Control a country's economy and you control the country. You are giving away control to another government.
This is true, but I have said many times before that if we really did find the EU that stifling we could leave of our own accord. The EU is not a dictatorship and membership is entirely voluntary and not permanent.
Norway isn't in the EU,
Ireland is though, I just used it as an example of a country someone in England might consider "foreign".
and in any case Westminster is closer to you than Brussels and Frankfurt.
Not by much. Geographical proximity doesn't make them any less out of touch with us.
I remember back in 2013 the EU wanted the UK to transfer regulation of its banks to EU to once again attempt wider centralization of all its constituent banks. The UK told the EU to shove off. Could Scotland do the same? I'd hope so.
As 10ebbor10 has said - the EU works by unanimous consensus. It is possible for us to tell the EU to shove off if we feel the need. We might not have all the handy opt outs that the UK currently has in the EU but we wouldn't just roll over without them.
The UK referendum is a referendum of all the UK, so I suppose you're stuck with whatever the masses vote for Owlbread. There's just less of you.
If by "masses" you mean "another country" then yes, we're stuck with whatever they vote for. They will decide our future if we do not become independent and start governing ourselves.
You might become independent as a country however, and if you do, becoming a full time member of the EU will require Scotland's fulfillment of all its EU obligations that entails. It's just not worth it.
I think on the whole for the sake of Scottish agriculture, trade, tourism and migrant workers it is worth the obligations. We can always leave if they become too tough or they ask us to give up our formal national independence as we did in 1707.
Your defence policy will remain yours for as long as the EU fails to implement the single army it dreams of having, which it works towards building.
Though I would like all countries to disarm unilaterally I am not opposed to the EU forming an army of its own. That doesn't mean that we will have to get rid of our own armed forces and only contribute to the EU's own forces, we can remain independent in that regard and send them contributions in the form of troops in the same way that most decent countries send troops to the UN peacekeeping force.
Your economic policies will remain yours so long as you retain the pound and never become indebted to the EU, otherwise your resistance will be as effective as that of Greece, Italy and Spain.
All the more reason to make sure we don't screw up. But of course if we did screw up I think we'd be better off than if we screwed up without the safety net the EU provides, as 10ebbor10 has made clear.
I also find it funny that under the EU Battlegroup wikipage, the country they list as it belonging to is the European Union. More powers are being and will continue to be absorbed by the EU until the importance of state governance is minimal. For all intents and purposes, all nations within the EU are to certain extents already a single state.
I'm fine with this for as long as Scotland does not formally lose its independence. If we are asked to give up our independent membership of the UN and our executive power and become a province of a wider EU then of course I would be demanding our secession from the EU. However, I can't see that happening, despite the integration that is manifest to us; having spoken with some very pro-EU Germans and French people even they say that Germany and France would never give up their "independence". We might give up some of it here and there but never outright.
In case you haven't noticed though - right now we
are in a single state called the United Kingdom. You're describing the EU possibly turning into exactly what I'm railing against right now. That doesn't exactly encourage me to remain united with the UK.
Anyone looking to attack Britain will look at England, then immediately look at Ireland and Scotland [and then after that her shipping]. You can either have the protection of the whole British isles or not.
Again, not necessarily. Any dispute Britain has with Russia or another nation would not really matter to us. It's fanciful to imagine a redux of Belgium 1914 taking place in Scotland.
There is also the whole thing about honouring all of Britain's alliances (which reduced defence spending have hampered the ability to do so, though the Armed Forces are getting back on their feet soon) as well as Kirchner diplomacy requiring a strong face and aircraft carriers.
Absolutely none of our concern.
At least for the next 20 years, that requires that the United Kingdoms are united.
I'm sure the UK would rather like us to remain united, yes. I do not doubt that.
Ah yes, Scotland has no enemies. It definitely would not ever fall afoul of terrorism, much like other Western countries like Sweden or Portugal which... Didn't participate in the Iraq war, and yet still fell afoul of terrorism.
Please name some more that did fall afoul of terrorism. The vast majority did not experience anything like that. Sweden also has quite strong ethnic tensions at the moment - in Scotland we have a very, very small Muslim population and no real ethnic tension worth the name.
