This was a very good decision.

I had previously kept silent on this issue. I didn't want to goad Scotland into making the wrong decision.

But alas separatism is usually a poor decision. While there can often be a case for it, in truth the idea of making redundant governments is wasteful. Too many have to do without the basics for us to spend precious energy building additional countries, where perfectly good countries already exist.

I was impressed by the SNP's promise of a social welfare state and the Yes campaign's lack of ethnic nationalism. Such a progressive vision and a separatist movement that rejects or ignores ethnic motives were truly commendable features.

"I had previously kept silent on this issue. I didn't want to goad Scotland into making the wrong decision."

I think someone has a vastly inflated view of how influential he is.

"But alas separatism is usually a poor decision. While there can often be a
case for it, in truth the idea of making redundant governments is wasteful. Too
many have to do without the basics for us to spend precious energy building
additional countries, where perfectly good countries already exist."

yeah, i mean look at all the colonies and how independance has gone for them, from Ireland to India; meanwhile Palestine is much better off ruled by Israel. /arguement ad adsurbum

@ Ora

Ireland is an interesting example. Ignoring her recent difficulties, her first few decades had a lot of grim moments. Ireland couldn't even achieve UN membership until the mid-fifties. If the Scots believed they would have a similar experience to Ireland after independence I doubt the Yes vote would have reached double figures.

Octavious: What does that have to do with anything? They joined the League in 1923. And the Scots were perfectly aware that they weren't going to have to fight a war of independence followed by the cession of the Borders and a Civil War.

@ JECE "What does that have to do with anything?"

Well, Ora mentioned it in the conversation and I responded. It's how conversations work, old chap. Ireland shares a number of simularities with Scotland in the sense that it has a small population and a number of countries that may make life difficult for it. Whilst Ireland had the Soviet Union blocking its UN membership, Scotland could have had a similar situation with the EU.

No one was talking about Civil Wars etc. Not sure how you came to that conclusion

Ireland is an interesting example; how and ever from ~1850-1960 ireland's population was in decline, unlike the majority of the rest of europe; independence did not change this decline and the economic disaster that both spurred the irish emmigration and resulted from mass emmigration.

If Scotland could expect independence to have so little impact on their economic trends then they would probably have voted yes.

The Soviet Union blocked Ireland's UN membership because Ireland refused to join the Allies in their fight against the Axis powers during WW2. How is there a similarity with Scotland's case for EU membership?

It is a useful reminder that other countries do not act in ways we consider rational or right. If nations have the power to stop something happening you cannot simply assume they will let it happen because it is convenient to do so.

That said, much was said in the media of late regarding how Scotland was (or at time appeared to be) gaining independence without violence and that Irelands violent history could have been largely avoided (which given the passing of the home rule act in 1914 may indeed have been the case) How and Ever, it looks to me like Scotland will not be able gain independence democratically because of the fear of the unknown; contrasted with that the island of Ireland went through 4-6 years of war and the unknowns of independence (or whatever the free state offered) were likely a vast improvement over the known evil of the indepence conflict.

That is how South Sudan came to be independent. That is how Russia forced the independence of South Ossetia, Abakazia and now Crimea...

I suspect this is a terrible thing for democracy in general, and probably for western europe in general.

Utter tosh. The word fear has been much over used in this debate. There wasn't any real fear. No one believed Scotland would become a basket case or would be doomed after independence, and no one suggested it would. The No campaign argued it would be worse off, and this was largely believed. But fear? No.

The No side won because they UK ain't half bad, and independence is a hell of a lot of fuss for the sake of moaning at people in Holyrood instead of Westminster

You still make no sense. The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed on 6 December 1921. The Irish Free State was fully established by 6 December 1922. The Irish Free State was admitted to the League on 10 September 1923 by the Fourth Assembly (which only met annually). Where is this international ostracism you speak of?

How I came to that conclusion:
"Ignoring her recent difficulties, her first few decades had a lot of grim moments."
The grim times were largely a result of the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War.

JECE, in all honesty I have no interest at all in spending any more time trying to explain my point to you. Lets skip a few steps and imagine I have done so, you have understood and disagreed at length, and we have concluded the discussion with exactly the same opinion as we both started with.

It will be easier on both of us and the poor buggers who read it.

Utter tosh? You don't think that this was an almost entirely emotion based decision for a huge percentage of the population?

I'm pretty sure the Scottish national pride and fear of the unknown were the two biggest emotions, with British national pride coming a close third.

The economic arguements, the political debates, the possible futures in the EU or currency; All simple rationalisations to justify a feeling for what was right - whichever side thry were on.

Back to ireland, the mid-50s isn't that hard considering the UN didn't exist until what, 1946. That has very little to do with independence, or the few years after it - during which apparently the free state joined the league of nations. Not really a valid arguement. The worst problems of irish independence were a result of the debts 'owed' by the free-state to the UK, and the resulting economic fallout and tarrif wars, which probably did a good job of stalling economic growth. Still i'm not sure how any of the damage done to this island is relevant to the peaceful democratic movement towards Scottish independence.

Uh...The USSR did not veto Ireland over its WWII stance. They vetoed any and all new countries until the West began admitting socialist countries.

Putin, now that you mention it, wasn't that about who sat in the Chinese seat on the security council; after the UN recognised Nationalist China and banned the People's Republic from joining... But then in the early 50s the Soviets boycotted the UN entirely and the 'west' made a 'police action' in Korea, which ended up splitting the country in two for the next 60+ years...

"They vetoed any and all new countries until the West began admitting socialist countries."

That isn't accurate either. In 1946 the USSR vetoed the appliations of Ireland and Transjordan, but did not veto the applications of Sweden, Iceland, Afghanistan or Siam.

The USSR also opposed Siam, so did France. Looking at the records, it appears that the USSR did bring initially up Ireland's wartime record, but also the fact that Ireland had no diplomatic relations with the USSR (this was also a problem with Ceylon, Transjordan, and Siam). In subsequent vetos, they raised the opposition of the US and its allies to Mongolia, Albania, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.