If Scotland gets its Independence, then Edinburgh is a great candidate for a new London for the finance industry, as it's already got a decent finance presence.

Edinburgh is probably far too small and the centre is too protected (it's a World Heritage Site) for much development to happen here.

I'll admit to possibly being a bit of NIMBY in my comment as I live and work in central Edinburgh!

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/728

Edinburgh is a similar size to Zurich - a city regarded as one of the world's most important financial centres.

Depends on how you count. If you include everything that is within a reasonable train/bus commute of the city center then Zurich has at least double the "population" of Edinburgh.

What I meant is that I doubt Edinburgh could handle an influx of additional bankers on a large scale. I don't think there would be many places for them to go in the actual city itself.

Yeah, I'll accept that it could be difficult to add capacity in the center of the city.

Unless they can arrange and commit to a neat handoff where UK leaves the EU, Scotland becomes independent, and Scotland joins the EU at the same time, there's a period of time when Scotland is outside the EU, and too much uncertainty for that to be feasible.

"become independent and part of the EU" - an oxymoron, no?

No. Scotland would leave the UK and join the EU. Ireland did exactly that, getting inpendence from the UK in 1922, and joining EU in 1979 or so.

Scotland, and the Scottish Parliament, would be free to charge what taxes it wants, and have more power over where that would go.

Not really. The UK decided itself to leave the EU. The UK claims that Scotland doesn't have the legal standing to make that call itself. That's a fairly clear sign of loss of sovereignty.

No. Scotland had an independence referendum two years ago, and one of he factors in that vote was the prospect of Britain opting to leave the EU.

Scotland voted decisively to remain in the UK, and to go the way of the UK on EU membership.

This is notwithstanding the fact Scotland is financially dependent on the rest of the UK, and would not survive on its own, let alone meet the criteria for joining the EU on its own.

It's not true to claim that the EU referendum was a salient fact when Scotland voted No to independence. In fact the opposite is true, with people campaigning for Scotland to stay in the UK being very vocal about how Independence would lead to leaving the EU.

People have been trying to rewrite this bit of history, but even Cameron himself didn't expect to have to follow through on his EU referendum commitment, either losing the election totally or relying on the Lib-dems to veto it in coalition.

This however seems to be a non-sequitor, from the original point, about being a member of the EU being non- or less independent than being part of the UK. So not sure what your opening "No" refers to, or why you're re-capping your anti-independence talking points.

This happens a lot - Scotland gets painted as a financial ruin, too poor to join the EU. With oil prices low and a deficit it's not exactly Norway - but suggesting it's too poor to join the EU is farcical. I live in Czech Republic and it's a FAR worse off place than Scotland, yet it's one of the more prosperous of the newer EU countries. Comparing Scotland to Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Croatia (all beautiful places, no disrespect) the gap is even wider.

More likely is that Spain would make things difficult - but you didn't say this

gadders has a point. It'd be leaving one union to 'gain independence' only to join another, with a corresponding loss of sovereignty. Indeed the main reason (according to Lord Ashcroft's poll) people voted to leave the EU in the refendum was to regain sovereignty.

I covered this in the post you're replying to, but having to beg someone to let you leave vs. saying "we're leaving" shows a clear disparity in sovereignty. Most of the claims of loss of sovereignty to the EU were in fact nonsense.

This video by an expert in EU law covers it in detail:

https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2016/06/16/watch-dishonesty-ind...

> So let us start with a couple of myths. The first is the myth of sovereignty, there is no doubt whatsoever that the United Kingdom is a sovereign state under international law. There is no doubt whatsoever that the parliament in Westminster is the supreme law making authority in this country.

> Conversely there is no doubt whatsoever that the EU is not a sovereign entity, far from being a sovereign state, it is not even a sovereign entity, it has only those powers which has been given under the EU treaties. If the UK courts sometimes give priority to EU law in the event of a conflict with domestic law, it is purely because our parliament has expressly instructed them to do so in our own legislation.

> So is the UK a sovereign state? Yes.

> Is parliament our supreme legislative authority? Yes.

