Scotland Votes: What's at Stake for the UK?

Scotland is close to a momentous decision about its future.

The stakes could not be higher.

Our country. Our Scotland.

Our independence.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

It would break my heart to see our United Kingdom break apart.

Scotland will vote to stay or quit the United Kingdom

on September 18th.

The campaign north of the border has been raging for months.

What is plan B?

What was logical and desirable last year

isn't logical and desirable this year.

But in much of the rest of the UK the silence has been deafening.

If the Scots vote to quit the Union,

what would it mean for the 55 million plus in the rest of the UK?

Scottish independence could have far-reaching consequences

for Britain's nuclear deterrent, its armed forces and its economy.

It's a question of immense magnitude for the whole UK,

and its place in the world,

and the way it sees itself, the way it imagines itself.

It's a question the Westminster elite has tried not to confront.

The consequences are so huge it's very hard to get their minds

around how big an issue this will be,

and partly because they are terrified.

The 300-year union between Scotland and England

has always divided opinion.

For some, it's been this great act of statesmanship.

For other people, it's been

a sordid sell-out of a country's nation.

What would happen to Wales and Northern Ireland?

Would it change England, too?

One of the consequences of losing Scotland is England will become

a more interesting place.

Everybody agrees that independence has profound implications

for Scotland.

But it's a game-changer for the rest of the United Kingdom too.

Further right.

Out here.

Operation Joint Warrior -

one of the biggest military exercises in Europe involving

British forces from all three armed services and our NATO allies.

GUNFIRE

It's a massive 18-day operation

and the waters and wilds of Scotland...

Literally just beyond that building.

..are a perfect location for it.

GO!

The purpose is to measure our forces' ability to defend

the United Kingdom and take on our enemies.

Get on the ground!

It's testing the readiness

of the British Army's only very High Readiness force of over 2,000 troops.

We're testing, validating, the preparedness of that force.

Despite almost constant downsizing

since the end of the Second World War and the withdrawal from Empire,

Britain remains a significant military power,

with well-trained forces armed with sophisticated and deadly armaments.

Last known position of a D sub at 5-0-1,

63 nautical miles to the south.

If Scotland votes for independence, the Scottish Government would

insist on taking with it a chunk of Britain's military might.

For the UK's military establishment, this is not a happy prospect.

It is inevitable that there will be a diminution of that

defence capability given an independent Scotland.

That landmass is no longer an integral whole

of the mainland of Britain.

The defence facilities which currently are in Scotland

are, of course, on a union basis and are very important.

The Nationalists say that an independent Scotland would be

entitled to its fair share of Britain's military hardware.

The Scottish Government's White Paper lays claim to

12 RAF typhoon fighters, a helicopter squadron,

six Hercules air transporters, two Royal Navy frigates,

four mine hunters, various patrol boats

and three infantry units fully equipped with UK assets.

The SNP claim that will enable Scotland

to set up a credible Scottish fighting force.

GUNFIRE

Within ten years of sovereignty,

there will be 15,000 service personnel in Scotland.

That's 4,000 more than the UK currently has in Scotland

and, in equipment terms, we'll have a much broader range of capabilities

to be able to do the things that are required

of a northern European nation.

But where would that leave the military capabilities

of the rest of the United Kingdom?

I don't disguise the fact that having to divide our military assets

ceasing to have a whole of the United Kingdom approach to defence

would be damaging to the residual UK as well as to Scotland.

Do you think we could fill the gap left behind

by an independent Scotland?

The crucial thing to remember about the current defence of the UK

is that there is no separate Scottish bit

as the Nationalists sometimes try to suggest.

It is organised on a whole UK basis and if we stop doing that,

we would need a different mix of forces, a different construction,

and that would take some time to work through.

The Nationalists claim that, overall,

the defence of the WHOLE of these islands would be enhanced.

We live on the same island.

It's in all of our interests that we continue to work together,

operate together, train together, procure together.

All of these things are possible

and I'm confident will happen after a yes vote.

What is good for Scotland in this regard

in conventional, defence capability terms, is advantageous to...

not just to Scotland, but to the rest of the UK and to our allies.

Even so, for British defence planners it is a daunting prospect

to contemplate what would be, in effect, a further 10% cut

on top of the substantial cuts that have already been made.

And that would leave the British Government with a stark choice.

The rest of the UK would then have to decide if it was prepared

to spend the several billion of pounds needed to make up the

Scottish losses or accept a further reduction in British military

capabilities and the consequent loss of power and influence.

The bottom line is that what's left of the UK

would be less secure

than it is as part of the union?

Measured in terms of the military capability, which will rest

with a diminished United Kingdom, yes, it will be less.

If Scottish independence is a daunting prospect

for Britain's conventional armed forces,

it could be terminal for the UK's independent nuclear deterrent.

