That would be up to the English Parliament.
Commonwealth and RoI citizens can move to the UK, work and vote here, so I would imagine the same rights would extend to the Scots.
Irish citizens can, but Commonwealth citizens are subject to the same immigration controls as other foreigners. (Commonwealth citizens do get to vote, but only if they have the right to live in the UK.)
Just like what will happen with any EU-referendum, we are beginning to see big business line up against any changes to the status quo. Standard Life this morning have announced they are drawing up contingency plans to pull out of Scotland in the case of independence. Which makes perfect sense, as most pension holders will be in the rest of the UK, and constructing an international border between Scotland and rUK will introduce additional, crushing costs for pension schemes under EU rules, as they become cross-border and not single country schemes.
This is exactly what NAPF, the professional body covering pension professionals, warned about months ago in a report they issued on independence and the pension industry.
That sort of thing does make it sound impractical for Scotland to cecede.
OTOH, if they did it anyway, would the repercussions really be so severe? Would England really risk having a country with such problems emigrating en masse to England? (They’ve all got British citizenship now, after all). Or would it be yet another tax haven just off British shores? That wouldn’t be great for the rest of the UK either.
Why, they don’t seem to be having that much of a problem with the current bunch.
I don’t know whether the Irish had that right pre-EU, but that right to move to the UK and vote in its local elections applies to EU citizens, not just the Irish.
Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK can vote in General Elections as well. As can the Irish, even though they aren’t part of the Commonwealth.
As said in the part I quoted of Lord Feldon’s post, yes. And the Irish are part of the EU, what I was saying is that the set of “foreigners who can vote in local elections in the UK” is larger than “the Irish and those Commonwealth citizens who reside in the UK” passes some coffee.
Irish citizens resident in the UK can vote in general elections, not just local. Link: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/faq/voting-and-registration/who-can-register-to-vote
Other EU citizens can only vote in local elections.
Edit: I think you missed the general, not local part of the posts you were quoting.
No, but I did misunderstand it. Thanks for the explanation. steals the coffee back
NPR on Whitehall’s warning that an independent Scotland couldn’t keep the British pound as its currency: U.K. Warns Scotland: Vote To Secede, Lose Common Currency : The Two-Way : NPR
Royal Bank of Scotland would almost certainly end up on the London side of the border as that’s where they do the majority of their business. Which seems unfair; Scotland should have to take them back, debts and legacy issues and all.
The GERS 2012/2013 report, issued today, doesn’t make comfortable reading for the “yes” campaign.
To compare with the White Paper (pdf, figures on p75), the Campaign claims that in 2016/17 Scotland’s net fiscal balance would be: -£5.5 Bn at most.
The GERS has the 2012/13 net fiscal balance at: -£12.1 Bn at least.
That’s only partly driven by a discrepancy in North Sea oil revenue figures. (£5.5 Bn current vs minimum £6.8 Bn 2016/17).
Current on-shore receipts are £47.6 Bn - the Paper predicts £56.9 Bn
Current public spending inc debt interest payments = £65.2 Bn; Paper predicts £63.7Bn.
So in 2016/17 Scotland will be spending £1.5 Bn less but taxing £9.3 Bn more. Apparently. The big difference in on-shore receipts between now and 2016/17 - nearly £10 Bn - needs some explaining. But overall, the White Paper figures look pretty unlikely in the context of GERS now.
I’ll try resurrecting this after killing it three weeks ago:
There’s been a potential boost for the Yes camp after a “government minister” (possibly Philip Hammond) was quoted in the Guardian saying that “of course” rUK would be put currency union on the table in post-Yes negotiations, most likely for continued nuclear sub presence in Faslane.
This is damaging for three reasons:
- It undercuts the strenuous insistence of a couple of months ago that currency union was off the table - an insistence that took a crowbar to the central plank of the Yes campaign’s economic case.
- It validates Salmond’s claim that this was “bullying and blustering” rather than a genuine hard line.
- It diminishes every past and future assertion by Westminster and No camp - if they were bluffing about currency union, why trust them on anything else?
Salmond is easily shrewd enough to exploit this crack in the No campaign’s public facade. Every major announcement will be met with scepticism and a claim that whatever people say now, the reality post-referendum will be different.
The Yes campaign is slowly gaining a little bit of ground and would be expected to as the date gets nearer. This gaffe gives that process a boost.
Well I never. So Mr Salmond and this Philip Hammond dude (note - not a household name in Scotland) are already negotiating that England will maintain a WMD base just outside Glasgow (Scotland’s largest city) following independence? In exchange for Mr Salmond being allowed to boast that sterlingisation = “a currency union”?
And this will sway some people to vote for independence? 
I wonder when the rest of my predictions in post #288 will also come true? 
Stanislaus is correct though, there has been a recent upward bump for YES. Whether it will stick or not remains to be seen, and at the moment it merely narrows the gap slightly and it remains likely to be a sound NO on voting day.
HuffPoUK on the latest polling: Scottish Independence Yes Vote Gains Ground On No Campaign | HuffPost UK Politics
The FT have kindly produced a graphtracking all poll results since Jan 2013. The recent change in voting intentions is striking.
I don’t know whether to attribute this to the inevitable tightening up (although it seems odd that Don’t Knows would break so significantly against the status quo); or to No camp incompetence; or to Yes camp savvy.
I think the No camp’s initial strategy of pointing out the (many) holes in the actual Independence proposals has run its course. It was a strong line to take, but a purely negative campaign is ultimately off-putting. The Yes vote share has actually increased since the attack on currency union, for example. People never like being told that they can’t have something.
For all the No campaign is called “Better Together” there hasn’t been much in the way of postive messages from them - what are the good reasons for the Union? How has it helped Scotland? If they can’t make a case on that basis, and only rely on fear of the unknown plus technical questions about pensions and currency, the No campaign are going to find things run very close.
As Alex Massie points out, close isn’t good enough. He raises the spectre of the “Neverendum” - where independence is often voted on, but never settled. Personally, I think it wouldn’t be everlasting. If it’s a close No this time, it’ll most likely be a Yes next time. And it doesn’t matter how close a Yes is.
Like Quebec, you mean?