Their whole thing was that Scottish independence was a good thing, but it wouldn't be possible (or even a good idea) because Scotland wouldn't be able to support their economy on their own. Does that response hold water?
As a disclaimer we are U.S. citizens, and I definitely don't know much about Scotland, so feel free to dump whatever information on me that you want
A Scottish independence would be followed by joining the European union getting better trade deals than the UK currently got.
Besides if Israel is able to 'support' themselves Scotland is, too.
Finally I agree with the people saying no country in the imperial core is supporting itself.
That's not independence at all. I think whoever came up with that "join the EU" idea doesn't understand what independence is.
Dude Scottish independence is about leaving the United Kingdom's devolved power arrangement, not independence from the rest of the fookin planet
News just in: The meaning of a word never differs between contexts.
:jokerfication:
There's a good argument to be made that the EU wouldn't let Scotland in because it would embolden other potential breakaway states like Catalonia.
But they also might do it out of spite towards the UK, so who knows?
if scotland was a drain on the UK, England would support independence
Does any country -- even the really big ones -- support their economy on their own? Seems like an unrealistic standard.
There are countries of similar size and similar resources (or worse) that do well economically. Off the top of my head: Singapore, Norway, Finland, New Zealand and Ireland. So in principle scotland could do well post-independence.
However, to really answer the question you'd need to understand how their economy is currently structured and how independence would effect it and how feasible changing that current structure would be.
It's kind of difficult to say. I do believe that, in terms of tax money, Scotland does pay in less than it gets out. But it's not like the UK isn't in debt anyway, spending-wise.
However, the ability to conserve what we already have is most likely possible. I don't see the entire country collapsing, but there might be less spending money when you're not tied to a country that's basically a large financial hub, not that Scotland doesn't have Edinburgh as well though.
Scotland doesn't really produce much, either. A lot of its industry is in services. 80% or so. What it does export is often sold to the rest of the UK. So the major factors in keeping the economy running would be those being kept through Independence.
Overall it's hard to say and avoiding the question won't help. Pretending it will be easy us partly how we ended up with such a shitty Brexit deal. Though I still think IndyRef2 and Scottish Independence is worth pursuing.
It's a pretty major oil producer for a European country, isn't it?
From what I could find it is about 5% of the Scottish GDP. Compare this to 8% for the USA, 10% for Canada and 18% for Norway. Not a whole lot to base an economy on.
They are very deeply intigrated economies so that would either remain the case or there would be trouble but when they get austerity they'll do well under it because scots hate spending money
If fucking Lichtenstein is allowed to be its own nation then by god Scotland can manage
Scotland would be economically worse off independent also the Scottish are treated pretty much the same as the English and if anything are overrepresented in parliament