Faslane, 25 miles west of Glasgow,

nestling on the banks of a typical placid Scottish sea loch,

and home to the deadliest weapons system ever known to mankind -

the British nuclear deterrent.

This is where the four submarines at the heart of that deterrent come

for rest and repair.

Inside these hills on the other side of loch,

Coulport, where they store the long range Trident missiles

and their warheads of incredible destructive power.

The British nuclear deterrent

doesn't just give the country fearful weapons.

Successive British governments, on the right and the left,

have seen it as a major reason

why Britain still matters in the world...

..giving it power, status and influence.

That's not how the Scottish Government sees it.

It's long been a pillar of Scottish Nationalism

that an independent Scotland would be a nuclear-free.

So if Scotland votes yes in September, these submarines,

their warheads, and their missiles would have to go and pronto.

All of which presents London with perhaps its biggest

post-independence headache.

How to replicate Faslane and Coulport somewhere else in the UK

by the SNP's deadline of 2020.

Coulport and Faslane are not replicable

without the most enormous amount of public expense and enormous

quantity of time in the south, if indeed they're replicable at all.

It's down effectively to Falmouth and Milford Haven, but even they

won't work because just think of the planning permission for that narrow

estuary in Falmouth because Coulport is the most enormous installation.

There's enormous security around it -

keeping nuclear warheads safe and stored well

with all the top-of-the-range requirements you've got to have

for that enormous amount of real estate.

Milford Haven is now covered with oil and gas terminals -

not the ideal place.

For the life of me, it seems that to replicate those very high-tech

facilities elsewhere south of the border,

to do that in four years, seems to me virtually impossible.

It is the unique facilities which the warhead establishment

at Coulport gives, the storage and maintenance of the warheads,

without which there is no deterrent.

If the future of the UK's deterrent could be put in doubt

by Scottish independence,

you would expect Westminster to be thinking about alternatives.

You would be wrong.

Have you done any contingency planning for this?

We are not planning for the contingency of Scottish independence

because we think the likelihood of it occurring is low

and, even if there were a yes vote, there would clearly be a period of

what would be quite complex negotiations

before any independence took effect.

The future of Trident is the perhaps the single biggest issue

raised by the referendum for the rest of the UK.

But few in Westminster admit to doing any planning

for what should happen if Scotland votes yes.

I was amazed at this because we contingency plan for everything,

quite rightly, that's what part of the things the state is for.

They said, "Well, if we did start contingency planning,

"the fact that we were would leak and Alec Salmond would then say,

'Look, they are getting ready for it, it shows it's viable.'"

And this shook me rigid because you cannot allow one politician,

however gifted, however difficult to deal with,

to make your own psychological weather down here to the point where

you don't want to give him one glancing blow in a speech,

"Look, they're getting ready for it,

"therefore it's entirely practicable."

It still takes my breath away that the edict went out

there shall be no contingency planning.

Some believe the speedy removal of the deterrent from Faslane

could be its death knell.

Stuart Crawford is the former army officer

who wrote an influential paper

on an independent Scotland's likely defence strategy.

There is a very strong argument which suggest that

if an independent Scotland were to insist on the removal of Trident

from Scottish waters soon after independence,

then it is effectively demanding the unilateral disarmament

of the United Kingdom.

Now, that is something that I find attractive, being a unilateralist,

however, I don't think others would find it attractive.

Westminster will certainly not find it attractive and, of course,

the USA would find that very worrying indeed and would bring

immense pressure on the government of an independent Scotland,

through diplomacy and any other means they thought appropriate,

to prevent this happening.

But, for some, it can't come a moment too soon.

This tree here I planted in 1985

and, looking at the size of it, it makes me feel quite old.

Jane Tallent has been campaigning for the removal of Trident

from Scotland for 30 years.

Like many unilateralists, she hopes that a yes vote could

bring about the end, not just the removal, of the nuclear deterrent.

She doesn't just want it gone from Faslane.

Any part of England or Wales that's being asked to host it

is going to start thinking, "Well, wait a minute,

"the Scots don't want it, why on earth should we have it here?"

The vast majority of people I know that are anti-Trident in England

are just cheering us on.

They see it the same way as we do,

that it's a route to get rid of nuclear weapons.

We want a yes vote because of this reason.

The Scottish Nationalist position is unequivocal.

Let me give this cast iron guarantee.

A yes vote on September 18th

is a vote to remove these weapons of mass destruction from Scotland

once and for all.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Despite the Nationalists insisting that removing Trident

is non-negotiable, some in Westminster are adamant that

a yes vote would not lead to the loss of Britain's nuclear deterrent.

Would that lead to us abandoning our nuclear deterrent, as a result

of force majeure by Scotland?

No, of course it wouldn't. Not for a second.

