Because Scotland is economically dependent on the rest of the UK: it's by far its biggest export market, as it were. It does very well out of the Barnett formula and - like everywhere else in Britain - is effectively subsidised by the London economy. It may have financial services and high tech industries but the investment in these is based on Scotland being part of the UK, the only genuinely independent industry you have is the oil stuff in Aberdeen which will decline when North Sea oil runs out. If you leave the UK but keep the pound you are vulnerable to a Euro-style monetary policy crisis - the same applies of course if you join the Euro. If you invent your own currency then you are at the mercy of the international money markets, which may not trust the groat.
Why are we better off without you? As I said, it's a subsidised satrapy which doesn't provide much value to the UK as a whole. However I suppose you're electorally useful as you tend to distrust mad libertarian parties and send down a good chunk of Labour MPs. So I suppose I'd be sad if you left.
Let us suppose for the moment that you are right, and Scotland is in receipt of a net subsidy from London (your claim is not that it is from the rest of the UK, but from London) – you are not right (See for example: 1., 2.), but let us for a moment suppose you are – what do you think is the fundamental difference between Scotland, a country you imply uniquely incapable of providing an economy to sustain its populace, unlike the other countries its size and smaller? Why is Scotland incapable of making a go of it?
The truth is that if there is indeed a net subsidy from London – if, mark you – then this is a state of affairs Scotland finds itself in
as part of the Union. The Scotland we see today is a Scotland that is part of the UK, a product of 300 years of Union. Why then do you not decry the Union, rather than insisting Scotland is incapable of independence? The Union is clearly failing Scotland if it has reduced it to such a level of dependency, unlike the other independent countries its size and smaller.
This line that Scotland is simply not able to support itself is a line that Better Together repeatedly deploys, and even many Unionists feel it is not credible or useful.
A far better tack is the point made some years ago now by Gordon Brown, that Britons together can be proud, for example, of their role in creating the National Health Service. It’s an appeal to intra-British solidarity; those post-war institutions - wrought by the struggles of the ordinary people of these islands - are indeed achievements we should value.
Except, of course, many (north and south of the Border) will rightly say that the government in Westminster is now intent on dismantling that very Health Service. There, one might say, following Gordon Brown’s logic, goes one more reason for maintaining the Union.
As an aside, I’ve seen the figures suggesting “London” subsidises the rest of the UK. They are, though, very crude figures. They are based on the tax take per head. What they do not take into account are the jobs and infrastructure in London that the UK tax payer pays for: the jobs in Whitehall, including rafts of high paid mandarins; bodies with huge staff details in London, such as the Cabinet Office, Crown Prosecution Service, Department for Communities and Local Government, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Department of Energy and Climate Change, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, Her Majesty's Treasury, Ministry of Justice, UK Statistics Authority, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, boundary commission of England, Home Office, Ministry of Defence, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department for Work and Pensions, Department of Health, Department for Transport, Department for Education, department for Culture, Media and Sport, DFID, Attorney General's Office, Treasury Solicitors, Government Equalities Office, The Supreme Court. Those employees pay tax, yes, but their wages and departments are paid for by the whole of the UK.
That's without the considerable BBC presence still in London, the Unions with headquarters in London, the charities and NGOs with headquarters in London and so on.
What about the infrastructure that serves London? The Olympic stadia and infrastructure? The rail networks feeding London? The Channel tunnel? The Millennium Dome? And what food does London produce? And so on.
London does not subsidise the UK, it is an integral part of it. It is indivisible from it, whether that be the UK as it is today, or a possible future UK without Scotland. London could not go it alone. Scotland could.
1.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/11/scotland-12288-union-public
2.
http://newsnetscotland.com/index.ph...conomist-says-scotland-subsidising-rest-of-uk
