http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/444422/Prepare-the-border-posts-fears-over-SNP-immigration-policy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daily-express-uk-news+(Daily+Express+%3A%3A+UK+Feed)

Saw this whilst mooching down the shops this morning. Seems well balanced.

In other news I resisted buying the giant chocolate coin in the Fisher & Donaldson bakers.

It’s pretty much the same story as this:

Scottish border guards would force Englishmen to squeal like a pig

Think the Express one is funnier though

I wonder what the English Ex-Pats will have to do to get through border control.

Spit at English tourists I assume.*
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* may not be a genuine opinion

So Salmond is still reckoning that he’ll tell the EU what deal Scotland gets when it joins?

The statue with the massive boner that you see as you cross the Tweed at Coldstream was presumably put there for the same purpose; to deter visitors from the south!

Time for the Absolutely / McGlashan clip again I feel…

It’s nothing to worry about. No one will be able to get through the impenetrable silver-foil barrier that the rUK are going to put up along the border to stop folk in Scotland watching BBC TV programmes. 🙄

Mr Salmond has said an independent Scotland would try to keep an opt-out from the Schengen agreement, which permits free movement across the Continent.

And we would opt out of Euro, despite wanting to be a new member of the EU

And we would keep £ Sterling, although that is not our decision to make

Oh, we would also become members of NATO, despite being Anti-nuclear.

I sure I could go on….

its all a bit pointless as neither side and not one person knows what will happen as a result of negotiations post devolution so stating what you would like to achieve is not unreasonable

If the SNP wants an independent Scotland to have a radically different immigration policy from the UK it raises the frightening prospect of border posts.”

Best not go to an airport or a port currently in either country as they will shit themselves at the “frightening” reality of this.

Did anybody see the Ecksterminate photo on the front of a Scottish a Tabloid this week?

He fitted that photo a little too well. I was amused.

And we would opt out of Euro, despite wanting to be a new member of the EU

And we would keep £ Sterling, although that is not our decision to make

Oh, we would also become members of NATO, despite being Anti-nuclear.

I sure I could go on….
– See more at: http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/raise-the-drawbridge-drop-the-portcullis-scotlandexpress-content#sthash.71lJuTZO.dpuf

Oh, please do go on. To address the points so far:

EU – actually adopting the Euro is not a requirement. Saying that it will be adopted at some point in future, maybe, is all that is required. no country can be forced to adopt it. See Sweden. Besides, this only comes into play if you think that Scotland would have to rejoin as a new member, which it would probably not.

Sterling – No one can stop a country using any currency they choose. So yes, actually it is our decision to make.

Nato – Yes we could become members of NATO while being anti-nuclear. Of 28 member states, a grand total of 3 have nuclear weapons. Besides, one of the top experts in NATO this week – a Hungarian lady whose name escapes me – confirmed Scotland’s anti-nuclear stance would not be a problem.

Do keep up Frank.

Besides, this only comes into play if you think that Scotland would have to rejoin as a new Meyerbeer member, which it would probably not.

It probably would have to negotiate – the EU clearly stated a couple of months back that if Catalonia were to gain independence it wouldn’t automatically be part of the EU, I assume Scotland would be in the same position.

edit: your edit

Sterling – No one can stop a country using any currency they choose. So yes, actually it is our decision to make.

You are right so far as any country can use any currency, but actually influencing any decision around monetary policy is completely different.
Adopting Sterling without full support of Bank of England means surrendering any control over it

Nato – Yes we could become members of NATO while being anti-nuclear. Of 28 member states, a grand total of 3 have nuclear weapons. Besides, one of the top experts in NATO this week – a Hungarian lady whose name escapes me – confirmed Scotland’s anti-nuclear stance would not be a problem.

I heard the same interview. The expert stated that not having nuclear weapons is not a problem, but being anti nuclear is a different and may present a problem. You do not have to have nuclear weapons to support on of the main NATO principles

I am keeping up

These guys provide an eloquent, informed and measured debate on things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmGjiokfQ2A

It’s nothing to worry about. No one will be able to get through the impenetrable silver-foil barrier that the rUK are going to put up along the border to stop folk in Scotland watching BBC TV programmes.

