Independence for Scotland - how would it work?

A Scottish divorce... who gets the kids?
6/12/07
BBC

It's the divorce settlement from hell. With no pre-nuptial agreement in place, exactly how would Scotland withdraw from the UK, asks Chris Bowlby.

With the Scottish National Party in power in the Edinburgh devolved parliament, talk of independence is back on the agenda. Some remain sceptical that Scottish voters would back such a plan, but the SNP believes it will happen within a decade. From carving up the family property to whose head appears on Scottish stamps, how might it work?


DIVIDING UP THE FAMILY PROPERTY
Oil matters hugely to Scottish nationalists, and most experts assume that, with the North Sea oil fields in Scottish waters, Scotland would get up to 95% of UK oil reserves, and nearer half of the gas. Natural resources would stay where they lie, but all other property is usually divided in these circumstances - as it was when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split in 1992 - according to population share.

That would mean Scotland laying claim to 8 or 9% of all the UK's assets, but valuable shared institutions - such as the security services - are physically sited almost exclusively in England. Most of the UK's wealth can't simply be carted off north of the border so a compensation deal would need to be thrashed out.

Moveable property would need allocating. The Czechs and Slovaks haggled over everything from state airline aircraft to works of art to the contents of every Czechoslovak embassy abroad. What would be Scotland's share of, say, the prestigious British embassy buildings and furnishings in Paris or Washington? And the BBC?

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