to ask how you feel about Scottish Independence?

[PierreBourdieu]

Particularly looking for opinions from South of the Border, but all opinions welcome. My FB is awash with Independence fever after the rally in Edinburgh yesterday. As a Scotwoman I am always interested to hear the views of the English and get that perspective. I'll not disclose whether I'm pro or anti as I suppose it's not relevant here, also not looking for a bunfight! Care to share?

No one has a response about import and export charges?

I mean, I know they're boring, but at the end of the day, you can have all the oil in the world, but if your cost of living goes up, you're going to need to spend a whole lot more in benefits for people to make ends meet.

As I said before jmacks, most of what has been posted on this thread by the pro lobby as "facts" are in fact debatable and similarly for the antis

And also, surely there are quite a lot of people in Englan/NI/Wales who would actually be quite keen to renegotiate with the EU anyway?

Whats is, sadly compelling as a 'Yes' person, is that the 'No' debate has nothing to offer Scotland in the future except a miserable Conservative-led coalition of austerity and failure which is rather depressing.

I've yet to find anyone state the positive case for maintaining the Union that doesn't involve scaremongerting of some sort

Geegee, I've not once told anyone what to think. The rest of my paragraph is about what you claim is Shetlands entitlement to a great deal of oil reserves if they were to choose independence from Scotland - this is not true. International law dictates this. www.ejil.org/pdfs/12/1/505.pdf. And I don't need to speak to your family and friends - direct me to the movement for independence for the Shetland Isles if you want to prove there's a call for it. All I've heard is Tavish Scott and Lord Caithness and their perverse logic on the subject.

Personally I think Scotland leaving the UK would be disastrous for everyone. England would be worse off and so would Scotland.

The SNP have been brilliant in shifting the blame for pretty much everything onto Westminster. Not enough money? It's the Tories fault. Economy shit? Westminster's fault.

For me the SNP really need to spell out what they will do longer term for issues such as:

How much of the national debt do they anticipate Scotland will have to shoulder as a result of the split? Have those figures been put into their financial calculations?

Will Scotland seek to enter the EU as a new country or sneak in as an existing member by hoping the rest of the EU will bend the rules a bit?

Will Scotland adopt the Euro which is mandatory for new members of the EU or keep the £. If the latter, how does the SNP think that it can be truly independent when your currency is still controlled by London and can be torpedoed quickly by Mervyn King printing a few hundred billion?

How will Scotland cope militarily? SNP policy is not to join NATO. How would that work then? With the remaining puny budget, how will Scotland buy the modern defence items like fighter planes and ships it will need? Or are they planning on having some sort of small dad's army and banking on the friendship of England/EU will come to the rescue of Scotland if heaven forbid something happened?

Are they planning to revenue share the oil fields with the rest of the UK? After all, the UK invested in the fields and are expecting to share the long term revenues.

It just seems totally silly to me to become an 'independent country' then be a small minnow in the EU (hopefully) then be pushed around by France and Germany.

That said, if Scotland does leave the UK then I guess English students can then go to study in Scotland for free, as per all other EU countries. Maybe it's not such a bad idea after all..........

Well the grass is always greener eh Charlie

Jmacks unless you are an international lawyer yourself I would suggest that you don't fully understand your link! Also you can always find lawyers to argue both sides of any legal point!

niceguy2,

If you go back about, 3-4 pages, to about 10am, I had a long post covering I think all of these issues almost question for question.

Niceguy, i think we can expect:

• Scotland's share of the national debt to be worked out by population, therefore around 9%
• Scotland will try to sneak into the EU under current arrangements, but if not, will try to renegotiate.
• Scotland will keep the pound if allowed to enter the EU under current arrangements, otherwise negotiations will have to be made.

These last two points being the messy bits, and I think the SNP really have an obligation now to get some firm advice and publicise it.

• Scotland can be independent and keep the pound - are the nations throughout Europe who are using the Euro not independent states?

• As well as taking 9% of the UK debt, Scotland would have the right to 9% of the UKs assets - including military. A good starting point for a Scottish Defence Force.

• North Sea Oil will be divided by international boundaries, therefore around 90% will remain in Scottish waters. The investment in the fields has not come from the UK government, but from private companies.

• English students will be able to study for free (although I imagine these rules regarding free tuition to all in the EU will not last forever).

That's my take, anyway.

...page 18 to be precise...

To answer your question :Are they planning to revenue share the oil fields with the rest of the UK? After all, the UK invested in the fields and are expecting to share the long term revenues."

No.

Praise the 1980's selloffs / privitasition for that. Whilst the UK taxpayer funded it initially, the stock market and free market gobbled it up once it was sold off. Thank Lady Thatcher....

I believe in the region of 90%+ of the oil and gas fields fall in Scottish waters. The companies that have privately invested in it will pump ashore in Scotland and very little (the remaining 5 to 10% is English (most are I think off Norfolk's coast IIRC)

Charlie1972 - what will happen to companies based in England/Wales/NI with branch offices and retail outlets in Scotland? How much are import charges projected to be to take goods from a warehouse in the UK to an outlet in Scotland?

I just see this having a massive impact on cost of living in Scotland as everything becomes more expensive to account for delivery and import charges.

Likewise, if a English/Welsh/NI business has a branch office in scotland, has anyone modelled how many would probably pull out of Scotland based on the additional administratio/taxation costs to handle a foreign branch when they are not already set up to do so? What impact would this have on your tax take, since it will leave people out of work?

