation will result in substantially higher interest rates for all bank loans as the risk of holding money in a country without a lender of last resort is significant.

"Prices are will remain competitive; arbitrage and competitive pressures will prevent large price rises."

This, at least, is accurate because you admit there will be price rises. If you are very lucky there won't be a toll on the M6 north of Carlise and the A1 north of Berwick, but it would certainly be rational for us to impose one to pay for the cost of maintaining roads to enable good to travel to and from Scotland.

"Russia will NOT invade Scotland... FFS! Why do I have to comment on this kind of purile shit?"

Given Putin's ambition and Scotland's oil, an attempt seems like an entertaining prospect. Not a visible invasion at first of course; Scottish socialists would start rioting as a result of the economic chaos following Scotland's ejection from the EU and then invite Russian peacekeepers to restore order. A referendum would be organised for Scotland to join the Russian Federation.

Of course that's not likely - but the idea that Scotland should become freeloaders like many other European countries, dependent on Uncle Sam to protect them from a bear that is demonstrably on the prowl is disappointing.

stupid fear mongering

[silfen]

For tech start-ups, funding will be tougher to find and more expensive, there will be no local banks, access to EU markets and the freedom of movement will be curtailed

Yes, because of course no bank would ever want to be in a new country with an educated workforce, low unemployment, and lots of natural resources! Small places like Luxembourg and Switzerland are absolutely barren, devoid of banks, money, or access to markets! The poor people of Liechtenstein and Monaco are starving and barely literate! Don't turn Scotland into a dump like Norway!

(That was sarcasm, for the sarcasm-impaired.)

Re:stupid fear mongering

[gsslay]

Luxembourg, Switzerland , Liechtenstein, Monaco and Norway all have a good credit history. That's all the banks care about. Scotland, on the other hand, would be the equivalent of an 18 year old with no credit history. That makes it, as far as the banks are concerned, an unknown risk. Banks do not like unknown risks.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[IamTheRealMike]

He's obviously talking about the short term, not in some possibly long-term future where everything is sorted out.

Blowing off the guys legitimate worries for his business as scaremongering pretty much sums up the entire Yes campaign so far. It's not an argument like, "it's true that the split will be messy painful and could cause recession on both sides, but in the long term it'll be worth it". It's an argument like "everything will be peaches and cream immediately and anyone who says otherwise is a scaremongering bully".

Re:stupid fear mongering

[dandelionblue]

The major banks have already said that they would leave Scotland for England, including Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin...

Re:stupid fear mongering

[silfen]

He's obviously talking about the short term, not in some possibly long-term future where everything is sorted out.

The referendum just asks "Should Scotland be an independent country?" It doesn't specify a timetable or how the transition is going to happen. The suggestion that there are "immediate" or "short term" consequences itself is unfounded scare mongering.

it's true that the split will be messy painful and could cause recession on both sides

But that isn't true, it's just more FUD. The only reason that would happen is if the UK and/or EU get vindictive for political reasons. Otherwise, the transition can be as gradual and careful as people wish.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[silfen]

That's nonsense. There is as much economic and financial data on Scotland as there is on the UK as a whole. Independence introduces a small degree of political uncertainty in the short term, which may raise the cost of borrowing slightly, but that's likely no worse than what you face before an election.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[IamTheRealMike]

Salmond has been saying 18 months, that's his timetable. Nobody really believes that'll happen because the details are so complicated, but there is definitely a timetable being set.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Uberbah]

Which is like Microsoft threatening to offshore parts of their business if their workers get too uppity. Scotland is going to remain on the British Pound, so the banks are working on FUD for the time being.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Uberbah]

An 18 year old sitting on a gold mine - like when LeBron James and his mom went out and got some new cars before he ever got his first paycheck with the Cavs. Scotland has great drilling opportunities in the North Sea; it's one reason why Cameron has been fighting so hard to keep the Scots in the family.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see what incentive the banks would have to do so. Would they really stay when a border is raised between them and the country with Europe's financial capitol?

It's more like MS threatening to offshore, if Washington state were considering seceding the US. Except that banks are more dependent on whatever the central bank is than a software company is and in an independent Scotland, their "effective central bank" (either the BoE or the ECB) would be one that doesn't care about them. Just like Ecuador uses the US Dollar and Kosovo and Montenegro use the Euro - it provides stability but their monetary policy is not theirs to decide.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Uberbah]

Leaving in a fit of pique is going to hurt the banks more the Scots. Does Lloyds really want all that Scottish oil drilled on someone else's credit or their own? Iceland has been able to get credit after they defaulted on debts, which an independent Scotland wont have (to start with, anyway).

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Anonymous Coward]

It is FUD. An independent Scotland will negotiate with the EU as needed and the central bank of Scotland could be even covered by London if the currency stays the same. Visa freedoms are negotiable and capital market is global. A high-risk tech start-up who is not already profitable and with steady clientele couldn't go to local banks before anyway.
  Perhaps the Scots embrace the common market and adopt the Euro eventually. After all, there are lots of blue in the EU flag. The horror, Cameron, the horror!

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Anonymous Coward]

Leaving in a fit of pique is going to hurt the banks more the Scots. Does Lloyds really want all that Scottish oil drilled on someone else's credit or their own? Iceland has been able to get credit after they defaulted on debts, which an independent Scotland wont have (to start with, anyway).

Ok, I get it. You don't know shit. About shit, let alone economics. To educate you: Scotland will get its share of the national debt, otherwise they can kiss goodbye to all that they stand to get from the current government (you know, pensions and other unimportant things...). What they will lose is control of any monetary policy (including theirs). This will mean that banks in Scotland will not be regulated by Scotland but by the central banks they're accountable to - either the Bank of England or the European Central Bank if they unilaterally adopt the Euro (like non-members Kosovo and Montenegro) instead of applying for membership (hint: The Royal Bank of Scotland is not a central bank but a commercial bank, which - ironically - has also threatened to leave). Of course banks will have subsidiaries in Scotland but the Scottish government wouldn't be able to influence them in any way since they would not be accountable to the Scottish government. To clarify: Any banking regulation issued by Scotland would either be pointless or just harm Scotland. More lenient regulation would not mean anything since regulation enforced by the respective central banks would still have to be followed and if you want banks to stay, stricter regulation isn't exactly what you want to do. So oil drilling etc. doesn't matter for the banks because it will still be money borrowed from abroad and those interest rates will not be based on what would be good for Scotland since unemployment and inflation in Scotland is not the concern of the central banks most likely in question (ECB or BoE).

Just replace Europe with UK in the following, if Scotland keeps the pound: When Europe is in a recession interest rates are lowered by the ECB to increase public spending and thus reduce unemployment. However, if interest rates are lowered when unemployment in Scotland at the same time is low, higher salaries will be expected by workers and people will simply borrow more because "money is cheap" when interest rates are low. Eventually the Scottish economy reaches a downturn and unemployment increases and people have massive loans that they cannot pay. Even an idiot like you, should know what the next stage then is... Now, of course it works fine if the Scottish economy is "in sync" with the economies whose central banks decide the interest rates in Scotland. However, the big concern for countries contemplating eurozone membership was that their economies would not necessarily be in sync with the others (it happens easily, just have a left-wing government when most have a right-wing or vice versa - the fiscal policy = government spending and taxes are quite different then, as even a dumb fuck like you should know). To alleviate such concerns, joint criteria which all eurozone countries had to abide by were set so that the economies would always be in sync. Greece cooked their books so they were not in the shape they claimed they were when they joined the eurozone and thus the monetary policy set by the ECB was disastrous for Greece because it was "the wrong one" (but somewhat right for other members) and to revive the Greek economy through fiscal policy, other eurozone members had to "chip in". The "normal" prescription would have been to devalue the currency but with a bunch of good economies using it, the Greeks didn't have that option. The effect on imports and exports that exchange rates and interest rates have are beyond the scope of this lesson (and maybe your cognitive ability, as well). An independent Scotland could of course try to set its fiscal policy to match the dictated-by-others monetary policy but (1) that's harder than to set them to complement each other and (2) even less "independent" since then

Re:stupid fear mongering

[silfen]

Salmond has been saying 18 months, that's his timetable.

