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Presumably relations with England are going to fall under the remit of foreign policy, and the founding act of that foreign policy will be to tell England, Wales and Northern Ireland "fuck off, we're going to cosy up to our far northern neighbours instead." That's pretty parochial.
Your assumptions display your prejudice quite clearly.
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Your assumptions display your prejudice quite clearly.
Becoming a separate state from England is going to mean England is a foreign country, just as the Republic of Ireland is now. Therefore policies towards England will cease to be domestic and become foreign. That's not an assumption, it's an inevitable fact of international law.
Leaving the union is tantamount to telling the other members of it to fuck off. That's not an assumption, more a logical conclusion, and it would be parochial. Cosying up to Scandinavia is Ali's assumption, not mine.
Your assumption that I am a typical pro-union Englishman displays your prejudice though, and then some. I'd actually vote yes to independence if I was allowed a vote. Sadly my grandmother moved to England before I was born. Sorry about that accident of birth.
bq
I do not see why a) Scotland could not be internationalist now and develop links with Scandinavia regardless of the state of the union, and b) why Ali finds it 'risible' that an independent Scotland would be parochial. Presumably relations with England are going to fall under the remit of foreign policy, and the founding act of that foreign policy will be to tell England, Wales and Northern Ireland "fuck off, we're going to cosy up to our far northern neighbours instead." That's pretty parochial.
Also, while we are on the subject. Given that New Labour was architected by two Scots, so I'm not really sure how bringing up their foreign policy backs up the argument that independent Scottish foreign policy would be different. But whatever. Ali may be right; he's just bad at arguing.