If Scotland just got up and declared independence, and the rest of the UK resented it, then no. It would be diplomatically costly for the US. Besides, crushing the Scots is easy.

If it were still in the EU what's the difference?

I think London's reaction would be decisive.

sumthing like that

@justinian,
you are forgetting one factor. Public opinion might or might not, turn in their favor.

@ Yell

the English never actually conquered Scotland. Scotland itself was always too big, too harsh & the Scots too fierce to actually conquer!

In 1707 the English bribed the Scottish parliament to unite the two countries, despite riots in the streets the Bill was passed & Scotland lost its freedom.

Im personally hoping for a Scottish break-away, with a bit of luck it will result in Wales getting its freedom.

Well its true that an English army never whupped all Scotland.  But its also true it never had to.  At Dunbar and Glencoe and Culloden English troops helped Scots beat each other.

good point belhaven, would they still be a NATO ally?

hmm i think every euopean would prefer going to scottland then to the rest of england:P
at least i would....
isn

Well for one thing, all the Scots in Wales could be deported to England, and ditto for all the Welsh in Scotland.

My father worked in scotland 10 years ago for 1 year and all the scots he socialised with weren't even thinking about independance.

> EmperorHez wrote:

> @ Yell

the English never actually conquered Scotland. Scotland itself was always too big, too harsh & the Scots too fierce to actually conquer!

In 1707 the English bribed the Scottish parliament to unite the two countries, despite riots in the streets the Bill was passed & Scotland lost its freedom.

Im personally hoping for a Scottish break-away, with a bit of luck it will result in Wales getting its freedom.
_____

Not strictly true, the money given to the Scottish parliament was to bail them out after their attempt to colonise "New Caledonia" failed miserably, so that six months later all that was left was about 10 people, most of whom died on the way home.
It made Scotland bankrupt, literally. If England had not "Bought" Scotland with all that money Soctland would have become part of England anyway as it's fall was inevitable at that point.

Edit: Oh, and the companies drilling for oil in the North Sea are England based, what would that mean for Scotland if it tried to become independant and claim sole ownership of the oil?

"well economically Scotland would be better off outside the UK(90% of UK oil is in Scottish waters)"

I have seen this said many times but why would independence mean that Scotland's economy would be boosted by this fact?

There are three ways oil money go round the economy. Firstly, wages are paid to oil workers, who then go and spend their money. Secondly, taxes are paid to the state on oil which is bought from their country. Thirdly, profits are paid to the shareholders of the oil companies.

What here would change given Scottish independence?

Wages would still be paid to oil workers, who would still go spend those wages on the same thing. No change.

Taxes would still be paid to the state, only it would be the Scottish state rather than the UK. There are conflicting claims wherever you look but a major thing about scottish independence is whether there is a net tax flow into or out of Scotland currently. If there is a net flow of tax money into Scotland from the UK, then the taxation issues from oil revenue are null and void because Scotland would still be worse off. If there is a net flow of tax out of Scotland into the rest of the UK then this is a fair point. Unfortunately however, I am more inclined to believe that there is a net flow of tax money into rather than out of Scotland.

And finally, oil profits being paid to shareholders would not be affected by scottish independence because the ownership of the oil fields would not change. And no, any foreign companies operating in Scottish waters would not be at the mercy of what Scotland decides to do. There is a very inconvenient concept in these issues called the law. The scottish government would not be able to just seize the oilfields because that would be illegal and there is no way that a law enabling that power would ever be passed. It is possible that a Scottish government would have the power to enforce a buy out, but would they be able to afford it? And would it be in the national interest? From my (admittedly limited) knowledge, North Sea oil and gas are seriously running out. The UK now buys gas from Russia, why would we do that if we had a massive North Sea supply left?

"right now the UK is dominated by England- so much so infact that most foreigners refer to Britain simply as England. in numerous countries the word British is identical to English"

As for this claim, the UK is not dominated by England. There is proportional representation (possibly inconvenient phrase) in the Westminster parliament and English MPs do not vote as a block in order to dominate it for the sake of England. However, scottish MPs may vote on issues in the Westminster parliament which do not even take effect in Scotland. A noteable example is the change to university funding and top up fees which came into effect into England and Wales but not Scotland. However, without the votes of Scottish MPs, the whole thing wouldn't have got through parliament.

Yes, some foreigners do often refer to England when they mean the UK, but that is just because there are so many different geographical terms for our nation that it is difficult. This is especially true when most of the time British people often don't even know the distinctions between Great Britain, The British Isles and the UK. A good example is that I am fairly sure there is a difference between "Holland" and "The Netherlands" but I have no idea what it is. But what real difference would it make if everybody in the world knew the whys and wherefores of British geographical nomenclature?