Scottish referendum 2018

[VectraMan]

I have no doubt that independence would work out fine for iScotland. But the short-term risks are significant. It wasn't all rosy after independence in Ireland, and they still needed UK support in the short-term.

They needed UK support a couple of years ago. Would Ireland have been better off being part of the union? Economically, probably yes.

[Old Greg]

There are risks with independence, however to suggest voting No is a risk free proposition is also delusional. The point is with independence we can manage those risks locally in the interests of Scoland

What are the risks of independence?

[Old Greg]

They needed UK support a couple of years ago. Would Ireland have been better off being part of the union? Economically, probably yes.

I disagree. The majority population of Ireland was oppressed for being Irish, and it is hard to see how the Catholic areas of Ireland could have industrialised at the rate they did under UK rule. Scotland suffers no such oppression, thankfully.

[Batcher]

Go to Dublin and ask the locals whether they'd like to rejoin the UK

Uncertain economics

Robert Peston, BBC Economic editor

Here is the bad news if you haven't made up your mind whether to vote for Scotland to become independent - economic analysis cannot give you the answer.

That is partly because this dismal science is not capable of giving wholly (and sometimes even partly) accurate forecasts about the future prosperity of nations.

Look at the case of a comparably sized small country, Ireland. A decade ago many economists (and others) saw it as a rip-roaring success, that had become considerably richer on a per-head basis than the UK.

Then three years ago it looked like a total basket case, as its property sector and banks imploded.

Today it can be seen as a model of how a determined small country can reconstruct its economy in adversity, in stark contrast to the inertia in a bigger country such as Italy.