Scotland has a lot of the oil. Because of this more than anything else Scotland leaving will be fought tooth and nail.
CC
isn’t most of the oil in the North Sea? Keep the North Sea, kick out Scotland ..
Oil and gas account for about 1.2% of the UK economy. Its bugger all in the grand scheme of things.
The Scotnats also erroneously assume that Scottish territorial waters would begin at a flat parralel East of Berwick rather than trend North and East in line with the English-Scottish border.
Oil and gas would account for a more significant share of Scotland’s economic output than that of the UK as a whole, but this is a weakness, not a strength. The volatility of oil would see Scotland’s economic fortunes crash with a decline in oil. Indyscotland would have been dramatically affected by the rapid decline in oil from about $110 a barrel at the time of the last referendum result in 2014 to about $55 a barrel today.
Scotland could ill afford a world of low oil prices, especially when the shipbuilding and defence industries would decamp to England and Wales to provide jobs and strategic, sovereign skillbases for citizens in the rUK.
The only real issue I could see for England is the fact that Trident would have to move out of Scotland, as Faslane is by far the most suitable location and there isn’t really anywhere in England that is sufficiently distant from a major population centre and has deepwater access to the Atlantic to slip in and out undetected by Russian subs.
Milford Haven in Wales is the only really viable location but that was rejected originally because it was too close to a gas terminal.