That's a tentative timetable for formal independence; it says nothing about a timetable for how economic or other relations change. And even that tentative timetable can be changed and postponed at will.

The fact remains that there is nothing in the vote that either mandates a timetable or necessitates any kind of "messy or painful split", and pretending otherwise is FUD.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[silfen]

Goodie, two corrupt banks backed by UK tax payers want to leave an independent Scotland.

Sounds to me like just the kind of thing independence is actually supposed to accomplish.

Unfortunately, they are probably just saber rattling.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Anonymous Coward]

Luxembourg, Monaco, Lichtenstein and Switzerland are rich from tax dodging. That's not a good option to follow at a time when the rest of the world is cracking down on tax dodging because they're fed up of these states contributing nothing worthwhile to the world and effectively just leeching money from states where the money is actually made.

Norway is another poor comparison, it's population is almost identical in size to that of Scotland yet it has a GDP twice that of Scotland. Even if Scotland managed a consistent 5% growth per year which is tough for Western economies it'd take 50 years to grow it's economy to where Norway is now, by which time Norway will be way ahead of where it is now.

The comparisons are common, and they're also nonsense. Pointing to a country like Norway and saying "But they did it!" is all very well, but they're a very different beast to Scotland and Scotland would need the best part of a generation to even catch up to where they are now, that's not a smart proposition.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Uberbah]

Ok, I get it. You don't know shit.

Snort. Says someone who doesn't know the meaning of the word "independence". Google it and try again.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Anonymous Coward]

North Korea calls itself democratic. It doesn't mean that it is. Try looking at how the independent eurozone countries cannot decide their monetary policy (and a number of other things). Or how the "monarchs" in Europe no longer rule the countries and are thus just lifelong Paris Hiltons with fancy titles. Use your brain instead of a dictionary (assuming you have one, I'm not fully convinced that you do - a brain, that is). If Scotland hadn't gained much more de facto autonomy than it already has it could have ended up worse off. Of course, things such as representing Scotland instead of the UK in the olympic games and other bullshit might matter a lot to people even though it shouldn't be more important to any person with functioning rational faculties than which celebrity cheated on whom... But would you e.g. lose 50 % of your purchasing power even temporarily for having an athlete carry the "right" flag? Sports and such crap might of course increase life satisfaction for pathetic people so a lower purchasing power with a higher life satisfaction isn't out of the question but I wouldn't gamble on that.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Uberbah]

Now you're just blathering incoherently. Independent means independent - independent militaries, health care systems, pension systems, etc. Not sliding into Korean-style totalitarianism.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, dear. Dunning-Kruger hasn't fully immunized you from feeling butthurt because the new word of the day you learnt isn't used in such a simplistic fashion as you thought. Or is it word of the week? Maybe more than one new word per week is too much for you.

In North Korea's case democratic doesn't mean democratic. But you were too obtuse to grasp that sometimes words are used in name only. In the eurozone case independent doesn't mean independent monetary policy. And no practical exit from it either. In the military case, well, NATO members don't have much independence in terms of military spending, choices of systems - and in particular - when it comes to defending another member. Health care: Think of Sweden's and Finland's partially integrated health care systems. It also goes the other way: Independent Bosnia-Herzegovina has two independent postal services (one for the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and one for Republika Srpska).

You know what, you can personally always call it Independent Scotland and pretend that it is. Nobody will tell the difference if they have the misfortune of interacting with you. Everything you say is wrong or stupid or both so it doesn't matter for others what you say. You probably haven't realized it but it people ask you what time it is they don't do so because they need to know - then they would need the right answer - they just want to make you feel better when you get to show that you can answer, occasionally correctly.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Uberbah]

Even more pointless blathering. Cutting out the hand waving and responding to parts where you get within a few miles of having a point.

But you were too obtuse to grasp that sometimes words are used in name only. In the eurozone case independent doesn't mean independent monetary policy.

Are you submitting your name to the Nobel Prize Committee for discovering that water is wet? That the leaders if the Scottish Independence movement wanted to stick with the pound is not only not news, people were pointing out the potential problems of doing so before the vote.

And no practical exit from it either. In the military case, well, NATO members don't have much independence in terms of military spending, choices of systems - and in particular - when it comes to defending another member.

Who was sitting of the coast of Scotland ready to invade if the country did not join NATO or sign some sort of defense treaty with Britain? Scotland needs military protection as much as they need Tiger Stones.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Anonymous Coward]

And finally you conceded my point! There's still hope for you :)

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Uberbah]

Your original complaint was that Scotland couldn't start off without it's "share" of debt, remember? That Scotland would still be tied 18 different ways at the hip to what remained of the UK? And - again - there's the fact that Scotland wouldn't end up as another Greece or Spain because they have most of the UK's natural resources, chiefly the oil-rich North Sea.

Re:stupid fear mongering

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh. I was facepalming at the stupidity here - in particular your utterly moronic comment. You idiot claimed that the banks were bluffing when they said they'd leave. I tried to educate your dumb ass as to why that is a highly credible threat (or was...) unless Scotland only becomes "independent" and from an economic POV there's thus no point in independence unless other factors outweigh it. Then you said you got within miles of understanding but evidently that was wishful thinking. You're clearly beyond hope.

Re: Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign s

[jez9999]

Tell that to Abraham Lincoln. He set the military on a bunch of US states that wanted self-determination. Or are the US schools painting Lincoln as an evil tyrant these days?

It doesn't seem to make sense

[swb]

I don't really understand the political or economic motivations of Scottish independence.

The political side would make more sense if Scotland was greatly different than UK culturally and had a significant short-term history of English subjugation. The Scots really aren't an ethnic or racial grouping, except at some micro level and don't seem to have a serious complaint regarding discrimination on language or religious grounds.

The economics make less sense -- Scotland has been economically integrated with the larger UK for a long time. Had Scotland split off in 1850, it would have been at a time when economies were smaller and much more locally self sufficient and it would have had time to develop into something that The economy seems much more regional now and it will be a hard transition to a more standalone economy.

Re:It doesn't seem to make sense

[number17]

The political side would make more sense if Scotland was greatly different than UK culturally

Oh no you didn't!

Re:It doesn't seem to make sense

[Uberbah]

For starters, to finally get out from under the yoke of feudalism. No, I'm not kidding. 432 families own half the land in Scotland, which they then rent out to the peasants, I mean proles, I mean for a profit. Any time the Scots try and do something about it, it goes nowhere fast in parliament.

The political side would make more sense if Scotland was greatly different than UK culturally and had a significant short-term history of English subjugation.

