Should Scotland be an independent country?

I just read some of the Wee Blue Book. Oh dear.

Threats that Scotland will be ejected (even temporarily) from the EU are hollow, impossible to ever put into practice.
Page 3

This is explicitly refuted within the book itself

Anyone, on either side of the debate, claiming to know as a matter of certainty what would happen to an independent Scotland’s EU membership status is a liar
Page 48

If no-one knows what will happen, surely the possibility of Scotland failing to gain membership is not a hollow threat?

I salute the Wee Blue Book as an effective partisan argument pitched at a register that will be compelling to some. But to accept its assertions as facts would be extremely dangerous.

Oh dear indeed. The section you refer to in page 3 (a very brief 5 point summary of the case for independence)

People are sensible. At the moment, the No campaign
has a vested interest in making things sound like they’d
be as difficult as possible for an independent Scotland. But
the day after a Yes vote, the opposite instantly becomes
true - it’s then in everyone’s interest to sort everything out
as quickly and cleanly as possible.
If you accept that the EU would want Scotland as a member

• and it would - then nobody gains from making that
  process slow and complicated and awkward.
  If you accept that the rUK and an independent Scotland
  would still be major trading partners and allies - which
  they would - then nobody gains from a hostile, drawn-out
  negotiation process.
  

What you site, from page 48, is a preface to a fullsome, quite grounded discussion of why Scotland would be allowed in the EU, and why they make that assumption, despite, as they recognise and you so usefully highlight, that there is no absolute certainty. You seem to be cherry picking some parts to suit your claim that this is 'pitched at a register' when it goes out its way to be even and measured in its appraisal. They themselves do not ask you to accept their assertions as 'facts' but to weigh up the likelihood:

i) The EU

Anyone, on either side of the debate, claiming to know as a
matter of certainty what would happen to an independent
Scotland’s EU membership status is a liar. Nobody knows
for sure
whether an independent Scotland would be
admitted directly, because although the EU has offered to
answer that question, it will only do so if asked by the UK
government, and the UK government refuses to ask.
“The UK government has said it would not ask
the European Commission’s view on whether an
independent Scotland would remain a member of
the EU.
The statement follows confirmation from the
commission that it would offer its opinion if asked
to by a member state.”
[99
]
It’s very difficult to imagine why the UK government
would refuse to ask that question if it was confident that
its position (namely that Scotland’s membership would be
delayed for years) was correct.
What is certain is that no serious politician, commentator
or EU bureaucrat has ever suggested that the EU - an
expansionist organisation - wouldn’t want resource-rich
Scotland as a member state. So the only real debate is
on how Scotland would go from being part of a member
state to being a member state in its own right, and if you
accept the premise
that the EU wants Scotland in, then it’s
clearly in everyone’s interests to sort that out as quickly and
smoothly as possible.
For that reason, most impartial experts, and even honest
Unionists, expect
the process to be made very quick and
easy - not as a special favour to Scotland but because it’s
the common-sense plan, and also because the alternative
would be to cast the entire continent into unimaginable,
unprecedented and completely needless chaos from which
absolutely no-one would benefit.
Scotland is currently in the EU (as part of the UK), which
means that hundreds of thousands of Scots live abroad,
and hundreds of thousands of EU citizens live in Scotland.
Were Scotland to be ejected even temporarily, millions of
people - including Scots living in England and vice versa -
could lose their rights of residence overnight and have to
be thrown out of their respective countries.
No mechanism exists within the EU for ejecting existing
citizens against their will. The administrative mayhem
would last for decades, which is why the pro-Union MP Eric
Joyce
dismissed
the idea in February
this year as:
“Manifest nonsense. I want Scotland to remain
part of the UK, but not on the basis of an argument
deploying blatant threats and lies.”
[100
]
Graham Avery, the Honorary Director-General of the
European Commission and senior policy adviser at the
European Policy Centre in Brussels with four decades
of
experience in negotiating EU enlargement (including the
UK’s own entry), told the UK Parliament in 2012 that:
“From the political point of view, Scotland has been
in the EU for 40 years; and its people have acquired
rights as European citizens. If they wish to remain
in the EU, they could hardly be asked to leave and
then reapply for membership in the same way as the
people of a non-member country such as Turkey.
The point can be illustrated by considering another
example: if a break-up of Belgium were agreed
between Wallonia and Flanders, it is inconceivable
that other EU members would require 11 million
people to leave the EU and then reapply for
membership.”
[101
]
In 2014 he also told Holyrood’s European committee:
“A situation where Scotland was outside the
European Union and not applying European rules
would be a legal nightmare for the people in the rest
The Wee Blue Book
50
51

1. Europe and the world: (i) The EU
   of the United Kingdom and the British Government
   has to take account of that.
   I think it would be very, very unfortunate for the
   rest of the United Kingdom if Scotland was not a
   member from day one of independence.”
   [102
   ]
   In February 2013 Lord Mark Malloch-Brown,
   former Deputy
   Secretary-General of the UN and
   a Foreign Office minister
   in the last UK Labour government, told the BBC that:
   “Whatever the legal formalities, in terms of
   the political will if Scotland were to vote for
   independence, I think
   Europe would try to smooth
   its way into taking its place as a European
   member.”
   [103
   ]
   In July 2014, Sionaidh Douglas-Scott,
   professor of European
   law and human rights at Oxford University and author of a
   book on EU constitutional law, agreed:
   “Despite assertions to the contrary from UK
   lawyers, EU lawyers and EU officials, any future
   independent Scotland’s EU membership should be
   assured, and its transition from EU membership
   as a part of the UK to EU membership as an
   independent Scotland relatively smooth and
   straightforward.”
   [104
   ]
   And the same month, European Commission president
   Jean-Claude Juncker was reported as saying Scotland
   would be treated as a
   “
   special and separate case
   ”, rather
   than a new applicant
   [105
   ]
   .
   Scotland currently has no seat at the table in the European
   Union or the United Nations. Its interests are represented
   by the UK, and the UK’s duty is always to look after the
   greatest number of its own people.
   With just 8.4% of the UK population, any time that
   Scotland’s interests conflict with the rest of the UK’s, the UK
   government must always put Scotland’s interests second to
   those of the majority
   of the UK.
   “Secret papers, released today, have revealed how
   the Scottish fishing fleet was betrayed by the
   government 30 years ago to enable Britain to sign
   up to the controversial Common Fisheries Policy.
   Prime Minister Edward Heath’s officials estimated
   that up to half the fishermen in Scottish waters
   
2. then 4,000 men - could lose their jobs, but the
   decision was taken to go ahead with plans to sign
   up because it was believed that the benefits to
   English and Welsh fishermen would outweigh the
   disadvantages in Scotland.”
   [106
   ]
   The UK government continues to behave in the same way
   today. In November 2013 it decided, against the views of
   ALL parties in Holyrood, to distribute £182 million in extra
   EU funding to farmers across the whole UK, although it arose
   solely and specifically
   from the low level of Scottish subsidies
   and should have all gone to Scottish farmers.