Would you bet against Alex Salmond?

Frankly

Annus Caledonius:

http://tinyurl.com/d3ntk6a

Mirtha Tidville

Hope you are right,pity the English cant vote in any referendum, the way things are at the moment we would be shot of the whingers in a flash.....

mcboo

If they frame it as a 3 question referendum including devo max, the land of my birth will go for repatriating all powers, less defence and foreign policy. Wouldn't that suit everyone*, including we taxpayers in London? Scotland gets to stand on it's own two feet, and won't have a reason to blame the English for it's ills, while the army still gets the services of the Worlds Finest Infantry.

*Everyone except the English Labour Party. They aren't going to like the answer to the East Lothian Question when someone gets round to actually asking it.

Kittler

I am disappointed Fraser. Here was me thinking you were against remote, dysfunctional, government, that is inimical to the national interest.

Terry

Scottish people are generally not popular in England since the Royal(?) Bank of Scotland disaster and would all have to have Scottish passports and leave their too highly paid jobs in the media in UK. So no more Scotch Corners in English golf clubs (praise the lord) No more Scotch MP's in UK (ditto)-brilliant ! It will be like turkeys voting for Christmas!

morosychristios

I have not much to say,and no pandas. Just thought I would mention that England pays 85% of taxes in the UK and therefore pays for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The First Minister has yet to tell his fellow Scots, what Scandinavian tax systems are like, i.e. £20/pint/£10 bag of sugar. Also, re his interview on BBC Politics Show, Scotland does not have a Bank due to the fact that the British tax payer has been forced to bail it out. He has no answer for that. So Scotland could not enter EU and/or be bailed out by said organisation. I bet you he will not answer your question about a referendum with a date for said referendum,. He will squirm like he did with John Sopel!

David Lindsay

Alex Salmond's bluff is about to be called. The present arrangement demonstrably suits him down to the ground. But his party possibly could not survive a No vote, and certainly would never forgive him either for such a result or for his failure to pose the question at all.

It is no wonder that the bluff-calling has come from that particular quarter. Among the longstanding electoral coalitions in Scotland is the one made up of moderate Keynesians, mild social conservatives, those who cherish shortbread tin Scottishness, posh people and those who aspire to be so considered, visceral enemies of municipal Labour and the trade unions, and a fringe of white Protestant supremacists.

That coalition's newer vehicle won the last Holyrood Election outright, giving Scotland the Tory majority government that England does not have. But that coalition's older vehicle has spotted the potential there: people like that are manifestly numerous enough to deliver such a victory, and their old party wants them back to that end. All that it has to do is force the newcomers out of the way.

Their failure to hold the referendum for which their party exists should do it. Their failure to win that referendum should do it. Quite plausibly, their failure to lose that referendum should do it, since after independence, how could the officially Tory party still be presented as English?

And what, exactly, would be the remaining point of the SNP, its many Hard Left activists having no sympathy whatever with the common or garden domestic policies that both its leaders and its voters would seek to pursue once the constitutional question was out of the way?

Alex Salmond is a remarkably skillful politician. He is going to need to be.

Garve

A follow up article required Fraser, to justify your statement: "Scotland would be far worse off outside the union".

Kittler

Morosychristious,
Scotland nae to enter the EU?
Jings, crivens, help ma boab!!!
We'll end up as poor as Norway and Switzerland.

Gawain

Since Salmond only cares about Scotland and Scottish politics has become so self obsessed and self centred that no one living in England is permitted to comment I really couldn't care less !

Jock MacSporran

"Scotland would be far worse off outside the union"

But, of course, we are never given any real evidence, or even a list of reasons, why.

BiggestPartyInScotland

Yet more boring posters claiming England funds Scotland, what a shock awaits these deluded people when they learn the truth. I for one am betting on Salmond. SNP - is now the largest party in Scotland and secured more votes than the big three put together in the May elections. :-)

Mark MacLachlan

"Scotland would be far worse off outside the union, which is why a minority of Scots want to separate."