I'm not going to speculate about how we'd be able to achieve that,

but I will just say without peradventure that, regardless

of decisions made in Scotland, the rest of the United Kingdom

would maintain its nuclear deterrent and its capability as long as

the Westminster parliament determined that.

So where would it be based then, the nuclear deterrent?

I'm not an expert on this. I'm not going to speculate about it.

Gus O'Donnell was once Britain's most senior civil servant.

He believes that, even if the deterrent was retained,

independence might mean it has to take another form.

There are different ways of having a nuclear deterrent.

You could go back to exploring those other options -

airborne cruise missiles, all sorts of other possibilities,

so, you know, you could be a nuclear power without necessarily

being one that's based around Trident.

So it could reopen the whole debate about Trident?

I think it might well reopen the debate about Trident, yes.

But finding an alternative to Trident would not be easy.

Scotland could be the trigger

for the unilateral nuclear disarmament of the United Kingdom.

The United States doesn't want this.

The United States is very, very keen for us to remain

a nuclear weapon state.

And the...

It wouldn't...

If you're going to cease to be a nuclear weapon state,

you need a very long debate and it needs to be UK-wide

and it needs to be thought through very, very carefully indeed.

With nowhere else to relocate the deterrent south of the border,

certainly not in the short term, if an independent Scotland stuck

to its guns, it could be the end of Britain as a nuclear power,

not because of a democratic decision taken by the rest of the UK,

but as a consequence of the Scots voting for independence.

In effect, an enforced unilateral nuclear disarmament.

The next big question is this.

If Scotland votes for independence,

where does that leave the rest of the UK in the eyes of the world?

Britain's place in the world

is clearly much reduced from the height of Empire,

when it was a global super power.

But even after years of post-Imperial decline,

it's still a country that matters on the world stage...

a nuclear-armed power with formidable conventional forces,

a permanent member of the UN Security Council,

the second most important member of NATO,

a key player in the European Union and the Commonwealth,

America's special friend.

The question is

how much of all that would survive if Scotland leaves?

Would the rest of the world not want to revaluate

the real global significance of what was left of the UK?

In June, the most powerful man in the world made what was taken to be

a pointed reference to his position on the independence debate.

We obviously have a deep interest in making sure that

one of the closest allies that we will ever have

remains a strong, robust, united and effective partner.

But, ultimately, these are the decisions that are to be made

by the folks there.

MUSIC: "Land Of Hope And Glory"

If Scotland votes for independence,

the UK will lose over five million people

and a third of its land mass.

Would England, Wales and Northern Ireland

carry less clout in the world, even with our closest allies?

The United Kingdom will be smaller.

It will have less voting power inside the European Union.

Should the United Kingdom be continuing as a permanent member

of the Security Council, will clearly gain new impetus

from those of the BRIC countries, the developing world,

those who would now regard themselves as the new kids on the block,

saying, "Hang on, why is this old, now even diminished power,

"still apparently having a crucial role?"

The emerging powers like India, Brazil and China

are already demanding a bigger say in global institutions,

such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank,

where, for historic reasons, the UK retains disproportionate power.

Scottish independence could be the trigger for the new giants

of the 21st century to up their demands that Britain give up

some of its power and prestige.

There are already pressures on all of the international architecture,

if you like, to reflect the changing economic weights of the world.

You know, China's rise, taking over the US as number one in due course,

but the UK, this will be, roughly, what,

an 8 to 10% fall in our standing in terms of GDP?

It would diminish our economic weight, most certainly.

Others see this as an opportunity rather than a threat -

independence might force a smaller United Kingdom

to face up to the reality of its diminished power.

I think the rest of the world doesn't give a damn.

I really don't think it's going to make that much difference.

I think we should use the opportunity of Scotland going

as a way of basically cutting more out of defence.

We're not defending Scotland,

we shouldn't need whatever ships we're using to do so.

We should retreat to fortress England and stop there.

Even those who would regret

the reduction of Britain's footprint on the global stage

acknowledge that Scottish independence would be a time for

the rest of the UK to do some soul-searching.

There are those who say we've spent a great deal of money and effort

and scientific resource on keeping up appearances in the world.

Isn't this the moment to scale down

and just become a modest little country,

tucked up within a big regional organisation called the EU?

It just adds to the Scottish question as a first-order question,

a question of immense magnitude for the whole UK

and its place in the world and the way it sees itself,

the way it imagines itself.

Power, influence, status on the global stage -

these are intangible things.

They probably matter more here in Westminster

than they do on Acacia Avenue.

But for a people used to belonging to a country that matters,

the prospect that without Scotland

the rest of the United Kingdom would not be as important,

could be relegated from the top tables of power and influence,

that could hurt.

If Scotland does vote to quit the UK,

that's not the end of the matter - in fact, it's just the start.

The ties that bind Scotland and England have weakened

since Edinburgh got its own parliament,

but they're still deep, complex, historic.

