What happens if the unionist vote carries the day, will the separatists want another vote in a few years and will they carry on until they get independence?
Also what happens if the separatist vote wins and then the new nation makes a complete pig’s ear of things, will the remaining nations of the UK allow them to return and on what terms?
I too have watched Spurf’s film and noticed one very important thing that was not even touched upon. The financial paradigm gave the impression that the institutions of government would just continue; this, patently, would not or could not happen. There will have to be a new bureaucracy and with that there will be set up costs, easy enough for the civil servants to continue doing what they do with a refocus to a purely Scottish outlook, but some of these functions are not controlled in Scotland so a new Scotland based management infrastructure will be needed, somewhere will need to be found to house this new bureaucracy (a case for an expense for defence spending was made and health costs briefly touched but only in the remotest of contexts). What will the cost of extricating Scotland from the current UK governmental system be and who will finance this? Clearly it would be unfair to expect the taxpayers of England, Northern Ireland and Wales to foot the bill, as it is not they who are looking to leave the Union, although I believe the politicians remaining in Westminster are sufficiently stupid to allow this to occur, and will existing UK government operations undertaken in Scotland be repatriated, and here I believe they should: after all an independent Scotland would not base governmental offices in England. Will both nations have the necessary human resource to allow this to occur? The answer I think is the United Kingdom almost probably and Scotland possibly.
Irrespective of the figures quoted, and I have no easy access to this source material, they can be massaged one way or the other to favour one viewpoint or another and I find it hard to believe some of the information given; especially with regard to average salary spread and tax contribution. I understand that Scotland’s east coast and central corridor can produce high salaries and income tax revenues because of the oil and general technology industries based there, and there have been government programmes to encourage businesses to move to these regions, but including the west coast and highlands as higher salary areas is a bit misleading. It would be like including Norfolk with London as a high salary area of England or central Wales with the Cardiff/Swansea corridor. Of course the figures might indicate that Scots are overpaying themselves to create this state of affairs.
From what I have seen and heard, although this is somewhat limited, it is clear that Scotland does have the resources to stand alone; and probably be better off for it, especially if their government employs the dreadfully stereotypical non-spending view of the Scots. The teething period will be difficult though.
What would the knock-on effect of Scotland’s independence be? The next step for the UK could be Wales and Northern Ireland leaving, and with that would the Republic of Ireland try to absorb the six counties of Ulster or would Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan try to join an independent Ulster. Would Scottish separation encourage the four Basque regions of Spain and three Basque départments of France to become a single Basque nation, Will Savoire and Savoia wish to extricate themselves from France and Italy, Langedoc from France or Bayern from Germany, which is a federation of smaller states anyway?
Will the Scots keep the pound? In all probability they will certainly try, but I see a parallel pound in the same way the Irish had their pound tied to the British pound until the Irish joined the ERM and had full separation in March 1979. If the Scottish aim is to join the EU they will have to forego the pound for the euro, and in common with Andorra, Crna Gora, Kosovo, Monaco, San Marino and The Vatican City could adopt the euro while still outside the EU. This would cause a raft of new problems and (strangely) force any independent Scottish government into surrendering fiscal policy to the EU, something they are attempting to reclaim from the UK.
If I had the chance I would vote for an independent Scotland, but I don’t have this opportunity. The one worry is that an independent Scotland will not work. It will be up to the Scots to make their nation and I am not sure their current politicians are up to the task. The only member of the Scottish parliament to be given obvious air time on the UK TV channels is Alex Salmond and I really don’t trust him at all, he comes over as even worse than David Nick Milliband Clegg Cameron (all completely untrustworthy types). The others are completely anonymous, unless that is a result of the BBC and ITV ignoring them.
My hope for Scotland is whatever way the people decide they don’t let their politicians mess it up for them, equally we in the rest of the UK do not allow our politicians to act against Scotland out of spite.