What utter guff. Come on Nelson, you'll have to do better than this. The last TNS-BMRB poll, showed those who would vote Yes for Independence ahead by 39% to 38% with the undecided sitting at the highest ever 23%. In the Yes camp we have a massively popular SNP government lead by the 'Briton' of the Year, Salmond versus Johann Lamont of the No camp. As if that wasn't bad enough for the poor Unionists each time Dave Cameron ventures North and waffles his 'stronger together' bollocks the SNP weighs the additional votes. Do keep it up.

Mark MacLachlan

"Scotland would be far worse off outside the union, which is why a minority of Scots want to separate."

What utter guff. Come on Nelson, you'll have to do better than this. The last TNS-BMRB poll, showed those who would vote Yes for Independence ahead by 39% to 38% with the undecided sitting at the highest ever 23%. In the Yes camp we have a massively popular SNP government lead by the 'Briton' of the Year, Salmond versus Johann Lamont of the No camp. As if that wasn't bad enough for the poor Unionists each time Dave Cameron ventures North and waffles his 'stronger together' bollocks the SNP weighs the additional votes. Do keep it up.

Wee Scamp

The mistake Fraser Nelson makes is to believe that it is actually possible to develop a case for Scotland staying in the union.

Certainly if Scotland was already outside the union nobody would be screaming to join it.

As to comments about Norway are you aware they export considerably more oil and gas technology to the world than we do and between the Norwegians and the USA they dominate the high tech, high value, industrial strategically critical manufacture of hardware and the provision of services. Not too shabby for a country the same size as Scotland. Pity the UK let us down again.

Pygmaios Pygmaei

Fraser,

"only big beast in a parliament of pygmies": And just who do you think are the parliamentary 'big beasts' at Westminster these days???

Cynic

Betting is a mugs' game - and I say that as someone who's been involved in horse racing for a long time. Salmond should allow the English to vote - I'd vote for Scotland to be independent if only to stop Scottish MPs meddling in things which do not affect their constituents.

Tiberius

You'd think Salmond would be honest enough to admit "I owe it all to Tony". Then again, perhaps you wouldn't.

An amoeba could do what Salmond is doing, as long as he was prepared to wear a kilt and diss the Westminster government.

Chris

I agree Alex Salmond is a formidible politian and has covered all eventualites that westminster will throw at him. Saldy Westminster and all 3 main parties have an Anti English Stance, as England does not have the same equality and politiacal representation. She was discriminated against in the Act of devolution. It is not the SNP drive for Independence that is the only concern for Westminster but the English wish for Scotland to GO. The great disparity of the West Lothian Question, the Barnett formula, Uni fees, NHS fees, old age fees, the list is long, the need for a Dedicated English Parliament os over due, failure to correct this will most definately Kill off the UK.

Noa.

But Fraser, how much did you win?

ButcombeMan

Does Salmond know there is a few bob (with interest) to pay back to the English exchequer if he gets his way?

http://www.scottishstudies.com/940dariengap.htm

Bob Low

Scotland is in a very strange place politically at the moment. This is perfectly summed up by the fact that the last Holyrood election was won convincingly by a political party whose central idea-Scotland independent of the Union- is still not shared by the majority of the people who voted for it.

I think that the SNP victory should be seen more as a long overdue, collective expression of disgust by the electorate at the swinnish behaviour of the Labour party in central Scotland over the last thirty years. They governed for too long with no effective opposition, and developed a sense of entitlement, becoming Scotland's own ''nasty'' party as a result-and the 2011 election saw them at their nastiest. They had no ideas or policies to counter the SNP's reasonable record as a minority administration, and resorted to smears and scare stories, particularly over knife crime. They were reduced , in parts of West Scotland, to distributing a leaflet, whose essential point seemed to be ''Vote Labour, if you don't want to get stabbed''.This sort of behaviour, coupled with an inordinately shy Leader with all of the charisma of an empty paper bag, led to their drubbing at the polls.

As at what happens next, I'd say all bets were off.

Labour are by no means a spent force in Scotland. They still control Glasgow, and

Ed P

The West Lothian question* is still unresolved - Scottish independence presents much greater challenges either within or outside of the EU.

*Tam Dalyell's favourite intervention whilst an MP. His other was about the Belgrano - Mrs T's waiting for his apology, having been proved right all along.