The folks here in Berwick upon Tweed know that better than most.

Berwick sits right on the border between Scotland and England.

Today, its residents are riding the bounds -

an ancient tradition marking the town's boundaries

and guarding against the marauding Scots.

Over the centuries, this town has been fought over

and passed back and forth between Scotland and England.

Today it's in England, but it feels like it could be in Scotland.

And even the football team, Berwick Rangers,

plays in the Scottish League.

Come here and you quickly realise how difficult,

how complicated, it will be to disentangle these two countries.

And that's likely to be a long and complex legal process.

What we have to understand here is a vote in a referendum

does not constitute independence.

You need legislation in all sorts of area.

So, there will need to be legislation passed by Parliament

to make a reality of that.

And this is the problem about people's reluctance to think about

the consequences of a yes for the rest of the UK.

We are, again, in unconstitutionally uncharted territory.

The Scottish Government wants a swift separation.

It says that if Scotland votes yes in September,

it should be possible to conclude the talks in time for an

independence day in March 2016.

But that's a tight timetable when you consider all the thorny issues -

the national debt, nuclear deterrent,

conventional military forces, monetary union -

that need to be resolved.

It's even tighter if the negotiations turn acrimonious.

Independence talks would dominate the governments of London

and Edinburgh for months, if not years.

The Scottish Government's negotiating position in

the event of a yes vote is already a matter of public record,

but there is no evidence the British government

has done any thinking on what its negotiating position would be.

If it has, it's not telling.

That could further complicate what could be

the trickiest set of negotiations

any Westminster government has ever had to deal with.

You divide up very big things, like the national debt,

but you get down to things like individual fighter aircraft

and even individual paintings,

in terms of cultural heritage of the paintings in

the National Gallery here in London,

how many arguably are Scotland's patrimony

and so should belong to an independent Scotland?

And vice versa for the paintings in Edinburgh?

The only recent example of two European nations going their own way

is the Velvet Divorce of Czechoslovakia into

the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the early 1990s.

It was small beer compared to what the UK might face, even so

disentangling the two nations required 31 separate treaties

and some 12,000 legal agreements.

Even in cases like the Velvet Divorce in Czechoslovakia,

years and years on they're still arguing about certain assets

as to who owns them.

So it could take a very long time.

That's not to say that you can't come to a point where you can reach

the end of a deal on independence,

but you'd still have lots and lots of issues unresolved at that point.

Of course, there might be powerful, practical reasons

to get a deal hammered out quickly.

It's in the interest of neither side to prolong the negotiations

because it will be very debilitating for citizens, for businesses,

for the economy and for our international partners

until we have certainty about the terms

on which Scotland becomes independent.

And the SNP is adamant that Westminster is overstating

the difficulty of reaching a settlement.

There is literally no other country in the world

which has as much experience

of transitioning parts of the world to sovereignty than the UK.

There is no centre of government which has more experience

in doing this than Whitehall.

Others fear the negotiations could become much more fraught -

divorces often are.

If it was bitter, full of animus,

full of mutual accusation of insincerity,

Scotland running against England and all the rest of it,

which is quite an ingrained habit in the Scottish politics,

I regret to say.

And the English being ever more resentful,

"Who are you? There's only five and a half million of you.

"You're screwing us up big time.

"You've done nothing but whinge for generations." You can hear it,

all we ever get is the drizzle of complaint.

A Scottish drizzle could lead to an English torrent of complaint

if independence provokes a rise of nationalism south of the border.

I want us to hold the United Kingdom together,

but I'm afraid that there is growing segment of English voters

who have gone way beyond that position, and they say,

"We see this man, Salmond, on the telly, we see his supporters,

"they're rude about us, they don't like us,

"they don't support our football team."

And if that turned into a ball of resentments,

of seething resentment and recriminations,

that could sour the relationship between the two sovereign countries

for a very long time indeed.

Scottish independence could have a profound impact on

the whole of the UK.

The past provides a guide to how the different nations might react.

England has always dominated these islands by virtue of its size,

population and wealth.

First it subjugated Wales, then turned Ireland into a colony.

It had similar plans for Scotland.

You've got to remember that England, Scotland, Wales

and Ireland were

the first British Empire,

but it was an English Empire.

It goes back to the Dark Ages,

but it was an empire

of the Anglo Saxons.

And the Anglo Saxons and the Normans conquered the half of the country

that remained Celtic when they arrived,

or when they began to take over.

And ever since they still treated those parts of the British Isles as,

in some sense, second class citizens.

Hold.

Hold.

Hold.

Hold!

William Wallace's late 13th century battle for Scottish independence

portrayed in the film Braveheart

is ingrained in Scottish consciousness.

Now!

Eventually Wallace ended up being hung, drawn and quartered.

This tower near Stirling commemorates him,

and his fighting spirit.

