1. Could Scotland survive outside the union in terms of the economy, defence etc?

2. What does Scotland bring to the union that the other nations involved would miss?

3. What does the union really mean, that there is cross-party (Parliamentary, at any rate) consensus that it is worth defending?


Do I care? I don't know – but primarily because I know little about 3 and, as such, have no concrete opinion on it. Perhaps this thread can be an education.

Big question, that.
They'd want to keep "their" oil, of course, but could they afford the £65bn that "we" paid to keep "their" banks viable?


A greater size of market and population ... and the bit of clout that comes with that.
e.g. When Cameron vetos something he is not just pulling Middle England out, he's pulling out all 65million of us.
Apart from that I'm stumped.


The union, at the moment, is a constitutional mess.
In addition to the UK parliament, NI, Wales and Scotland all have their own assemblies/parliament ... but we in England don't.
"They" can meddle with our legislation but "we" can't with a lot of theirs.

I don't get all this "Scotland can't afford it" malarkey.

Ireland manages, Belgium manages, Lichtenstein manages, Luxembourg manages and a lot of a countries a damn sight smaller and poorer than Scotland manage. If they want to leave, that's fine. It's no problem.

We'll soon see how they get on when they either make a success of it, or decide they want to come crawling back.

It is a question for the people of Scotland. If this time around the concensus is to stay in the union by a large margin then what next for the SNP? If the people vote for independance then I am sure the English, Welsh, and Northern Irish will say fond goodbye.

Sadly, try as I might, I can't take Salmond seriously. Whenever i look at him, all I can see is Nursie

All the ones you name have the protection of belonging to (ahem) a much, m u c h, MUCH larger union that is a little out of fashion in Little England at the moment, and Salmond says that Scotland would too.
Of course, if they were fully independent, they'd then have to either issue their own currency, continue to tag along using the pound (but with no say in it), or join the Euro.

Well, yes obviously.

Hence why I said there's no reason for Scotland to fail if they went it alone. Europe, after all, is great for protecting small nations at the expense of the bigger ones.

Scotland costs England money now, and will continue to do so after they leave us and start sh&gging Europe.

Less devolution, more divorce, with Scotland being the bored housewife who wants to leave her Executive husband and shack up with her Greek waiter boyfriend and his mates.

Am i right Scotland get some benefits that we dont?...free eye tests, prescriptions, university places etc.

Sounds like Salmond wants the perks of being tied to us, but the free will to spend away the rest.

Give them the oil revenue, and send them on their way i say....they will soon want to come back eventually.

My personal view is that no matter what Salmond may say, he doesn't want complete independence. The Scottish people never voted for a referendum on the subject, it was never id the SNP's manifesto, it was something Salmond threw into a speech four days before the election.

I agree with what Paddy Ashdown said on last night's QT: they want a multi-choice vote, so that they can end up with a dog's breakfast of a non-resolution and muddle on from there.

Aye, that'll be why those economic minnows, France and Germany are so keen on it.


Sorry, can't keep up with this sort of analysis, far too technical for the likes of me.

it should be a vote for the people of the whole Union IMO, not just the Jocko's.

As an independent nation, if they wanted to join the EU they would have to be prepared to accept the Euro as their currency in the same way as any other new member state would.

Given nobody in their right mind would currently vote for something that could see them made part of the Eurozone at the moment, it's no surprise Salmond wants to delay the vote a couple of years. That, and tapping in to the nationalist fervour of the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn.

Gorgeous George's latest shot across the bows is that if Scotland wants to be independent then it takes with it an appropriate share of the UK's national debt. I'd imagine that, combined with the setup costs of paying for a brand new set of central government departments to replace the ones currently run for the UK (tax, transport, defence etc), would make full independence a very unappealing financial proposition IMO.

They get an amount of money settled by the Barnet formula, it is then up to the Scottish Government how they spend it, bit like being given pocket money as a teenager.

Really? You have some evidence of this?



And of course you have some UP TO DATE evidence of this?

I wouldn't trust Salmond with his dinner money to be honest never mind run a countries economy.

This is a very good point, just how much of National debt will they take and who will decide? How much North Sea revenues will they take, who will decide? An absolute nightmare of a scenario to work out with so many vested interests!

