Scottish Independence: what would it look like?

IMAGINE a marital divorce, but between two nations. The Union between Scotland and England is three centuries old and support for Scottish independence is still under 25 per cent in the opinion polls. But the Union is clearly changing and no-one is sure where it's heading.
 
Following devolution, the Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond now heads what he calls the 'Scottish government' in Edinburgh. And the SNP hopes to hold in due course a referendum in which Scottish voters will be asked to approve negotiations to end the Union.
 
But if that happens, it will only be the beginning of the story. As I witnessed when reporting Czechoslovakia's break-up in the 1990s, the dissolution of a common state, like a divorce, involves haggling over what was common property, as well as great personal drama. 
 
If it were to happen under the current Westminster government, there would be the irony that the negotiators sitting opposite Alex Salmond (left) on behalf of the rest of the UK would logically be the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Defence - all of whom are currently Scottish MPs.
 
And what would be on the agenda? As in a divorce, there would have to be an inventory and division of all the UK's assets, with Scotland allocated a share of eight or nine per cent in many cases, according to its proportion of the UK population. Scottish nationalists would expect to get up to 95 per cent of British North Sea oil reserves and much of the gas, which they see as powering post-independence prosperity. But there is much more than that.
 
The Czechs and Slovaks haggled over everything from aircraft in the state airline to the buildings and contents of every Czechoslovakian embassy abroad. (Gordon Brown may have inadvertently helped prepare the way here when, as Chancellor, he published a UK National Asset Register which lists tempting items such as over £3m worth of antiques, silver and rugs in the British embassy in Paris or bases in the Falklands valued at over £180m.)
 
Debts would have to be divided up as well as assets. Scotland would take a share of the UK National Debt including National Savings - which would need careful handling to avoid savers panicking. Liability for state pensions is also a sensitive area, especially for Scots who may have migrated south in search of work and wish to return to Scotland later.
 
In some areas the SNP has been stressing a more pragmatic line. It has decided not to have its own currency on independence, staying initially with Sterling, asserting its independence through fiscal policy instead.
 
The monarchy is another area in which the SNP has been trying to reassure cautious Scots. It now proposes that the Queen would be head of state of an independent Scotland but wearing a Scottish crown and linked in a monarchical union to what was the UK. There would need to be special arrangements for questions such as the royal succession.
 
Defence looks to be the most difficult area of all. The SNP plan a small-scale Scottish defence force, and Scots serving in the British army would have to decide whether to leave. The SNP is committed to removing the British nuclear deterrent, based near Glasgow at Faslane. However military chiefs in London are reluctant even to consider the possibility of having to find an English or Welsh home for the Trident missile-equipped submarines.
 
What will be crucial, if this divorce goes ahead, is the atmosphere in which negotiations take place, the personalities involved, and how public opinion changes as a divorce deal emerges - and people begin to realise what the end of the UK really means in practice. ·