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Will you vote for independence?

Scottish independence?

  • Yes please

    Votes: 99 56.6%

  • No thanks

    Votes: 57 32.6%

  • Dont know yet

    Votes: 17 9.7%
  • Total voters
    175
Quartz said:
I really don't think a separate currency is much of an issue for business.
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It isn't. I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot here, but a separate currency is my favoured option.

Your question a while back, though, was "why would the rUK go for currency union?". The answer is that there are advantages to them. Can they live without those advantages? Of course.

There are also the negotiations. The rUK has given away its best card. They want to share the debt, how do they get the deal?

Furthermore, the SNP is bound to have a fallback position. But what kind of negotiator goes into a bargaining situation announcing "I'm asking £250 but actually I'd accept £175"? You'd be daft to do that. They'll offer the lower price straight away.
 
geminisnake said:
So will the rest of the UK then. They can't have it both ways, don't believe the lies!
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Sorry, but I cant find any suggestion that the EU expects the UK, which is already a member, to reapply for membership. If you can find a link that the EU does suggest that I'd be interested.
 
Google hates me and tbh the last few weeks have been really shit for me. I have no desire to find a link to something I genuinely don't give a rats arse about atm :)

We can speculate all we like but I'm really heading towards stopping discussing might be til the 19th September. Let's use the Krone :)
 
danny la rouge said:
The biggest demand of the SNP was currency union. Now what has the rUK got as a bargaining chip? It's given away its best card. It is hoping Scotland votes No, and it doesn't have to negotiate anything with a new Scotland. But what if the gamble goes wrong?

How do they get Scotland to take a share of the debt?
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How does Scotland create a new currency for itself without issuing its own debt?

This argument cuts both ways and brings the worst out in both camps. Both those campaigning 'yes' and those campaigning 'no' come out appallingly badly in this matter. However, I suspect that this particular stick will prove far more effective than the manky rotten old carrots Cameron's been dangling around, scaring off anyone who comes near.
 
geminisnake said:
So will the rest of the UK then. They can't have it both ways, don't believe the lies!
Basically everything that we are being threatened with is afaics BS. If the UK joined a thing and Scotland leaving means Scotland has to renegotiate everything how does that not hold for the rUK? If we are a new state so are you mate :)
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I'm guessing there are precedents. This would be seen as Scotland seceding from the UK, not two new states being created. However, I think this is mostly a red herring. Whatever the EU rules currently are, they would expedite a smooth passage into membership. Same goes for the currency - even if Scotland were to leave the pound, its exit would be expedited as smoothly as possible and as you pointed out, not straight away.

However, Ireland's not a great example. Its currency wasn't totally independent of the pound - it was linked right up to 1979. It wasn't really a separate currency at all.
 
geminisnake said:
So will the rest of the UK then. They can't have it both ways, don't believe the lies!
Basically everything that we are being threatened with is afaics BS. If the UK joined a thing and Scotland leaving means Scotland has to renegotiate everything how does that not hold for the rUK? If we are a new state so are you mate :)
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but scotland has no signature on any EU treaties, Scotland has no independent representative on the council of ministers etc etc.

of course it's completely different, Scotland would be voting to leave the UK, and would therefore have to apply for membership, because you can't expect your leader to just end up with a seat on the council of ministers automatically without having ever signed any EU documents.

Maybe there could be a fast track process for it, whereby scotland signed itself up to all EU legislation, but I think this would be underestimating the huge amount of time needed to painstakingly go through and produce these huge volumes of legislation to be signed. I think you're talking about millions of pages, certainly hundreds of thousands of pages of EU legislation that will need checking, adapting and signing.

Plus you'd need all other EU leaders to agree to an extra seat on the council of ministers etc etc when some of them will really not be wanting to encourage areas of their own countries to think this could be an option.

The EU was set up to encourage integration, AFAIK it has no inbuilt mechanism to facilitate member countries splitting up within its frame work.

ps FWIW, if Scotland did leave then I'd hope the EU would facilitate it gaining membership asap, and have transitional arrangements in place to allow free trade etc to continue while it was all sorted out, but I don't think there's any guarantees of this. At best it's going to be extremely messy.
 
TBH I don't really see the problem with splitting up within the EU. You still maintain EU status and in the case of Scotland, they're likely to be more keen on the EU than the rUK (is that the correct term now - fine if it is as it's easy to type). Belgium could conceivably split into two with both halves being keen EUers. Don't see the problem.

