What surprised me about this article is that Scotland only has a population of five million- that's like the population of Brooklyn and Queens. I had never thought much about it, but the Scots don't really get fair return for the sale of North Sea oil, do they?

washington post, 11/22/06 wrote:The End of the United Kingdom?

London, England - One of the world's most successful multinational states, and a key ally of the United States, could in a few months time start to unravel: I mean, of course, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The process will be set in motion if the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) ends up the largest party in the Scottish parliament after elections next May. This is a distinct possibility. The break up of the UK will not be inevitable even if the SNP do dominate the parliament, but it will certainly make the political classes of Britain -- and perhaps of the U.S. and the main EU states too -- think hard about the point and value of the union to them. (Ironically, the elections will come just a matter of days after the 300th anniversary of the creation of modern Britain when the Scottish and English parliaments were merged in 1707.)

Most people in England who think about these things assumed that the "Scottish question" had been dealt with when, as one of the first acts of the Blair government elected in 1997, it announced the creation of a devolved Scottish parliament with wide ranging powers over domestic matters. But disillusionment with the performance of that parliament (and the UK parliament in London), the long-standing belief that the English "stole" Scotland's oil and gas, and the postmodern temptations of identity politics, have put independence back on the agenda (a recent opinion poll found 51 percent of Scots favoring it).

full article

How about putting an end to the United States as we know it?

I call for the immediate secession of the "red states".

Why? Because they're bleeding the blue states dry.

Considering that they're the biggest federal "welfare" recipients in the country, I'm sure that the "red states" will make a great success of their preferred "less government" approach. No more dirty New York/Chicago/Los Angeles tax dollars for you to spend on useless military bases, "red states"!

Go for it!

And don't forget to take Texas with you!

I agree, BRW. If we live in a country where the center holds because of the more or less equal gravitational pull of the red states and blue states, but the center is a weak compromise for most of us, an ill-fitting suit, then why preserve it? A new compromise center would appear in Blue America and Red America, too, but it would be a shorter distance from the opposing poles in the new Americas.

One thing working against this would be the advanced militarization that has overtaken the US, not just economically but culturally. If Blue America is to be the more liberal dovish nation and the Red America the warmongering nation, would the leaders of Blue America have the guts to scale down the defense budgets of their nation, and also stop using their military to enforce their capitalist interests around the globe? A Blue America would need to retreat from globalism and unfair trade and dominance by multi-national corporations- a saner economy would initially mean a poorer country, until the internal economy was rebuilt ( manufacturing being the primary concern ). The way to ameliorate that transition in Blue America would be implement serious wealth redistribution policies, shrinking the gap between the rich and the poor, and giving tax breaks for 100% homegrown business startups.

It would be a good test to see if the wealthy liberals are willing to walk the walk when it comes to all the egalitarian great society talk they spout.

I have no thoughts about the direction of Red America post-split, because I could care less. Good riddance, bozos.

Sorry, but this is laughable. Only the most utterly militant nationalists within the SNP favour full sovereign secession. This isn't on any real popular agenda. Why? Because it would turn Scotland into the economic and diplomatic equivalent of, say, Herzegovina.
The SNP and the pro-Scottish lobby are hugely, directly powerful in Westminster at the moment - the idea of secession, taking the oil with them, is an American fantasy bred in Hollywood - Braveheart and Rob Roy, by people who don't understand the history, economics or geopolitics. I, English for generations, can appreciate the fact that 'It's Scotland's Oil' - a familiar SNP campagn slogan for nearly forty years. But the Act Of Union has lasted for the last three hundred fucking years because it benefits everyone involved.

I'm hoping Nico Adie or some other board member can back me up on this, but this really is total bollocks. Seriously. Fly to Edinburgh or Glasgow. Ask around. Jeez, I was there last month, talking to many interesting, educated people. This is not reality.

I'm a (half-English) Scot, though I've lived in England for a bit under ten years (since I was 17, more or less). I think you're actually pretty wrong here; the SNP membership definitely want to see the breakup of the United Kingdom.

One thing you'll miss unless you've lived in Scotland is that there's a huge, enormous class divide on the issue; so depending on who you talk to, you're going to (on the whole) get very different answers. In some ways it's similar to the pro/anti-Europe debate in England, as long as you ignore the Tories; the working-class Labour support are much much less likely to be pro-Europe than the middle-class Labour voters. It's tribal politics.

The SNP's stated policy is negotiated secession along with immediate membership of the EU. Assuming the EU would have Scotland - which it would - the likelihood of political/economic isolation is pretty small, and Scotland's not in a bad position for a service/technology/finance-based economy, much like Ireland's. I'm not pro-secession, by any means - I like being British - but it's not as ludicrous as it might seem.

You're also forgetting about the effect of other powerful lobbies which feel neglected by Westminster - farming and fishing in particular, who are prone to making the argument "Luxembourg has a veto, and they're landlocked, so why not Scotland?"

That's a bit more clarity, ta. I was mildly drunk making that post.

clocker bob wrote:the Scots don't really get fair return for the sale of North Sea oil, do they?

Scotland, on it's own, doesn't have the necessary resources to exploit the oil in their portion of the North Sea.

How don't they get a fair return? The oil that is produced is only a drop in the ocean (excuse the pun) to the amount imported.

wow i got a little thrill when i saw the first bit of the thread title. kinda disappointed its only devolution for scotland. hopefully if they do get it it'll work better than the devolved parliament in the north here. anyone know of any other parliaments where fuckin loony tunes, famous for launching a grenade and gun attack on a funeral procession, can get in to the building with a wee bomb and handgun.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,1956300,00.html

Though extremely unlikely if this did happen it would leave our (almost certain) next Prime Minister in something of an awkward spot and the Home Secretary and the leader of the the Lib Dems and quite a few others.

I don't consider myself particularly patriotic but I personally have a chip on my shoulder about all these Scottish politicians being able to vote on English issues whilst the Scottish have been granted there own devolved parliament which we English don't have much of a say in.

Scotland would most likely be fucked without the money the English pump into their economy which, as far as I am aware, is a lot more than exploitation of their own Oil reserves and tourism would supply them with.

clocker bob wrote:I had never thought much about it, but the Scots don't really get fair return for the sale of North Sea oil, do they?

I don't think we do, no.

If we'd had an initiative like Norway's Oil Investment Fund, the country would be enormously better off. But we don't, and couldn't have because it was never passed as a motion in Westminster. If we had started it at the same Norway did we could have around £100 billion, probably more. If Scotland was to be made independent, we could begin doing the same as Norway did 10 years ago.

Such a surplus would pretty much ensure that the country, if independent, could cope with almost any eventuality.

Also, Alex Salmond (leader of the SNP) was vehemently against the war in Iraq, something the Scottish electorate have not forgotten.

I think it's obvious that I would like an independent Scotland.