like Ireland ? sorry but the SNP did say they wanted to join the "arc of prosperity of Ireland and Iceland" and with Ireland doing so well I just think they will plus how is Scotland any different from the rest of the world ? Most of the world made the same mistake
Please read this secret government report for the Scottish Office on the effects of Scottish independence from 1975 before reading the rest of my post. It was released in 2005 under the Official Secrets Act.
link
You are using debating points from 21st century SNP rhetoric to make a pre-concieved argument about a Scotland which becomes independent in the late 1970s early 1980s. That was not a line used at the time, but what with your expert knowledge of the SNP and the general Scottish economy, you will know this already. As you will also be aware, Norway would also be on the list.
Scotland would have a hell of a lot in common with Norway. North Sea Oil would have flooded the economy, creating a situation where Scotland would have to loan money out just to stop the chronic balance of payments surplus from harming the Scottish economy. This has never been the case in Ireland. Again, with your knowledge you will know this.
Scotland was also at this point still an industrial nation. Unless a radical Thatcherite government took charge in Scotland, and there would be no need due to the benefits of North Sea Oil, there would be no Scottish wave of privatisations and the big boom which all occured in London in otl. Again you will be aware of this.
As such, you would have a nation which today in all likelyhood still has coal-mines, mills etc. It would be a markedly different place. None of the above stands comparison to Ireland, that is unles Ireland had an oil boom which I never heard of? Well? Aside from both being part of the British Isles, how does the comparison stand up?
Yes, when the crash happens thirty years later Scotland would be affected. It would be stupid to claim otherwise, but it would go into the crash from a markedly different position that it did in the world we are living in.
Without the same de-regulation, the banks whilst being affected would be less so than in the way RBS and HBOS did here. Indeed HBoS would probably still be Halifax and the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland taking over Nat West would have been far less likely.
ok so one good thing comes out of it
but really is the "where both screwed" a pro Independence argument
As the Scottish Office Report I linked above indicated, a Scotland which went independent at that point would be far from screwed. Due to the de-industrialisation and the issues with HBOS/LBG and RBS it is less desirable now, that is not to say it couldn't work after Thatcherism and the crash but it would be more difficult.
Libya's Oil rich so is the USA but they have got BIG problems
So Scotland would end up like Libya. Get a grip. Thats just stupid bullshit. If you want to prove me wrong, name another Northern European country with oil that has turned out that way, not a third-world state with oil.
Again all good but wont the Right be stronger minus lib/lab/SNP Scotland
if Wales goes the same (and if it does Wales does go I really can only see coming back to the UK post financial crisis their more pro Brit and smaller then Scotland )
NI is a interesting Question I can see after all the others going the London Gov Giving it to the Irish (with the Irish then trying to send it back)
In the past fifty years, the only three elections Scottish votes have swayed were 1964 and the two in 1974. The myth of Tory dominance of England is just that, a myth.
If Thatcher was in office whilst Scotland left the Union, this may topple her as Prime Minister. If it did not, the lack of North Sea Oil to fund her revolution would. That is unless she went to the IMF or even the Scots who would be desperate to loan money out(as explained in Scottish Office doc). It would be entirely possible to see a Labour government emerge in London if Scotland left the Union.
god I hate this argument.
Scotland is not in any way like the former Territories British Empire,
Firstly when most former Empire Territories left the Empire when a war with Britian was in livening memory or close to livening memory. most Territories had little to no common cutler, language, history, and in some case's Religion (unlike Scotland) with Britain
Second most (unlike Scotland) had no Democracy and where ruled by a Governor from another country.
Third most former colonies have populations in the tens of millions (unlike Scotland) , large land mass and are thousands of miles away from the Home Islands (unlike Scotland which is in the home Islands)
and lastly Scotland is not a former colony it was at the heart of the Empire it really annoys me when you here Salomed saying things like "the Scottish office is the last remnants of the British Raj" one the Raj was only in India and two the Scots have just as much blood on their hands as the English. Burma was even nicknamed "the Scottish colony" it’s was named the British Empire and not the English Empire for a reason.
So the fact that "countries have asked Britain to return to the Empire" has nothing to do with this
I do not dispute Scotland would be different from any colony leaving. Scotland leaving would split Britain. There can be no Great Britain without Northern Britain.
That being said, out of all the countries which have split up, be it Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Ireland and the UK, Norway from Sweden, I cant recall many at all coming back. Ending the Union would not be a thing that would be reversed on whim. Once the union is gone, it would be gone.
As I said, today, it is questionable, Scotland may be screwed if it left the Union. In the seventies? It may have been desirable from a Scottish PoV. From a PoV from the rest of the union it would have been worse.