To think wealthy people will leave Scotland?

[Juniperberries25]

..if the YES side win a referendum? Surely a lot of successful businesses and people who are wealthy/ comfortable/ have paid into a pension will not want to risk all their assets becoming worthless? Or am I missing something? Higher taxes, unknown currency, economic uncertainty, hard border, national security concerns etc

It would cost BILLIONS to set up new Government bodies (eg DVLA, Passport office, MI5, MI6, Amy Navy, RAF to name a few) so surely taxes will be much, much higher than rest of the UK?

Just to clarify I am NOT a fan of Boris but surely he will be long gone by the time Scotland actually became independent after YES vote (probably at least 10 years, just look at the BREXIT timeline).

Please don't flame me, I am just wondering what people think as I genuinely don't get how the benefits outweigh the risks.

My own employer made no secret that they would move ops to England if it was a Yes last time so I’d be biting myself out of a job of a “Scottish” Bank

This is said every time a change is proposed. No evidence ever exists for it happening - except where regressive policies are brought in e.g. after Brexit.

Scotland is open about wanting to attract people to their country. People will therefore come.

If Scotland were able to rejoin the EU (a big if) then Scotland would have access to a whole heap of people who want an English-speaking place to go, to study, to set up businesses, to trade. The people who currently don;t want to come to England any more

In my mind this would only be successful if there is full economic transparency
i.e I take home x now and will take home y then.
Without this I cannot imagine success.

I think a lot of people will be leaving Scotland if it becomes independent whether they are wealthy or not.

I think Scotland would manage just fine but the clusterfuck that is Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol will likely be an example to folk of how complicated things can be so would put folk off voting yes and if anything like me, they are fatigued by politics.

But, Boris has created such a toxic Westminster that folk may be inclined to vote yes just to be away from it.

If Scotland got independence, ironically I think it would be the end of the SNP. It’s their raison d’etre. At the very least they would be less potent as votes for other parties would count for more in the Scottish Parliament. They already do as demonstrated by the Greens. Such diversity can only be a good thing and knowing your seat isn’t always safe would make you more accountable to your electorate.

If England and Wales were happy to take the economic hit over Brexit then you can hardly blames the Scots for doing the same in the event of independence

We'd probably move until the dust settles at the very least. I'm not Scottish and dh is only half Scottish (but has always lived here). He works for a multi national with offices in the US and Europe plus has an EU passport. Neither of us are particularly opposed in principle to independent but for us to vote for it, the white paper would need to be considerably more inspiring than the last one.

Regardless of bank ownership, the HQ of my bank is in Edinburgh. I’m just a normal person, not someone who has £££££££ abroad. So if Scotland became “abroad”, I would close it anyway.

And this is why there will never actually be a constructive conversation about independence - and I say that as a no voter.

2 responses in and we already have a “they hate the English” comment. Also, did you really have to write “many of them think Braveheart was a documentary”? It’s unhelpful sensationalist nonsense.

You must surely have encountered anti-Scottish sentiment in your time, no need to encourage it or perpetrate it yourself.

If you mean the state pension system, that’s not how it works at all. It’s not the money you’ve saved that is given back to you when you are older. It’s money working people are paying in contributions this year, so from the first month a new state collects tax and contributions, it also has money to pay pensions.
You’re also assuming a hostile transition, which hasn’t always been the case when Britain has given up territories. But wealthy people don’t rely on the state pension and have diversified assets that may anyway be outside the country they live in.
There’s also the perspective of Scotland being within the EU that may change calculations compared with the first referendum.
There are other arguments against it, but this isn’t one.

It won't happen. IMHO. When push comes to shove it will be a different story.

I'm sure they will and no doubt they'll try to come running back when they realise exactly what Scotland has to offer.

For example, an independent Scotland would not only be completely energy self-sufficient but a net-exporter of energy resources.

We already produce more electricity than we consume, have 25% of Europe's entire offshore energy capacity (and with Japan's live trials of deep-sea turbines underway, increasing demand for renewable energy, and a push for renewables produced hydrogen that particular resource has huge potential), and our share of the natural gas resource is enough to meet our annual gas consumption 4.5 times over.

