[uncle_j]

> Scotland is hosting a climate summit, and chooses to market a climate achievement.

If it wasn't "in vogue" they the SNP wouldn't be doing it. As I previously said (which you have ignored) that the SNP were previously saying they could fund Scotland on Oil (it couldn't but that is another matter).

> Yet you think this is all about virtue signalling to Westminster.

Yes.

> Your comment says a lot more about how England still sees itself at the centre of the world than about the (very real) glass of Holyrood and the SNP.

That is quite presumptive, I have lived abroad for a number of years before returning to England. I understand the world is a large place. I speak to a lot of people I know that come from Scotland and quite a few that are English that have moved there recently, So I do actually speak to people there.

The SNP are generally awful e.g. just look at Ian Blackwood embarrassing himself in Westminster or on the BBC which he has plenty of time for but he can't be bothered to turn up to his own constituency hustings (You can find this easily on Youtube).

They constantly blame everything on Westminster (because it suits them to do so) and if the Wind blows the other way they will claim it is grounds for another Independence Referendum even though they agreed to it being a once in a lifetime vote back in 2014.

They also lie to their voters about rejoining the EU after we Leave if they go independent. Spain will veto any vote (because it will give legitimacy to the Catalan independence movement) and the EU only allows in countries with deficit of 2-3% (IIRC) and people estimate that the deficit for Scotland is between 7-10% (IIRC).

[arethuza]

A number of commentators have pointed out that the 7% deficit figure doesn't make an awful lot of sense as it ignores a lot of factors regarding the structure of the UK economy that wouldn't necessarily be in place for an independent Scotland - so comparing the GERS 7% figure with a 3% figure for an actual independent country in the EU isn't comparing like with like. Makes good headlines though.

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/08/21/the-gers-data...

Edit: Article from the same source about GERS:

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/08/21/whatever-gers...

[arethuza]

And another:

https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2019/08/04/what-the-gers-...

Edit: Funny how the "deficit" only appeared at the time independence was first discussed as a real possibility:

https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-inverse-miracle/

[woolly]

To your last point: have Spain changed their position since they said they would not veto a Scottish application to rejoin [1]? I haven’t seen anything to suggest they have.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/02/spain-drops...

[uncle_j]

The article is over 2 years old and Alfonso Dastis isn't the current foreign minister.

In any event Scottish Independence isn't going to happen anytime soon with Boris Johnson shutting down any possibility of an Indy Ref 2 last week.

[matthewmacleod]

I would stress that this is not really an appropriate venue for this sort of political argument – it's fine to talk about constitutional or political matters where the intersect with the story in question, but a shallow "lol those guys are so dumb" is probably not that much of a useful contribution at this point.