Tired of hearing how poor Scotland is? Sick of lectures from online bores from English regions that are economic basket cases? Had enough of Britnat glee at our debt & deficit? Well remember that, even if you take GERS at face value, we have an independence windfall waiting.

In any separation of countries there is a division of assets and, despite the UK claim that we owe the debt but are due no assets! the opposite is true. Latest ONS numbers show the total net worth of the UK to be £10 trillion. There are different ways to allocate it but/

/whichever way you cut it, it's huge. Eg, if they say we're equal partners in union then we're due half. That's £5tr - so they won't! But a population share at 8.5% is 850000000000. I think. It's more likely many assets will simply be allocated geographically.

It'll be complex and acrimonious but our leverage is that legally we don't have to take any of the debt at all - it's all the UK's. So a healthy settlement is possible and could wipe out the claimed outstanding debt.

I think it's time to get this on the indy agenda again to remind Scots we're wealthy people with prospects and negotiating power. A good explainer is Craig Dalzell's Claiming Scotland's Assets at Common Weal. https://commonweal.scot/library/claiming-scotlands-assets-a-discussion-paper-on-the-division-of-assets-and-debts-to-an-independent-scotland/