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[XXSockXX]

I don't know if anybody wants it back. You don't hear about it very often. And the people who want stuff back usually aim much higher (and in other directions).

[10ebbor10]

Actually, doesn't give much at all. There is only about 70,000 of them after all.

It adds a serious extra cost of translating all relevant documents to german though.

[Owlbread]

What I don't understand is that if you're going through all this trouble to get away from London, why would you want to move your overlords to Brussels? They're even further away and gives even less of a damn about you than the UK.

I am going to inspect the comments that have been put forward, but I must first reply to this; that kind of comment there exhibits a popular misconception about Europe from people who do not understand what it's like with your home country being a province in a unitary state.

It is possible to leave the EU at will, it is possible to negotiate. Within the UK we do not elect our own national government, we do not have independent representation on the international stage besides our own football team/rugby team, we do not have any control over foreign relations so we cannot choose whether our children go to die in someone else's wars. We do not control our own tax revenue, rather we just put it in a big pot and hope that the UK gives us back a proportion that suits us according to the Barnett formula.

We get more per head than the rest of the provinces, that doesn't mean we get everything back, nor does it mean that what we do get is enough. We don't have adequate control over our own natural resources so our own oil revenue does not belong to us, resulting in us being one of the few oil rich countries in the world that hasn't made big out of it. I hesitate to say that we're the poorest oil-rich nation in the world as I have heard, considering the situation in places like Romania, but you get the picture.

Our culture is also steadily eroded by an England-centric popular media (despite the best efforts of the artists and companies e.g. BBC which is admirable, it isn't deliberate) so much so that until very recently it was common for a child to go through school without reading a single book by a Scottish author. When my father studied history back in the '70s in high school they read "The History of England". One of the reasons for why the Proclaimers were as successful as they were is that they were unapologetically Scottish - it was the first time for many that they'd heard such accents on the radio. Before that singers would always twist their accents into something American or English, like the Bay City Rollers.

If you get the gist of my rambling, you will see that being a province in a unitary state like this is stifling and restrictive. "Brussels" i.e. the leadership of the EU, membership of which is voluntary for us, on the other hand are far from "overlords" when compared to our own establishment in the UK. It's amusing that you'd actually use the word "overlord" considering genuine Lords and Barons and even a Queen lead Scotland currently. It's actually laughable to compare the two - provincial status, or membership of an international organisation.

London rule ≠ Brussels rule.

[10ebbor10]

It is possible to leave the EU at will, it is possible to negotiate. Within the UK we do not elect our own national government, we do not have independent representation on the international stage besides our own football team/rugby team, we do not have any control over foreign relations so we cannot choose whether our children go to die in someone else's wars. We do not control our own tax revenue, rather we just put it in a big pot and hope that the UK gives us back a proportion that suits us according to the Barnett formula.

It's never been tried actually. Would certainly be a bureaucratic nightmare, and leaving the euro would be pretty disastrous for your economy.

We get more per head than the rest of the provinces, that doesn't mean we get everything back, nor does it mean that what we do get is enough. We don't have adequate control over our own natural resources so our own oil revenue does not belong to us, resulting in us being one of the few oil rich countries in the world that hasn't made big out of it. I hesitate to say that we're the poorest oil-rich nation in the world as I have heard, considering the situation in places like Romania, but you get the picture.

UK works with licenses and privatization and such. It's doubtful that during a separation you would get to keep the oil reserves. After all, most of them are in coastal/sea waters, and have been licensed to the UK. Suddenly breaking those licenses won't get you friends. There's also the benefits you'd loose out on, because the EU certainly isn't going to make the same exceptions again.

[Owlbread]

It's never been tried actually. Would certainly be a bureaucratic nightmare, and leaving the euro would be pretty disastrous for your economy.

Bureaucratic nightmare or not, it is still possible. Far more possible than leaving the UK - we do not innately have the power to secede, rather we had to spend several months negotiating with the UK to get them to allow us to hold a referendum.

UK works with licenses and privatization and such. It's doubtful that during a separation you would get to keep the oil reserves. After all, most of them are in coastal/sea waters, and have been licensed to the UK.

Nonsense. With the oil reserves that lie within currently established Scottish waters (we do actually have defined territorial waters so we can calculate provincial wealth) we are left with a fiscal deficit of 2.6%, which is rather respectable when compared with the UK's 6%, or indeed the 6.3% of the rest of the UK without Scotland. That is of course not counting the oil reserves that we lost to England in 1999 when New Labour under Tony Blair gave eight of our oil fields to england, resulting in this very comical maritime boundary, reaching further north than Dundee.

See where Berwick upon Tweed is? That's where England ends and Scotland begins. The border is like a straight line above it. Everything north of it is ours, but that huge sweep up past Dundee? Hmmmm... I wonder what the international court of justice would have to say about it when we take the British to court over it. When we win those fields back we'd actually have a budget surplus of £1.9 billion. Why was there no public outcry on this subject? Under-reported by Unionist newspapers.