It is rather silly to also equate realpolitik with presupposed vengeance, the RN's motto of "Si vis pacem, para bellum" has proven time and time again that it is impossible to predict just how quickly the future can change and change for the worst. Ukraine didn't, it didn't work well.
But it is impossible to think of a scenario in which Scotland would be at risk. I honestly can't think of one.
The implications of this mentality disturb me. The Russian Federation is not one you'd want to be friends with, and being a backdoor to the UK would mean it would literally be a brand new weakness in one of Europe's only 2 military powers. Well good for you if you're happy with the rights of others being taken from them I guess.
I'm not happy with that at all and you know that I'd like nothing better than for the entire Russian Federation to be dissolved, but in the same way that we are building a close relationship with China, Scotland would probably end up being very close to Russia by way of trade and business. The relationship between Russia and Scotland is actually well established already and on the occasions that we've been able to act together we've done so on pretty friendly terms. I don't want to use the stereotype "Russians get on well with Scots" but I have heard that rather a lot.
As you can tell, I may not support military intervention in Ukraine, but I do support at the very least preparations and mandatory sabre rattling.
As do I. The Scottish Government publicly condemned the annexation of Crimea and further Russian activities in Ukraine and the homophobia that is being written into Russian legislation at this moment. I think that's an indication of the direction we'd take as an independent state.
The MOD are currently boasting about the response times of their jets and warships being in the minutes, and again I don't see why you are so keen on destroying the UK's nuclear power when it is the most cost effective and most powerful weapon available. Ukraine without nukes, Ukraine with nukes, which was invaded?
There is no conceivable scenario where Scotland would need those nuclear bombs.
As it stands now the only militiaristic hostile entity you could say exists in Europe is Russia. Europe itself however, its individual states - are competitors. That's when Europe thrives. So you are happy about countries losing their national identity and embracing 'europeness,' honestly I'm not and this sort of thinking is what's allowing the far right to rise. Golden Dawn and the Front National are just a snapshot at what the EU's mismanagings could cause to rise, and in a Europe this unstable who honestly knows what could happen next. If you don't prepare for the worst and the worst happens, it's your fault. It's not surprising at all that the stronger pushes for Europeness over nations has just led to a rise in nationalism.
10ebbor10 has answered this very well already and I don't need to really go into this. All I will say though is that you are actually asking me to choose between allowing my national identity to be absorbed into a wider sense of "Britishness", something that doesn't bother you at all. I think a European identity is far more inclusive and representative of how we Celtic nations (Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Ireland, Cornwall, Isle of Man) feel.
In any case the sense of "European-ness" will never truly overtake national identities in Europe, they are simply too strong. Scotland has been a part of a re-named Kingdom of England (according to the British government) for 300 years and we have never lost our identity, though it has weathered here and there. I can't see that happening in Europe for centuries.
Only so far as prestige and hard power is to be concerned. As far as soft power goes, London will continue absorbing money and culture and nothing much else will change, except border control I guess. Hadrian's wall will be rebuilt and covered in stinging nettles, whilst Putin's ships frollick around the North Sea unchallenged by all except the UK's mighty new science vessel, which will analyse them with science and not much else I guess.
Scotland, contrary to popular belief, will have an adequate navy.
Flags might change too. Hundreds of billions of pounds worth of assets have poured their way into England already due to the uncertainty inherent in the stability of Scotland's economy, so the UK is going to be fine.
Please provide evidence for this assertion - give examples of the assets that have already poured their way in, and how is Scotland's economy inherently unstable?
I didn't know this until quite recently, but 9 out of 10 customers of Scottish banks are southerners. They're probably the reason why Scottish companies and Scottish assets are flooding south come the independence vote.
They are not flooding south. This is nonsense. There was a spate of campaigning from certain business leaders in Scotland, usually tied to the right-wing and generally Tory "CBI" - Confederation of British Industry - who wanted to cause uncertainty about the independence debate. It is against the businesses' interests to move South and the hits in the value of their shares after causing uncertainty over a potential move (standard life come to mind) reflect this.
In addition the LibLabCon are all against the idea of an Indie Scotland having the pound (no idea about UKIP) so there's little luck there either.
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