Scotland can leave the UK and not take on any of the national debt...

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Here:

www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/scotlandfeatures/4924051/Expert-Scotland-can-legally-leave-the-UK-and-be-debt-free.html

I know it's the Sun, but as far as I know this is correct.

Why has this been so little mentioned in the debate so far - surely it's a pretty big deal?

[FannyFifer]

The rest of UK need Scotland as their cash cow, tell us the truth and they are fucked.

[PoppyAmex]

It can be in lieu of all the Scottish tax money over the years, used to fund infrastructures down south, while Scotland was left in the dark ages.

[GibberTheMonkey]

More money is spent per capita in Scotland than in the other uk countries though

[niceguy2]

Grrr, I hate it when politician's show how really stupid they are. Especially when they are the finance secretary yet can't even get the basics right. The debt is not £125 billion. That's the UK annual deficit. The UK debt is over £1 trillion and mounting.

I've no clue if it is true that Scotland could walk away from their share. Certainly if I were the Scottish first minister I'd be tempted to try. Just in the same way a man in debt will always be tempted to use a loophole to wriggle out of paying.

I suspect the reason this hasn't been widely reported is because it probably is the opinion of a few people with particular agendas and not commonly accepted fact. In other words other equally 'qualified' people may well have totally opposite opinions. I don't know, just a hunch.

But to me the whole SNP bid for independence doesn't stack up. They want to quit the UK but then reapply to Europe. As a new tiny minnow state they'd have a small voice and happily ignored by the heavyweights like France & Germany. At least the UK has a veto for certain things. Scotland would have no such veto. All laws passed would be thrust down their throats.

As new members of the EU they'd be obliged to sign up to implement the Euro eventually. But that takes time so they want to keep the pound. Except the interest rates and all policy decisions would be made in England. Where of course now they have no influence.

And as net recipients of taxpayer money in the UK they'd have to rely heavily on North Sea oil to balance their books. But as we all know oil is a finite resource. So longer term for me that is a dangerous thing to do.

[scaevola]

Well, as the Act of Union came about in the first place because Scotland was totally bankrupt, so there is precedent for reassigning debt.

They should use the standard formula which shares tax revenue and apportion debt in the same way.

Scotland may or may not have a deficit after that. It entirely depends on how it set its national budget.

[SantanaLopez]

It's yet more 'cans' and 'coulds' from the SNP/ Yes Campaign though- it would be seriously wrong of the campaign to have it as a major discussion point. Besides, this isn't new information. Sturgeon (I think) has brought it up before.

We need actual facts- if there is a yes vote, X and Y will happen. The absence of this (and May '16 is touted as the date of official secession, which is terrifyingly close) makes me seriously consider the sense of the campaign.

[niceguy2]

I don't know what it's like in Scotland but in England there seems very little reporting of anything of real substance about what the actual policies of the SNP would be if they won the referendum.

It seems very much to me like the whole YES campaign is light on detail and trying to win on the back of the notion that freed of control from Westminster that Scotland will be some sort of vibrant dynamic economy. Yet how they intend for that to happen? I've no clue.

[OptimisticPessimist]

The problem is that no one knows what will happen - in the event of a Yes vote there will be extensive negotiations about the separation agreement between Scotland and Westminster and no one knows what the outcome of those will be. Once separation has taken place, there will be a Scottish general election and the elected Government will decide what policies to implement, and again no one knows what the various parties' manifestos will contain or what the outcome of the election will be. The SNP could release their intended starting point for separation negotiation, and they could release a potential manifesto for the 2016 elections, but equally so could all the other parties (and if the SNP do it they all should, imo) and it would all be pretty meaningless. As I understand it, the UK Government is refusing to discuss their vision for how separation would be achieved until after the referendum so it would be entirely one-sided and pointless.

I actually find the Better Together campaign far weaker than the Yes Scotland one - I have yet to hear anything positive from it or reasoning for their standpoint. I'm still undecided, but the Better Together campaign, and associated comments by people like David Cameron, are actually pushing me towards a Yes vote because I don't see anything substantial in the case being presented for keeping the Union.

[currentbuns]

I suspect that many are being swayed by a cynical campaign of scaremongering on the part of the UK government. Financially, Scotland would almost certainly be better off as an independent country - at the expense of the rest of the UK. However, there are so few facts available to the public, and so much misinformation about the issues, that people feel unqualified to 'risk' a Yes vote.
I'm not Scottish, Btw, so have no personal sense of the ideological arguments at stake.

[SantanaLopez]

Can you back that up with figures, currentbuns?

[PoppyAmex]

"I actually find the Better Together campaign far weaker than the Yes Scotland one"

I agree, the Better Together campaign has presented no real arguments for staying in the Union, just against splitting up.

[PoppadomPreach]

GibberTheMinkey;

It is a myth that Scotland is effectively subsidised due to the fact that per head it is given more per capita than other parts.

From the Economist (14 April 2012);

"Scotland's account of revenue and expenditure, based on Treasury data, show that it is not a ward of the state, grossly subsidised from Westminster. In fact it performs better than all regions outside the south-east of England......in 2011-12, Scotland's GDP was £145bn.....around 10% of Britian's, with 8.4% of the population.

I'm not in favour of independence (but will not get chance to vote as an "expat" in England), but I wish people would stop peddling the myth that Scotland is a charity case dependent on England for its pocket money.

[edam]

If Scotland votes for independence, does that mean a new Scottish government gets to take on RBS and all its liabilities?

[FannyFifer]

Why would they take on RBS?

[edam]

Because it's a Scottish bank with headquarters in Edinburgh. Royal Bank of Scotland.

[FannyFifer]

It's not been a Scottish bank for a long time.
The UK government owns around 80% of it.

[edam]

YY but if Scotland goes for independence, can the rest of it dump it back on them?

(UK govt. stake was as a result of Fred the Shed running it into the ground - at the point when it collapsed it was indeed a Scottish bank with Scottish HQ. And if memory isn't deceiving me Fred sounded a bit Scottish... )

[FannyFifer]

Tax etc has always went to UK, so not owned by Scotland. UK as a whole profited during the good times, UK as a whole bailed out during bad times, regardless where headquarter is.

[JollyOrangeGiant]

www.businessforscotland.co.uk/why-did-the-banks-only-become-scottish-after-they-failed/

Scotland would not have had to bail out RBS by itself.