Scotland will be unable to survive economically without England

Please see above. But in reply to the nationalist North Sea oil argument. Again info is taken from: http://calumjc.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/is-scotland-better-off-in-or-out-of-uk.html The first thing to understand is that Scotland’s oil-generated GDP does not necessarily stay in the country as income. A lot of it is in the form of profits of overseas oil firms. As a result, the statistics can be misleading. But there are a couple of additional points worth mentioning. I draw your attention back to the "Some Common Misconceptions" section, where I used the phrase "geographical share" of oil revenues. Exactly how North Sea oil is split up (if separation ever happened) would not be as simple as the SNP like to think. Salmond argues that under international law Scotland is entitled to at least 95% of the North Sea oil and gas revenues. But the SNP base their calculations on the total revenue from oil and gas, and do not account for the large number of gas fields in English waters. In a further twist, Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats, argues that up to half of North Sea oil revenues are infact in English waters: "So far Scotland and the Scottish National Party have had it all their own way claiming that North Sea oil is Scottish. As a lawyer I can tell Alex Salmond that the normal International Conventions for determining the National Territorial Boundaries of the coastal Seabeds between Nations would suggest that up to half of North Sea oil is within English territorial waters, if you apply the geological test, and a quarter if you apply the average of the national land boundary test."* And this article from the Financial Times argues: "The SNP likes to draw an east-west line through Berwick on Tweed, which puts about 90 per cent of the reserves in Scotland. However, the line of the existing boundary follows the Tweed in a north-easterly direction. Project it into the North Sea, and Scotland’s share drops below 60 per cent." At present the line of jurisdiction for civil jurisdiction purposes between Scotland and England around the North Sea are is latitude 55°50'N, under the Continental Shelf (Jurisdiction) Order 1968. However, the Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundaries Order 1999, which determines the Scottish-English border for fisheries purposes, defines the boundaries slightly differently. Dr Stephen Neff, from Edinburgh University's School of Law, says that if England insisted the boundary is set at 45° from the border, but Scotland did not agree, then the matter would go to an international court: "It would be very easy for the English to argue their case and then the matter would go to the World Court of Jurisdiction in The Hague." Finally, from: http://calumjc.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/independent-scotland-and-north-sea-oil.html However, I recently discovered a couple of articles from The Economist dating back to 1999 on this exact issue. Their arguments are still very relevant to today's debate. In the first article I draw your attention to the following: "Until now, the SNP calculations about oil revenue seemed reasonable. Since 1977, more than 90% of North Sea oil has flowed from wells off the Scottish coast. But a study commissioned by The Economist from Alex Kemp, professor of economics at Aberdeen University, shows a serious flaw in the SNP’s claim. Somewhat startlingly, the share of North Sea tax revenues to which Scotland could lay claim has fluctuated wildly, from as high as 98% in 1981 to as low as 66% in 1998. Moreover, it seems that the bonanza days are all in the past and that, in the near future, Scotland’s share could dip as low as 45% of a declining total. Third, and crucially, Mr Kemp says that the tax revenues from offshore oil and gas production vary sharply depending on the price of crude oil, and the investment the companies put into exploiting oilfields. Both factors affect the profits that companies make, and hence the corporation and petroleum revenue taxes that they pay.The reasons for this are complex. First, one has to draw a boundary in the sea between Scotland and England to decide who gets which oil and gas fields. This is likely to prove mighty difficult. Nevertheless, our study chose the most plausible line. Second, the tax revenues also come from gas fields and, on average, less than 40% of gas production is in Scottish waters." In the second article I draw your attention to the following: "Helen Pickering of Portsmouth University says that other boundary disputes have thrown up lots of reasons for deviating from an equidistant line. They include such things as claims of long usage, resource conservation, and economic and political factors. So, for example, an English government might argue that, since the resources of the whole of Britain were used to develop existing North Sea oilfields, the rest of Britain should continue to receive the lion’s share of the tax revenues from these fields; while the Scots might claim that they had been deprived of their rightful share of the revenues in the past. Even that might not be all that Scotland had to worry about. Norway and Denmark could try to renegotiate their dividing lines with Scotland. They might claim that existing lines were void because their agreement was with a country—the United Kingdom—that had ceased to exist. There are also movements within the Orkney and Shetland Islands, which have not always been part of Scotland, to declare independence and grab some oil themselves. Whatever disputes emerged, one thing is sure: it would be years before a decision was made. The International Court took four years to decide on a row over boundaries between the Danish, Dutch and German parts of the North Sea." Let's just be absolutely clear on one thing. If Scotland did separate from the UK, the division of North Sea oil revenues is in no way, shape or form, as easy as the nationalists would like to argue. The legal case would be one of a series of highly complicated and messy issues. The divorce of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1992 required 30 treaties and 12,000 legal agreements. I sincerely hope that the United Kingdom never has to go through such an experience.