Oh I agree that's why Scots want to leave. Just there is not that much logic to it from a liberal non nationalist point of view.

However replace Scottish with English and and English with EU and you get a similar argument.

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You may say I'm a dreamer.... but I'm not the only one....

One potential benefit of independence is that the rest of the UK might drop out of things like the G8 and finally have to face up to the fact we're not a world power any more and then they might stop spunking away so much money on trying to be one.

The UK has not been a world power since pre-world war II.

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You may say I'm a dreamer.... but I'm not the only one....

Not sure anyone's told any serving UK Prime Minister that.

For sure the UK is deluded. So Scottish independence is unlikely to make the English face up to reality.

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You may say I'm a dreamer.... but I'm not the only one....

Being out of the G8 might help them to do that - I assume the UK would be out, does anyone know?

There again it might not. Humiliation can backfire, especially for immigrants.

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You may say I'm a dreamer.... but I'm not the only one....

I can't recall who first remarked thus, but I always fall back on the assessment that nationalism is a state of mind, rather than any viable or practical political philosophy.

Salmond is slowly crafting the nationalist POV to fit practical political aspirations, but the realityis that the SNP is still many, many, miles away from making separation any kind of reality.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

Nationalism is a state of mind that draws borders on the earth to restrict the flow of humans across them....



Salmond is a politician. I was referring to Scottish Nationalism from the the general Scottish populace.....

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You may say I'm a dreamer.... but I'm not the only one....

The Scottish populace is more sophisticated than you appear to give them credit for. They will pragmatically vote for a nationalist party to run the country, but will reject separation by more than two thirds.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

I doubt a population of any country can make sophisticated decisions based on nationalism.

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You may say I'm a dreamer.... but I'm not the only one....

Their voters aren't nationalist though, in a lot of cases.

They look at what they like best in each election. Like the English voting Tory in the 1999 Euro Election, Labour in the 2001 General Election.

That carried on even after 2005. There was some airy talk about how there were no longer "no go areas" for Cameron's new Conservatives. They did indeed do well at the 2010 election. But there were no go areas called cities.

On a side tangent again (sorry), if a recent referendum were to see Scotland break away from the UK, it would have some repercussions in Northern Ireland I'd reckon. My experience is that given a choice of identifying more with either Scotland or England, the majority of unionists would plump for either Scotland or both equally. A major dilemma that should it arise, could split modern unionists apart.

That of course ignores that it would be highly highly unlikely that a newly independent Scotland would want Northern Ireland attached to its rump anyway.

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"The first casualty on your Facebook wall is always facts..."

#rightwingpoliticalcorrectness - for when some "Tell it like it is" bullshitter plays the political correctness card, often without irony!

I think we're in danger of going down the "You call it nationalism, we call it independence / self determination".

The Scotland / England situation has a few factors which distinguish it from the postwar independence movements.

The long established ones include - an industrial country seeking independence (Probably applicable to Malaysia / Singapore).
Presence in Europe, and large areas of cultural overlap.
Roughly similar class systems.
Effect of 2 way population interrchange.
The Labour effect (Central scotland as voting fodder)
The west Lothian Question.

More recent you'll find.
Poll Tax.
Devolution worked rather well and discredited a lot of the doom mongers.
Devolved powers often being run better than in England (I contend this is a difference in priority - London press continues the "Subsidy junkie" line).
Anti scottish agenda in much of the London press.

And very recently
Labour perceived to have changed the lyrics to "We'll keep the white flag flying here".

I think questions about currency and all are solvable enough. But a couple of awkward graphs:

North Sea Oil Production



And



Should have gone for it in the mid-seventies, before the old industries were run down.