ThigArLatha

David Lindsay - If it was just self interest Tories in England and Scotland would be pushing for independence as it would result in a far more Conservative England and, interestingly, Scotland.
The SNP is a party whose heartlands are in overwhelmingly right wing areas such as Aberdeenshire and Moray. Post independence the leftish bias of Sturgeon and Red Rosie would alienate these areas. Right wing thinking would again flourish in Scotland. I tend to think the SNP would become the left wing party envisaged by the old National Party of Scotland.

victor jara 67

The Yanks and the British political elite would never allow it. Where else would they park their nuclear submarines. Grenwich?

Sally Forth

@ Garve/jock/Mark

Worse off? OK, a few for starters.

At the moment this idea is a one sided discussion. Once it looks like becoming a reality then the real talks with an embryonic English & Welsh state can begin. I'm not sure what this larger of the new states has to gain by being too flexible. We're in a mess here which to a large part is due to politicians and organisations that hail from north of the border.

Naturally we'll be wanting Scotland to take her share of the near £1 Trillion national debt. Scotland can pay off her share from a tax base of 5-6 M people whilst England & Wales will pay from 55M.

Then of course there's all the fun of the relationship with the EU. Do they still use that oxymoron 'Independence within the EU'? Will they, won't they join the Euro? Good luck anyway.

Independence might mean missing out on the shale gas bonanza. Of course as part of the Union the tax benefits would be shared but what if some idiot comes up with a slogan like 'It's England's gas'! Where do they get these ideas from? (PS - Fraser, check out the amount of shale gas there might be in the Humber basin).

Just a few and hardly exhaustive.

Johnmcdonaldish

It's gone way beyond Spectator articles and "sage" words from the likes of Nelson. Scotland will take her independence and move forward. The real task is for England to decide what to do with the opportunity it provides her...

Dean

As there are over 5 million scots in a UK of 62 million, they make up about a twelfth of the population.

As our national debt climbs towards one trillion pounds the scots share is about 83 billion.

Much of this was accrued when scotsmen (Brown; Darling) were resident in No 11. Some of it results from bailing out RBS and HBOS (notice the letter S therein)

The scots can go, but they should take their share of the debt with them.

Fernando

It’s not surprising that Salmond is a towering figure in Scottish politics when the Unionist parties lose all their talent to Westminster. This is especially true of Labour, where, since the demise of Donald Dewar, the dearth of talent in Holyrood has been noticeable. The unionist case would need to be led by a leading Labour figure, and that means someone who made his reputation in Westminster. I’d plump for someone like John Reid or Alastair Darling.
No doubt England and Scotland would survive apart, but why risk it. My own family is not untypical in having one of my four grandparents from Scotland. My working life has been spent amount people who always included a liberal sprinkling of Scots. The ties binding us together – shared history, common language, family and friendship bonds, and shared institutions – are still strong. Remember, the onus is on those wanting change to convince people it is necessary and will not cause problems. The hurdle will be difficult to clear.

Kingstonian

The Scots posting jingoistic comments here remind me of the eternal optimists cheering the Scottish team off to glory at (long past) World Cups - Ally's Army anyone?

ellis000

Bored with this whole sterile debate. Vote, don't vote. Stay don't stay. F@ck off please.

Malfleur

ButcombeMan

An interesting documentary on the Darien Scheme - not a venture given great play by the promoters of Scottish financial and colonial nous!

Who can doubt, however, that if the northern part of my country were to be torn off, the French would be quick to contribute substantial monies to bind up the severed limb. How long would it be before that funding became a permanent part of the French budget and that military advisers followed the funds?

Stu

I am so bored with the Scots whining about being in the union. Please just leave and take Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and all the other useless Liebour lefties with you. England will be a better place without you.

DB

Scotland has to decide between remaining a northern feeder zone for London, or the chance to become a vibrant modern economy in its own right.
A simple comparison between Scotland and Norway, does not make a good economic case for the union.

daniel maris

Here's a clincher:

Surely Scotland as a new state would have to apply to join the EU. Cameron should threaten to veto that application.