> So why do we keep hearing about sovereignty in this debate. The fact is that sovereignty is not really an issue in the debate, it is about power and influence and sovereignty is being used as a shorthand to talk about power and influence.

I read the transcript of that video. He seems to be making conclusions about the Review of the Balance of Competencies between the UK and the EU that 1: the report itself doesn't make, and 2: I find very easy to disagree with (after reading a sample of the report myself, which is extensive).

The depth of his analysis (which goes no further than the Working Time Directive!) is about consistent with most self-proclaimed experts on Law that have never practiced it themselves. The same goes for his impartiality.

For instance, his conclusion that the UK is sovereign because parliament ultimately decides what the UK courts do is nonsense: what do you think would happen if our courts started ignoring the rulings of the ECJ?

We don't have to wonder, we'll find out what happens in that case, because it seems likely we'll cancel the UK law that tells the UK courts to do that as part of the process of Brexit. Something we can do, because we have sovereignty.

Greenland left the EU, although Denmark stayed.

Perhaps England can leave the EU but other NI and Scotland stay?

Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, has been in Brussels discussing this. In summary, it's complicated.

Firstly, economically, the remainder of the UK is a far larger market for Scotland than the EU. This wouldn't be a big issue if the UK can negotiate very good access to the single market but that's highly questionable. It also is complicated by the second point.

Secondly, it is highly unlikely that Scotland would be able to (re)enter the EU without joining the Euro. There are other exemptions the UK has that Scotland won't get but this is the biggy. It was the SNP's original economic plan to join the Euro. However, when the Euro went politically toxic following the crash, this was dropped and pretty much killed SNP's economic argument in the independence referendum. It's still pretty toxic but is probably less so given that the EU referendum has hosed Sterling.

Thirdly, a big issue in the independence referendum that hasn't gone away is that an EU entry requires unanimity and Spain are dead against separatist movements because of the Basque situation. It's possible that they will have their arm twisted by the EU commission if it means another net contributor added to the Euro block but it's not clear cut.

Fourthly, legally, they don't get to choose. They can't officially negotiate with the EU as they aren't treaty partners. Only Westminster can legally grant separation. If Scotland had voted independence the first time then it would have been followed through without a doubt. It is entirely possible the UK parliament will refuse a second time because of the outcome the first.

As to NI, all of the above and then some. The whole of the Troubles was really about NI's status in the United Kingdom and giving that up is unlikely to be a quiet affair. Maybe it won't become violent but there's more history there than in Scotland.

In short, I wouldn't even begin to know how to call this.

> Secondly, it is highly unlikely that Scotland would be able to (re)enter the EU without joining the Euro.

Why? There are plenty of EU countries without the Euro..

Indeed but they either entered the EU before the Euro and negotiated an opt out or they're in the process of adopting the Euro (albeit reluctantly in some cases).

From the EU's perspective, in order for them to go against the anti-separatists such as Spain, they'd need to have a big carrot. My guess is that full EU i.e. Euro, no opt outs and no rebate would be sufficient as it's fully in keeping with the "ever closer union" agenda. I can't see anything less being sufficiently beneficial to the EU to make the necessary compromises worth it.

The UK and Denmark have a fairly unique opt-out from the Euro. Everyone else who has joined the EU in the reasonably recent-term have pledged to join at some point in the future. Sweden is supposed to join but for some reason has managed to avoid it

Yes. Though, Scotland would have plenty of reasons to plead for a unique treatment.

If Scotland was part of the EU, could it still have a separate Scotland-England-Wales trade-deal?

IE could it grow fat being the middle man between the Leavers and the EU?

Highly unlikely. The EU generally negotiates as a bloc. It is almost inconceivable that there won't be some sort of trade deal between the EU and the UK and all of the EU would be party to it.

It's probably worth pointing out also that, currently, the UK has a lot of wiggle room when it comes to its relationship with the EU just because of its size. It is very unlikely that Scotland will be given any of this both because it's relatively small, economically, and it won;t be in a good negotiating position.

(I'm just playing along as devils advocate, with no skin in this game.)

