Not 5th any more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4056296/India-overta...
(yes the mail is unreliable but I thought I'd pick the most Brexity source)
UK GDP growth fits in at almost 2% which is where the USA sits at as well and typical of later-stage capitalist countries. EU darling and once economic powerhouse France is at .3%. Spain is only recently getting out of negative growth, for comparison.
I think you're dismissing how powerful inertia is in the financial sector and how the EU needs the UK and as such will work out agreements to keep things going. London wealth and banking is most likely very safe. Remember, London as the premier financial center of Europe predates the EU by a few hundred years. It is not an outgrowth of EU membership.
I think its going to kill a lot of people when they see 'Brexit horror' not materializing. The UK has a powerful economy (number 5 in the world) and as such can certainly work out beneficial trade deals alone. Its not a Greece-like mess that benefits from the Euro and the Euro's backers. Without the shared currency and having a land border with other EU nations, its questionable if the benefits are worth it. At least, they come with liabilities.
I certainly see the various pro EU political argument at work here and many have validity, but the economic one is fairly weak sauce. If anything, the UK has a stronger negotiation position as its own entity, assuming they play their cards right. If Scotland wants to go independent then fine, but using brexit as an excuse is very questionable.
>even soft Nationalists see the tactics of separatists.
I wonder how many separatists are being honeydicked by Russia. Russia has been funding separatists and far-right political parties in the West for its own gain for quite some time now. Perhaps people are starting to see through their ultra-tailored Facbook newsfeed, hysterical yellow journalism, legitimately fake news, and other biased media. I suspect the Trump win the US is showing people that yes, an electorate can go crazy with outsiders and extremist policies, but that doesn't mean that's actually good for the electorate.
Ignoring Spain's own separatist fears, the EU members probably are fairly wary of any separatist talk right now, especially after seeing what happened in Crimea, and don't want to encourage it and certainly don't want to signal that separatism is a quick way to EU membership. Not to mention NATO membership, are the Scots ready to invest 2% of their GDP into defense (nearby $4bn)? We've probably moved towards an anti-separatist attitude in the West for the foreseeable future due to recent events. According to the guardian, the yes/no spread is the same was it was in 2014, so the idea that Scotland has become more separatist is questionable:
Between August and December last year we polled over 3,000 Scottish adults and found yes to Scottish independence on 46% and no on 54% – just a fraction different from the result two years earlier.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/27/shift-...