Despite centuries of English military expeditions north of the border,

England never succeeded in conquering the troublesome Scots for long.

The cult of William Wallace was precisely

the emphasis on Wallace's success in the medieval period

in preserving Scottish independence

that it enabled England and Scotland

to sit down at the negotiating

table in 1707 as equal partners.

When Scotland did unite with England, it was peaceful.

England's last great Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, died childless.

The next in line was James Stuart,

who was already James VI of Scotland.

He moved his court from Holyrood in Edinburgh to London

and, in 1603, became James I of the new United Kingdom

of Scotland, England and Wales.

James' reason to try and cement the Union are primarily dynastic -

he wants the Stuarts to be rulers of England and Scotland.

For him this has to be a new country of Great Britain, and his family,

the Stuarts, its leaders.

Just over a century after the Union of the Crowns came

the Union of the Parliaments.

The Act of Union in 1707

wouldn't meet today's standards of democratic decision-making.

# We're bought and sold for English gold

# Such a parcel of rogues in a nation. #

And a fair amount of bribery was involved to oil

the Scottish path to Union.

But it happened without armies or battles -

though not without controversy which survives to this day.

The Unions always cast quite a long shadow backwards and forwards,

I mean, it was bitterly divisive at the time.

And that's actually divided historians ever since.

For some people, it's been this great act of statesmanship,

for other people, it's been a sordid, sell out

of the country's nation.

The manner in which Scotland and England came together

was very different from how Wales was joined with England.

The Scots, in the end,

broadly united with England on their own terms, unlike the Welsh.

The Welsh model was very much one of incorporation, annexation,

joining England, extending England's models of governance,

to an outlying Celtic province,

fundamentally different in a Scottish context.

Scotland never lost what made it distinctive

even as it was absorbed into the Union -

its legal system, schools, universities

and Church all retained their distinct Scottish roots.

But Wales only started to rediscover its identity in the 19th century.

It still feels it's short-changed.

There's a deathless line in Andrew Rawnsley's book on New Labour

where he says, "That in Blair's Downing Street,

"Wales was seen as Scotland's smaller, uglier sister."

And you know,

it's a hard thing for a Welshmen to read, but I suspect it's true.

I mean, there's very, very little serious attention

to what's going on in Wales.

Ireland was the last part of the British Isles to join the Union.

It had been an English colony for centuries,

but it wasn't until 1801

that it was absorbed into the rest of the British Isles to create

the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Ireland was also the first to leave the Union when, in 1921,

a Britain exhausted by war

could no longer resist Irish demands for independence.

This is the biggest constitutional change facing the United Kingdom

since the separation of Ireland,

what is now the Republic of Ireland, back in the 1920s.

That was the last occasion when the United Kingdom

lost a significant chunk of its existing territory.

But Northern Ireland stayed in the Union

and the reasons are significant for today's politics.

A majority were Scottish and Protestant in origin,

religion and even culture.

They saw themselves as British rather than Irish,

thanks to that Scottish connection.

There is a very close relationship between Northern Ireland

and particularly the west of Scotland,

and that's been there for centuries.

But it was really accentuated very much in

the 19th century when Glasgow and Belfast,

both major ship building,

grew closely together, a very, very close relationship.

But if Scotland went independent,

those historic and ethnic ties could be weakened.

They'd be to a country that was no longer part of the Union.

And that could give Irish nationalism renewed momentum.

If there was a yes vote in Scotland, then it would mean that an issue,

which in Northern Ireland is dormant -

the question of whether there should be a united Ireland -

would become a live issue

and it would have a huge impact on the politics of the situation.

Northern Ireland's not the only place it could have a huge impact.

If Scotland quits the Union,

it could reshape England's national identity too.

It doesn't get more English than Broadstairs in Kent.

They even dress up in Victorian costumes...

Oh-h!

..to celebrate the local connections of that very English author

Charles Dickens.

But there is a feeling here that Scotland is getting special treatment.

We are pampering to them.

And we should stop doing that because once you do that

you have to keep it up

and is not going to do them any good in the end.

If they are going to be independent, that's what it means - independent.

They are not the same as us anyway, so let them have their independence.

To me, it's United Kingdom and I wouldn't like it.

I hope they don't go.

The English flag is something, when I was a boy,

you literally never saw. You now drive down the country lanes of

East Sussex and a lot of houses fly the cross of St George,

so a sense of Englishness has grown.

I think devolution has, of course, encouraged that.

And there is a feeling,

quite a legitimate one, I think, well, it's all well and good,

isn't it, that Scottish nationalism and Irish nationalism

and Welsh nationalism are almost regarded by the metropolitan elite

and the media as being trendy, and really rather good,

but anybody that stands up and asserts Englishness,

Oh, dear, dear, dear, that's just awful.

It's only when they're empty that you do that.