It could be said that Scotland wanting to stay would be politically super-popular with the EU, who strive to draw a sharp divide between the benefits of the EU and the costs of leaving. On the other hand, England could see the compromise where Scotland is its trade partner in Europe as a win-win too.

I can't think of any situation where Westminster will prefer for Scotland or NI to secede. You'd simply be weakening yourself politically and economically, throwing away tax revenue, and looking pretty incompetent (even more so than now).

From the EU perspective, my own view is that if Sturgeon can find a way to persuade Scotland to go the full EU i.e. Eurozone, no opt outs and no rebate then I can definitely see Juncker finding a way to accommodate by doing some sort of quid pro quo with Spain. Whether the Eurozone economy will recover sufficiently (and/or the UK economy will tank sufficiently) to make that politically viable is anyone's guess.

For NI, if it wasn't for the super strong unionist movement, I'd say that there was a lot to be said for them going full EU: they're small, relatively poor, bordering Eire. But that's a really, really big if, probably enough to kill any real chance of it occurring in the next 20 years.

It has been mooted. There's lots of UK tax havens that weren't part of the EU anyway. But not very likely.

Scotland won't be independent, because they would have to take the Euro.

They won't be allowed to use the Pound.

So, they will end up like Greece.

I really why people don't see this.

It's the BRITISH parliment in WESTMINISTER who will decide who uses the pound. NOT YOU, Mr/Mrs Commentator.

And they will decide to not allow scotland to use it.

Well, they could, theoretically, print their own pound(as they already do) and tie its value to that of GBP. Or maybe don't do that, and have it separate, like US and Canadian dollars. I know you are going to say that if they join EU they would have to take the eruo - but I don't see why it couldn't be negotiated away, there's plenty of countries which agreed to take the Euro(Poland for example) but after the 2008 crisis, suspended the adaption indefinitely.

Scottish banks do indeed print their own bank notes (as do some in NI)- but they are for the GDP.

Mind you, you used to get situations (a while back) where foreign exchange places in Europe would give you worse exchange rates for Scottish notes rather than English ones.

Foreign exchanges giving worse exchange rate is better than the situation I've had many times in england, were I was simply unable to pay with or exchange northern irish or scottish pounds.

Someone told me that, by law, they have to accept those notes, but I still have ~40 NI pounds that I took to london on a trip a couple of years ago and had to take back with me.

By law they have to do no such thing.

It's a a very tender point with people because people get weirdly patriotic regarding Scottish Pound Notes. But they are a sort of bizzare currency.

Scottish notes are a legal currency, but not a legal tender. In fact there is no such thing as legal tender in Scotland. Even BoE notes are not legal tender in Scotland.

Legal tender only means you can legally pay down debts by court order in the given currency. BoE notes fulfill this job, but only in England & Wales.

"Someone told me that, by law, they have to accept those notes"

No, they don't even have to by law accept BoE notes in England. Only for paying down debts by law is that true.

Any shop or whatever can refuse or accept anything you give them.

However, to add further confusion, every single pound of Scottish notes is backed up by BoE pound sterling.

In the banks that print Scottish notes (Clydedale, RBS, Bank of Scotland) they have to keep an equal ammount of BoE Sterling.

They even created special notes so they could hold the currency in their vaults in Banks.

You can get £1,000,000 and £100,000,000 notes called Giants and Titans, which back up the Scottish and NI pound notes.

What you are legally entitled to do however (I think?) is go into any branch of Bank you have a Scottish note of and request the equal in BoE note.

So if you have £20 RBS Scottish note, you can go in to an RBS branch legally and claim your BoE note with a nice picture of Adam Smith on it :)

I'm assuming you aren't Scottish (the reference to "they") but I've never worked out why people outside of Scotland get so worked up about the fate of a small and relatively obscure country.

It's a country that experienced a diaspora - a lot of us are loosely connected, hence the interest. (It's nonsensical to call something obscure and then wonder why so many people are talking about it...)

They don't need to take the Euro. They could create their own currency. Not all EU countries use Euro.

I don't see why will end up like Greece. Not all countries using the Euro end up like Greece.