Ultimately, we would own the territories, underwater or otherwise, and it would be our business to manage the companies that would continue to use them.

Suddenly breaking those licenses won't get you friends.

Things are going to be quite tense with the UK for a few years, especially when we get down to the nitty gritty (we're going to be like a divorcee stripping their partner for everything they have) so I'm not bothered by that.

There's also the benefits you'd loose out on, because the EU certainly isn't going to make the same exceptions again.

Losing some of the benefits that the UK has managed to negotiate with the EU still doesn't really faze me. The prize of independence is too great.

[Dutchling]

You seem quite sure that Scotland will be able to vote for independence and when they will do it they will actually vote in favor of independence...

got any info on the first one and polls on the second ? I was under the impression both were quite uncertain.

[Owlbread]

You seem quite sure that Scotland will be able to vote for independence and when they will do it they will actually vote in favor of independence...

got any info on the first one and polls on the second ? I was under the impression both were quite uncertain.

We will definitely be able to vote for independence, the British were kind enough to allow us to do so. It is now confirmed in law.

The second point is very uncertain indeed, the majority of polls showing independence running at 30% - 40%, support for the union at 30% - 40% and undecideds in between. There are often polls that will show 60% opposed and the like while some have shown independence to be pretty high too, but I just don't think they're representative of the people I've talked to. The country is neatly divided into thirds.

I have a feeling though that judging by the terrible campaigning by Better Together (the abysmally named No Campaign) they are beginning to run out of steam. Yes Scotland (the Yes Campaign) have basically been doing a rope-a-dope Muhammad Ali style for the last year, getting their grassroots ready and preparing for a huge burst next year. They've been allowing Better Together to come at them with a negative story virtually every single day in Unionist newspapers like The Scotsman, now we know exactly what they're going to say. We know all their attacks - your army won't be strong enough, your currency situation will be uncertain, your position in the EU will be uncertain and... that's about it, beyond some platitudes like "It's not really independence at all is it?". As the First Minister Alex Salmond said in a speech - their stories of scaremongering will shrivel up in the sun when we deal with them in the next few months/early next year. All the Yes Campaign have to do is prove them wrong.

In a recent article in the Scottish Herald the No Campaign have basically revealed their strategy for the next year - they're not going to change at all, rather they're just going to wait for the White Paper on Scottish Independence to be released in November of this year which will show everyone what independence will look like, then they'll go through it with a fine toothed comb, then tear the Yes Campaign to shreds when they see that the SNP haven't "adequately costed" their policies. They don't actually know that of course - they're just assuming that. They'll be looking at stuff like the pensions policy of an independent Scotland and how much it will cost over "an economic cycle", when the very expression "economic cycle" is very ambiguous. It's very difficult to prepare for stuff like that when independence won't be a reality for the next 5 years or so. Basically, the No Campaign is going to set the SNP and the Yes Campaign impossible tests on mindnumbingly boring but important sounding subjects and then fail them. What a lovely positive case for the union, I'm sure that'll really get through to people.

I have actually become dangerously optimistic in the last month or so, prior to now I was depressed and certain that we would fail. The unrelenting negativity has finally buckled in the last week or so when they started running scare-stories about how we'd face increased mobile phone charges in the event of independence (really now) and even a Conservative politician in the Scottish Parliament (rare I know) said "this is getting a bit silly". It has become known that people within Better Together privately refer to the organisation as "Project Fear", which has led to much satire from Nationalists. People don't respond well to unrelenting negativity, and that's all the only stuff folk are really hearing nowadays. They aren't exactly going on the Better Together website and reading their "positive" stuff about how "we fought Fascism together" and subjugated a quarter of the Earth's surface or something, they're reading stuff in The Scotsman or The Daily Record or the Daily Express about how Aliens are going to invade and force Shetland to become independent at raygunpoint if Alex Salmond's SNP booooo.... hisss.... succeed in their plans for "separation". It just doesn't work. A positive campaign is nearly always more successful than the negative one, and I think as people's dissatisfaction with Westminster grows and the campaign finally kicks in we will gain support.

To paraphrase the words of John Paul Jones, Scottish founder of the United States Navy, "We have not yet begun to fight."

[XXSockXX]

...we do not have any control over foreign relations so we cannot choose whether our children go to die in someone else's wars.

Ehm, the UK doesn't have conscription, right? And I may be seeing this from an antimilitaristic background, but I understand that as a soldier you sign up for killing and getting killed in wars you have little to no control over.

I'm not really decided on whether Scottish independence is a good idea or not. For one thing, if the end goal on the far horizon is to have a united Europe, secession seems like a step backwards. The other thing is that it is difficult to predict the long-term consequences of independence.
A lot of issues could probably be adressed by having a wide-reaching reform toward federalism within the UK. Even England could benefit from something like that (I sometimes hear complaints about England technically not having it's own parliament). With more federalism the UK could become sort of a functional Belgium.