An already growing sense of English identity could easily develop into

a more assertive English nationalism

if Scotland voted to leave the Union.

We are standing up for the English voice.

Now, that doesn't mean we're against the rest of the United Kingdom,

far from it, we've actually got elected representation

in all four corners of the United Kingdom,

but I think one of the reasons that we've been growing in size is,

we've recognised the perceived unfairness of the English position.

Has it crossed your mind that the Scottish question

could be as big a source of English votes for you as Europe is?

Yes. And I think quietly bubbling away it already has been.

This sense of unfairness is most acutely felt

when it comes to public spending.

Most folk south of the border think Scotland gets more public spending

than the rest of the UK.

They look north, they see free prescriptions,

free university places, free care for the elderly

and they wonder why are we subsiding

the Scots to get all this free stuff that we don't enjoy ourselves?

In so far as English people think about this subject at all,

which I think is minimal, they'll probably think

the Scots have been taking their money for decades,

they'll save them money.

They are fed up with this subject, they don't go to Scotland very much.

It's a sort of foreign country to them.

There's lots of evidence that the English public is resentful of

levels of public spending in Scotland.

The English perceive Scotland as getting a really good deal out of

the Union, and certainly in Wales there's a sense that

we are actually being unfairly treated here.

And it's true, public spending is higher in Scotland than

the average for the rest of the UK -

at least 10% higher per head of population.

So, wouldn't the rest of the UK be better off without Scotland -

wouldn't independence for Scotland mean a tartan dividend for

the rest of the country?

Well, probably not.

An independent Scotland would likely take most of

the revenues from North Sea oil with it.

The loss of that to the London Treasury could offset any gain

from no longer financing higher public spending north of the border.

There's not really a bonanza here for the rest of the UK,

it's important to be clear about two countervailing effects.

One is that, yes, spending in Scotland is higher than elsewhere

and taxes are about the same, so you'd expect that to mean that would

save the rest of us money, but oil revenues in Scotland,

at least over the last several years,

have more than made up for that.

Going forward and actually this year or last, that's not been quite true.

So going forward, they may make a marginally positive effect on

the finances on the rest of the UK, but only marginal.

So, the financial impact on the rest of the UK might be minimal,

but the impact on its cultural identity could be profound.

Some believe that even that most famous symbol of British nationhood

and national identity - the Union Flag - might have to go.

After all, it's a visual symbol of a Union of four nations

that would no longer exist.

It was meant to be royal blue...

The birth of the Union Flag was controversial.

There was a battle for dominance between

the Scottish blue of St Andrew and the red cross of St George.

St George won.

In 1603, James I of England

decided he wanted a flag to represent his ships.

So, he created the first Union Flag

which was a combination of the flag of St George for England

and St Andrew for Scotland.

And that was the beginning of our flag.

When Ireland joined the Union, the flag changed again.

In 1801, we had the Union with Ireland,

and in order to represent Ireland in the flag

the heralds had to come up with a symbol for Ireland,

and they chose the Fitzgerald's Cross which they called

St Patrick's Cross and incorporated it over the saltire of Scotland.

There was a time when the Union Flag flew over a quarter of the globe,

the Imperial symbol of an Empire on which the sun never set.

If Scotland voted for independence,

could it even remain as the national flag of the rest of the UK?

The Union Flag would be dead.

There's no way. St Patrick's gone, he's still there, miraculously.

But if you take St Andrew out of it as well, I mean, it's in tatters.

You've got this flag of St George,

but what you going do about the Welsh?

I mean, you know, stick a dragon in one of the corners?

Someone's got to redesign that flag, and urgently.

But it might not be that easy.

There's no obvious straightforward alternative.

We haven't even touched on multiculturalism,

we've just assumed that you're going to go for the Christian saints

and reorganise them, but if you're going to start talking about

changing the flag, then what about all the ethnic minorities?

Start from scratch and have a flag that represents what's left of

the UK in the 21st century.

Well, that's what South Africa did when they created their flag.

The modern flag of South Africa bears no resemblance to

the old flag of South Africa and they literally just started again.

Losing a national flag that became a global symbol for everything

British would be one thing,

but it wouldn't just be a country without a flag -

it could also be a country without a name.

What do we call the rest of the United Kingdom?

I think it should be called England.

Have you run this past the Welsh and the Northern Irish?

Well, you know, that's their decision.

I mean, it will be called the United Kingdom, I'm sure,

but you can't call it the United Kingdom of Britain

and Northern Ireland, you just can't.

I mean, Britain no longer exists.

Of course, from a Welsh perspective, we don't really feature in

the name or the flag of the current state.

I'm not sure we're very confident that we'd feature in

the name or the flag of any successor states.

David Melding, the Conservative politician in Wales, has suggested

"Little Britain" as the name for the remaining UK,

which I think is tongue-in-cheek, but it might be appropriate.

