SPIT

It is a lot more complex than that.

SAMXXV

You are Sorry - no personal insults tolerated. Find another way to express yourself. (Mods)

Scotland gets given a budget.
They then choose how to spend it.
Because they have chosen to go for free university etc they have had to cut back in other areas.
It's very simple.

It is a very long time since I completed “Law of the Sea” courses.
If my memory serves me right then the international borders are projected at the angle from the coast they run at before reaching the coast. That means the English-Scots border would run SW to NE and the Scots-Shetland border NW to SE approximately. Add in Norway etc and it could leave Scotland with very little oil to the East if Shetland went its own way.
National economic zones run 200 nautical miles out from the coast, or can be claimed using continental shelf data. In the end it all requires international agreement or decision by the international courts.

Just think how many Jock C*cks that you know and that’s your new fighting force! :E

<Disclaimer - I am a Facist and I am half English half Jock>

God Forbid this madness!!!
　
　
So how will we British Citizens be effected? Yet more scrounging economic illegal immigrants from a third world country (Scotland) claiming political asylum! :ugh:


I am all for building a big wall with Sentry points (keep our Squaddies in work no more redundancies) the kind soldiers can feed the kids biscuits through the barbed wire (like in Sierra Leon) I predict civil unrest and sassinak murder you will all be needed to return to the duties you performed in the former Yugoslavia. :sad:
　
I too would like to know how Scotland is going to put stations and Garrisons back together? Suppose they could build it in lego and sell it off when it all goes wrong! (idea pinched from MQ’s) :eek:
　
So where is the money coming from? Scotland needs to sort out its infrastructure. The purse is empty. Any funds available need to go into the Road network ect. The A75 as an example is a TIR route and is terrible to drive so without good transport links in its own country how does it think it can possibly support industry or a Military:confused:
　
The Jockanese are never happy unless we have something to whinge about. Give the Buckie drinking Neds chewing the fat what they want! Lets all of us on this side of the boarder find a nice safe vantage point and watch the fall out. 　

My Solution - I am a Facist I am not committing myself in writing.

Just to add some clarity to the "whose oil" it really is debate

I've uploaded the oil dividing lines made up by the then DTI

oil dividing lines.pdf

also

How black gold was hijacked: North sea oil and the betrayal of Scotland - This Britain, UK - The Independent

This is from the UN, which I think can be judged as an authority on international boundrys:

http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLAT...8_Order892.pdf

God people spout some uneducated ****e on here.

BBC NEWS | The Reporters | Evan Davis

This is a quite reasoned look at the situation.

I am absolutely shocked at the drivel being spouted by contributors to this forum whom I had assumed to be intelligent: members of our armed forces.

Tourist mentioned earlier on that Scotland contributes 9.5% of the UK Government's total revenues, from 8.5% of the UK's total population, and receives back 9.0% of total UK Government spending (these figures are the UK Governmenr's own - NOT Alex Salmond's). Who's subsidising who folks?. Another contributor claimed Scotland to be one of the UK's poorest areas: wrong, Scotland is second only to the SE of England in GDP. What I'm trying to say here is that an independant Scotland would be well able to pay its way in the world and independant estimates are that it would be the world's sixth richest country per head of population.

Who's oil is it? Yes, the "border" in the North Sea was drawn up by agreement between the Westminster and Scottish Governments and does place some fields questionably in English jurisdiction. However, the majority of current production is in Scottish waters, as are almost all of the new fields being opened up, which are west of Shetland (Shell's £4.5 billion investment announced last week).

By all means let us debate the pros and cons of Scottish independence, but let's do it with facts, not cheap innuendo and gross misinformation. I know that if I could turn the clock back a few years I'd be signing up for the Royal Scottish Air Force.(Yes, "Royal" as Scotland would continue to be a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth with the Queen as Head of State)

So is mine: Nuke 'em 'til they glow.

Is the oil argument really a valid one? It seems to be the subject that upsets the Scots the most!

Scotlands oil is depleting it is an unsustainable. Economically it is not sound for XXX years so from a financial/economic point of view it is already a lost argument. There was a huge conference in 2005 about ‘Scotlands oil’ the upshot we’re running out. (do a net search if your really interested!)

Scotlands energy sources such as Hydro and Nuclear are much more valid arguments on how Scotland can actually sustain financial independence (selling to Englands national grid ect) but that along with Tourism, farming, forestry, fishing (traditional money spinners) are not going to keep a country from Economic Crisis. Even with industry that has settled in Scotland in the last 3 decades the money is not there! Scotland needs a much sounder infrastructure to become totally independent.

Great Britain can not afford to keep our forces with equipment/training. Does anyone believe Scotland can achieve this? Where are the expertise coming from? A younger fitter Army (have Scotland not got the largest obesity rate in the UK?) but where are they going to recruit the old and the bold from? What kind of incentive can be offered?

