I think that Scotland probably voted to remain just to thwart the desires of most English people outside of the capital. The Scots hate the English but not so much the UK which they view as an equal partnership that they keep afloat with their enterprise and oil money.
To some extent this may be true, Scotland has always punched above its weight in relative terms within the UK. This has led to a rather schizophrenic relationship with London, partly a sort of symbiotic “you’re so lucky to have us along” and partly a desire for total independence.
It is really quite a similar thing to Quebec within Canada, and equally destined to remain divided down the middle.
I don’t think the English have anywhere near the same animosity towards the Scots, in general they are quite self-absorbed and hardly notice the fringe nationalities of their “kingdom” but if Scotland ever voted to leave it would be a minor sensation that would be brushed off as neither here nor there.
This outcome will no doubt fire up another round of campaigning for Scottish independence, maybe this time around nobody in London will be arsed to speak against the idea. Sometimes it’s just better to part ways. Then Scotland can rejoin the EU and help pay for Greek politicians to prove that Germany can’t do everything.
If you study the development of both England and Scotland since the Union I think an honest person would say it has benefitted both parties, despite our differences.
However, the compaigning for the most recent vote on Scottish independance was so bitter and aggressive that I think today most English would say to the Scots, “Go”.
(I personally know Unionists who have sold up and left their homeland to move to England as a result of intimidation.)
I'm English, and a union man through and through. I've talked to lots of Scottish Nationalists on line, especially at about the time of the independence referendum. Some are just old style Jacobites who were never reconciled to the union. More, (usually younger ones) are motivated by what amounts to an anti-English racism. They've drunk the kool aid, they think that thoroughly awful movie Braveheart is real history (how the hell did THAT abortion win best picture oscar?) and so they've got it into their heads they are fighting their own modern day independence war.
But the vast majority of Scots Nationalists, certainly in my experience, are not anti-English. They're not even particularly anti-Union. They're anti-City of London. THAT is what is really driving all the nationalist causes, even BREXIT to some extent. Scottish people are tired and resentful of taking orders and direction from a remote, powerful and very disdainful entity over which it seems they have no control or influence. This is not an untypical attitude. During the independence debate there was a joke letter going round saying "Dear Scotland, if you get independence, can we come with you? Signed the north of England"
The problem with Britain is that there is too much power concentrated in the Capital - political, economic, even cultural, and its becoming very damaging. To the extent that London is almost like a separate country. If you look at the latest referendum polls you can see just how much out of step with the rest of the country (or provinces, as Londoners disdainfully refer to us as) really is.
Now this is all very reminiscent of the EU. The EU is remote, isolated, unaccountable and exercises enormous and increasingly intrusive controls on British people's ordinary lives. It's bizarre to me that the Scottish Nationalists want to stop taking orders from London but are ok with taking them from Brussels. The lesson of all this is surely that over centralisation of power is a bad thing and needs to be broken up, and now we've dealt with Brussels London has to be next, or as people have intimated on these boards the UK will break up next.
I think any existing member of the EU can block the admission of a new member. If Scotland voted to separate from England, Spain would probably veto their admission to the EU...they oppose any separatism as setting a bad example for Catalonia.
Nope. Scotland gets a subsidy from EU because of their lower economic status compared to Germany, France & England. I remember $1000 per person subsidy.