Scottish Independence

As a member of Clan Forbes, it is my sacred duty to promote Scottish independence; as I don't live there, I won't be voting once things have progressed so far. I live in London; as a taxpayer outside of Scotland, it is my sacred duty to promote Scottish independence. Once Scotland is out, taxes in the rest of the United Kingdom can be lowered to bearable levels. Sorry to my Forbes cousins, you'll go broke.

Am I being sarcastic? I haven't even started yet. There are so many things wrong with the SNP that I will just stick to the most obvious fallacies and leave the details to others to fill in. Money is not the only thing, but it will always be present in every seemingly separate argument. Follow me into the abyss of Sottish fantasy.

Let's get the tax argument out of the way. The pertinent details can be retrieved from Full Fact. The horror of it, if you live in Scotland, is that a lot of expenses aren't yet included in that horrendous deficit currently piling up. Scotland will be bankrupt the moment it becomes independent. If you are a lender, I would consider that when handing out money. And the European Union has no interest to add another beggar to its ranks.

Costs coming Scotland's way are (just the ones I can currently think of): Interest payments on the loans Scotland has to take over in the divorce settlement; army, navy, air force running costs and buying of equipment; buying, equipping, and staffing about 200 embassies; membership fees for UN plus affiliate organizations, NATO; customs, border control and immigration officers, administration, border buildings; rebranding flags, car, ship, and airplane registrations; ministries, departments, agencies, secret service, loads of government employees. There is loads more. Some of these costs are fully or partly in the deficit, some are not. The deficit will go up rapidly.

The little things Scotland is going to lose (just the ones I can currently think of): As Scotland is not a successor country to a defunct one (the UK still exists), all international treaties dating from after the Act of Union of 1707 will stay with the United Kingdom, treaties made under the seal of the King of Scotland before that date will still be applicable; gone are trade agreements, security arrangements, mutual agreements with anyone for anything; food export, drink export, ship building, all gone; Scottish diplomas worthless and not accepted in any country. The Scottish NHS will be at the mercy of the pharmaceutical robber barons as there are no contracts for any medications in place.

Why does the SNP want independence then? It's not for the good of the people; for years, the country would lapse into some sort of barter economy as borders are more or less closed and Scottish money worthless. They want it for themselves, personally. The fish heads, Salmon and Sturgeon, are dreaming of becoming President in a republic. How exciting, to be president of a third world country. Security costs will rocket as these pseudo VIPs  think their importance is shown in the number of men in black dancing attendance on them. Germany has a president since after WWII; I remember Scheel and von Weizsaecker, the first as a genius of a diplomat in the cold war (not as president), the other as a philosopher. All other presidents were no-names, nobody knew them nobody cared, nobody remembers them. The security costs had to be spent anyhow. The argument of the 'elected head of state being better than a monarchy' has just been shown as a fantasy, too, thanks to Trump and his terrorists.

For the rest of the United Kingdom, only a few things change; import from and export to Scotland will cease for a time; tax spending will go down; the illusion of being a world power can finally be shelved, no more GX summits to host or to visit; troops can be recalled, army, navy, air force an be cut down to an appropriate size for a small country on some islands; ship building contracts can be cancelled; government employees can be cut by about 50%. Would one dare to think of a balanced budget?

There is a comment section where you can add all the million little things I forgot that will cost the Scottish taxpayer; roads, bridges, trains, or other services; Fishing rights; compensation payments to companies that lose money due to lacking international treaties. Please use it, it's fun to think things like this through and stop to take everything for granted. And let's not forget the fun Scotland will have while waiting to be accepted as an independent state; Kosovo is still waiting for that and North Macedonia took years.

Further reading
British Fishing and Brexit
Stirling Castle
Mystery in Scotland