They’re going to reinstate that are they?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7scMC7YSDQ[/video]

fabulous 🙂

And we would opt out of Euro, despite wanting to be a new member of the EU

we would make what ever decision would be deemed to be both the most contrary and most populist with the benefit of hindsight. When the prospect of the UK entering the Euro was on the agenda back in the early noughties (and largely being drowned out by euro scepticism) Eck’s position was that an independent scotland would join the Euro, so long as it could print its own notes. Printing its own notes seemed to be the only condition.

Now that hindsight shows joining the euro might not have been a joy ride thats a policy thats been very quickly forgotten, – the matter of factness about retaining stirling is a hurried sweeping under the carpet of the former policy because thinking about that reminds people about how perilous being a small country can be. So an independent scotland still would have been whatever decisions would have worked out for the best if they’d been made after the event.

franksinatra – Member

And we would opt out of Euro, despite wanting to be a new member of the EU

And we would keep £ Sterling, although that is not our decision to make

Oh, we would also become members of NATO, despite being Anti-nuclear.

For the first, opting out of the euro is a simple matter of failing to converge- while an EU member is required to become a euro user eventually, and is given an expected abrogation date, there’s no penalty to not making it. So you can just be like Sweden, and be committed to joining some day. All well understood and established.

Keeping sterling is an easy thing to do- currencies of convenience are nothing new. Keeping any direct influence over sterling, not so easy! Though of course Scotland and the RUK will have very similiar interests here, since our economies will be so interlinked. Considering the mutual interest, the RUK would be cutting off their nose to spite their face if they were to try and drive Scotland from the pound. Which of course is not impossible, you might have yet another incompetent government in charge.

Lastly, the NATO thing seems to be a persistent floater of a scare story. There’s no requirement for a NATO nation to be nuclear. Germany are actively disarming, other members have refused nuclear involvement. In fact, NATO specifically bans new members from hosting other members’ nuclear weapons due to its nonproliferation commitment.

You are right so far as any country can use any currency, but actually influencing any decision around monetary policy is completely different. Adopting Sterling without full support of Bank of England means surrendering any control over it

That would be a really big deal if the B of E exclusively controlled the behavior of Sterling. But it doesn’t – the pound is just a cork bobbing about on the massive waves of currency trading and speculation. A small counter having less political control over its currency is a good thing for business – it means less partisan buggering about with interest rates for the sake of electoral objectives.

Auto entry in the EU, I think the Spanish may have a lot to say about that. The thought of a break away sub state getting into the EU is not something they will sit back and idly ignore due to the various separatist groups in Spain.

As for using Sterling and having no control over it, true, upshot of that is you’ll still have fishman moaning it’s all down to Westminster monetary policy and not his fault that he can’t control it.

Even if all the issues could be resolved (which in theory they could be) the cost of splitting the two countries is going to mental with no real gain for the UK and who knows what outcome for Scotland. So billions wasted on paperwork rather than spent on supporting citizens and businesses both sides of the border. Talk about being in a political bubble with no sense of the real world.

The thing about using the pound without a formal currency union, or joining a formal union in which Scotland has relatively little influence (which is of course how it would be, one of these two; mad to expect otherwise)…

The worst that can happen is that the UK does something to Scotland’s economy that Scotland doesn’t like. So, exactly like today. Threatening Scotland with having our currency controlled by a UK government which thinks more about England is kind of hilarious.

Pragmatically, we will still have a very shared economy, what’s good for the UK will generally be good for Scotland. Obviously we have no confidence in the UK government doing what’s right for the UK, but again, the worst case scenario is the status quo. That’s not a persuasive reason not to seek change!

One thing I was wondering about: would there automatically be an extradition treaty in place? Or could you rob a bank in Scotland and then nip across the border and thumb your nose at the police?

There seem to be fewer hard facts in this whole debate than in the one about whether 27.5″ or 29″ is more betterer than 26″.