Quote ="Big Graeme"Really? You have some evidence of this?'" A quick Google search brings up this... www.euractiv.com/enlargement/enl ... ier-188288 "New member states are eligible and compelled to join the single currency."

Quote ="Big Graeme"Really? You have some evidence of this?'" A quick Google search brings up this... www.euractiv.com/enlargement/enl ... ier-188288 "New member states are eligible and compelled to join the single currency."

Easy - they get to pick the percentage of remaining North Sea revenue, we get to pick the percentage of national debt.

Sorted, having raised two children I should have applied to be a diplomat.

Quote ="Andy Gilder"A quick Google search brings up this... www.euractiv.com/enlargement/enl ... ier-188288 "New member states are eligible and compelled to join the single currency."'" Mmm interesting, Salmond believes Scotland will be automatically a member and be an accession state rather than a new member, not sure on that one.

Quote ="Andy Gilder"A quick Google search brings up this... www.euractiv.com/enlargement/enl ... ier-188288 "New member states are eligible and compelled to join the single currency."'" Mmm interesting, Salmond believes Scotland will be automatically a member and be an accession state rather than a new member, not sure on that one.

While it was obviously a more acrimonious parting, Ireland hasn't come 'crawling back' and I doubt Scotland would either.

It'd mean a Conservative government in England, Wales and Northern Ireland for the foreseable, I'd assume.

Why would you assume that?

According to David Dingleberry on QT last night, only once since 1945 have Labour needed the 41 Scottish Labour MPs to achieve a majority

Me neither, but I can't think of any precedent one way or the other. Be interesting to know what the EU's viewpoint would be on it.

Fair point. The World has changed a lot since '45 though. The Liberals only got 9% of the vote then and it was only up to 11% by '64.

The disappearance of the 59 Scottish constituencies cuts the target for a majority from 326 to 296, without costing them very many even remotely winnable seats.

Personally I'd like the North to jump ship with the Scots if it came down to it, but then I'm half-Scot. Hopefully I'd be able to hedge my bets with dual-citizenship.

They're not keen on each other, though are they? And I bet they wouldn't be so keen if they weren't at the top of it - probably why they want Britain in, but they don't want us making any decisions on it.

A good day for us all, then.



(waits for the obvious backlash, from the =#FF0000usual suspects)

Well countries like Luxemburg afford it by rather dubious tax breaks for companies and whatever. Ireland is a better example and look what happened there. A boom fuelled by ever rising property prices and lending and now they are up the creak without a paddle.

I have been reading various comments on the net for a few days about this and one of the main topics is oil, how much of it is Scotland's and how much it is actually worth per year.

If you believe the SNP oil revenue will turn Scotland into the 6th richest country in the world overnight. If you believe the government even with oil revenue Scotland would still run an annual deficit (so would have to borrow year on year which we know can't go on forever).

Who knows what the truth is.

What is interesting is Alex Salmond saying things like Scotland will keep the pound and Queen as head of state and various other things such as a common defence commitment.

I don't think it is up to him to decide. Why would we want the pounds value kept high by being associated with the "6th richest country in the world"? I'd tell 'em to get stuffed and join the Euro which they may have to do to join the EU which they supposedly want to do.

It seems to boil down to Scotland keeping all the oil revenue and yet benefiting from a common defence policy, currency, the BBC and so on. What would it mean for the NHS in Scotland? Salmond will want all that on the cheap based on Scotland's 5m (and falling) population relative to the rest of the UK.

I think despite the view that Cameron saying get on with it and decide once and for all plays into the SNP's hands in that it will turn more Scots into voting for independence, as the debate develops all the issues about just what independence actually means will have to come out. "Devo Max" or a version of independence where they keep this or that institution is not just for the SNP to decide because that would affect everyone else in the UK from a cost point of view.

The SNP strategy has been for a while to make independence seem reasonable to Scots opposed to the idea (by doing stuff like keeping the Queen as head of state etc) but the more reasonable you make it the less like independence it looks so surely the question then is why bother? The answer is from the SNP's point of view oil. They seem to think they can have that bit of cake and get the rest of the benefits of being part of the UK.