That will put the wind up the Scotch kilts.

John Woolman

Even though it isn't a zero sum game, if Scotland would be far worse off outside the Union, then the remount of the Union would be better off, no?

Truth shall prevail

"Scotland will end up as poor as Norway and Switzerland"

Excellent! Since Norway is rich enough to bail out the IMF while the rest of Europe cowers, I'd say I can't wait to be THAT poor!

Sour grapes methinks.

England_is_the_mud_on_Scotlands_boots

I'm torn. I think Scotland would be much better off if it were independent, but I'm fond of Great Britain too. Too many of The Spectator's readership displays that narrow minded, bigoted English ignorance that denigrates everything non-English and fails to recognise how much of what they think of as English is actually Scottish in origin. Their casual offensiveness will likely be the end of the UK.

Hexhamgeezer

If the jocks want a referendum on independence, then fine as long as it's a Yes/No vote. They have no right to offer a 3rd option or a Yes-But/No-But question. Anything more complex than a straight yes/no referendum must involve the rest of the union. Pie Face Salmond and his crew have no right to unilaterally dictate the terms of engagement.

David Lindsay

ThigArLatha, exactly my point. In fact Scotland is a more right-wing place than England, as the success of the SNP demonstrates.

The Scottish Tory peers who want Holyrood to have the legal power to hold an independence referendum, thereby calling Salmond's bluff, understand that what is now the SNP's majority voting bloc used to be theirs, and they want it back.

Not holding a referendum would destroy the SNP. Losing a referendum would destroy the SNP. Winning a referendum would eventually, and quite quickly, destroy the SNP, for the reasons that you give. In any event, Tartan Toryland would need a new home. No wonder that Salmond is in no hurry to hold a referendum. No wonder that Michael Forsyth is so keen for him to do so.

Craig Munro

The question of Scotland's share of the UK debt is an interesting one. So is the question of our share of the assets.

DeeJay

Why do commentators automatically assume that the Scots would be worse off outside the Union? Surely we ought to be encouraging Scottish independence which would settle the East Lothian question once and for all and disable forever the Labour MPs at Westminster. If Czechoslovakia managed to engineer a harmonious divorce and survive independently within Europe surely the Scots should be given every encouragement to do exactly the same. What beckons is a mature relationship where the English can be spared the need to listen to any more Scottish football results and the dubious need to celebrate hogmanay. If the Scots are still in doubt they should ask the English whether those south of the border would welcome their independence. In my opinion, independence is the only solution to that huge chip that so many Scots will always carry on their shoulder.

David Lindsay

victor jara 67, there would be a British sovereign base at Faslane. Alex Salmond knows that. Everyone knows it apart from the SNP Fundamentalists, and they have nowhere else to go. The same goes for the permanent per capita distribution of oil revenue. In either case, the SNP Leader of the day would turn round to any objectors and ask, "Do you want independence, or not?"

fergus pickering

Stu, I congrtulate you for being bored with something instead of the ubiquitous bored of. You should be proud to be an Englishman, particularly here among crowds of delusional Scots who imagine their country is like Norway or Switzerland. Of course there are many Scots who are not so stupid. I lived among them. But the terrorists who blew up pillar boxes are still with us.

Jock MacSporran

"Naturally we'll be wanting Scotland to take her share of the near £1 Trillion national debt."
Sally -
In fact the UK national debt is £867.2bn, still huge but not as "near" £1 Trillion as you'd probably like it to be to support your argument.
Don't forget - Sally - that Scotland will be taking her share of the UK's £337bn of assets, which includes everything from Buckingham Palace, to British Embassies, to the UK Government's well-stocked wine cellar, which totals 39,000 bottles and is worth around £800,0000 alone!
So maybe it would help if you were a little less "one-sided" in your thinking?

ThigArLatha

David - I don't think there is much of a future for the Tories or Labour in Scotland.
Ruth Davidson and Ed Milliband respectively will see to that.
HOWEVER
There will be a rightish party and a leftish party. Probably both made out of the shell of the SNP.
The future of the SNP is the interesting matter. Have they become comfortable in power? The limo,civil servant and "red box" become appealing. Will Salmond consider his work done post secession? What about the ambitious Nationalists under Salmond?
Swinney probably won't want to have the hot seat but what about Nicola?
If they are comfortable with power then they might keep their feet under the table but if they are primarily a nationalist movement then the pressure will be too much and post secession they will split.

