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Comment by manmal | Hacker News Reader

Would it not be appealing for the English financial sector to move to Scotland if it’s part of the EU?

Scotland likely won't be part of the EU on an exit from the UK. If a country wanted to move to the EU, why move to a country that's just undergone an economic shock, and with new political divisions forming as competing visions of the future and huge uncertainty, rather than move to Ireland which is relatively stable politically and also has English as the working language, and a much larger existing financial sector?

"Scotland won't be part of the EU"

Oh yes, and voting for Remain is the only way to stay in the EU.

I think that argument has long since sailed. The EU will undoubtedly fasttrack Scotland straight back into the EU and single market before independence arrives.

As a major English-speaking country in the EU, with ports at the periphery of Europe, strong exports, and a finance capital, Scotland will be in a great position. Brexit has given them a huge opportunity. They should capitalise on England's foolishness.

That's not what I said though, is it? Not much point attacking a straw man argument. If Scotland voted to leave the UK, it'd almost certainly need to go through the normal accession process. That's unlikely to happen until Scotland had formally left. Even if the EU agreed to start negotiating immediately after the vote, it's still questionable whether it'd be complete by the time that it left the UK.

I don't disagree that it has the things you've listed. The question is - why would a company choose Scotland over Ireland - or even any of the Nordics - when it'll be have political risk for years after independence. Pretty much the only thing unifying the SNP at the moment is independence - post-independence you'd likely see a split into multiple parties.

My point being, that scaremongering about Scotland not being fast tracked backed into the EU is very similar to the false arguments used at the referendum.

This is a country that has already been in the EU, was dragged out against its wishes, and now wants to rejoin. It will not be a normal accession process.

Ignoring that fact, the EU has a huge political incentive to ease Scotland’s re entry wrt the English situation.

Ironically, I expect it will be England that ensures the fast tracking by making it impractical for Scotland to retain the pound, forcing them to adopt the euro.

To join the Euro, Scotland would need to go through a process whereby it pinned it’s currency to the Euro and kept it stable for a period of time. To do that, it would need control of the currency and a central bank. That all takes time. The UK famously failed to keep the Pound in the ERM because of currency speculators, with much greater financial resources than a post-independence Scotland would have available.

I think you’re blindly applying standard process to an exceptional situation. In politics, anything is possible, it depends solely on the circumstances and incentives involved.

If England make it impractical for Scotland to adopt the pound, then the EU will welcome them with open arms into the euro. That’s just how the world works, states act in their own interests and rules bend as and when needed (as rules on euro membership have frequently been bent in the past).

> strong exports

Scotland's biggest trading partner (by far) is the UK. In 2017 Scotland was a net importer from the rest of the UK.

Imports from the UK would have to have an EU customs tariffs applied, and Scotland has almost no influence on what those would be.

True, but it would have the option of importing from the EU tariff free instead.

England would have no such option.

Spain might be an issue, and may veto their application to dissuade Catalonia from leaving.

Additionally, trade issues with likely open borders the rUK and EU would be significant and similar to the current NI problem

The Spanish threat was real last time. This situation is now completely different and would not set a precedent for Catalonia (unless Spain decides to leave the EU!!!)

Yes the border would be a real problem, in the long term mostly for England.

Haven't they already moved to Dublin?

No, not even remotely. London is second only to New York for finance.

So, why would they move to Scotland? If it becomes appealing for the financial sector to move to Scotland if they are inside the EU, then why not move now to Ireland which is already in the EU.

Any businesses that needed to move to the EU will have already done so.

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