Let’s put an end to this irrelevant nonsense from you. In the UK’s four last years as an EU member (2017–2020) it received roughly 26,500–35,700 main asylum applications per year (higher if counting dependants). Eurodac foreign hits (indicating a prior asylum application in another Dublin country) numbered roughly 7,000–13,000 a year in 2017–2019, and higher in 2020. So a substantial minority — commonly in the region of 25–40% of applications in those years — had a prior registered claim elsewhere. Of that big minority who had previously applied elsewhere the VAST majority were NOT returned under the Dublin rules. Actual transfers out of the UK were only a few hundred people per year on average (for example, around 200 in 2018). In several of the later years the UK was a NET IMPORTER under Dublin, receiving more transfers in than it sent out. In other words, though the system identified many of those people who had already claimed elsewhere, only a very small fraction of them were ever transferred back. Most of them either stayed in the UK for processing or simply remained without a successful transfer back. In other words, Dublin had almost zero impact on asylum seeking in the UK when we were in the EU. Now, please go away and don’t bother me again with irrelevant bollocks.

This is economic illiteracy of a high order. After separation Scotland would still use sterling. So it would have to borrow in £s to cover its massive budget deficit and promise lenders it would pay back in £s (or they won’t lend). But after an unspecified transition it would move to a Scottish currency. But all the borrowing done during the transition would have to be paid back in sterling. If the Scottish currency plummeted v sterling (likely given the size of the deficit, lack of credit track record etc) that could become an unmanageable burden given the likely poor exchange rate. Scotland would have to borrow billions in its own currency just to convert to sterling to pay back lenders. Devaluing the Scottish currency further. What a shambles that would be. He has no idea what he’s talking about.

There’s not much to be said for almost 30 years of devolution but it has allowed for a massive real-time experiment in school systems. Starting with Thatcher, continued by Major, Blair and Brown, given huge boost under Cameron-Gove-Gibb, English schools saw major reforms — academies, free schools etc. Scottish schools stayed totally comprehensive under the dead hand of socialism/nationalism. No variety in state system. But lots more money. Ditto Welsh schools. Results are in and they couldn’t be clearer — English state schools have powered ahead, Scottish and Welsh schools have fallen back into mediocrity or worse. Scottish/Welsh pols too blinkered to learn the lessons so more decline beckons. What is unforgivable is that the current Labour government under two appalling education secretaries — Lucy Powell and Bridget Phillipson — want to roll back all the progress that’s been made in England to appease the hard-left teaching unions and the left-wing Blob.