On the 18th September 2014 Scotland will hold a referendum on the single question, “Should Scotland become an independent country?”. Campaign activity on both sides is underway, and the debate has begun. The end of the summer break and the publication in the autumn of the SNP Scottish government’s major policy statement on independence will see the pace of campaigning go up a gear. 

A vote for independence would raise major questions about Scotland’s future on a number of big issues: membership of the EU and its terms; Scotland’s currency; monetary and fiscal policy; border and immigration policy.

The answers to these questions are complex in part because Scotland leaving the UK would be a move with few or no precedents. As a result, many of the post-independence arrangements and mechanisms would have to be created from scratch and would be decided by the politics of the time. As a matter of tactics the UK government and the pro-union parties want to create as much uncertainty as possible about what would happen were Scotland to vote yes. As a result, a high degree of uncertainty surrounds what a post-independence landscape for Scotland and the rest of the UK would look like.