Radford NG

Where would the nuclear subs go...along with the jobs and money that go with them?I suspect there'd be competition between English ports for these benefits.

TrevorsDen

McSporran's attempts to burgle England's assets is typical of the Scottish chutzpah over independence.
Since Scotland has been subsidised throughout the whole of its existence I see no reason why the UK govt should give it a penny. And this really shows the futility of a vote before any understanding of the costs are agreed. I suspect that all the UK biased central govt jobs will diminish quite significantly post independence. Likewise military.

PS
Our national debt run up by a scotsman and mostly created by scottish banks and spend on Scottish benefits will no doubt be 1 trillion by the time an independence vote is made.

An independent Scotland - roll on the sectarianism.

Kittler

Poor "clincher" there daniel maris. After dissolution of the the Union there will be TWO successor states and both will be in or out of the EU, almost certainly in.

Heartless Curmudgeon

Given the vapidity of the H2B, the grasping aspiration of the Scots boss, and the bloodsucking propensities of the EUSSR, - then yes, probably right to chance some money, - what else to do with it? – thanks to Merv and that other Scots genius, Bruvva Brown it’s worthless anyway!

starfish

Until I see the details of how Mr S plans to unravel the connections between Scotland and the rest of the UK this is all pie in the sky

Yes he renjoys a good wind up but I see no evidence that any of this has been thought through. Lie all politicians he is good on grandioise ideas but what matters is delivery

I smell a large ship-load of fudge inbound

GenX

The dissolution of the United Kingdom is exactly what the people now residing on these islands deserve. The post war generation has given it away already. It is fitting that its dismembered corpse be stripped and picked over by mass imported foreigners while the last of that guilty generation festers in the disgusting homes that their great welfare state has excreted. They deserve it. Pity Heath isn't around to see it, but he'd probably have approved.

John sharp

If Scotland were to be worse off outside the Union why would the English want to keep Scotland in it? Don't tell me it's because you want to spend disproportionately on the whingeing poor Scots -?

michael

The economy in high dependency.
Europe's raison d'etre finally laid bare.
Its an interesting time for the EU minded Mr. Salmond.... London or Berlin?
-I'm sure that the Germans' ECB are just itching to pick up the tab for Sir Fred's mess. (and the rest)
It is time to call it and get on with any result.

victor jara 67

@David Lyndsey,
I think the hostilty in Scotland to Faslane runs deeper than you think and trancends support for Independance. But the Scots could be savvy and insist on a huge subsidy from London and Washington to keep the nukes on the Clyde.

@Mcboo " The crown still gets the service of the worlds finest Infantry".

Yes the Scots like the commomwealth troops have long been used as cannon fodder to prop up the empire.

Another asset Scotland could sell to London and the home counties is water. While South are struggling with scarcity of water Scotland is overflowing. There is a theory that the next generation of wars will not be fought over oil , but over water and food resources.

Rhoda Klapp

I can't help but recall that on the three hundredth anniversary of the union, how cheering crowds in England came out to celebrate the continued enslavement and exploitation of the scots, while north of the border a sullen mob bemoaned their sad state. Or is my recollection wrong?

Martin C

It's not so much that Salmond is a towering figure per se. It's just that he is towering when compared with the utter pygmies set against him. The Scottish Labour party MPs are a bunch of ostriches who believe they'll always get voted in by divine right. The Lib Dems are suffering a bit of an, er, credibility gap due to going into coalition with the Conservatives.
Basically, the Scottish labour party policy of seeking to de-ligitimise the Conservative governemt in Westminister is in the process of backfiring spectacularly, for it will permanently deprive Labour of their power-bloc of Scottish MPs and deliver a near permanent Conservative England.
And unless Labour wake up to this danger, god help them. Still no sign of it so far.

