What if Scotland holds a second independence referendum?
A second Scottish referendum with a Yes lead is a sterling/UK-domestic-bank trade: cable sells off on union-breakup and currency-redenomination uncertainty, hitting RBS/NatWest and Lloyds hardest. Direct analogue is the Sept-2014 IndyRef (GBP wobbled, Scottish-domiciled banks threatened relocation) and Brexit 2016 (cable -10% overnight). The connected-economy angle: Scotland's oil/whisky exports and rUK fiscal transfers mean gilts price a fragmentation premium.
Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.
The butterfly cascade
How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.
Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving
Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 1–3 years horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. UK grants second Scottish referendum, Yes lead in polls hammers sterling and Scottish-exposed bank shares. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.