What do Alex Salmond and Nigel Farage have in common? Answer: they both believe that by walking away from a family of nations working together they become stronger and more independent. The attitudes and language of both men in this respect are remarkably similar. Yet the evidence that a country becomes more independent in the modern world when it breaks away from a group like the EU or UK is very slender. Norway and Switzerland are often, rightly, cited as examples of how dependent both countries are on a successful EU and how much they have to tailor their policies to fit in with, or follow their larger neighbour. True independence it is not.
For Scotland the same would be true. The policies of the rest of the UK would largely determine what Scotland could or could not do – whether they have to rely on the British pound and fiscal and monetary policies as decided in London, or whether they have to pay for the benefit of piggy-backing onto a range of UK services such as consular and diplomatic services overseas.
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