Then a future Scottish Government can try and convince the electorate to go down that route.

Exactly the sort of irrelevant nonsense which clouds debate. I don’t need to pay £1 to be able to just ignore them 🙂

It is exactly what I expect to happen. It is what I expect to happen when I buy a house, a car, when I resolve contracts at work, when I employ someone. Independence could be either wonderful or a total nightmare depending on its terms.

Maybe it is because I operate in a world where I have seen the impact of poorly vs well negotiated deals. But if I can’t read the terms, there’s no way I’m going to vote for it.

Ben, Well put.

Better late than never:

1 – MoD Spending – are all the Scottish Regiments just being re-housed south of the border, is this where the increase in MoD spending comes from? I would guess not.

2 – Oldbloke – if you can actually dot the “i”‘s etc everytime you employ someone then well done, I tend to find that a great deal of recruitment is still done on trust, a bit like voting for your government.

I am in no way decided on this issue but lately I feel I have more in common with Alex Salmond than David Cameron, Ed Milliband, Nick Clegg and George Osbourne. It would pain me to vote for CMD as I would feel like I would be doing the right thing with the wrong person. Actually looking forward to the next 18th months and the debate.

CMD does not want the international embarrasment of being the PM who over saw the final nail in the coffin of the Great British Empire (ironing finished) being hammered home.

I know what I’m going to pay them and I know what is written in their job description & employment contract. Their ability to perform is trust / judgement.

We are going to vote on something which doesn’t have the equivalent of those and are going to have to trust the politicians to negotiate pay & conditions as well as ability to perform.

You may well be happy to give them that authority. I’m not.

Thing is, this won’t. The Scottish vote hasn’t decided any national election since WWII.

This (pro-independence) video covers lots of the main arguments:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8w4PoQbgUiA[/video]

Is that not like having an over-paid, under-performing employee and then being too scared to take the risk on replacing them? 🙂

This does seem to be a question that’s being quite well evaded. Why was the balance not redressed with Scots in power in Westminster for 13 years?

Can’t see them stopping anyone who wants one having one tbh. Probably similar to the situation in Ireland.

Because they may have been Scots, but they were members of political parties containing politicians from all over (mostly England, of course), living in London, and working in a first-past-the-post system that doesn’t really allow for change. If they even wanted change.

I’ll be voting yes.

I’ve not seen a single positive reason from the “better together” campaign as to why Scotland should remain in the union. Just scaremongering and some guff about our “shared heritage”.

If Scotland becomes independent the various peoples of these islands will still have a shared heritage and a shared future just under different governments.

Really? Is it not just as/more likely that the UK will exit the Eu?

Pretty unlikely, despite CMD’s hubris.

Lazy convenience?

Not something I’m particularly emotional about. I will say that Scotland will either be a successor state or it will not. Both have advantages and disadvantages, however the SNP seem to think that they’ll be able to pick and choose the best bits.
If Scotland do vote yes, I think we should break up the whole kit and kaboodle. No more struggling for devolution for Wales, NI can stand alone or join with the ROI.

I do wonder what he impact of Scottish Independence would be on the rest of the UK;
If it’s seen to be successful, would it convince enough voters that a more left-leaning party could make it into government?
Would it result in more of a ground-swell in favour of an independent Wales?
Would some of the pro-UK patriotism in Northern Ireland subside enough for a merger with the ROI?

You do know it’ll run out in a few years don’t you?

So probably not the best thing to be basing your future economy on, regardless of how much can be negotiated.

In any case, I doubt there’ll be much negotiation there. You want out, we want the oil. I suspect a proverb about cake and eating it comes in to play at this point.

To make matters more complex. What if the Northen Isles wish to remain part of the UK. They would retain some of the oil that Salmond is basing part of his economic policy on.
Steve, I would rather know what I am voting for. What you are suggesting is a bit like going on Amazon wearing a blindfold’ pressing some keys and then seeing what happens. Thats not an internet shopping technique that most people adhere to.

(a) It’s a nice, hypothetical question that currently has no basis in reality. Apart from a couple of loony LibDems there is no popular demand for the Northern Isles to remain within the UK.

However, assuming we adopt the position that everyone has the right to self-determination, what would happen if the folk living along the East Coast of Shetland all wanted to stay Scottish – would we partition the Islands?

(b)There is precedent for a small archipelago sitting within another countries continental shelf to be very restricted in terms of its maritime boundary – I believe 12 miles is the figure I’ve read.

http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/12/1/505.pdf

The problem in the main is that the UK Government does not want to enter into any negotiation prior to the result. I can see their point – to do so gives additional legitimacy/credence to the Yes campaign. As I’ve already pointed out, the EU will only give a definitive answer on their position if requested to by Westminster and David Cameron has refused to go down that route.

Many of the issues cannot, in any case, be decided now. After a period of negotiation the population of Scotland will be asked to vote for a new government. The policies of that government, and those that follow, cannot be set in stone by the SNP now. That includes their position on NATO, the EU etc.

Edit: the No campaign has so far been unable to come up with what would happen in the result of a No vote. There have been various mentions of added powers/further devolution despite all three major parties previously ruling this out.

Scotroutes. Angus Macneil, the SNP rural affairs spokesman admitted a year ago that Orkney and Shetland could remain part of there UK if the was enough self determination to do so.