It's like that pop singer, the artist formerly know as Prince,

the kingdom formerly know as the United Kingdom.

I think the BBC should run a competition

for what we'd be called afterwards.

Unless and until Scotland votes for independence,

Westminster politicians won't even admit to thinking about such matters

much less talking about them. But there is one area,

very important to the folks over in that building,

that they are beginning to turn their minds to -

should Scotland vote yes -

the fall-out for how they do politics in Westminster.

There are twice as many pandas in Edinburgh zoo, two,

than Scottish Tory MPs in Westminster, one, so goes the joke.

But David Cameron, who is proud of his Scottish ancestry,

has made it clear this fight to save the Union is personal.

It is an issue of the heart,

and it would break my heart to see our United Kingdom break apart.

So, yes, let's go through the arguments,

the pounds, shillings and pence, but let's also remember

what lies in here, about what we have done together.

But having staked so much on keeping Scotland in the Union,

could independence break not just his heart, but his premiership?

On the day after, the votes come in

and we discover that Scotland has voted for independence,

does the Prime Minister have to resign?

Gosh, that's his call, really.

It will be a pretty humiliating point, let's put it that way.

I mean, I don't want to make a call on what he's going to do,

but it'll be a pretty humiliating point for any British Prime Minister

to have lost a part of the Union. No doubt about that.

A yes vote in Scotland would, as it were,

destroy Cameron's place in the history books.

He will become known as the Prime Minister

who gambled on keeping Scotland in the Union and lost his gamble.

Very, very difficult in those circumstances to...

probably therefore to see how he could continue

for any very great length of time.

David Cameron has insisted he will not resign in

the event of a yes vote in September.

And the smart money in Westminster believes him.

But having fought to save the Union and lost

would leave a dark cloud hanging over him.

But independence for Scotland wouldn't just leave

David Cameron looking like the walking wounded,

it could change the course of the 2015 General Election.

That election would take place just as independence negotiations were gathering steam.

By then, the rest of the UK would be thinking hard about

its bargaining position with Edinburgh.

The Scottish question will be a very big part in that

general election following a yes vote.

There'll be a bidding war, I think, amongst certainly

the Conservative party and I suspect my own party too.

I mean, we want to have a Union, but if they've said goodbye to us,

I suspect that we will also be calling for

quite tough separation terms.

But much more than that,

independence for Scotland could be a ticking time bomb

under a Westminster parliament elected in 2015.

Even if Scotland votes for independence in September,

it won't have left the Union by the time of

the general election next May.

So, and here's a thing that will surprise many south of the border,

Scotland would still send 59 MPs to the House of Commons in

the 2015 General Election.

But here's the thing, most of them are likely to be Labour -

they could be the difference that puts Ed Miliband into Downing Street.

But Scotland would be in the process of departing the UK,

which means all Scottish MPs would exit Westminster

sometime around the middle of the next Parliament.

Prime Minister Miliband would be living on borrowed time.

That must be a nightmare scenario for Ed Miliband

and the Labour Shadow Cabinet.

And if it's known that partway through the Parliament

those Scottish MPs are bound to depart

then that government will be seen as a transitional government,

a lame-duck government right from the start.

And people will know on independence day that it will lose its majority.

And that will be a really, really difficult political position,

I think, for that government to be in.

To make it even more bizarre, that Labour government will then

negotiate independence for Scotland and once those negotiations finish,

they will almost be signing their death warrant.

So, when you think about it,

you begin to see what a big impact independence for Scotland would have

on the rest of the UK's politics.

It's huge. It's absolutely huge. And you're absolutely right,

I don't think people have thought enough about this.

Losing his majority midterm would be a real threat to any Miliband government.

There would be demands for fresh elections,

for a new country without Scotland, for the rest of the UK only.

A whole new political landscape, less friendly to Labour -

voting would be more dominated than ever by England -

the Tory heartland.

You would almost be able to hear the sound of the Tories

licking their lips at the prospect of power again,

perhaps after a few boundary changes for a generation.

An independent Scotland would have changed the election result in 2010.

There would have been no rose garden love-in, no coalition,

instead a small overall Tory majority.

So, are the Conservative likely to dominate what would be left of

the UK post Scottish independence?

It's often argued that indeed, if Scotland were to leave

the United Kingdom that as a result, the rest of the United Kingdom

would end up being as it were, a one party Conservative state.

This is, I think, in truth, seriously exaggerated.

Basically the Labour Party would need something like a 1%

bigger swing to it, if it doesn't have Scottish MP's than if it did.

So, Labour would run the risk of being in power less often,

but they certainly wouldn't be locked out of Downing Street.

In fact, under Tony Blair, even without Scotland,

Labour would still have won in 1997,

in 2001 and in 2005, albeit with reduced majorities.