That said, I'm sure lawyers would bank a lot of billable hours...
 
Cameron and Osborne are doing good cop/bad cop, aren't they?

Problem is, Cameron is a terrible good cop, and Osborne is awful at being bad cop. Bad cop has the arguments, though.

It's been horrible seeing Labour lining up behind the bad cop. Genuinely depressing. I dislike both sides in this quite intensely.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
TBH I don't really see the problem with splitting up within the EU. You still maintain EU status and in the case of Scotland, they're likely to be more keen on the EU than the rUK (is that the correct term now - fine if it is as it's easy to type). Belgium could conceivably split into two with both halves being keen EUers. Don't see the problem.

That said, I'm sure lawyers would bank a lot of billable hours...
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I think the issue would be whether a new state seceding from an existing member state, Scotland in this case, would be expected to meet the criteria all new member states are expected to meet - adopting the Euro and the Schengen agreement. Van Rompuy sad recently (when asked about Catalonia) that any seceding region would be treated as a new applicant. But like you say the Lawyers must be looking forward to this..
 
JTG said:
Extraordinary.
And this is going to help the No campaign how exactly?!
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Well for starters it's got Salmond talking up sterling. And sounding weak when he says 'it's as much ours as yours'. Well, um, if you vote to leave, it isn't. That's not a good argument at all, and more importantly, even if it carried moral weight (which I don't think it does), it carries no weight whatever in the world - nope, you're smaller and weaker than us, and that's just not true.
 
Belushi said:
I think the issue would be whether a new state seceding from an existing member state, Scotland in this case, would be expected to meet the criteria all new member states are expected to meet - adopting the Euro and the Schengen agreement. Van Rompuy sad recently (when asked about Catalonia) that any seceding region would be treated as a new applicant. But like you say the Lawyers must be looking forward to this..
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My guess is that they would bend the rules to allow it. Of course, pre-credit crunch, Salmond wanted the euro... Why not now?
 
Belushi said:
I think the issue would be whether a new state seceding from an existing member state, Scotland in this case, would be expected to meet the criteria all new member states are expected to meet - adopting the Euro and the Schengen agreement. Van Rompuy sad recently (when asked about Catalonia) that any seceding region would be treated as a new applicant. But like you say the Lawyers must be looking forward to this..
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Spain's already in the euro, so that bit's easier. But a lot of this is just talk until it happens, with a lot of bluster designed to keep states together.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Well for starters it's got Salmond talking up sterling. And sounding weak when he says 'it's as much ours as yours'. Well, um, if you vote to leave, it isn't. That's not a good argument at all, and more importantly, even if it carried moral weight (which I don't think it does), it carries no weight whatever in the world - nope, you're smaller and weaker than us, and that's just not true.
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I'm talking about the apparent intention to simply ignore the result of the vote
 
JTG said:
I'm talking about the apparent intention to simply ignore the result of the vote
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That's not what it is, though. It is just bluster as the currency would stay unified for a while whatever, but his basic point is right, which is why this is a good stick - it's not Scotland's decision whether or not to keep the pound, it's not up to them, or at least if they keep it against the rUK's wishes, they do so from a position of abject economic subjugation. Salmond had a far stronger case when he was still advocating joining the euro.

Both sides are being arrogant fucks in this matter.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
That's not what it is, though. It is just bluster as the currency would stay unified for a while whatever, but his basic point is right, which is why this is a good stick - it's not Scotland's decision whether or not to keep the pound, it's not up to them, or at least if they keep it against the rUK's wishes, they do so from a position of abject economic subjugation. Salmond had a far stronger case when he was still advocating joining the euro.

Both sides are being arrogant fucks in this matter.
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It's a rubbish stick because the way it is perceived is what is more important here and the perception is that Westminster has no intention of honouring the wishes of the Scottish people unless it is on Westminster's terms. Bad move imho
 
JTG said:
It's a rubbish stick because the way it is perceived is what is more important here and the perception is that Westminster has no intention of honouring the wishes of the Scottish people unless it is on Westminster's terms. Bad move imho
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He's threatening to take his game home with him so that nobody can play. And he's pointing out that it is his game to take away. On that second point, he is right.
 
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