Graham wrote:
It is hard to see the logic in the SNP wanting to be independent from the UK but part of the EU. I can only conclude that nationalistic sentiment is at the heart of it, because it can hardly be a positive economic step.
I think the argument now is that even if they are part of EEA, (not EU), they will be better off as you the rest of the UK is clearly not going to be in EEA.
And I doubt the EU countries will block Scotland from joining EEA.
Maoraigh wrote:
The unmentioned problem at the election was UK debt, how to earn money, not how to spend it.
Well done Maoraigh.
That is the enormous elephant in the room that No one talks about and yet we are on the precipice of another major financial meltdown. Not the banks this time, but government. I do wish people would wake up to the economic reality we face.
arj1 wrote:
And I doubt the EU countries will block Scotland from joining EEA.
Spain will vigorously oppose anything that makes life easier for a newly-independent Scotland because of the precedent it would create and what that might mean for Catalonia.
Spain won’t make life hard for Scotland.
From a Reuters article about the current Spanish government:
“Asked if a Sanchez government would accept Scotland’s EU application to join if Scotland left the United Kingdom and fulfilled the requirements of the UK constitution, Borrell said: Why not? If they leave Britain in accordance with their internal regulation, if Westminster agrees …,”
“If Westminster (Britain’s national parliament) agrees, why should we be against it? (…) I think the United Kingdom will split apart before Spain,” he told Politico in an interview before a live audience.
Scotland’s pro-independence Scottish National Party, the biggest party in Scotland, welcomed the comments, saying they destroyed a “favoured unionist scare-story”."
Graham wrote:
Spain will vigorously oppose anything that makes life easier for a newly-independent Scotland because of the precedent it would create and what that might mean for Catalonia.
Whilst I agree they may well oppose it, given the tragic way they have managed the Catalonia question it will not gain traction. Also the circumstances are entirely different between the situations.
Peter wrote:
I see similarities between Scottish independence and Slovak independence
Interesting. Care to elaborate? I’m rather unfamiliar with the details of the breakup of Czecheslovakia, and even less able to evaluate wheter it worked as desired or not…
MedEwok wrote:
What do Germany or India have to do with Scottish independence?
focus economics has the UK placed 5th. It doesn’t have much to do with scottish independence as they’re economically not hugely significant. but it does in relation to trying to argue that you must be part of a large protectionist group that needs all member states to agree to be able to do trade deals.
I thought that it was made fairly clear that an independent scotland would have to make a new application to join the EU which would by necessity involve adopting the euro.
Spain I’m sure would be happy to have them given the recent jailings of the catalonian separatists. Although did the EU not just give one of the MEP’s elected diplomatic immunity?
Medewok, take a look how Slovakia was impoverished after it left Czechoslovakia, following a campaign by a nationalist/separatist politician who dug up issues which few intelligent people remember let alone cared about, and having lost its large-industry customers from the collapse of the USSR. It certainly didn’t work as desired, especially as 53.57% (that’s a joke) of Slovak women under 30 ended up working as nannies in the UK 
The Czech Republic ended up being richer as a result, having dumped what would have been a huge social security sink. Many potential parallels with that one, too, elsewhere 
Vaclav Havel did his best to prevent it as long as he could but gave up in the end.
Slovakia started to recover eventually but it took a while.
Before separating, it always pays to be aware of which side one’s bread is buttered
England rather than the UK believes spending money on military campaigns is how to become a world power. Despite the propaganda, I cannot see life in Libya post Ghadaffi and Iraq post Saddam Hussein is better.
The new carriers were proposed to be sent to the Far East, to join the US in harassing China
An independent Scotland in the present scenario would be the rat leaving the sinking ship.
BJ might change this view by economic realism.
Without Scotland in the EU, Spain would lose access to fish in Scottish waters. That is why they’d support continued membership.
I guess your not a fan of nato then and countries meeting the amount they’d agreed to put in?
Without military intervention there’s a good chance ISIS would still be running wild with their caliphate, There is a very strong argument that Iraq was a total mistake put together on dodgey information by labour’s mr Blair.
I’m generally not keen on getting involved in foreign operations but I believe there are times when it is necessary,
China in particular has a number of issues, they have refused to meet the obligations they signed upto to join the WTO. They’re acting pretty terribly in hong kong, They’re putting the uighur muslims in internment camps and organ harvesting, they’re attempting land grabs, their social credit score system and monitoring is pretty orwellian and they are pushing their influence into other countries, so that critisim effectively is not allowed. I support the freedom of navigation exercises.
I can’t see Scotland being granted a referendum vote, even if one wasn’t granted I can’t see how it could occur before we left the eu properly.
