Quote Originally Posted by Gilrandir View Post
If Scotland hurries up to hold the referendum while the UK is still within the EU, it will stay within the EU.
Spain has already said it will Veto such a move - several other European countries have active independence movements they do not want to encourage by making it easy for secessionists to gain access to the EU and the Common Market. At the same time there's no real incentive to let Scotland in quickly, an Independent Scotland would be a small country with a number of quite poor regions requiring EU support, it would have a small economy, an at best average per-Capita GDP and the EU would be on the hook to support this new nation without the big cheque that used to come from the UK every month.

At the same time it would greatly antagonise whatever was left of the UK and might increase secessionist violence in Northern Ireland, for which the UK would blame the EU.

So I'd put that under "possible but not likely".

Or we may say that the UK behaves childishly trying to make the WHOLE family leave Granny's place because it found no candy in the jar. Just a different perspective.
We could - but the reality is the UK as a whole has decided to leave, and Scotland is part of the UK - it is not an independent country and the other EU nations have refused to negotiate with it as such.

Again a different perspective. Right now it also seems that the UK is dragging away the parts of it that voted against it.
Ah, you miss my point, which is this: Scotland is claiming it is being dragged out "against its will" which is a somewhat foolish claim to make if you plan to have an Independence Referendum of your own. It's unlikely every region of Scotland will vote to leave the UK - while most voted to stay in the last Referendum (except parts of Glasgow) there was a wide variation. A 10%, possibly even a 20% swing , would see regions of Scotland like the Borders and Isles vote to remain part of the UK:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotti...ferendum,_2014

Evidently, Scotland has a separate identity which allows it to take such steps being sure it will stay united. After all, it did stay united after the Scottish referendum, the loser side acquiescing to the result. Seeing the uproar caused by the Brexit referendum it may take precautions against any cessation attempts within Scotland.
The difference last time was that there was a 10-point margin in the vote and only a very small number of regions voted to beak away, so the yes side lost decisively. If the Yes side wins narrowly and a significant number of regions, like the Borders and the Isles, vote to stay, then Scotland cannot secede cleanly, they would either have to let those regions go or (more likely) hold further Referenda asking them if they want to stay part of Scotland or stay part of the UK.

Basically, if the second Scotland Referendum has a similar result to the EU Referendum then the Scottish government has the same problem with their regions as the UK Government has with Scotland right now.