There is something amusing about the neo-colonial attitude shown by some people. RUK and Scotland both have much to gain from a peaceful separation and much to lose from a peaceful separation. The rUK will have an interest in a peaceful settlement and that is what will happen. The idea that UDI would lead to war is laughable and just an assumption of someone with a nineteenth century attitude.
It looks increasingly like we will find out what happens in reality over the next few months.
And also to rUK which is why things will be settled amicably.
I suspect that if and when we vote for independence that there will be sabres tattling by the neo-colonialists followed by a damp squib of a negotiation. All will occur in bureaucratic niceties.
I would point out as an aside that it is this over-weaning superior attitude- the assumption that Scotland can be treated as a wayward child, that has caused many otherwise careful and unionist people to decide to vote YES.
Keep it up, every little helps.
Why do you keep claiming that the Pound will tumble (or even that it is a bad thing — the Pound’s value fluctuates constantly and a weaker currency would be better for our manufacturers)? When Osborne ruled out a currency union earlier this year the Pound shot up in value!
Nats: Civil disobedience, blockades, no debt, etc. etc. if we don’t get what we want.
rUK: Good luck trying to get into the EU.
Nats: OMFG neo-colonialism!!!
I don’t think you know what “colonial” means. Anyway, are you saying that the majority of Scots not in favour of independence (53% at the last poll do not currently intend to vote yes) are simply going to let it happen without protest? I doubt that. I doubt they will just peacefully move to the rUK (although of course they would be welcome).
Hopefully there will be a negotiated settlement. But the idea that the party with 5% of the population and 5% of the wealth is going to be the dominant party in the negotiations is absurd. The UK will negotiate to get what is best for it, and will for the most part get it. If Scotland chooses to work with the UK, this will be done in such a way as to benefit both parties. If not, we’ll pretty much do it anyway.
To take an example, if Scotland chooses not to take on its share of the National Debt, the UK could impose tariffs on Scottish trade to get the money back. Whilst it might not actually get us that much money, the cost to Scotland in lost trade, or more expensive trade to places other than the UK, would be far greater than simply paying the debt. Nothing to do with colonialism, just politics and economics.
The recent 1% drop in the pound has been blamed on uncertainty about the future of the UK. Several commentators suggest a temporary drop of 6 to 10 per cent for a period after a YES vote- why I Bought $2000 last week for our vacation next month!
As pointed out above, membership of the EU is not as important for Scotland as there would be advantages to being in the EEA for five to ten years- the same position as Norway.
It would be illegal for the UK to raise a tariff against an EEA member. The rest of your reply just reinforces your neo-colonial assumptions.
The future of Faslane will be a particularly strong bargaining counter. If the rUk were offered a twenty year lease on Faslane, that would be a hell of a carrot. Imagine trying to site a Faslane replacement in the middle of Plymouth or Portsmouth. Of course Milford Haven is a possibility if they wanted to annoy Wales. Similarly with access to a Northern port and airfield for Atlantic defence. Strong bargaining chips.
There is a real feel of bad loser here- if we can’t win the referendum, then we will win in another way by disaffected Scots or international muscle. Not an attractive stance!
The rUK will not be able to act independently constrained as it is by the EU, International standing, the Commonwealth and strangely important- the Monarchy- all reasons why the transition will be gentlemanly rather than dog in a manger.
Great, our manufacturing sector and other exporters are due a boost.
It would be illegal for Scotland to not pay its national debt, and there’s no reason to assume that you’ll be part of the EEA.
No, the rUK keeping Faslane will not be up for negotiation. How much we pay for it might be. Of course, if you refuse to pay the national debt, we’ll just keep the rent and put it towards that.
Do you honestly think that the UK would even consider any deal that gave it up in the foreseeable future?
The UK doesn’t want to lose Scotland, but if it does, the UK will act in its own interest, not Scotland’s. What about that is so hard to understand?
