Latest Polling on Scot Indy W/In Margin-For-Error

And the GERS stats do not show Scotland is a net contributor, it is a net recipient.
www.gov.scot/publications/government-expenditure-revenue-scotland-gers-2021-22/

Including north sea oil and gas, revenue = £73,776 million.
Expenditure = £97,502 million.

It's more complicated than this though.

A large part of Scotland's revenue comes through trading with the rest of the UK.

Breaking away would create a customs and excise border just north of Berwick upon Tweed.
It would require both sides to carry out customs checks.
Paperwork.
Duties.

Everything complicated about Brexit, but even more so.
It wouldn't automatically admit Scotland into the EU either so there'd be exactly the same with them, it's also not a major market for Scotland in the way that the rest of the UK is.

I really don't think this romantic notion of an "independent" Scotland will ever happen.

(..) How debt loading works

There is an expenditure line in GERS called Public Sector Debt Interest (PSDI). It’s the fifth-largest expenditure of the Scottish Government and a larger spend than Scotland’s allocated share of the UK Armed forces expenditure. Historical analysis of GERS reports demonstrates that every year since records began, Scotland has been paying interest on a population share of the UK’s debts. In 2019-20, PSDI added £4.5bn to the cost of running Scotland.366

That’s not paying back the capital on any debt, it’s just the interest on the UK’s debt. Scotland has recently been granted very limited borrowing powers, but while the UK’s debt was being built up Scotland had no borrowing powers. In fact, Scotland’s economy was either in surplus, or had a lower deficit than the UK, so Scotland did not contribute to the creation of the debt.

How does a nation without the ability to borrow end up paying billions of interest on debt every year? It does so because the allocation of the debt is not related to the UK region or nation which generated the debt, nor where the money was spent or the economic benefit felt. The UK’s debt is allocated to Scotland’s accounts on a population percentage basis, even though Scotland did not generate that debt.

Looking at Scotland’s GERS reports (and earlier historical data) that go back 40 years, Scotland’s share of UK debt interest amounted to a staggering £133.4bn.367 However, analysing those figures also demonstrates that, had Scotland been an independent country, its entire borrowing requirement over those 40 years would have been zero. Let me be clear: nothing, not one penny.

Scotland’s accounts have had £133bn (one-hundred and thirty-three thousand million pounds) of interest on debt removed from them, despite the fact that Scotland did not generate, nor benefit from this spending. This has happened simply because it is not an independent nation and had to chip in to service the rest of the UK’s rising debts. Without that £133bn cost, Scotland’s finances would be in surplus today.

If we look back as far as reliable historical figures for Scotland’s revenues and expenditure go, we can see that in 1980-81, before the UK debt started to spiral, Scotland was charged £3bn to service the UK debt. Despite that, it managed to record a surplus of more than £1bn.368 Indeed, using GERS, Scotland’s finances showed a surplus until 1990, when the cumulative surplus amounted to £38.8bn (£74bn surplus without debt loading).369

It is undeniable that in an independent Scotland those surpluses would either have been invested to grow Scotland’s economy or possibly put into a sovereign wealth fund, similar to Norway’s.

Let’s explore three alternative scenarios for how an independent Scotland could have managed its finances. (..)

(..) Scotland was part of the UK and so past Scottish surpluses went to the UK Treasury, meaning that Scotland was actually subsidising the UK. Over time, the burden of the UK debt payments on Scotland’s economy started to weigh it down. This meant that the surpluses falsely looked like they declined during the 1990s and the cumulative surpluses were eaten up by UK debt-related deficits. As a result, the GERS reports now show a cumulative, but phoney, deficit of £192.8bn.370

The UK debt is a mind-blowing £1,876.8bn, equivalent to 85.2% of GDP.371 Let’s be clear: UK debts have been growing steadily over those 40 years. Any budget allocated to Scotland’s accounts in that time that is of a higher value than Scotland’s revenues is not a subsidy, it is a loan that Scotland has to pay the interest on. A loan that Scotland only seemed to need because it was subsidising the rest of the UK and much of those loans was spent outside of Scotland and did not benefit Scotland.

It is a fact that as an independent nation Scotland would have possessed those cumulative surpluses of £74bn and could have chosen to re-invest in Scotland’s economy. This would have grown Scotland’s economy significantly quicker than what has happened under Westminster management. An independent Scotland would not have accrued the £133bn of debt interest charges as it wouldn’t have needed any debt of its own.

That is why you can’t use GERS as an argument against independence. Allocating interest charges on debt that Scotland did not generate allows GERS to show a deficit. GERS assumes that those surpluses disappeared into thin air, and that could not have happened. It is an undeniable fact that in an independent Scotland those surpluses would either have been invested to grow Scotland’s economy or possibly put into a sovereign wealth fund for the future benefit of our nation, as Norway has done. So, what could Scotland have done with those surpluses? (..)

The EU market is worth £16.1bn to Scotland, the UK market is worth £52.1bn to Scotland.
Leaving the UK market for the EU, isn't going to make up the difference, it will only exacerbate decline in Scotland.

Also, the Common Agricultural Policy, which is crap, would continue frittering away a large chunk of taxpayer's money on wealthy land owners who don't need the money.

Certain EU Member States have what are known as opt-outs, which are a means of ensuring that when a given Member State does not want to take part in a particular field of EU policy, it can opt out, thus avoiding an overall stalemate.

Opting out - EUR-Lex - European Union

Take a grouse shoot for example.
People pay £2,000-£3,000 for a day to go and shoot on a grouse moor.
I know this for a fact.

I shoot.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/28/grouse-shooting-estates-shored-up-by-millions-in-subsidies
The estates get millions in CAP subsidies.
They don't need the subsidies. The poorest do.

There is no economic case for Scotland to leave the UK Business for Scotland are lying btw.

True independence comes with responsibility of having your own currency, your own budget, your own army, your own borders, your own tariffs.
The SNP don't really want this.

What they want is rather odd.
That's the real reason they were defeated in 2014.