Radford NG

Why would we want to pay the Scots Nats for Faslane when there are good anchorages at the Solway Firth,Barrow,or Milford Haven?

In2minds

It makes me laugh to see a 'free' Scotland mentioned in terms of wealth alongside Switzerland and Norway. For Salmond is hell bent on Scotland joining the EU in its own right. Switzerland and Norway are genuinely independent, hence their wealth, and crucially, their ability to hang onto it is secure.

Scottish oil, had a free Scotland been a member of the EU the Germans would have piped it straight to the Ruhr and that would have been that. It would have been a shared resource you see.

Salmond sees the EU as a chance to put his hand out and be rewarded. But perhaps the days of small countries joining the EU and then being deluged with development grants are over. Scots can't blame the Brits for this one as it was the Irish who over did it and turned off this tap.

So all Salmond has left is to promote his dreams of 'independence' with the EU on the basis that if Scotland joins it f**** up the Brits. The EU is stupid, look at the mess it's in, but not that stupid.

Keith

Scots nationalism is just a stupid idea that in any sane world would have no real support. But consider. Either there will be a referendum or there won't. If there is no referendum, or there is one and the Nats lose it, this stupid idea will disappear to the benefit of all. If, on the other hand, there is a referendum and the Nats win, Scotland ceases to send MPs to Westminster and Labour never get to form a government there again. So that's good, too.

Hmm. Be suspicious: life is never this good. What's the betting that Labour win the next election, a referendum is held in Scotland and then there is a deal under which Scotland gets its independence but still gets to send MPs to Westminster?

I wouldn't put it past them.

Craig Munro

Trevorsden: "McSporran's attempts to burgle England's assets is typical of the Scottish chutzpah over independence" And this my friend is typical of the arrogance we have suffered for over 300 years. It's Scotlands debt but it's Englands assets ...

Pete

Do not understand why Cameron does not support devo max. Seems the perfect solution.

starfish

Why would we want to pay the Scots Nats for Faslane when there are good anchorages at the Solway Firth,Barrow,or Milford Haven?

IIRC the original decision to base subs in Scotland was essentially poltical -there were better alternatives in Falmouth, Milford Haven and N Ireland, but there were more votes in SW Scotland

Lots of expensive infrastructure to move, but if SNP males it too expensive to stay there is no defence reason why they could not move

All those high tech well-paid jobs exported south.......

That Nice Mr Hilter

You may take our freedom.

But you may not take our benefits.

fergus pickering

I have a cat who gets very pissed off if she does not get lots of attention and admiration as well as free board and lodging. But she is beautiful which is where the comparison with Scotsmen breaks down.

Rhoda Klapp

Would anyone like to point out the way devo max affects non-scottish nations? Do I get an english parliament from it? Will westminster disappear? It seems strange to allow those decisions to be voted on by scots alone.

Tom Pride

Kingstonian
January 2nd, 2012 10:02pm
“The Scots posting jingoistic comments here remind me of the eternal optimists cheering the Scottish team off to glory at (long past) World Cups - Ally's Army anyone?”

Oh Kingstonian! What happy memories you bring back. It was Argentina 1978 and there was talk of hiring a submarine for those devoted fans to make the journey. How Darien in concept. I think the collective memory has been expunged by that Archie Gemmill wonder goal against Holland. But it won’t go away – that day when the “greatest supporters in the world” jeered their team off the pitch with the classic “We want our money back – gob gob.” I wonder if anyone has posted it on YouTube?

Pettros

Fergus your cat may be beautiful but you cannot deny that Scotland is equally so.

Gerry Lynch

Amused by the chappy who thinks us Celts should be grateful to the English for paying 85% of tax in the UK. Given that 85% of the UK population is in England, it's not really a surprise, is it? From this side of the North Channel, one constantly wonders how Northern Ireland, with one of the most highly educated populations in the world and a first-class infrastructure, is dependent on fiscal transfers from London and SE England to maintain a first world standard of living. Perhaps it's something to do with decades of London governments pursuing financial services monoculture and imposing an Alabama-style call centre economy on those parts of the UK that don't have a significant financial services sector. I would much prefer to be run by the French and the Germans, who between them manage to understand agriculture and manufacturing, the twin bases of our regional economy (apart from politicians, community sector whingers and bull!)

