08:02 – Next week’s vote on Scotland’s independence from the rest of the UK (rUK) has a lot of people running scared. There’s a great deal at stake, not least the stability of Europe as a whole. If Scots vote in favor of splitting from the UK, it may well be the first in a row of toppling dominoes. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard’s article is worth reading: Only Germany is holding together as separatists threaten to rip Europe apart
My guess is that Scots will vote to remain a part of the UK, but it’s likely to be close. Put simply, Scots would be crazy to vote for independence. Scotland is poor. The rUK subsidizes Scotland to the tune of several thousand pounds per year for every Scottish man, woman, and child. With independence, that subsidy disappears and the Scots’ standard of living immediately plummets. The only real asset Scotland has is the North Sea oil and gas fields, whose output peaked 15 years ago and is rapidly declining. It’s unlikely that the EU will accept Scotland as a member, nor will it be able to adopt the euro. All of the UK political parties have said that Scotland could not continue to use the UK pound, other than in the sense that Panama uses the US dollar. Scotland would end up alone and isolated, and the economic consequences would be disastrous. None of which guarantees that Scotland will not vote for independence.