Aside from the above, why is Scotland's desire for independence any different than Canada's? Or Australia's? Being a part of the UK was never a choice of the Scottish people.

The economics make less sense -- Scotland has been economically integrated with the larger UK for a long time.

The economically questionable part is not ditching the British Pound at the same time they're ditching the British Crown. Having a sovereign government without a sovereign currency can be extremely risky - just ask Greece or Ireland. Scotland should fare better, though, because of drilling opportunities in the North Sea.

Re:It doesn't seem to make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really understand the political or economic motivations of Scottish independence.

The political side would make more sense if Scotland was greatly different than UK culturally and had a significant short-term history of English subjugation. The Scots really aren't an ethnic or racial grouping, except at some micro level and don't seem to have a serious complaint regarding discrimination on language or religious grounds.

The economics make less sense -- Scotland has been economically integrated with the larger UK for a long time. Had Scotland split off in 1850, it would have been at a time when economies were smaller and much more locally self sufficient and it would have had time to develop into something that The economy seems much more regional now and it will be a hard transition to a more standalone economy.

Goodnight, Sheldon.

I call fearmongering

[Anonymous Coward]

'No local banks' - rubbish. London centred RBS might move its HQ to London, but I don't see why there'd be no access to capital, and there are other banks in Scotland, and finance is an international business already (you know HSBC stands for Hong Kong-Shanghai Banking Corporation right?).
'access to EU markets and the freedom of movement will be curtailed' - if anything it'll be expanded - Scotland has a much more positive view of immigration than the Westminster bubble which is dominated by xenophobia. Scotland will be allowed to stay in the EU, it makes no sense for the EU to kick them out (at least whilst the rUK is in the EU).

I'd be more scared that the Tory back-benchers will get their way and we'll have an in-out EU referendum. That could be won by the anti-EU people, leading to isolation from the rest of Europe, a large part of the financial services industry fleeing to Frankfurt and real curtailment of movement and capital flow.

"In the long run we are all dead"

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a principle in economy attributed to Keynes that says: "In the long run we are all dead"

People suffering the severe consequences now probably shouldn't worry much about a century later. That is 4 generations in the future for their great-great-childrens with really no objective gain assured.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[AmiMoJo]

The UK can't refuse to have a currency union in practice. It might go as far as the European courts or other international bodies, but the currency is basically as much theirs as it is the rest of the UK's.

If the vote is yes then the rest of the UK will negotiate a union because it's in their best interests. Otherwise investors are going to start pulling out of the UK fast because if Scotland doesn't keep Sterling the rest of the UK's debt will increase massively in proportion. Sterling would also lose many of the assets it is valued against, like North Sea oil.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[u38cg]

The largest field discovered in the last 25 years produces 0.2m bpd - included in the 1.5m figure - and you think that supports your argument how, exactly?

You make the assumption that the planet will not transition to a primarily renewables energy mix. Given that a number of renewable sources are already competitive with fossil fuels and investment at scale is only beginning in this sector, I would suggest that is a hell of an assumption to hang your country's prosperity on.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[AmiMoJo]

People forget about their wind resources too. By 2020 they will be 100% renewable; that is, 200% capacity available with half of it being renewable, mostly wind. They will be exporting a lot of clean energy at a time when the rest of the UK can't seem to convince investors to build new capacity.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[locofungus]

The UK general election will be 7th May 2015. The government that agreed to this vote almost certainly won't be the government that is negotiating.

No party is going to stand on a policy of "We're going to give your taxpayer money to this new independent Scotland because the last government agreed to the vote." They're going to stand on the "we're going to save as much money as possible for you and stop these handouts to Scotland."

Re: Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign s

[91degrees]

The North won. Therefore Lincoln was a good guy, and completely right. If the South had seceeded, I'm sure it would be seen as equivalent in importance to the War of Independence, with the North painted squarely as the villains.

Re:This is bullshit from start to finish

[Anonymous Coward]

"There may be banks, but they won't have any money to lend "

FUD.

"it will be necessary to impose border controls"

FUD

"Only if you get to renegotiate membership of the EU"

FUD

"Sterlingisation will result in substantially higher interest rates"

FUD

"you admit there will be price rises"

FUD. There are always price rises.

All *you* have is fear uncertainty and doubt. You should live a better life.

Independence!

Smaller Europen nations are wealthier on average than their larger neighbours. Scotland is an exporting nation (even without oil), it will gain in wealth. This will happen for Scotland, and relatively quickly too as England's current account goes rapidly into crisis mode. You guys import far too much and don't produce enough. You will have to buck up, tighten your belts and start pulling your weight.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-15/why-scotland-has-all-leverage-one-chart

This is healthy

[DigiShaman]

I wish both Scotland and England the best. This separation should be amicable. In fact, hopefully it give both countries strength in competition and to set examples for each other in both how and how not to govern.

Texas might not be far behind you.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[stdarg]

Slicing up assets also means slicing up debts.

That's a bit tricky because whose assets were they to begin with? If the UK says "If you want your North Sea oil and gas, you have to do so and so" then is that fair? Don't those assets belong to Scotland by right anyway? It's not like the UK (or anyone) created the oil and gas, so they have no claim on it in terms of debt.

But in principle I agree with you and Scotland should in my opinion take responsibility for some share of debt if it's determined that they benefited from that debt. I'm just not sure it will come to that. It seems entirely possible that through their contributions over the years of fish, oil, gas, usage rights for the military, etc, they have paid more than they received. If hypothetically that were the case, would you agree that instead of Scotland taking on shared debt, the UK should actually reimburse them and be in Scotland's debt?

Or would you be OK with all Scottish pensions being vaporised overnight because the UK still exists, so the UK will have the pensions?

It's the opposite of that, right? The UK still exists, so the UK owes those pensions. If the UK ceased to exist, then yes the pensions would disappear. Like when a company goes bankrupt and ceases to exist.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Anonymous Coward]

Arguing that Scotland must be a part of the UK, but Ukraine must NOT be a part of Russia is going to be really hard to get anyone to take seriously.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[IamTheRealMike]

I think this is one of the most absurd set of arguments I've ever seen.

You know that when Scotland was offered union and accepted it, it was bankrupt. It got wealthy as part of the union. So perhaps Scotland should pay large sums of money to the UK when it leaves for the privilege of being saved from poverty all those centuries ago?

That position makes about as much sense as yours.

It's the opposite of that, right? The UK still exists, so the UK owes those pensions.

To whom? Foreigners who don't have the right to vote any more? OK, then I guess the English will just seize the funds and put them back into a general pot to help offset the shared debt that wasn't taken on board by those same foreigners.

I really hope nobody in Scotland is stupid enough to try the arguments you just put forward for real. That would be a fail of truly epic proportions.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[bigpat]

A smooth transition isn't a "handout", it would be in the best interest of both sides. Regardless of the outcome they still have to live side by side on the same island and will be a major trading partner. Amicable divorces are much better than pointlessly bitter ones.

Who gets what after the split?

[Anonymous Coward]

When two friends split a business they choose how to split up the assets.

The Pound and EU membership and assets.

Where is it written the London automatically gets to keep them?
Seems like Scotland has just as much a claim.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[IamTheRealMike]

You're mixing up currency and currency union. Salmond has been deliberately obfuscating this so the confusion is not surprising, but they are different things.

Post independence Scotland could continue to use the pieces of metal and paper we tend to think of as "the pound". It could still express prices in pounds. The UK cannot stop this nor would it care to do so, even if it could. Scotland can keep the currency.