If you think that the EU won’t be on our side on this, you’re extremely naive - there are too many countries who are members who don’t want to encourage separatism for it to be otherwise. The Commonwealth and Monarchy will have nothing to do with it, I imagine, I don’t see the union of crowns surviving independence, and as for international standing I think you vastly overestimate how much the rest of the world cares about Scotland.
But yes, the transition will be gentlemanly as long as Scotland continues to honour its obligations. But you’re constantly suggesting it won’t - refusing to pay the national debt, refusing to allow us to keep our military bases, refusing to accept that the rUK will control sterling…
It would not be ‘illegal’ to refuse to pay the National Debt as that would be part of the economic settlement. It might be of doubtful morality, but so would denying Scotland the pound (especially as the Bank of England was founded by a Scot!)
You seem to misunderstand sovereignty. It means that if a foreign country is told to get its tanks out, they have no choice in the matter. rUK would be a foreign country
It is so much fun watching neo-colonialist thought in action.
So anglocentic, so amusing, so wrong.
Reasoned Analysis from an Englishman without a neo-colonialist attitude. I concur totally:
Whatever comes of Scotland’s impending independence referendum, Britain owes that country a vote of thanks. For six months it has staged a festival of democracy, an Edinburgh tattoo of argument. Not a politician, not an airwave, not a town hall, not a wall, tree or road sign is free of the debate. If, as predicted, turnout tops 80%, that is a triumph in itself. Political participation is not dead when it matters.
How would I vote? As a British citizen residing in London, I would vote no. I would be shocked at how England’s rulers have incurred the loathing and distrust first of most of Ireland and then of half of Scotland. This incompetence reached its climax in the no campaign itself, the jeering, patronising, money-obsessed “project fear” designed to warn the Scots to stay close to nurse. The assumption that independence is all about cash is bad enough. Worse have been the expatriate celebrity endorsements – why have they all left home? – and scares that Scotland will lose its monarch, its missiles, its brains and the BBC, getting only poverty and terrorists in return.
I would therefore hope that a no vote might encourage London to seek some new federation for its dependencies in the “first English empire”, picking up on Herbert Asquith’s 1912 “home rule for all”. The shock of the past year might warn the English establishment to embrace constitutional reform. It might put stuffing into David Cameron’s empty localism and avert the humiliation of a collapsed union.
But as a Londoner I have no such vote. I have to go to Edinburgh and imagine myself a Scot. In that case there is no argument. I would vote yes.
I am sure the outcome of the referendum, whichever way it goes, will be nothing like the alarms or promises made by both sides. Pick apart the no vote’s “devo-max” and the yes vote’s “independence-lite”, and the practical differences are not great. Both will deliver a distinctive Scotland yet one still close to England. Whatever deal follows whatever vote, there will be joint citizens, open borders, a common currency, joint banking, arrangements on welfare, security, tax-gathering and broadcasting. Scotland may set its taxes differently, but the scope for drastic change will be limited. It can already raise or lower its income tax but has not dared to do so.
As for money, the issues are fiercely contested and wildly out of line. But the consensus appears to be that the £10.5bn net transfer to Scotland could be roughly balanced by Scotland’s notional oil revenue. An independent Scotland would lose a billion a year in windfarm subsidies from English energy consumers and might have to carry over £100bn of debt. It would certainly be tough, but that is what independence is about. Poll evidence suggests that Scottish voters are unmoved by the no campaign’s economic alarmism, leaving money as a matter for politicians to sort out.
I would vote yes because the no campaign has offered merely stasis. Its leader Alistair Darling’s vision is of union as sole guarantor of prosperity. Yet this paternalism has trapped Scotland in dependency and lack of enterprise for half a century. Nor is it clear what his offer of devo max really means. If Scotland were able to raise more of its own taxes, the risk is that the Treasury would offset them with cuts in the subvention. Scotland might see a more adventurous future, but it would remain in political shackles.
