Scottish independence, Is it a good idea?

[leo9]

As Alex Salmond said, Scots [those in favour of independence, that is] want freedom, not wealth. Pretty much destroys all arguments based on whether an independent Scotland can or can not afford to leave the UK!

But can it? Why not. I wonder. Ireland left the Union and prospered, so why not Scotland? Look at Iceland - a nation the size of a small British city, that can survive a banking crisis and repair an broken economy. Ireland, which also suffered in the 2008 crash is now emerging from a severe depression and beginning to prosper once more. Sure, had Scotland been independent back then, it would have suffered as badly, too. RBS would have been Scotland's Kaupþing: BoS its Glitnir. And just as Ireland and Iceland have, so, too would Scotland have recovered. It is facile to say otherwise.

Iceland recovered years before the rest of Europe, largely through the sort of socialist policies - chiefly, letting broke banks sink and doubling the minimum wage - that Cameron wouldn't accept with a gun at his head, but which the Scot Nats might very well have tried, given the chance.

Britain's recovery, by the way, is just beginning to become visible.

But almost exclusively in the Home Counties, a fact that hasn't escaped the attention of Northern viewers. A columnist in today's Guardian is saying what a lot of people must be thinking: if Scotland gets independence, could the North of England get a vote to join them? A Greater Scotland stretching down to Yorkshire would be a viable and harmonious nation, and the Southern plutocracy would miss nothing but our shale gas. Holyrood is no more geographically distant than Westminster, and a lot closer politically.

As a Unionist, I believe that a move to a more federal arrangement would be the best way forward, but the Westminster Government has deprived the Scots of that option by insisting on an "in" or "out" vote only - "devo-max" is not an option, though it should be. Westminster calculates (rightly, I think) that Scots will, with that choice only, vote to remain in the Union.

But if the English get too snidey about how much they support the Scots and how little Scots give back, that could change the outcome considerably. Scots can be a bloody-minded lot when the fancy takes them. And England will be diminished too if Scotland does take the road to independence.

England, yes, but the Square Mile won't care a damn. The Little England that would be left if Greater Scotland seceded would likewise be a comfortable, functional country, a sort of offshore Switzerland with an economy based on financial services and tourism, and a permanent Conservative government with the EDL as the Opposition. The more I think about it the better it sounds - given that I live in Yorkshire.