Before Covid I was offered a new build one-bed flat in Gibraltar for £750/month. Covid hit before I could take that further, I dread to think what thew will charge now - but Gibraltar would have been perfect, no health cost worries, same banking system, same everything as the UK. However as they look to joining Schengen, then ex-UK residents will need the full-on Schengen Visa going forward, unless something can be done to give UK citizens full access to, basically, our own country.
Gibraltar is not even "basically" our "own country", as the preceding part of the sentence aptly illustrates.
It's a British Overseas Territory, like Bermuda, Montserrat, South Georgia and the British Antarctic Territory, none of which attract the same colonial attitude as Gibraltar does.
Absolutely as individuals we look at the EU in terms of more than just trade (hence Brexit and the undoubted economic damage it’s caused). But I very much doubt that a responsible independent Scottish government can believe, looking at the data, that rejoining the EU would, in the round, be a benefit. I suspect joining the EU would be gently kicked into the long grass in an independent Scotland at least until the (r)UK rejoined, as a minimum, the single market.
As a parallel Ireland was desperate to join the EEC and applied in the 1960s. However it knew that economically it had to join at the same time as the UK to avoid a hard border in the Irish Sea and when de Gaulle vetoed the UKs application in 1963 it forced Ireland to withdraw its own application.
Indeed, secession and accession is a total fantasy and pursued only by the truly intellectually dishonest. These people have complained - with some justification - that Brexit caused no end of problems, disruption and uncertainty, put up barriers to trade within the United Kingdom, and has harmed businesses.
These people now want to erect, by fiat, a hard customs border between Scotland and England, and aren't even sure what currency they're going to use if they become independent or what sort of armed forces they'll have. Scottish Independence is Brexit Plus, the ultimate in constitutional, economic and social upheaval, but there are people who just want to plough on, get the vote, and sort it all out later. Well I'm sorry but most of those people have spent five years lodging complaints about Brexit using the same approach.
Scotland needs a proper national conversation about what, exactly, independence means, and to decide in advance what it will look and feel like and sort out all of the very important details like whether you'll be using your own banknotes or the Euro, and how you intend to man a hard customs border and justify its existence to the 60% of trade that goes to the other parts of the UK.
Scottish independence does not have momentum because it is not rooted in legitimate grievance. Scotland was in fact a very enthusiastic participant in empire and the flattening of ethnic populations elsewhere for the country's own enrichment. Irish unification is rooted in historical grievance, and has momentum, but no serious commentator in Ireland says "right let's have a border poll, we've no idea what the 32 county Ireland will look like but we'll sort that all out later".