Currency union is an entirely different matter. Currency union is about decision making and who pays for what in future should things go tits up again. This is not a physical object or landmass that can be split up. It's called a "union" because it involves people working together. This is categorically not on offer because Scotland has shown no preference for economic policies compatible with the rest of the UK, really it's shown the exact opposite. So English people working together with Scottish people to create unified economic policies on this wouldn't really be possible, the disagreements are too deep and English people outnumber Scottish quite significantly. Thus it'd only make sense if Scotland agreed to give up most of the independence it had just won. Otherwise it'd be Greece all over again. Profligate teenager wouldn't even begin to describe it.

There is one situation in which CU could actually make sense - if Scotland strongly and consistently voted for the same economic policies as the UK had, and could be trusted to do so for the forseeable future. However this isn't a Scotland that anyone has been seeing during the independence campaign, so it's hard to imagine things changing anytime soon.

With respect to the debt, I think in the event of independence all the opinion polls suggest the UK will take a firm line. No currency union and they split the debt equally too. It's not up for debate. This is actually a fair position - split the debts and financially each goes their own way - but I doubt Scotland will go for it, and the amount of pain that could result for both sides is quite astronomical. This is why such a large proportion of people don't think independence is worth it.

Re:This is bullshit from start to finish

[gsslay]

but it would certainly be rational for us to impose one to pay for the cost of maintaining roads to enable good to travel to and from Scotland.

Well this has to be the stupidest idea here.

Does France charge Spain for the cost of maintaining roads to and from Spain? Or do they maybe realise that roads go both ways, as does the goods on it.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Richard_at_work]

The UK can't refuse to have a currency union in practice. It might go as far as the European courts or other international bodies, but the currency is basically as much theirs as it is the rest of the UK's.

Actually the rUK can refuse a currency union, and it will - there is nothing stopping it, and no foreign court has jurisdiction here. There is nothing stopping Scotland from *using* Sterling as its currency, but that's not what's being discussed here as I said in my earlier post - Salmond wants a seat at the table when it comes to Sterling fiscal policy, while none of the Westminster parties want to sit next to him, because they do not want to be beholden to a second economy when setting fiscal policy for the rUK.

That's what this discussion is all about. Why should Westminster have to share fiscal decision making with an "independent" Scotland?

Go ahead and use Sterling as the thing you use to buy and sell things - but you aren't getting a seat at the Bank of England table.

Infact, Salmond could quite easily take the entirety of the Bank of England and Sterling with him, but that won't solve his issue - it doesn't get him a stable currency because the Bank of England will no longer be backed by the Westminster treasury, and as the Bank of Englands assets would still be sliced up as before, he wouldn't get any more money with which to base his lender of last resort on.

What Salmond is after when he says "I want a currency union" is actually "I want a backing lender that I can rely on to bail me out regardless, but I don't want to set up my own backing lender because that is costly and would mean I would have to renege on my taxation promises, and anyway said new backing lender would not have the standing on the international financial markets because of its lack of history and backing of an established economic policy and government treasury, so what I actually need is a backing lender linked to the Westminster government. Crap."

Problem is, the voters don't understand the complexities of all that and simply believe Salmond...

If the vote is yes then the rest of the UK will negotiate a union because it's in their best interests. Otherwise investors are going to start pulling out of the UK fast because if Scotland doesn't keep Sterling the rest of the UK's debt will increase massively in proportion. Sterling would also lose many of the assets it is valued against, like North Sea oil.

Investors aren't going to go anywhere, because the financial worth of the City of London far outweighs the potential revenue of the north sea oil - don't get me wrong, that oil revenue is a nice to have, but it won't break the rUK not to have it. The bulk of the GDP of the UK resides outside Scotland, so we aren't in anywhere near as much of a sticky place as you think we are, especially as most large Scottish financial institutes will have to move south of the border to satisfy EU and WTO regulations.

Sharing fiscal policy with a brand new government, one that has to find its legs, sort out internal taxation, find the balance of its people etc - thats not something we want as a country, because all that brings uncertainty and instability. Salmond can have all of that, we will just get on with our own fiscal responsibilities thanks.

I also don't see how the rUKs debt will "increase massively in proportion" - if Salmond tries to make good on his threat of not taking Scotlands portion of the national debt, then the fledgling Scottish treasury will have a fairly poor international credit rating, right at the time it needs to be borrowing in order to set up its central bank.

Don't fall into the trap of believing Salmond and his supporters when they link a currency union to debt - a countries debt is not linked to the currency that country uses, its an entirely separate thing. It might be denominated in that currency for the purposes of reporting, but it isn't linked to it - it doesn't magically go away if the UK stopped using Sterling, and it doesn't mean that Salmond can legitimately refuse to take the Scottish share of debt without a currency union.

I'm sick of this bad English

[AbRASiON]

Sorry but fuckit.

What's with "shake up industry" ? What does that even mean. Christ did no one go to school.
What industry? Which industries? Not just "shake up industry" that makes no actual sense.

While I'm at it and going to be mod'd down anyhow, "best for baby" in infant commercials, what the shit? No, it's best for "the baby" or "your baby" but "best for baby"? Nope, no and no sirree.
I only retained about 50% of what I was taught in English and it's driving me insane what I see and hear nowadays, I can't begin to imagine what my English teachers and parents would think of the state of things now.

But I'm sure y'all could care less, right?
(I know I could)

Re:I'm sick of this bad English

[kwoff]

Take a deep breath.... You're talking about bad English grammar in a Scottish independence thread, right? 'Christ did no one go to school." You speak good English? Christ was reputedly a virgin, but people don't generally refer to him as "Christ did no one". Right? "What industry?" -- Was that meant to be a sentence? "Mod'd"? What say you? Etc., etc.... We can get stupidly pedantic, but....why? "I only retained about 50% of what I was taught in English[,] and it's driving me insane what I see and hear nowadays, I can't begin to imagine" - runon sentence, hello? What's this "state of things" you're talking about?? We're imperfect humans trying to communicate.... right?

Mine's a Skullcracker

[Anonymous Coward]

According to FZ, they're all set:

"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."

OK, maybe they need to work at the football a bit.

What is this guy smoking..

[Severus Snape]

The Yes and Better Together campaigns have sensationalised both sides of the argument, it has been very unfortunate that unbiased and impartial facts and information have been so out of reach. While I have no doubt the owner of the startup TFA is talking to has a much greater depth of knowledge in his field than a mere CompSci student like myself and if he feels a no vote is best for his company, then who am I to argue but some of his points are borderline repeat drivile of 'the world is going to fall down' propoganda that have been relented on Scotland increasingly as the referendum has got closer. It worked well for Canada, so it was to be expected for the No side at least. That said..

For tech start-ups, funding will be tougher to find and more expensive, there will be no local banks, access to EU markets and the freedom of movement will be curtailed.

His first argument about funding, who the hell even knows, he might be right, he might be wrong, it could be exactly the same. That really all depends on the policies of a government that would get voted in next year after a yes vote. Nobody has any idea what party that would be or what policies that party might have. Banks are going absolutely nowhere, two banks (RBS and Lloyds, who are both overwelmingly owned by the UK government is must be mentioned) have said they would move their registered address to London, and quite frankly this is a good thing. Their reckless gambling in part of the economic crash almost brought the UK economy in to chaos. We, the UK taxpayer woke up that day to be informed we bailed them out to the tune for trillions of pounds, and we better just deal with it. Of course it is in their best interests to be registered with a government who will tolerate such recklessness. The biggest threat to Scotland's membership of the EU is the UK wide referendum proposed in 2017. The current Scottish government has spent the last parliment drafting European Law in to Scots Law to make the process as easy as possible. Many of the arguments used to say rentry to the EU after a yes vote would take so long are based around examples like Turkey who are just a mile off meeting the many requirements set for EU entry.

