Scottish Independence

Why not? She's quite happily being the Queen of Australia, despite that being politically independant.

At the moment, "United Kinddom" is used in a political and monarchial sense. If you disolve the political union, that doesn't automatically disolve the monarcial sense of the term. Unless Scotland becomes a republic, she will still be the Queen of Scotland, and therefore head of the United Kingdom consisting of England, Wales, Scotland & NI. All four countries royalty are still united.



Except Great Britain is the name of the largest island of the collection known as The British Isles. Unless the Scots intend to dig a moat, I don't think they can really force a rename of the land they live on. That's like the Norweigan's deciding they don't like being part of Skandinavia.

But presumably the Scots would object to the remenants of the UK referring to themselves as such, as it implies governance over the whole island of Great Britain.

If I'd gone to the trouble of declaring political independence, I'd ensure that any neighbouring country didn't use a name which contradicted that, regardless of whether they shared the same Head of State.

I think everyone is confusing the title given to the Head of State with what should correctly be the names of each country.

Surely it's no different to when Czechoslovakia seperated into two independent states. They became the Czech Republic & Slovakia. I appreciate that they didn't share a Head of State, but their names had to recognise the fact that they were two independent sovereign states.

Any name would have to reflect that the country consisted only of the Kingdom of England, Principality of Wales and Province of Northern Ireland. Neither 'United Kingdom' or 'Great Britain' accurately describe that country.

I don't think its safe to presume that at all.

The conversation has gone very off-topic, but Alex Salmond has said that Scotland will share a monarch and currency with England if Scotland becomes independent.

'United Kingdom' does not refer to the unity of England and Scotland. It originally referred to the unity of Great Britain and Ireland. Since 1922, 'United Kingdom' has referred to Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It does not mean United Kingdom of Great Britain plus Northern Ireland. The UK is Great Britain and N.I.

So no, on reflection it appears the UK would not cease to exist. England, Wales and Northern Ireland would continue to be a United Kingdom. If Northern Ireland became an independent country, then yes, the UK would cease to exist.

The fact remains that regally Scotland would still be part of Great Britain and by extension the UK. The Queen would still be Queen of the UK and therefore queen of Scotland but 'Queen of Scotland' would not be a separate title.

That's right, if it was, then the Queen would be Elizabeth I of Scotland - because England's Elizabeth I never ruled Scotland, it's the reason James I was called James VI in Scotland - I think they merged the two thrones about 100 years later, around the time Ireland joined the union.

The Union of the Crowns, when both countries were ruled by the same monarch, was in 1603 but the crowns only became one in 1707, when the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England became one "Kingdom of Great Britain".
In 1801, the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain unified, becoming the United Kingdom.

Therefore if Scotland became independent, Queen Elizabeth II would become Elizabeth I of Scotland and the Second of whatever the rest of the UK became known as.

What we can definitely say is that if independence does go ahead, it's going to be very messy, long winded and will probably change the face of the British Isles forever.

I find this topic interesting, but to come back to the broadcasting issue, if independence goes ahead, how is STV likely to change?

Though obviously independent from ITV Plc, STV is part of the ITV network - would the legalities be required to change, with STV becoming independent from the network?

Scheduling-wise, it would be feasable for them to continue with a somewhat common schedule to ITV1, by means of an affiliation and retaining the 'network feed', should they choose to do so - although their own news service may replace ITN News. They may choose to go completely their own way scheduling-wise - perhaps only taking flagship programmes like Coronation Street via a direct feed (which I believe is the case in the Irish Republic).

What would be the implications for 'Border Scotland' - would ITV Plc be forced to surrender this part of the franchise?

I think STV are trying to guess what's going to happen by what there doing right now. STV trying to get a few more homegrown shows on the STV, while still having a 90% of ITV, the shows are not working out as well as there should.

Are you Julian Simmons?

On Newsnight tonight Alex Salmond said there will be a licence fee to set up a Scottish broadcasting channel and purchase BBC programmes.

1996 called. They want Sky Scottish back.