WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE A SENSIBLE ARGUMENT, USE A NONSENSICAL ONE

From YES SCOTLAND

Say goodbye to your pandas

As one Westminster official helpfully pointed out: “No one has fully understood the ramifications for the pandas of any bid for Scottish independence.”

Mobile phone bills will skyrocket

In June last year, the Westminster Government claimed that people in Scotland would be forced to pay mobile phone roaming charges when travelling south of the border – just days after the European Commission announced its intention to abolish the charges from next year.

Scotland would be vulnerable to attacks from space

In comments to the media, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond predicted that Scotland would be financially responsible not only for the decommissioning of Faslane, but also for the cost of establishing a new base in England or Wales, at a cost of ‘tens of billions’. Mind you, on his next visit he also warned that independence would make Scotland vulnerable to attacks from space.

The Trident nuclear base at Faslane would be annexed

Faslane has been a popular topic for the scaremongers. Last year ‘Government sources’ told The Guardian they were examining plans to designate the military base on Gareloch as sovereign UK territory in the event of a Yes vote. The following day Downing Street flatly denied the plan as neither credible nor sensible.

Visiting Auntie Betty in Grimsby? Best pack your passport

Home Secretary Theresa May told the Scottish Conservative Party conference that an independent Scotland would result in a “literal and figurative barrier” with “passport checks to visit friends and relatives”. Really? Even though no such border arrangement exists anywhere else in Europe, and a common travel area is already in operation between the UK and Ireland?

It will be the end of the world as we know it

Labour peer Lord Robertson declared that an independent Scotland would be “cataclysmic” for the West, threaten global stability and be welcomed by “the forces of darkness”. No risk of exaggeration there then…

You'll never see Doctor Who again

Former Westminster Culture Secretary Maria Miller claimed that viewers in independent Scotland would not be able to watch Doctor Who. Never mind that you can currently watch Doctor Who in 75 countries around the world from Angola and Australia to Uruguay and Venezuela.

No you can't, yes you can

In March 2014 the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems joined forces to rule out a currency union. Only weeks later, a senior Westminster government minister, who reports suggest would play a central role in independence negotiations, gave the game away by admitting that a currency union would be agreed to ensure fiscal and economic stability on both sides of the border.

You'll need to drive on the other side of the road

Last September, Labour’s Westminster shadow health secretary Andy Burnham warned that he didn't want to have to drive on the right when he came to an independent Scotland. So ludicrous was this story that the Guardian newspaper decided to run it as an April Fool’s Day story this year.