Some countries may veto Scotland's entry into the EU because "they do not want their own secessionist regions to go for independence,"

Some countries with their own scessionist regions wanting independence have already stated that if Scotland votes for independence it will have no problem agreeing to her entry to the EU because the referendum is taken place in full agreement with the UK government. (He is referring to Catalonia in Spain)

Re:What is this guy smoking..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you should stick to your studentness and leave the real world to us adults:

"His first argument about funding, who the hell even knows, he might be right, he might be wrong, it could be exactly the same. That really all depends on the policies of a government that would get voted in next year after a yes vote."

You don't understand global finance. People sell bonds to countries that are a sure fire bet in terms of getting your money and some profit back. The UK has been able to borrow cheaply because everyone knew it was a solid economy and that it could pay it's way and honour it's debts. Scotland is a complete unknown and that brings risk, that risk increases the cost of borrowing and so inherently increases the cost of businesses to borrow too. There's no uncertainty about this - risk increases cost of borrowing, that's a fact and Scotland is an unknown, a risky proposition as it were - Salmond has made this problem even worse by suggesting he may default on his share of UK sovereign debt, no one wants to loan money to a country that's threatening debt default at it's very birth.

"Their reckless gambling in part of the economic crash almost brought the UK economy in to chaos. We, the UK taxpayer woke up that day to be informed we bailed them out to the tune for trillions of pounds, and we better just deal with it."

This is nonsense, the banking industry is an industry like any other. The real problem was that the Labour government had turned a blind eye to the banks because they were so profitable and created loads of public sector non-jobs as a result of this. When that industry stopped being so profitable it became clear there was a gap between what government was spending and what the banks were making them, but here's the rub, it wasn't just the UK that did this, it was pretty much every Western nation- and those nations most like what an independent Scotland would be such as Portugal, Ireland, and Greece nearly went bankrupt as a result.

"Some countries with their own scessionist regions wanting independence have already stated that if Scotland votes for independence it will have no problem agreeing to her entry to the EU because the referendum is taken place in full agreement with the UK government. (He is referring to Catalonia in Spain)"

Mariano Rajoy, Spain's PM, said the exact opposite- that he'd veto an independent Scotland's entry into the EU, and would hope the UK would do the same with Catalonia for them.

I don't know where you got the myth from that they said it'd be okay, maybe you're another of those whose been swallowing Salmond's lies without any effort to find out that they are indeed complete lies?

What he's saying isn't propaganda, it's fact- again, risk increases cost of borrowing and cost of borrowing increases reduce liquidity and result in greater levels of bankruptcy and unemployment - in fact, we saw exactly this during the recession when cost of borrowing went up as the risk of every country became increasingly more uncertain. You can pretend it's not so but history and statistics tell us otherwise, Salmond may like to lie about this inconvenient truth to you but it's a truth nonetheless, the cost of borrowing will go up in an independent Scotland until it's had many years to prove itself trustworthy, which will be difficult because it's hard to prove yourself trustworthy and profitable when you're struggling for the loans to achieve that - it's like a catch 22.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[AmiMoJo]

Outside investors are always looking for new oil fields and that won't stop after independence. It may be small fry but it's still billions of pounds.

The currency union can't be blocked. Even if it were they would not be reneging, they would simply no longer own that debt. It's the BoE's debt, and if they no longer used the BoE why would they continue giving it money? The debt goes with the currency, it only exists to maintain the value of the currency.

Look at the geography

[Bruce66423]

Look at a map. The roads north out of England only exist to provide transport to and from Scotland. The question is whether the English will bother to maintain them once there's no union; we get relatively little benefit from them, since Scotland is a relatively small market for us. For Scotland it's a big issue. It's therefore entirely reasonable for us to look for a contribution from Scotland for the maintenance of those roads, whether as a toll or explicitly.

Re:Look at the geography

[albacrankie]

People in Newcastle, Carlisle and parts of Lancashire might disagree about the benefits, but I agree with your general point. And rather than simply waiting to be charged, I hope Scotland will take a more active approach. For example, rail improvements from Scotland to the north of England might be something that Scotland would propose and be willing to fork up the lion's share of the cash for. But it would resolve to money, and who perceives most benefit. These things can usually be thrashed out round a table.

The 12 Doctor allegedly has that problem

[Bruce66423]

The new Doctor Who is causing Americans problems because of his Scottish accent...

Just One Name

[Baldrson]

James Clerk Maxwell

Re:Just One Name

[Anonymous Coward]

... who headed south to Cambridge at age 19. He didn't need a passport to do that then, though.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[AmiMoJo]

Imagine how the Scottish feel having to accept crippling austerity to prop up reckless English banks. Yes, obviously RBS is Scottish, but it's losses were all made in London under weak UK regulation from the Thatcher era.

Nationality Question

[andrewbaldwin]

One thing that's been conspicuous by its absence in all discussions is nationality. Will the Scots get their own passports? and how will they be allocated? By residence - how to handle ex-pat Scots in England and English in Scotland? How to establish the foundations for applying for nationality? Rescinding of UK citizenship when becoming a Scot?

Then how will Scotland pay for and staff up embassies around the world? they surely wouldn't want to use the existing ones would they? after all they are escaping from us - to want to ride on our backs would be hypocritical in the extreme.

If they do split and things go well for them - that's great; if things go badly and the evil English aren't available, who are they going to take the blame?

As I said - there's been a deafening silence over this.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, Scotland would be one of two EU nations to produce its own oil and gaz (the other is Norway).

Why would Scottish independce lead to England, The Netherlands, Denmark, Romania and France stopping oil production? Or to Norway becoming an EU member?

Re:This is bullshit from start to finish

[AmiMoJo]

Do you seriously think that England will erect a fence all along the border and place immigration checkpoints along it? Do you really think that the Spanish will lock themselves out of Scottish fishing waters by blocking their EU membership? And then the rest of the UK will just watch as Russian soldiers arrive on their doorstep?

This is the kind of fantasy people talk about when they mention scaremongering. It's not even remotely based on reality.

Not kidding - Functional Programming

[toby]

Was practically invented in Scotland - The universities of Edinburgh (and Cambridge too) being home to FP research (and researchers like the late Professor Robin Milner and the very much alive Dr Philip Wadler, https://twitter.com/philipwadl... ) that is at least as significant to our industry as Lisp (maybe, eventually, even moreso) - the branch of languages and theory that begat the ML family and begat Haskell.

Re:Not kidding - Functional Programming

[Xest]

Cambridge isn't a Scottish university, it's English.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[IamTheRealMike]

Imagine how the Scottish feel having to accept crippling austerity to prop up reckless English banks. Yes, obviously RBS is Scottish

Just going to quote this here so readers can ponder this contradiction. RBS was bailed out at huge expense. It is indeed based in Edinburgh and the S in RBS stands for Scotland. So this is a very strange argument to make.

but it's losses were all made in London under weak UK regulation from the Thatcher era.