Alex Salmond’s vision is equally flawed. His socialist heaven of tax and spend, floating on a lake of oil, must be rubbish. He offers voters an extra £1,000 a head after independence, when the reality must be public sector belt tightening. Scotland’s budget would lose Treasury underpinning. Its borrowing would be at risk. Its ministers would be on their mettle. Financial crisis would lead to Greek-style austerity, whereupon voters would chuck Salmond out. The Tories might even revive as the party of discipline and offshore capitalism.
I would vote yes because, though I disbelieve both Darling and Salmond, Salmond’s lies would precipitate a crisis that would have to lead to a leaner, meaner Scotland, one bolstered by the well-known advantages of newborn states and more intimate governments. Scotland’s whingeing and blaming of London would stop. It would be driven towards true self-sufficiency, capable of resembling Denmark, Norway, Ireland or Slovakia as a haven for fleet-footed entrepreneurs.
I have lost count of the referendum debates I have attended. They are dominated by expatriate Scots who have no intention of returning home but who enjoy telling Scotland its business from the fleshpots of London. They see union much as their grandparents saw empire, as a historical inevitability to be defended against all argument. Many are blind to the hypocrisy of deploring Britain’s subservience to Brussels yet insisting on Scotland’s subservience to London.
The United Kingdom really ended with the departure of Ireland in 1922. In the past half-century the drift to self-determination has been remorseless. In the 1970s, 40% of Scots saw themselves as “British”; now only 23% do. To them, arguments about currencies, subsidies and oil are not the issue. They have been debating the essence of democracy – by whom should they be ruled? They are arguing constitutions, not spreadsheets.
Most Scots know that independence could only be partial, but half-wish to negotiate it as between sovereign peoples. This craving for ever greater regional autonomy is rampant across Europe, from Spain to the Russian border. It slides into partition only when, as in Yugoslavia, central government is deaf to its demands. Whether or not Scotland votes for independence, it will have made its own decision in its own way. To that extent, it is a sovereign state in embryo.
There won’t be an independence settlement that allows Scotland to not pay the national debt, or which involves the UK giving up Faslane, it’s really that simple. If Scotland tries to insist on that, it won’t become independent.
And of course I have an Anglocentric view, I’m English, living in England, and want my government to do what’s best for me and my country.
It will be after UDI and its recognition by other countries. The UK has agreed that the election of the SNP government required a referendum to decide the will of the Scottish people. If this is a vote for independence, no country believing in the rule of law can argue against independence in reality.
No politician or Better Together campaigner has suggested that a vote for independence would be ignored by the UK. The UK is no longer a strong colonial power, but is a western democracy bound by treaties and international obligations and cannot risk becoming a pariah state.
Are you aware of no modern geo-political realities?
I somewhat doubt that highly, you underestimate the amount of animosity this will generate in the coming generations.
And brandishing the English as ‘neo-colonial’ does nothing to placate the goodwill between both peoples. I find it quite insulting for a start for you to use that association for the Union, and I find it insulting that you denigrate your own English identity as if this will win you favor with Scots, when in fact you cheapen yourself to both parties.
You seem to forget that the biggest financial centre in the UK and one of the biggest in Europe is Edinburgh, why in the world wouldn’t they be liable to take on a share of the national debt? Renege on it, and you show you cannot be remotely creditworthy and ruin the new country financially.
I agree with Steophan, I’m going to assume Scotland is going to be an independent state, and I as an Englishman, hope that my government gets the best terms and all of what it wants out of Scotland, even if that disadvantages the Scottish.
I am English living in Scotland and recognise that no independent country is able to act unilaterally and will have to respect international norms.
If it hasn’t been threatened by Better Togather, it is not going to happen. The effect of civil and political unrest in the UK would send the pound into Free Fall and neither Scotland nor rUK can afford that.
Several independent economists disagree with you.
I agree that rUK shuld argue for the best outcome, but so should Scotland, and this argument will be within normal political and diplomatic constraints including Europe, the United Nations, the Commonwealth and the Monarchy.