The SNP Throw in the Towel.

Today the British Prime Minister David Cameron of the Conservative Party and the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) formally signed an agreement that will allow Scotland to hold a referendum on breaking away from Britain and becoming an independent nation in the autumn of 2014. News of this agreement was actually rushed out last Tuesday (9/10/12) to act as enquiry about Israel's upcoming snap election. Under pressure to announce the deal Salmond has clearly made a massive mistake. Although the referendum will lower the voting age from 18 to 16 it will be a simple yes or no vote meaning that if the yes vote wins Scotland would break off all ties with the UK with in a matter of months. The much more sensible option would have been to allow for a third, so called "Devolution Max" option that would have allowed Britain and Scotland to split slowly and gradually over a number of years through a series of treaties. Although less dramatic this is generally considered the better way of doing it because splitting up two nations that have been one for the best part of 300 years is really complicated. The people who achieved this most successfully in recent years where the Czechoslovakians who split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia over a period of two years and some 300 separate treaties.

So unless there's going to be a surprise write in option on the referendum what's going to happen is that the SNP will lose the vote some 70/30 and Scotland will remain part of Britain.

19:10 on 15/10/12.