Independence for Scotland wouldn't change

the result of every general election,

but many believe it would shift the centre of political gravity

in what remained of the United Kingdom.

In the short term, there'd be difficulties.

My own belief is that, however, what you'd see is a regrouping of

the centre left inside England and Wales and longer term that you'd

see Labour governments as often as you would have done within the UK.

You would have a big realignment of politics and all of the parties

would reassess their position where the centre of gravity, if you

like, was, where the centre actually was positioned in the rest of the

UK because it would have undoubtedly shifted somewhat to the right.

There are those who think politics in the rest of the UK

would be improved if Scotland went its own way...

..that there would be a renaissance in the regions

to challenge the dominance of London.

I think one of the consequences of losing Scotland

is England will become a more interesting place.

Regional politics would be energised.

You will have more of a sense of identity

coming out of the West Country, coming out of Cumbria,

coming out of the north-east, coming out of Yorkshire certainly.

I think these will become more interesting places curiously.

Because somehow or another just emotionally

they feel squeezed between London and Edinburgh.

For many on the left, like veteran radical songwriter Billy Bragg,

Scotland leaving could reinvigorate English democracy.

# Take down the Union Jack

# It clashes with the sunset

# And ask out Scottish neighbours if independence looks any good... #

Well, it's true the people of England

have not really looked closely at devolution,

but you know how it is

when your next-door neighbour gets a conservatory you look at it over

the fence and you think, "That's handy," you look at your house

and you think, "I wonder if we could have a conservatory."

In those terms, it's to be able to see the benefits of devolution,

independence, breaking away from the power of London.

# To be an Anglo hyphen Saxon England dot co dot UK. #

I think the arrogance of London will be questioned and challenged.

London's grab on public expenditure for transport and so on,

so it will be challenged.

One of the reasons why I'm rather almost looking forward to it is,

it'll make politics more interesting again.

We've looked at what it might mean for the rest of the UK

should Scotland vote for independence,

what it might mean for Britain's position in the world,

its militarily prowess, its diplomatic clout,

even the way it does politics in Westminster and beyond.

But if as the polls still suggest Scotland votes to stay in the Union,

it's all irrelevant, isn't it?

If Scotland votes no, it will be business as usual.

Well, not quite.

Vote no - that can mean further devolution,

more power to the Scottish people and their Parliament,

but with the crucial insurance policy that comes

with being part of our United Kingdom.

Tories, Labour and Lib Dems have all said that

if Scotland stays in the Union there will be a further dose of

devolution to the Scottish Parliament.

There's talk of major tax-raising powers

and even control of parts of the welfare state.

The stronger the Scottish Parliament

the more the English are likely to demand a reduction in

Scottish power at Westminster,

especially when it comes to English-only matters

like schools or health.

I've long taken the view that we need a slightly more federal answer,

if you like, to the United Kingdom.

There will be a strong call for the absolute minimum

English votes on English measures.

And it may well be stronger than that, it may well be going towards

what Lord Forsyth once talked about,

a two stage parliament that you sit for two days on UK matters

and three days on English,

or English and Welsh and Northern Irish matters.

The English want a fair deal, and we cannot go on with Scottish,

Welsh and Northern Irish MPs

voting on English education,

on fox hunting or anything else, a different deal is needed.

If we get that deal right, the United Kingdom can survive.

And if Edinburgh is to get more,

we can be pretty sure Cardiff will want in on the act too.

If there is a narrow no vote,

and if that then frightens the horses in Westminster sufficiently

to actually offer something much more generous to Scotland,

I think there would then be a sense in Wales of,

"Why are we being ignored in all of this?" And, interestingly, the

Welsh First Minister, Carwyn Jones, has been very persistent in arguing

there needs to be a constitutional convention for the whole of the UK.

Change is coming to the rest of the UK

however Scotland votes in September.

If it's for independence, the global position

and the domestic politics of what's left of the UK

will never be quite the same again, for good or ill.

You can see a long running quite serious constitutional

transformation taking place in the UK over the next decade or two.

Even if Scotland votes to stay in the Union,

further devolution of power to Edinburgh

will likely provoke a clamour for Wales, Northern Ireland

even England to have more control over their domestic affairs.

Why aren't all the benefits that devolution

can bring to the Scottish people,

why can't the English not benefit from those things as well?

The possibilities are immense - more powerful assemblies,

even parliaments, in Belfast and Cardiff,

only English MPs voting on purely English matters in Westminster,

rising demands from the great English cities of the Midlands

and the North that London gives up some of its power.

It would be a wake-up call for the Westminster establishment.

London politics and London editions of the national newspapers

have not given this Scottish question the attention it deserves.

It is a first order question - the configuration

and make-up of your own country is a first order question.

All that is a constitutional revolution in the making,

even if the Union survives on September 18th.