Yet because energy is reserved we get the pleasure of sharing our abundant resources with the rest of the UK and get no benefit from them other than to pay some of the highest energy bills in Europe for doing so (no other country with as much energy resource as Scotland has faces this).

Add to that we have 95% of all fresh water and water stress is predicted to increase by 40-80% for huge swathes of England over the next decade then we have another massively imporant resource in abundance here (and a potential new revenue stream).

On the business side of things if Scotland wanted to it could establish itself with a favourable set up to encourage businesses to stay/move here if it really wanted to and most businesses operating in Scotland already wouldn't close shop and leave, they'd just pay tax to a different organisation (hell one of the huge bonuses of independence would be having the opportunity to leave behind the horrific UK tax code).

But yeah, we're definitely better being attached to a country that uses us as it's own little test site and resource bank and whose population hate us/think we're all junkies/think we're subsidised by English taxpayers/etc. "Better together = Better for England".

Finally, I just don't understand how anyone doesn't get that it makes much more sense to govern for the 5.5 million people in Scotland from Scotland and only for Scotland than from England and as part of a population of 65 million. Under the current set up Scottish people will never be more than an after thought to our leaders in Westminster and Scotland itself will continue to be used purely for the benefit of England.

During the 2014 referendum, Scotland was promised lots of additional devolved powers ie "Devo max". I think the best outcome for Scotland would be (1) higher taxes, (2) better public services, (3) stay in UK but with increased devolved powers and more autonomy

No it isn’t. The Bank of Scotland is now part of Lloyds Banking Group.

The Royal Bank of Scotland bought NatWest in the 90s and rebranded so it now goes by the name NatWest Group. You must have an RBS account if it’s associated with NatWest.

@speakout Bank of Scotland is a subsidiary of Nat West- an English bank.

No, it's not. Royal Bank of Scotland is part of the NatWest Group. Bank of Scotland is part of Lloyds.

@Formerpupil cross post!

I can’t understand why the English and Welsh and Northern Irish don’t get a vote in the referendum. Being a union is a two way (Four way) arrangement. Why shouldn’t everyone get to evaluate whether they think the Scots should stay?

i wonder how long this post will be allowed to remain? 5. 4. 3 2…… it was a serious question, though.

👏👏👏👏👏

I find the prospect of an independent Scotland exciting. The political landscape would change. Political parties would actually be working for Scotland and not be mouth pieces for a Westminster government that we didn't vote for.

many of them hate the English and think Braveheart was a documentary.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I can’t understand why the English and Welsh and Northern Irish don’t get a vote in the referendum.
Because of the principle of self-determination, which is key in international law.

Clydesdale bought Virgin Money and then rebranded. The holding company is still the same, it just changed its name. Virgin Money is now a subsidiary.

We left several months ago (not that we're high earners ). The last referendum was awful. The SNP have had years to make a real difference and show voters what an independent Scotland would look like, but they've tinkered round the edges, been too feart to use their tax raising powers properly, are all mouth but provide no real, honest version of how independence would work.

Having seen the shit show which is Brexit, breaking up the UK would be 10 times worse. To me, there is no real difference between the UK leaving the EU and Scotland leaving the UK. Both unmitigated disasters.

Given that a 3rd of Scotland’s revenue comes from Westminster I’m curious as to where all the money to bring in these services is going to come from and what price the public will have to pay for it.

NS is incapable of focusing on anything else but Inderef. I’m amazed she’s stayed in power for so long, because she has nothing else going for her.

The SNP want to rejoin Europe. I'm a remainder but I can see what a shitshow that will be. How will the border between Scotland and England then be managed if one is in the Custom's Union and one isn't? Living on the border I know lots of people who commute both ways. Will they then have to show their passports to go to work each day?

The SNP still haven't answered fundamental questions such as currency etc. They want independence but have no solid plan for the aftermath. We've seen that happen before with another referendum....