It's all this technical stuff that I don't understand and no one seems to be explaining. Unless everyone in scotland can be employed by or subsidised by the oil.

JMacks

Flatpackhamster, that is the view of one expert.

Yes, an expert in international law. International law is quite clear on this.

There are multiple different views on the subject. Conveniently, your expert believes that Scotland would become a new state, while the 'rest of the UK' would be the continuing state.

There certainly are different views.

There will be no UK if Scotland opts for independence, the union that makes it the UK will be dissolved, and so equally the remainder will also be a new state and find itself in the same position as Scotland.

That is not correct. International law apparently makes it quite clear that the extant state is still the state that it always was while the secessionist state is a new state.

Barosso said that 'new states' would have to negotiate on their position in the EU, and did not mention Scotland specifically. So my point stands - if negotiations have to take place, they will have to do so by both Scotland and England/Wales/NI, unless the EU can agree to allow both entities in under current arrangements.

Not correct. The EU has not suggested at any point that the UK sans Scotland would have to renegotiate. Nor will it have to. Scotland will be the new state, it will have to renegotiate. The Law is quite clear on this.

Clytaenbestra -

This far ahead, I can't imagine any political party putting flesh on the bone for numbers of what charges/ takes there will be on anything like that. The referendum isn't going to be fought this far ahead on anything more than statements of intent. Put into context, would you expect David Cameron to tell you what his taxation pledges will be in the 2015 General Election. No.

Once the first Scottish elections are called in 2016, all the parties will be fighting as usual, whether the nation will choose another term with the SNP,or revert back to being Labour, or even a surge again in Conservative values will be fun to see.

Will Labour move further right or will they veer to Socialist values more in line with their roots once they're freed up from London Labour rule? Will the SNP break apart if this happens? Will the Tories be more paternalistic akin to the pre-Thatcher days?

Its all very interesting indeed......

Haha, no I'm not an international lawyer. The paper is pretty full-on, but the conclusion in terms of the Shetlands is quite clear, "if the Orkney and Shetland Islands opted to join England, then they would become two sets of islands belonging to a mainland state and situated close to the mainland of another state. As such, the Orkney and Shetland Islands would produce a cut-off effect, and any extra maritime area given to these islands would encroach on the coastal projection of the maritime area of Scotland". And handily, these conclusions are also summed up in a map at the end of the paper.

"I just see this having a massive impact on cost of living in Scotland as everything becomes more expensive to account for delivery and import charges."

This already happens - look at any delivery costs north of say Stirling/Perth and it can add loads onto the delivery charges

The Shetland 'story' just isn't meritorious.

I'd expect David Cameron to have a bit of an idea by now if I'm honest. At least he would acknowledge that they probably should be thinking a bit about how they would be taxing in the future. No one even seems to be talking about it as an issue.

If 5% (off the top of my head) of companies couldn't take the increased admin/taxation costs of operating a foreign subsiduary in Scotland, and relocated their offices to south of the border/closed the offices, that will have a massive impact on jobs in Scotland. Is that not an issue? Is there some clever way round that?

"This already happens - look at any delivery costs north of say Stirling/Perth and it can add loads onto the delivery charges"

But then that would start to apply to the rest of Scotland as well. And goods in stores would become more expensive, as it would cost more money to move them over the border, masses of additional paperwork for each truck which crossed the border, increased delivery times through border control....food and everything else will be affected by this so the cost of living will sky rocket.

Surely scotland could only use English currency if England allowed it to?

If Greece said they were going to start using sterling then the current uk I'm sure would say no. They wouldn't want an independent country with different financial policies, etc possibly affecting their currency. Scotland wouldn't be able to set its own interest rates or control their inflation if they used a uk currency.

Though if Scotland stuck prices of goods/service up then this could affect inflation in England. I can't see it been allowed to happen.

The euro is different as there was an agreement that the member states would share a common currency.

Jmacks - as someone whi is posting from their sickbed the idea of wading through that paper made me feel quite faint

I think the same of Scottish Independence as I do of leaving Europe tbh.

Full of patriotic niceties but when you look at the legal, financial, border & defence implications then actually the reality is that what sounds good originally is a pile of pie in the sky utopian dreaming driven by a bunch of people who tbh don't really understand what independence will actually mean. A disaster for both north and south of the border.

I hope if it does happen we have a manned border with full passport control/immigration. Then we can see if more people are 'escaping' to England or to Scotland...

The Shetland 'story' just isn't meritorious.

A stunningly intellectual contribution to the debate.

Why don't you just write "It just is, because I say it is"?

Scotland cannot guarantee Shetland and all of the oil reserves will remain available to an independent Scotland, ether at or after any Indepdence date. Its an assumption that most SNPactivists make, who have never been there and who have no idea what the average Shetlander thinks or wants. Referring to Shetland as "the Shetlands" is a complete faux pas, by the way.

Mentioning Shetland is really something they don't like. They will pretty quickly gather to tell you you are wrong, stupid, or both, if you do.

Always highly amusing.

Flatpackhamster, as I said that is the view of one expert. There are others, including Westminster's own experts, who have argued otherwise.

www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmscotaf/139/139we04.htm

Vivalabeaver

If Greece wanted to use the UK pound, it can if it wants. As I mentioned before, its a traded currency, so nobody can stop it. That the deal with traded currencies. It works both ways.

Read my page 18 post which discusses this to save a circular chat...