"RIP United Kingdom - how does this affect NATO and defense?" Topic

So the leadership of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland say they will vote to leave the UK, which would gut the polity known as Great Britain and the United Kingdom -- leaving just "England."

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1. NATO: "Great Britain" is a NATO signatory, the independent nations of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are not. So will any or all of these going to petition to join NATO? Does NATO just lose that whole defense sector?

2. British nuclear assets: Currently the British -- sorry, possibly soon to be "English" subs are based in Scotland. Is this acceptable to England to have a foreign power on charge of their top naval base? Does England have to re-port those ships and subs to other bases in England?

3. British readiness: It does a lot of training in Scotland and Wales -- would it still be able to do so? What about other British military bases in these areas?

4. US access: The use has ASW patrol squadrons based in Scotland and uses RN bases for logistics. What happens to that?

Not going to happen. Nice talking point but the three regions each receive a lot more from the UK than they give.

A bit like in the US when the red states say they want to separate from the Union, they overlook the financial realities that they take more than they give.

All the points you raise and others were argued when Scotland had the referendum to leave in 2014.
The vote was to stay.
No surprise that independence parties in Wales and NI are interested but polling in Wales has independence maybe at 33% which is a surprise as Scottish independence always talked about oil in the north sea. Can't see what the economic driver for Wales would be after independence.
Northern Ireland has a whole host of issues to overcome before that referendum would pass.

Not going to happen.

So then let's game out what if it does happen? What then for defense?

They are all acting the same way, so why divorce yourselves?

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If Piddington leaves the rest will follow.

So then let's game out what if it does happen? What then for defense?

As I stated above, all this was talked about in 2014 and Alex Salmond was told to go and pound sand. He was suggesting the RAF could still defend Scotland as it still does air defence for EIRE and was told not going to happen.
Essentially they wanted to call themselves independent but still dependent on England for a central bank (another issue) and defense.
The big driver could be EU membership post brexit. In 2014 Salmond again assumed Scotland would automatically have membership and the EU said not so fast kiddo.
Way more goes into the independence argument than people think.

Not going to happen, but the folks in London are going to look closely at the Spanish Civil War. They're going to rebase all the nuclear subs in the south immediately. I believe the arrangements between the separate "kingdoms" or whatever include giant payments if they secede. IE for years the taxpayers in England, where most of the money is, have paid taxes that built a lot of infrastructure (roads, tunnels, goodness knows what else) in the more remote parts of the country that could not afford to be connected on their own. Ditto schools and what not. All this has to be repaid if they separate. This was a big part of why Scottish voters voted to remain part of the UK. The split-off cost is immense. The money is all in London.

As for defense, I think Wales wouldn't have any. Scotland would have some infrastructure, but even if you get all the people out of the now-English military you'd have to build the institutions. There would be no meaningful defense for a decade.

A lot of these secession things all around the world are completely impractical, but the people driving the movement make a nice living whipping up people's emotions and calling for referendums and so on, so it will go on.

Scotland would have had to pay a portion of the national debt but I don't remember a discussion about repayment of money previously paid off.

The argument about the subs also neglects what happens to Coulport and the fact that the SNP are very much anti nuke so wouldn't allow it.

Plans for relocation were all reported on at the time, it's already been gamed out and the Scots said they didn't like the idea.

More details here.

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The UK breaking up would be a long-held wet dream for some Americans, I think. Don't bring reality into it, Kiltboy. You'll spoil their dream.