Should I stay or should I go?

And so the day has come when Scotland gets to decide on whether to remain as part of the United Kingdom, a successful 300-year union and one of the greatest alliances in history, or become fully independent and leave.

For me to discover that Scotland was not already an independent country was a genuine surprise.  My only excuse, and a bad one at that, was that I grew up in the very south of England, as far as geographically possible from Scotland as you can get. Therefore, my knowledge of Scotland was limited to the usual stereotypes of bearded tartan-clad dancing men, bagpipes, whisky and a mythical creature in the deeper reaches of one of the country’s lochs. However, based on all that, it did seem as though the place had real potential.

Growing up, I had always imagined Scotland as a huge country with a population that was almost the same size as England. In fact, the population of the UK actually breaks down as follows: England 53.5 million, Scotland 5.2 million, Wales 3.1 million and Northern Ireland 1.8 million.   

What, only 5.2 million for Scotland? That makes London bigger than their entire population. The Scots now remind me of those angry little barking dogs that successfully use their aggression to get their own way.

Unfortunately, I believe that it is this very tenacity that will be the downfall for the Scots. In my opinion, they are absolutely crazy to give up what they already have for the dubious right to go it alone. Especially when one considers that they already have their own parliament and extremely favourable tax distribution rights.  

All bets are off in this referendum as it now seems as though opinions are split right down the middle. The only thing that can really be predicted is that whatever the outcome, Scotland will be the biggest loser. If the yes vote wins, the country will quickly find that it is not so nice to go it alone, unless of course it can somehow persuade its Nordic neighbours to allow it to become a member of their little club. 

However, if the vote swings the other way and Scotland decides to remain in the UK, one can only wonder how many Englishmen would really want to share a union with a country where almost half the population are hostile to the idea. Perhaps if this turns out to be the case, the only fair solution is to give the English their own referendum on whether they really want to have Scotland in their union anymore at all.