Garve

@Rhoda

Devo Max is of course not within the power of the Scottish govt, parties or people. It has been floated by the SNP as an option that the UK anti-independence parties could contemplate - Alex Salmond has only said that he'd be happy to consider adding a question on this to the ballot paper if they wish.

So far none of the UK parties has, no doubt seeing it as a trap which to an extent it is. However they may not be able to maintain that position all the way to the referendum. Even if they are able to stick together and not break ranks for political gain, external forces may force their hands.

Say that polls start to indicate a likely Yes vote, something which is more likely than many outside Scotland realise. And say for instance that noises are made in the UN that a reduced UK should no longer hold a security council seat or veto. How far would Labour or the Conservatives go to keep that?

Would the option of giving full fiscal autonomy to Scotland to trump independence, suddenly become something the UK parties would be keen on?

FFA, Devo Max, Indy Lite would mean Scotland raises all her own taxes, and spends them as she wishes, simply paying an agreed amount to the UK govt to cover her share of defence and foreign affairs.

There would need to be a much smaller UK parliament, probably the dissolution of the House of Lords and the creation of an English parliament, all options the people of England would probably embrace if only their politicians would offer them.

So Devo Max is a big deal, but may be the only way to save and rejuvinate the UK.

One word of advice - if the option of an English parliament is given to you, please, please insist it's based in York or Chester or anywhere outside the south-east. It'll go a long way towards sorting the currently unbalanced state of the country which causes so many problems.

Dusty

"Scotland does not have a Bank due to the fact that the British tax payer has been forced to bail it out."

Scotland's national bank is the Bank of England and has been since 1707. RBS has never been Scotland's national bank so your comment is nothing more than ignorant.

Dusty

"Scotland would be far worse off outside the union".

The Scottish secretary recently stated that an independent Scotland would be in the red by around 30 billion over the last 30 years.
Scotland share of UK national debt is estimated to be around 60 Billion.

Go figure!

Craig Munro

Dusty .... you don't believe everything the Scottish Secretary says do you? We certainly don't.

Dusty

I dont believe anything that lot say.

Stoic2050

And so it came to pass. The New England meandered a mediocre route through the first half of the 21st Century.
Meanwhile a Sovereign Scotland developed and prospered, and between 2016 and 2022 Scotland evolved within the New Euro.
The People of Scotland enjoyed the rest of the 21st Century.

And yes, the did not realise it would come to pass.

Funnyweeman

"...more pandas than Tory MPs". I doubt LOL is in The Spectator style book but if ever there was a case for it...

Jamie McDuff

Your average Scot doesn't realise that ours is a subsidy economy - and the subsidies come from London. Also, the oil is mostly gone and most of it does not 'belong' to Scotland. I we go independent just when the EU breaks up, who will pay our bills?

ThigArLatha

Jamie - If (and it is a big if) Scotland is a subsidy economy that hardly seems a good advert for Union. Non?
If this is true then either
Scots are feckless and lazy. In which case Secession will cause them to stand on their own feet. (I seem to remember a quote about Socialists and other peoples money)
OR
Scotland has been impoverished in some fashion by the Union. In which case the end would at least allow Scots to run their own affairs.
Or am I missing something about why the rest of the UK politicians are so desperate to keep Scotland in it.

Barry B

"Scottish people are generally not popular in England since the Royal(?) Bank of Scotland disaster "

Terry, either you are unusually thick or all England is.

Barry B

Craig: "The question of Scotland's share of the UK debt is an interesting one. So is the question of our share of the assets."

Good point. I confess to having no idea how the debt would be divided (but I'd remind everyone that Scotland already has the debt, inasmuch as it's part of the UK).

The asset question is perfectly obvious to me. It's bonkers how anyone can be confused. There is a border. Those on our side, are Scotland's. Those on the British side are British.

Any British claim to north sea oil is as weird as Scotland claiming a share of London's revenues

Legal Terms

The Scottish have the right to determine their our future.
Please ,Please, please go now, you deserve it.