Scottish Leader Nicola Sturgeon Presses For Independence Vote

[Denzil_DC]

40. There are lots of components an independent state needs that Scotland already has.

It has its own judicial system, its own police and fire service, its own National Health Service (which pre-dates that in the rest of the UK) and its own educational system. It'll have its own national investment bank next year, so a central bank isn't an outlandish prospect.

We were promised so many things in the run-up to the first independence referendum, including the chance to "lead" the UK, and few of them survived the vote and the Smith Commission that followed it, so we're unlikely to buy anything Johnson promises even if he's rash enough to try. Far from it, we're in danger of having powers stripped from our parliament. I don't think he'd be stupid enough to try to abolish the Scottish Parliament outright, and there's political capital in choking off funding then trying to blame the Scottish government for the consequences.

The irony is that the debate around Scottish independence was incredibly extensive, even grown-up, compared to that which took place around Brexit. A White Paper was published, which was inevitably picked apart by the No campaign, many public meetings were held around the country over two years or so where the issues were debated, etc.

The Yes campaign's leaders were expected to have answers to all sorts of questions that couldn't possibly be resolved until after the vote and subsequent negotiations. All this with media that were 99% hostile to independence.

With Brexit, even at this late stage, we still don't know what the hell it is!