Ye gods, here we go blaming Thatcher again. You realise she's died of old age, don't you? Labour was voted in on the back of Labour voting Scots multiple times since 1991 and any of them could have changed banking regulations. None of them did. What about "true Scotsmen" like Salmond? Well he strongly supported the disastrous takeover of ABN AMRO that was largely responsible for crippling the bank and directly contributed to tanking the UK economy. In fact not only did he support RBS politically, he actually worked for them for a good chunk of his career.

In short: blaming Thatcher, a dead woman who was not in power for the last 23 years, for the failure of a Scottish bank due to a deal strongly supported by the erstwhile future leader of Scotland, typifies the kind of thinking that is making the Yes campaign seem more and more unreal.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Anonymous Coward]

Buzzard estimated to have producible reserves of 400m bbl? it's such small beer that it doesn't even make wiki's list of oil fields.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_fields
Oh, and if it were produced at 190,000 bbl per day continuously? yeah, that would last 5 years. good luck with that.

For a Scottish Workers Republic!!!!

[fireylord]

MUUUHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely hilarious hyperbole!

I salute you sir.

You were just being ironic, weren't you?.....

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[u38cg]

Yes, but when you are running countries, you burn through billions pretty quickly.

It is not the Bank's debt; it is the UK government's. You can read the DMO contracts if you like. And the debt does not have a monetary purpose: it is issued to finance government spending.

You're right, sterlingisation can't be blocked, but full-on currency union certainly can. I don't think anyone in the Yes camp gets that no-one in Westminster is interested in entering into a currency union - not with Europe, and not with Scotland either. What's in it for them?

Wait, wait...

[frank_adrian314159]

What happens to Scotty in this universe? Instead of engineering, will he go all Braveheart on the Southerners in the UK? My world is so confusing...

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[mvdwege]

I don't who taught you to read, but even across the North Sea it's obvious that it is Better Together, not the Yes campaign, who are threatening a nasty vicious divorce.

And second, it's an entire Yes campaign. It's not just the SNP. If even I can get that from here in the Netherlands, what's your excuse?

America has it's independance day - time for us

[DJRikki]

Looked into it a lot - can't wait to take ownership of our own country.

horrible FUD

[Uberbah]

Who's going to reject Scotland, anyway? Scotland, like California, sends in more tax money than they get back, and they're sitting on huge oil reserves in the North Sea. Or are you afraid your family is going to lose it's feudal estate with it's captive population of serfs?

Scotland will out liberal the liberals

[gelfling]

They will make Sweden look positively draconian. Get ready for unlimited immigration and welfare.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[frank_adrian314159]

But if they are actually stupid enough to do that they'll have made an enemy of an economy much larger than theirs, their largest export market, a country they're heavily dependent on for the basic infrastructure of running a government...

I have no dog in this fight (not that it's not entertaining theatre), but I also know that capitalists have very few enemies they will not sell to. If they were willing to deal with tinpot Central American dictators, you know they'll have no issue whatsoever in dealing with the Scots. You're probably overestimating the actual level of dislike between Britain and Scotland, even in the face of divorce. And you're especially overestimating the dislike of bankers cozying up to whomever they can make a profitable deal with - sharks have no national loyalties.

That being said, if the Scots really wanted to piss off the British, they could apply to France to become a protectorate and then keep the nukes.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[eclectro]

they're going to find it hard to secure the financing and trade deals they're going to need to make this work.

I submit that current trade agreements such as TIPP only work to lower wages and shift jobs overseas. In which case a vote for independence would be very beneficial to the Scottish people.

And some yellowshirts, too!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Well, looks like Scottland is gonna get its first influx of engineers in a hundred years.

"Look at all those redshirts!"

"Dude, that's ketchup."

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Uberbah]

No, I'm afraid you don't understand a few things. Firstly, Scotland's oil is small beer on the global stage. The North Sea produces ~1.5m bpd, OPEC alone is something like 30m.

Wait, what? Why are you comparing a single country's output to a dozen other countries combined? Any oil rich area can be hand waved away by that line of reasoning: Alaska, Kuwait, North Dakota, Louisiana....

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Anonymous Coward]

Get psychiatric help, before it's too late. You're mental.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[stdarg]

You know that when Scotland was offered union and accepted it, it was bankrupt.

I did not know that, but having looked into it just now that's interesting. I had no idea Scotland ever tried to establish a colony, and it's remarkable that a country could come together enough to put 20% of their entire currency into one business venture.

It got wealthy as part of the union. So perhaps Scotland should pay large sums of money to the UK when it leaves for the privilege of being saved from poverty all those centuries ago?

See now that makes no sense. We were talking about assets and debts, and now you're talking about charging Scotland for the ability to become wealthier. How do you put a price on that that makes sense? If you're going there, you'd have to also charge to England the cost of the privilege of ruling them for so long. I think that's stupid and it makes more sense to focus on things that can be priced reasonably.

I don't see why talking about actual physical assets like oil and gas is "one of the most absurd set of arguments" you've seen, though if you conflated those easily quantifiable things with garbage like "the privilege of being saved from poverty" then I actually understand your confusion and frustration.

To whom? Foreigners who don't have the right to vote any more?

I'm sure you can explain if I'm wrong.. but yes... surely if you earn a pension in England and then leave you don't give up your pension? That's incredibly uncivilized. My mom is from Germany and worked there for a time before coming to America, but she gets her small stipend still. My grandmother lives with her and she receives her retirement income. Are you being serious right now?

OK, then I guess the English will just seize the funds and put them back into a general pot to help offset the shared debt that wasn't taken on board by those same foreigners.

Wow. Do you not understand that the national debt is not a shared debt for some random guy whose pension you want to steal? If I leave America today and move to Switzerland and give up my citizenship, guess what, I do not have to pay off my "share" of the American national debt!

Are you seriously this mixed up that you are confusing national debt with an obligation by individual citizens?

Talk about an absurd set of arguments.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just the production that counts - it's also the size of the reserves, the fact that Scotland is very close to its primary market (the EU) and its own stability.

If Scotland becomes an EU member, yes. Otherwise the UK could - if the divorce leaves a nasty aftertaste - probably persuade very high tariffs on Scottish oil.

Why is this on Slashdot?

[seoras]

It's been bad enough with the BBC acting like Pravda (Irvine Welsh's own words in his recent "Time" article) without having to come to Slashdot and find propaganda here too.
"there will be no local banks, access to EU markets and the freedom of movement will be curtailed,"
Utter and total nonsense.
Scottish citizens are EU citizens regardless of how they vote.
EU will not give up access to the North Atlantic (Iceland & Norway are NOT in the EU).
If Scotland goes then it effectively removes the EU fishing fleet from the richest fishing grounds it has.
"Cutting their nose off to spite their face", would be the best way of describing the fear mongering, yes I used that phrase because it's all we ever get about Independence.
No local banks? Eh? So they will all up sticks just like Westminster has been spinning. Unlikely.

My parting word on this is this.
Regardless of the arguments for or against the "NO" campaign has been a campaign of negativity, fear and doom.
If you know anything about marketing you'll know that consumers don't listen to negatives only positives
and I quote "Pravda"'s Bio on the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond in backing this up.

"It seemed Labour was on course to win the 2011 Scottish election, but Mr Salmond - never to be underestimated - launched into the contest with a positive campaign.
When he came up against Labour's negative, attacking style, Scots voters decided there was no contest - and the SNP was returned with a jaw-dropping landslide win."

