While I'm not Scottish (or Welsh or Irish for that matter), I do think a complete seperation of any part of the UK would be a terrible thing. My complaint is that about all of the arguements I've heard about independance are economic, with some people saying how they're losing money, others saying their making a profit out of the UK. But they seem to ignore foreign issues. Yes, there are a fair number of Scottish army regiments (and RAF and naval bases, albeit without any Scottish ships or aircraft to put in them
), but it's military capability would be negiligable in the international arena, and the rest of the UK would suffer greatly.
The first result of this would be a much smaller ability to act independantly as with Sierra Leone, and more importanty, our political clout would be diminished. All the indications are that we, largely through Tony Blair, have been very important in restraining Bush and keeping him on side with the UN for a fair period of time. If we lose our strength, our ability to do that will be reduced, and in future he may not listen even to us. The same goes with other issues, such as the EU. Military strength may have little influence, but a split UK economy would seriously hamper our ability to limit Fanco-German dominance and influence. Every blip on our GDP makes us more able to push through the likes of CAP reform, more favourable trade solutions and so on.
Then there are domestic social issues, people here seem to be in agreement that a large factor in the current lack of repsect prevailent in youth culture is due to having little
to repsect. If parts of the UK start breaking away, being British will mean even less, with potential for even more degeneration. Or potentially more damaging, an even larger resurgence in English pride, alienating pretty much everyone else.
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