JimF, Scotland is, always has been and always will be part of Britain (geographically) and its inhabitants will be British. Yugoslavia was a state (a political entity) not a geographic area, just like the UK is a state. Slovenia and the rest were constituent parts of Yugoslavia. On the dissolution of Yugoslavia separate states emerged, largely along ethnic/cultural lines. An independent Scotland would/will leave the UK (the remainder of which may or may not permanently retain the name) but Britain will remain unaltered and Scotland will continue to be a part of it. Those in the remaining UK will still be British and so will Scots but the definition of the nationality "British" will be up for discussion as Scots will have a Scottish nationality and the rest will be UK-ian without (strictly speaking) a monopoly on the term British. Similarly, the widely accepted nationality of "American" as applied to nationals of the USA is a fuzzy one because Canadians, Mexicans and all south from there are also Americans but their nationalities are defined by their countries' names ("Ussians" maybe instead of Americans ?).