FANTOM :ok::ok::ok:

That's the Irish Sea sorted. What about the North Sea?

No-Ones Princess. Recently revised estimates are that there is a minimum of 40 year's reserves left. That however is likely to increase as rising oil prices allow the search to continue further into the Atlantic.

40 years of revenue accruing to the Scottish exchequer and wisely used should enable us to develop alternative energy sources, and revenue streams from industrial and commercial developments, to allow Scotland to continue to prosper.

Fat pongoes? Strange that when proportionately more of the UK's infantry soldiers are Scottish.

Still nobody has answered my question about what upsets the English so terribly about the thought of Scottish independence, I know why it upsets me personally as a Scot, but I don't understand why so many English people are that alarmed to the point of hurling xenophobic abuse about.

If the oil was all to go to England, then the reaction would be curiosity and dismay, but instead we've got dagger drawn arguments, suggesting that this may not be the case. The biggest problem for the English is not that the Scots get too much in the way of public spending, they don't, but that they spend the money far more wisely. In England you've got no end of wasted budgets and money down the drain. Partly the reason we're where we are now.:}

FB:)

Actually the Continental Shelf Act 1964 and the Continental Shelf (Jurisdiction) Order 1968 (which define Scottish waters in the North Sea as everything above the 55th parallel) are out of date. They do, however, represent the "traditional" boundary between England and Scotland.

What you need to look at is the Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundaries Order 1999. This defines the Anglo-Scotland boundary in the North Sea on the principle of equidistance. As a result the boundary runs North-East from the coast at 55° 48' 42"N 02° 01' 54"W to 56° 27' 10'N 00° 38' 41'W where the boundary heads East to 56° 36' 31'N 02° 36' 26'E.

Thankfully the Department of Energy and Climate Change have a handy wallchart that shows the boundary. It also shows all the offshore oil and gas infrastructure in British waters. It demonstrates that the SAWBO puts a relatively small part of the Central North Sea into English waters (compared to the old 55th parallel boundary). It does not however, affect the remaining Scottish parts of the Central North Sea, the Northern North Sea and West of Shetland where most of the oil lies.

There is absolutely no case for any line further north than the one defined in the SAWBO nor any line further south than the 55th parallel - all in accordance with UNCLOS.

http://i404.photobucket.com/albums/p...s/99112601.gif

This one, you mean?

Lets all play a game of "where are the oilfields?"

Tourist the article by the BBC reporter Evans is a little out of date and while alot of it is still valid this quote

shows how events can catch economies out.

Salmond "used" to talk that an Independent Scotland would be as successful as the tiger economies of Iceland and Eire. He doesn't anymore:E.

As an Englishman who is married to a Scot and had lived in Scotland I fear that a lot of wool is being pulled over the Scot's eyes. We have seen the SNP up in arms about the closure of bases in Scotland but when pressed they have no credible defence policy. I am sure that the small airforce that Salmond envisages (based on his enthusiasm for Iceland and Ireland and their small airforces) will be based on existing civil airfields such as Prestwick. So all their rhetoric supporting Lossie et al is false and is just to ensure that the locals here in the SNP strongholds vote as required. I predict that an independent Scotland will have no pure air force bases.

I admit that Salmond has been good to me personally - 2 kids through Uni for free, a freeze on Council tax and free prescriptions. However, I can't get an NHS dentist, the nearest motorway is 120mls away, the local major A road the A96 is a disgrace along with our single track railway. So personal bribes have been good but the area's infrastructure is badly underfunded. Even improvements are made on the cheap - the 2 local bypasses, on the A96, that have been built in the last 22yrs are single carriageways.

In the short term oil revenues may just keep the 25% of Scots employed in the public sector in work but it will run out. I have worked in the oil industry and seen how predictions of revenue can be erratic and how production can both be greater than envisaged as well as drop well below what was expected (Miller Platform).

I hope I and the rest of those living in Scotland make the right decision once Salmond reveals both the referendum question as well as the date of the poll.

HF

Tourist - sorry, forgot to include the link to the wallchart. Includes both the SAWBO boundaries and UK offshore infrastructure.

https://www.og.decc.gov.uk/informati...nfrast_Off.pdf

Thank god for crofting eh? Scotland's new "green" industry....

So let me get this straight, an independent Scotland would have WMDs and oil? Would I still get the Operational Allowance for working from home once we inevitably invade?

Funny how nationalism brings out the worst in people, or not :ugh: please think twice before replying (retaliating) to some of the bile coming out here. BTW, I've met plenty of great service bods from all over the UK.

Out of interest, would any vote be for those registered to vote in Scotland? i.e:Those who actually live there

Well, lets just redraw the border to where it should be - the Antonine Wall

You mean Jocks actually live there?, thought the Jockanese would do anything for Scotland EXCEPT live there.