Sound familiar?
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-28835771

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK agreed to this vote.

Cameron ageed to this vote. Most UK citizens would not have. There was no good reason I can see for Cameron to have agreed to it.

Uh, he would've looked like a tyrant if he hadn't? I'm not UKian (uh, what will the right term be soon?) so I haven't paid attention to the beginning of this saga but if opinion polls showed that a "yes" was unlikely, he might just have gambled.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[nojayuk]

Both Hunterston and Torness, the two Scottish nuclear power stations will still be operational in 2020, producing about 2GW with an uptime of about 90%. The SNP, if they're in charge in an independent Scotland (and they're a one-note political party in the main, independence being their focus) want these reactors decommissioned and replaced with... they're not sure but no nukes! Gas-burning CCGTs, probably although the North Sea gas fields are not what they used to be so fuel will probably have to be imported after a decade or two. There are still a few coal-fired plants around and several wind farms, a couple of GW dataplate output but some days they only produce a few dozen MW in total. Solar is a non-starter in a country where the sun is in the sky for six hours in the winter and it's usually cloudy then anyway. Hydro, about a GW of capacity but it can't run 100% of the time, just when there's been enough rain recently. Sea-floor turbines are being trialled at the moment, no track record on costs per MWh generated, maintenance overheads etc.

Fossil fuel will provide a lot of Scotland's electricity for the forseeable future especially if the nuclear plants are not replaced when they are either shut down by government fiat or they reach the end of their licence periods and can't be relicenced.

A major English offshore wind project recently didn't go ahead even with a price guarantee of about UKP 145 per MWh, or in US consumer terms about 24c per kWh wholesale to the grid suppliers -- that would be about 30c/kWh to consumers after grid supply costs and profit figures were added, about what the Green Germans are paying and double the price of French nuclear-generated electricity at the wall-socket. I can't see Scottish wind power being any cheaper especially with the extra backstop gas generation and storage needed to keep the lights on when the wind stops blowing.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[jez9999]

No, not really. Anyway, why would Cameron care about looking like a tyrant to the Scots? The Tories basically have no presence in Scotland anyway, and nothing to lose. Nevertheless, there are myriad ways he could have set up the referendum to as to make it very hard for the SNP to win; requiring a 75% vote in favour for example, or allowing Scots currently resident in England to vote - or even allowing the whole UK to vote. Why he decided to set up a referendum extremely favourable to the independence campaigners is anyone's guess.

Scottish, Entrepreneur and writes nonsese

[angel'o'sphere]

For tech start-ups, funding will be tougher to find and more expensive, there will be no local banks, access to EU markets and the freedom of movement will be curtailed,"
On what is that Angst based?
The claims are completely ridiculous.

Scotland is just the first one, many more european regions will follow. As the union becomes bigger, the fragments of it become smaller and more powerful.

The next candidate imho is Catalonia, and it is likely less than a decade that north Italy will separate from the south.

So, why exactly should any european country deny a Scottish citizen travel?

And with Obama you can expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

And with Obama in the oral office you can expect that there will be NO fast response. That is bad. VERY BAD as without the U.S. recognizing Scotland as an independent country there are serious financial issues; Try to get insurance for your business; Try getting a loan ( as noted); Try getting valid passports that the U.S. will recognize!!!

Scotland separating is like filling the bagpipes with haggis, lifting the kilts, and smile and enjoy sitting on it for a very long time.

Re:This is bullshit from start to finish

[bugs2squash]

Of course there will be The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[halivar]

The UK hasn't started killing off Scots yet, so the comparison is somewhat premature.

Immigration control

[Bruce66423]

Doesn't mainly focus on a fence - though that would be necessary - but on depriving Scots without rUK citizenship of the rights of rUK citizens to live and work in the rUK.

And yes, I have no doubt that Scotland will be excluded from the EU for a period unless it rolls over and plays dead on a lot of issues, the Euro, abandoning Maggie's rebate and any control on Spanish fishing boats being some of them.

Also consider the Spanish PM's warning

[Bruce66423]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

Re:This is bullshit from start to finish

[Anonymous Coward]

FFS! Why do I have to comment on this kind of purile shit?

Clearly Scottish educational standards seem to have slipped a bit, at least in terms of spelling!

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Anonymous Coward]

You're mixing up currency and currency union. Salmond has been deliberately obfuscating this so the confusion is not surprising, but they are different things.

Post independence Scotland could continue to use the pieces of metal and paper we tend to think of as "the pound". It could still express prices in pounds. The UK cannot stop this nor would it care to do so, even if it could. Scotland can keep the currency.

Currency union is an entirely different matter. Currency union is about decision making and who pays for what in future should things go tits up again. This is not a physical object or landmass that can be split up. It's called a "union" because it involves people working together. This is categorically not on offer because Scotland has shown no preference for economic policies compatible with the rest of the UK, really it's shown the exact opposite. So English people working together with Scottish people to create unified economic policies on this wouldn't really be possible, the disagreements are too deep and English people outnumber Scottish quite significantly. Thus it'd only make sense if Scotland agreed to give up most of the independence it had just won. Otherwise it'd be Greece all over again. Profligate teenager wouldn't even begin to describe it.

There is one situation in which CU could actually make sense - if Scotland strongly and consistently voted for the same economic policies as the UK had, and could be trusted to do so for the forseeable future. However this isn't a Scotland that anyone has been seeing during the independence campaign, so it's hard to imagine things changing anytime soon.

With respect to the debt, I think in the event of independence all the opinion polls suggest the UK will take a firm line. No currency union and they split the debt equally too. It's not up for debate. This is actually a fair position - split the debts and financially each goes their own way - but I doubt Scotland will go for it, and the amount of pain that could result for both sides is quite astronomical. This is why such a large proportion of people don't think independence is worth it.

It is you who are mixing things up.

Before the vote, of course all the Westminster government figures are going to say in public "no to a currency union".
In private, one government minister has already said anonymously in the Guardian Newspaper "of course, currency union is back on the table".

After the vote, the Bank of England will have the responsibility to be lender of last resort for all of the UK until separation in 2016.
They will of course enter into negotiations with rUK and Scotland on how to balance

a) Scotland's desire for currency union
b) rUK's desire that Scotland continues to pay back its share of national debt

Salmond and the SNP hold the cards here - rUK is never going to voluntarily take on an extra 10% of debt - they have enough already.
Scotland is never going to default on its debt.
The settlement to have currency union will be around constraints on Scotland and its economic levers in order not to drive a wedge between rUK and Scottish economies.

A deal will be done.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Anonymous Coward]

No they belong to the United Kingdom because until they Vote Yes and the official handover etc Scotland dosn't exist as a political entity nor a legally recognized country. They don't own any assets currently. The same applies to England.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at the raw numbers (without oil) I bet that someone most certainly will loan to Scotland. Scotland could probably privately issue bonds in the US and succeed. Better yet if Scotland offered shares as when the Bank of England was formed where limited numbers per individual were available to people in the US then it WOULD succeed. I'd throw in a grand. I could easily see a million other Americans doing the same. With a hundred grand limit I could see the Scots hauling in 10 billion US at least. Scotland should have its own currency. Sentiment and identity is worth money.

