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@cozzzzzzzz
what has been required for the longest time (and what won't happen as long as there are conservative governments in WM) is significant, long-term rebalancing (and investment in) the entire country. the current state of affairs is a poor reflection on WM, not good. the UK is the most regionally imbalanced country in europe, with quality of living and life expectancy in its poorest regions significantly below the european average.
such rebalancing could take the form of e.g. allowing scotland to organise its infrastructure so that its connections with the whole of the rest of the planet do not all have to be funnelled through the bottleneck of london. over recent years, scotland's direct connections with the continent and with the US have if anything dwindled, as UK investment continues to be channelled to london infrastructure (e.g. a tenth of chunnel bailout, a tenth of the M26, the whole of the jubilee line, paid for heathrow extensions, 4bn for a train set that doesn't come within hundreds of miles of the country etc).
an independent scotland could spend that money on rebuilding its direct connections with the rest of the world. just look at a map - the air-miles (and sea miles) from places like rotterdam, bruges, frankfurt etc to scotland's main cities are not substantially farther (sometimes closer) than the distance to london.