Scottish independence

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

That number would include poor people and people from Glasgow.

Liz and Charlie are at the opposite end of the spectrum and have 24/7 access to the best medical care.

A Telegraph poll has not found the levels of overwhelming support for a united Britain that the Prime Minister may have been hoping for.

When asked to what extent do you support or oppose Scottish independence in an exclusive Telegraph poll, just 32 per cent said they opposed it, and only 20 per cent said they “strongly oppose” separation.

Twenty five per cent actually supported the Scots going it alone, with 30 per cent so disinterested they are neither in support nor opposition.

The Barnett Formula, the mechanism used by the Treasury to allocate money to Scotland, has already proved unpopular in England. The poll found little support for more funding to be given to persuade Scots to stay (26 pc support vs 34 pc opposed).

The English also seem disinclined to allow the Scots to continue using the pound if they leave the union. Asked if they would prefer them to keep using sterling, 35 per cent said yes but 30 per cent said no, while 35 per cent were undecided.

English voters do not seem to have much faith in Scotland being successful on its own, however. Although 31 per cent believe England will be weaker without Scotland (compared to 18 per cent who thought it would be stronger), nearly half of English voters said they thought independence would “fail”.

Only a third believe Scotland would thrive outside of the UK.

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

My heart has always been in self determination for every country to make their own choices.

BUT speaking selfishly my brain tells me I don't want to see Scotland independent because I believe they'll end up a like for like competitor for us.

David McWilliam's recently warned that their economic handbook post independence is sitting in a drawer in Edinburgh and it would be chapter and verse the same as the IDA handbook.

I'd rather they remained hamstrung as part of the UK on balance with some extra powers.

So far as Queen's consent goes, there is no distinction between the crown estate and the private estate. The Queen's consent is sought on legislation which affects or may affect (a) the prerogatives of the crown; or (b) the official or personal/private property or interests of the monarch., and she has the same opportunity to use the process to her advantage whether that advantage accrues to her in her official capacity or in her private capacity.

So the crown estate/private estate distinction is not relevant here. It would at best complicate the article to bring it in; at worst make it misleading, implying that the queen's consent process operates differently in relation to the crown estate and the private estate. It does not.

The Financial Times have a front page story tomorrow that the UK Govt have drawn up contingency plans to relocate their 4 Vanguard Class Trident ballistic missile submarines away from the Faslane base on the Clyde, in the event of Scotland seceding from the Union.

While the Devonport base at Plymouth is preferred, its proximity to large centres of population isnt ideal and so overseas options including a French submarine base in Brittany and a US base in Georgia on the Atlantic Coast have been factored in.

The ignominy of having to base the UKs entire nuclear deterrent outside of Britain ought to drive some Brexiteer gammon into apoplexy.

Don't think there would be any urgency in relocating Trident. Could happen over time.

BTW very good drama on BBC 1 ATM called Vigil. Based on a murder aboard a Trident sub.

The thing is the Navy and military always mean jobs, not only service personnel, but also government contracts, shipyards, etc... This does not only concern Trident, but also other matters. Also if Scotland would be independent as a country, they would have to provide some kind of navy. They probably won't have submarines but more something Ireland has.

The problem with Scottish independence has unfortunately many facettes: ( and it's certainly not that easy as Nicola Sturgeon likes it to be )

Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP are overall obsessed with independence, and obsession is always a major failure. ( History taught us that many times )

Many public things in Scotland are either for free or offered at less cost than in the rest of the UK, - the money from London to Scotland flows steadily to support that. ( Nicola Sturgeon certainly doesn't want to be reminded of that, nor does she want to comment this subject further, but most of her current promises are based on funds from London )

Scottish business is for a large majority doing business with England and the rest of the UK rather than the EU. Financial businesses, like Standardlife, or Scottish Widows, etc. would probably relocate their business or part of their business to the rest of the UK to serve their UK customers....

EU membership for Scotland is not automatically and seamlessly guaranteed if Scotland was independent from one day to the next, even though Nicola insists it is that way.

The question of currency, citizenship and defense are today unclear and unsolved and so were they in the last referendum. Would they really trade the British pound for a weaker currency? ( for a decent currency they need a good trade surplus ) Or British citizenship for Scottish citizenship ( in the beginning neither part of EU or the UK ) ?

Scotland also has an aging population, more so than the rest of the UK, so they'd have to have an open immigration politics.

All that considered, Yes, Scotland could potentially be an independent country, however independence will come at a very very high cost and the first 5 to 7 years will most likely be very very difficult. Also it is neither certain nor guaranteed that Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP will still be in power by then. There is always the overarching responsibility question with politicians in any country.

I didn't mean to derail the topic with highly technical treatments of nuclear submarines, my point is that the prospect of Independence has become a very real and practical concern at official level in Whitehall, even in Boris has his head in the sand about it.

This doesn't help; quite the opposite. Glasgow is 65km south-east of Faslane.

One of the main attractions of independence for Scotland would be precisely to rejoin the EU. But they would want to do so on terms that made some allowance for their very close economic relationship with rump-UK.

This would be a moving target, though. Even assuming a successful indyref, as with Brexit some years would elapse between the referendum and actual Scottish independence, and some more years would elapse between that and Scottish accession to the EU. And over that period of time there would almost certainly be changes of government in rump-UK, and very probably changes of rump-UK policy towards the EU, most likely in favour of closer alignment, which would make the Scottish dilemma less acute, and the negotiation of terms to square the circle of Scotland's relationships with the Union and with rump-UK a little bit easier.

Not according to bob.

But, seriously, it would be insane to make decisions about the location of a nuclear facility on the assumption that in the event of a radiation release the wind will always be blowing in the most usual direction. At any given time, it could be blowing in any given direction, and planning and decisions need to take account of this.