In short-term consequences independence would certainly hurt the rest-UK more than Scotland. If not economically then in their pride, as that would really be the end of the empire (not that that isn't over already, but then you couldn't ignore it anymore).
I mean what are they even going to call themselves? United Kingdom would no longer apply, Great Britain wouldn't really fit anymore too, but England would ignore the Welsh, Irish etc.

[Dutchling]

United Kingdom of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland? Perhaps add in Cornwall but I don't think anyone cares about them

[Owlbread]

Ehm, the UK doesn't have conscription, right? And I may be seeing this from an antimilitaristic background, but I understand that as a soldier you sign up for killing and getting killed in wars you have little to no control over.

That's how I see being a soldier too, I am also anti-militarist. I wish Scotland didn't have an army at all, to be frank. But anyway national governments traditionally have the ability to declare war or not, or whether or not they participate in a conflict. Scotland has not had that choice, now we are a target for Islamic extremists. There was a terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport a few years ago - that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been sucked into Iraq and Afghanistan by Westminster. Already one of the scare stories that's run about independence is that our navy/army would be too weak to protect us from Russian incursions in the Arctic circle. I'm sorry... Russia? Why is Russia our enemy? Could it perhaps be because we were a part of the UK for so long during the Cold War that we now fear the Russians when they would have no reason to attack us?

I'm not really decided on whether Scottish independence is a good idea or not. For one thing, if the end goal on the far horizon is to have a united Europe, secession seems like a step backwards. The other thing is that it is difficult to predict the long-term consequences of independence.
A lot of issues could probably be adressed by having a wide-reaching reform toward federalism within the UK. Even England could benefit from something like that (I sometimes hear complaints about England technically not having it's own parliament). With more federalism the UK could become sort of a functional Belgium.

If federalism was on the table in any shape or form I would be very happy with it, perhaps even satisfied. The thing is though it isn't on the table at all - the only show in town is independence. The Liberal Democrats were once advocates of a federal Britain, that has fallen by the wayside and they have distanced themselves from it. It's basically a choice between independence or a handfull of extra tax raising powers to keep us happy. It's too late to be saying stuff like that now, Sock.

In short-term consequences independence would certainly hurt the rest-UK more than Scotland. If not economically then in their pride, as that would really be the end of the empire (not that that isn't over already, but then you couldn't ignore it anymore).
I mean what are they even going to call themselves? United Kingdom would no longer apply, Great Britain wouldn't really fit anymore too, but England would ignore the Welsh, Irish etc.

United Kingdom would still apply in that England, Northern Ireland and Wales would fall within that kingdom, Scotland just wouldn't be a part of it anymore. Great Britain on the other hand wouldn't be possible anymore. I honestly don't know what the rUK would look like post independence, though Wales and Northern Ireland would probably negotiate very special relationships. Cornwall would probably gain some form of autonomy too.

[XXSockXX]

Well, "no army" isn't an option for any country, but how to use it is something else. I wouldn't be so sure that you'd be safe from terrorism though, basically being a western nation makes you a potential target.

Maybe if the vote shows enough support for independence, federalism comes back to the table? I can't imagine that the UK will let you go so easily.

[Owlbread]

Well, "no army" isn't an option for any country, but how to use it is something else. I wouldn't be so sure that you'd be safe from terrorism though, basically being a western nation makes you a potential target.

Maybe if the vote shows enough support for independence, federalism comes back to the table? I can't imagine that the UK will let you go so easily.

It was an option for Costa Rica.

And yet have the majority of small Western nations been attacked? It is a rare occurence, nearly always some kind of fluke or because of a part they played in counter-terrorism/wheeling and dealing. Scotland falls into the latter category.

[10ebbor10]

Join the Eurocorps if you're at it. Should provide decent protection at a rather low cost. They only do peacekeeping missions, so you should be good there.

It's even a possibility if you're a non EU member.

[Owlbread]

Join the Eurocorps if you're at it. Should provide decent protection at a rather low cost. They only do peacekeeping missions, so you should be good there.

It's even a possibility if you're a non EU member.

My suggestion for the Scottish Armed Forces would be our own independent peacekeeping force, dedicated solely to peacekeeping operations and protecting people. They could be deployed in small numbers in various international conflicts as part of UN and European missions. They would spend more time being trained in establishing and protecting safe zones and providing rudimentary psychological care to refugees than being trained in how to kill a man in 50 different ways. I think they'd also be more useful in the event of a disaster situation at home.

The perverse image of the kilted Highland regiments as colonial oppressors should be erased and replaced with that of protectors of the weak.

Maybe if the vote shows enough support for independence, federalism comes back to the table? I can't imagine that the UK will let you go so easily.

If the Scottish people vote for independence then they will get it, simple as that. The UK can't compete with a democratic mandate like that.

[Scoops Novel]

Incidentally, earlier you mentioned a increase in debt for the UK without Scotland from 6% to 6.3%. What negative effects do you predict for the UK?