Aid from the UK could fall by £1bn if Scotland becomes independent

[scooterscot]

Scotland has its own system already.

System Big Man.

[minestrone]

I do see a vast amount of spending on duplicating stuff and years of haggling over stuff like who owns the Police National Computer and the data therein.

Scotland has its own system already.

[scooterscot]

It looks like the poorer parts of Scotland want independence while the more wealthy parts want to stay part of the union (Scotsman article). Act of Union 1707 repeating itself with the poorer people getting screwed over by the wealthy who are happy to follow the London bribes?

It's true.

The region of Aberdeen has the least support for independence. It's also home to some of the wealthiest people in Scotland. None of them from Scotland mine you. Whereas in Glasgow support is strong.

Poorer people outnumber the wealthy however.

[craig1]

It looks like the poorer parts of Scotland want independence while the more wealthy parts want to stay part of the union (Scotsman article). Act of Union 1707 repeating itself with the poorer people getting screwed over by the wealthy who are happy to follow the London bribes?

[BrilloPad]

If we have to get rid of the nukes why not just drop them on Scotland?

I thought all our nukes were in Scotland? Or at least the subs?

If (when?) they declare war on us it will be fun.

[hyperD]

Nah! It's all about the diminishing oil reserves in the North Sea. Follow the oil [cash].

[stek]

It's England's Buckie....

[vetran]

Every time I return home, Edinburgh, I see change more clearly that when I lived there. It's a vibrant country, people are looking for change for greater opportunity. It's no longer satisfactory sucking off the London financial teat.

There its official the Scots get on our Norks

[expat]

I would just add one point to those who try to argue that Scotland should not vote for independence because some things would be different: that's the point.

[scooterscot]

Change

It's all about change. I know many people, on both sides of the campaign, would like to say nothing will change. However the truth is a lot will change. The referendum for me is just a step in that process.

Every time I return home, Edinburgh, I see change more clearly that when I lived there. It's a vibrant country, people are looking for change for greater opportunity. It's no longer satisfactory sucking off the London financial teat.

The state would change massively is Scotland goes independent. It's worth watching this clip from a Canadian MP Michael Ignatieff who are watching the progress very closely.

BBC News - Michael Ignatieff: Everyone is watching Scotland

[MyUserName]

If we have to get rid of the nukes why not just drop them on Scotland?

[Dominic Connor]

So it's like that is it. Given the growing poverty situation in Scotland, I bet many never knew they contributed so much.

BBC News - Scottish independence: UK aid could fall by £1bn, say MPs

The 1 gig drop does seem to assume that Scotland chose not to do any overseas aid which seems unlikely.

However the bit about 500+ jobs being lost has more legs.
The Nats have promised no compulsory redundancies as a result of independence which is pretty easy to do for functions that they will be taking over.
It gets very expensive (and slightly mad) when you look at activities like killing foreigners by the million (the UK's nukes) or helping them stay alive (DFID). The UK aims to give 0.7% of GDP, Scotland's GDP will be in the order of 1/10th that, so it makes little sense to have the same number of people administering it, though that doesn't mean it won't happen.

The nukes are even more entertaining, The Nats don't like them and want them gone which will be a pain for the UK since the facilities are mostly in Scotland, with a couple of thousand jobs derived from caring for them. Some of the highly specialised staff will be incentivised to go South, but the much larger mildly specialised people may be left behind and expecting their new nation to pay for them, as they promised.

A lot of this looks like an outsourcing contract gone very bad.

The various bits of the UK have outsourced things to each other, the DVLC in Wales is >20 times bigger than a state the size of Wales needs, in fighting units Scottish soldiers are rather more than the 1/10th you'd expect but the Navy it would want to protect its fish and oil is very much less Scottish.

Dull but important tulip like checking tap water is fit to drink, monitoring cattle for foot&mouth, predicting the weather and thousands of things that you only need one of per country have been plonked randomly across the UK, will Scotland build a new facility for testing the safety of left hand drive cars ?

Even now I suspect the finest minds in Scotland are trying to work out a name for their spies that doesn't sound like something the Nazis had.
The Scottish Secret Service isn't going to sound good and of course how will MI* et al cope now that a bunch of their staff are citizens of a foreign power ?

I can't think of one deal breaker where somehow Scotland will fall into the sea, I do see a vast amount of spending on duplicating stuff and years of haggling over stuff like who owns the Police National Computer and the data therein.

But the upside is that "transformational", I know this to be true since by law no Nat is allowed to talk for more than 47 seconds without using this word.

[scooterscot]

So it's like that is it. Given the growing poverty situation in Scotland, I bet many never knew they contributed so much.

BBC News - Scottish independence: UK aid could fall by £1bn, say MPs