Scottish ventures offered in the US would likely attract much interest as well. The US investment situation is ridiculous right now. The Scots could probably make their own US bubble right now. I would trust a Scottish concern more than a Chinese one...or a US one for that matter.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[AmiMoJo]

You are forgetting about the international rules governing these things. The WTO and IMF have both regulated currency issues when counties split before. The general principal is that if both countries have a stake they have to share fairly, or one can choose to walk away at its own expense.

The BoE belongs to Scotland too. If England wants it then it may be possible to negotiate that, but it would have to take on the debts owed as well. The rest of the UK can't just grab something that is jointly owned with Scotland.

Re: Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign s

[Darinbob]

The first shots were fired by the South though. Before the war, the southern states inded enjoyed a lot of self-determination. They weren't their own country but they certainly had plenty of major concessions, and a very sweet deal that gave slave states extra representation.

The straws that broke the camel's back so to speak, was refusal to expand the slave trade to US territories, and that Lincoln won the election without winning any southern state's electoral votes. Both of those essentially said that the south was losing political power (no new slave states meant the balance of power in Washington wouldn't favor them). Democracy is fine and all, as long as your vote has strong influence. But when a group finds themselves in a minority then democracy stops seeming as nice as it once was.

Many of these self-determination movements actually do seem to revolve around the idea of becoming the majority again or regaining some lost political clout, when there's no actual abuse or tyranny by the majority.

Re: Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign s

[Darinbob]

Probably not. The South would not have kept going with the slave system for much longer, it still had a very poor economy. A lot of today's grumbling in the South comes from the harsh reconstruction period rather than from any tyranny from the North from before the war. So if the South did secede the most they'd have to blame would be an economic isolation (not just from the other states, but probably from much of Europe). Without a brutal war there's no villain to point fingers at. There's also been some revisionist history over time that the war was not really about slavery but about a way of life, stuff like that. Without the war it's likely that over time southerners would realize how stupid slavery really was and that maybe the north was right about trying to restrict its growth.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Darinbob]

Ukraine has never been a part of Russia though. It was a part of a Russian empire, and a part of USSR, but that's not at all the same as being a part of Russia itself. It was mostly a divided area of land ruled by a variety of other groups over its history, it's been a part of several non-Russian empires as well. It's a very complicated history but distinct from Russia.

Scotland on the other hand has been a part of the UK for 300 years. The English did not force a famine in Scotland, although Stalin did force a famine in Ukraine (yes I know about Ireland). Scotland actually has a referendum that appears to all intents and purposes to be legitimate under national and international law, it is not a quick rough shod referendum imposed by a small group that stole power at gunpoint.

Anyone trying to equate the Scotland referendum with the Ukrainian situation is hard to take seriously.

This isn't scaremongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it's a bit like Florida choosing to break away from the US, having a pro-Florida political party endlessly demonizing "them" (the rest of the US) as causing pretty much every economic and political woe Florida has going for it. As an English guy, I think this whole situation really sucks. If the UK breaks up, the whole of Britain will be worse off for it, but I suspect Scotland will take the bigger brunt of the pain. And given that it will have made the decision, it will deserve to.

Key West (a part of Florida) did secede from the US in 1982, and successfully forced a US amphibious invasion force to surrender in 1995. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic

Re: Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign s

[91degrees]

I quite agree slavery would have been abolished eventually. The US is actually unusual in that a war ended slavery. Most countries managed to eliminate it peacefully.

I don't think it was just about slavery though. While I'm sure a lot of people in the north were sympathetic, the idea that so many were sympathetic enough to actually risk death seems a little too heroic for a typical person. The southerners would have been fighting not for *their* right to own slaves, but for some rich landowner. The actual reasons must have been more complex.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[Xest]

I don't think you have the slightest clue what the international rules are. If Scotland wants to argue for even anything in it's favour then independence has to be something that Westminster agrees to. If Westminster blocks independence then Scotland can go it alone and take it's case to the UN and obtain it that way, but international courts have consistently ruled that separation occurs with assets split based on population.

There is literally no way Salmond can achieve his demands- the UK is against them and will not agree to them and international courts will force him to accept a share of debt or default. This is not an argument he can win even at the ICJ or at a WTO tribunal, which ironically might not even be an avenue, because Scotland would have to get into the WTO in the first place.

The BoE belongs to Scotland in the same way that Hollyrood belongs to Westminster - all these things were purchased in sterling. Sure Salmond can argue that if they don't get the benefits of the BoE that they wont take the debt, but then the UK can argue that if they don't take the debt then they need to pay rent on the Scottish parliament buildings and similarly Scotland wont get to keep the eurofighters or frigates or NHS equipment it wants either because those are all similarly sterling denominated assets- you cannot take sterling denominated assets and not take sterling denominated debt, that will never be agreed to be anyone, whether the UK government, the people of the UK, or international courts.

Salmond's only hand is demand for faster removal of trident, but in turn the UK can veto Scottish EU and NATO entry so if Salmond plays that only hand then he is absolutely screwed by the response.

Post-separation the UK will still be the 6th biggest economy, yet Scotland will fall to 42nd. Given that economic way ties strongly to political weight (because no one wants to piss off the countries that are economically strong enough to also make them rich) do you still seriously believe Salmond has a strong negotiating hand? are you honestly that naive?

If Shetland and/or Orkney go their own way and become independent from Scotland or stick with the rest of the UK taking the oil with them then Scotland is even more screwed, it'll literally have nothing.

Re:This is bullshit from start to finish

[Xest]

"Do you seriously think that England will erect a fence all along the border and place immigration checkpoints along it?"

Absolutely yes. That pro-UK rhetoric that's rife in the UK and that Salmond has been using to fear monger for independence will only grow stronger without Scotland and do you really think for one moment that any UK political party will be able to allow an open border with a country that has admitted it will have an extremely lax attitude to immigration because mass immigration is one of Salmond's plans (and one the easiest method of) to grow the wealth of Scotland?

I'm fairly pro-immigration but even I'd say we need a border there because whilst I'm fairly pro-immigration I still believe if nothing else we have to know who is and isn't coming in and out so we at least have some statistics on that - we can't do that with an open border with Scotland.

"Do you really think that the Spanish will lock themselves out of Scottish fishing waters by blocking their EU membership?"

Yes, because Catalonia brings far more money into Spain than Scotland's fishermen do.

"And then the rest of the UK will just watch as Russian soldiers arrive on their doorstep?"

No he was saying that's what would happen if the rest of the UK opted not to care what happened to Scotland, but the fact Scotland is basically sponging off the UK for security is rather galling given that Salmond's entire argument has been "We should become independent because we can go it alone and do everything better" - not defence it would seem at least.

Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa

[FhnuZoag]

Don't forget too that if Salmond alienates the UK taxpayer, even a modest boycott on Scottish exports would ruin the Scottish economy. Any deal he strikes has to look palatable.

like that's a bad thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we need a good cataclysm. Every major economy has major foundational flaws and can collapse at any given moment. F*** the pound. F*** the Euro. F*** Trident. These are the people that invented most of the modern world. We need the Scots to re-invent the modern economy. America has no say, they've F***ed it all up and are too big to turn it around. Scotland do not need Europe. Europe needs Scotland.

Referendum in India

[NewYork]

In 1932 British regime in India recommended separate states for 300 million Untouchables/Muslim/Sikh/Christian/Parsi/Buddhist/Jain communities in 2nd Round Table Conference.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

I Have Petitioned Prime Minister Cameron To Direct Indian Regime To Conduct Referendum For Their Independence.