That particular daft idea was killed pretty quickly (by the sounds of it came from some official at the MOD) because that kind of arrogance is exactly what motivates a lot of people in Scotland to look seriously at independence.
I am confused as to why that is arrogant. Should Scotland gain independence, the idea of Faslane becoming sovereign British territory seems plausible. There are plenty of examples of armed forces bases being located within foreign jurisdictions in accordance with similar arrangements.
As I understand it, relocating the infrastructure of the Naval base might well prove prohibitively expensive. Furthermore, its continued presence would provide a considerable boon to the local scottish community in terms of jobs and the presence of British armed forces personnel.
To be clear, I hold no strong opinion on the continuation of the Trident programme or Scotland's membership in the Union. The part of me that is proud to be British would be sad to see it break up I suppose. I do however support the requirement for a Binary referendum whole-heartedly... no more self-determination.
On the subject of RBS (not an organization that I have a very positive opinion of) - given that the corporation tax receipts from RBS in its boom years went to the UK government and it was the UK government that "regulated" the finance sector the most likely outcome would be that Scotland would take a pro rata portion of those liabilities.
That seems fair to me - especially as RBS has most of its UK operations in England, not in Scotland.
Trying to backdate things would rapidly get very silly indeed (e.g. Scotland asking for North Sea Oil tax revenue back?).
I have to be honest, whichever way you slice it it would be a nightmare to untangle the two countries on all sorts of levels. I even heard there was a concern as Scots are over-represented in the British Armed Forces.
