Scottish independence

Well Lb would want to be looking to their second term. The Scot Lb MPs will be very important then, better having been good to Scotland in the meantime.

Yes the Tories and Labour were both advocating remain [in the UK] but the Tories were advocating for Scotland to remain and subsequently for the UK to leave the EU. The EU should have thought ahead and stayed as neutral as possible.

For obvious reasons the EU will never express support for the breakup of any state, and certainly not of a member state. Anyone who expects otherwise is delusional, and any political campaign that depends on the EU doing so is insane.

The process for an independent Scotland (or independent anyone else) to join the EU is well-known both in theory (it's set out in the Treaties) and in practice (many states have already been through the process and others are going through it at the moment; we know what it looks like).

@Fr Tod Umptious "Bodies like the EU like stability.

An EU member state (the UK) breaking up is not something they would endorse, thus their lack of support for independence."

I think the Scottish referendum was held at the same time as the illegal ballot in Catalunya . Spain ensured that the Eu took a stronger position than they might have.

However I think Scotland would have had a relatively easy passage into the EU, less than ten years and possibly around by five as it , at that time, was already a member as part of the UK.

If the referendum had been successful, it would be unprecedented, given the resulting break up of the UK, for the EU to automatically continue membership for one part, England Wales and NI, and deny membership to the other, Scotland. This is all moot now of course, Scotland would be applying as a third country.

The difficulty for the independence supporters in Scotland is that neither they nor anyone else can guarantee that Scotland would be better off, economically, as an independent country. And it seems the population of Scotland want such a guarantee.

Another thing not often mentioned is the importance of Scotland to the British military and defence, there is a huge naval base up there along with nuclear missile sites. In the light of the Ukraine war the importance of British nuclear deterrence has only increased given that putin is always talking about nuclear strikes.

Given that Britain and France are the only nuclear armed countries in Europe I doubt the EU would be doing anything to weaken that given the threat from putin. Therefore the last thing they would be encouraging would be a break away of Scotland, they have plenty of other bigger candidates to join like Ukraine, Moldova and balkan countries

But the SNP, and most of the Scottish public, are very pro-EU so the EU would have a third nuclear armed country in your scenario (and a second one today)

On the flip side - if you look at how close the Brexit vote was, the EU were possibly hoping that Scotland remaining in the UK would sway the vote in favour of the UK remaining in the EU. And it nearly did to be fair

I'd be fairly certain that an independent Scotland would join NATO and so these could be renamed NATO Naval bases rather than British Naval bases for those people who might care about such things. Of course the submarines would be British but they could also be American as well.

The difficulty for the independence supporters in Scotland is that neither they nor anyone else can guarantee that Scotland would be better off, economically, as an independent country.

Indeed, and had economic arguments only been used, the case for Irish independence would never have stood up either.

And it seems the population of Scotland want such a guarantee.

That was one of the winning strategies in the independence referendum - frightening the sh1t out of older people as to what would happen to their pensions after independence. IIRC the big demographic divide in the referendum was age - with younger people voting in favour of independence and older people voting against it.

Boris Johnson wasn't even an MP at the time of the Scottish referendum though.

Neither was Nigel Farrage, he wasn't even a TD at the time of the Brexit referendum

He is, well, he's the British version of a TD

https://news.sky.com/story/nigel-farage-on-track-to-become-mp-as-he-hails-huge-early-election-results-13161816