For Freedom!!

1. If the Scottish population wants it then definitely, yes.
2. Seems very unlikely at the moment - this sort of thing doesn't happen overnight. Who knows down the line though.
3. Great Britain would be known as "Average Britain".

1.Yes
2. No idea
3. No idea

As a quebecer, I hope it happens. It may influence us into moving forward (altho I doubt it will ever happen on our side)

Ah such a wonderful conspiracy! I mean it's not as if Scottish residents get more spent per head than the rest of the UK in the oppressive English forced union.

Don't all the realistic projections show that the rest of the UK would actually be slightly better off without Scotland? Whereas Scotland would be significantly worse off? But that's just Westminster bribery. Thank Christ I live in Yorkshire! Safe from Westminster bile.

Honestly i think it won't happen, or if it does happen, will do so in a way that was very gradual, like Canadian independence, rather than all bursting forth in a referendum. The key is that Scotland is making *bank* right now by virtue of the fact that Her Majesty's Government does not want them to leave, they're taking in more in government benefits than they're paying out in taxes, and who would want to dodge that?

Exactly this. The purpose of this forced referendum is to have more devolution. As they wanted there to be 3 options, independence, remaining part of the UK, and far greater powers as part of the UK. Even though this was holding a gun over the rest of the UK.

However, you have to remember, as far as the UK is concerned, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland, are the 2 financial institutions which caused our financial crisis.

Sigh! Well that went off the rails quickly.

My point was not that the big bad English are responsible for all Scotland's woes - that would be ridiculous.  What I was saying was that Scotland was sold out by Scots politicians interested in their own wealth more than the interests and desires of its people.

To answer your point - generally speaking you are correct. Scots do get more per head of population.  However Scotland (including North Sea gas and oil) puts more into the UK economy than it takes out.  This will obviously change once those natural resources are gone.

As for the long term economic argument it seems that the evidence has been so tainted by politicising by both sides that it's impossible to really discern the truth one way or another.

I can completely understand not wanting to be ruled by political forces you dont agree with.
I always side with liberty and freedom, plus they tax the shit out of everything there.
Free Scotland!

It is not a question about should but about what the population want, if they want then it must happen..

That can be said about most countries however in their histories. The leaders, be it monarch, dictator or whatever, have nearly always put their own interests ahead of the general population.

As for the natural resources, that might be the case, however the investment for them came from the UK as a whole, any investment in a business shares the returns and so in the event of becoming independent, Scotland could not expect to just take over the entire lot. The banking sector is another mess that again, although "Scottish" banks were the ones that went bust, the full UK is responsible for, and you could never expect Scotland to pick up the pieces of RBS or BoS. 

The main concern I would actually have is, a LOT of UK public sector jobs have been located in Scotland. Obviously, for the much larger "union" these jobs would then be brought back into England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Military too, Salmond plans a much reduced military. All this money that is currently being "contributed" by the Scottish tax/NI revenues etc, would naturally leave Scotland.

I'm not saying Scotland wouldn't be better off. But I struggle to see a scenario where it would be anything but a nightmare for Scotland going independent. The SNP plan for independence is that it would no longer have to put up with the cuts that the UK as a whole is currently suffering from, however most independent economic study suggests Scotland would need even bigger cuts to balance the books independently.

That said, there is so much agenda on both sides of the debate, that any true facts and likelihoods and real world implications are being completely mooted by both camps, and these are what the Scottish public really needs to know to make a more informed decision.

Now, if you changed it to, should the North of the UK separate from the South, suddenly you've got a much more practical solution.