Excepting though Stu no-one on here has suggested that the English are solely to blame for the state of the union, or that only Scots have sole access to the moral high ground etc etc. So don't quite know why you're throwing that at me.

As to the they can't be English thing - well people will define themselves as they wish. If a recent poll is to be believed then nearly 30% of English born people living in Scotland support Scottish independence and I'd imagine a good chunk of those would be happy to accept Scottish citizenship. Whether they'd still see themselves as English people with Scottish citizenship or not is surely up to the individual?

People will define as they want though not how others think they should define themselves. Also it depends how the question is asked. For instance in the latest census 62% of people in Scotland said they were only Scottish; 18% said they were Scottish and British; 2% said they were Scottish and some other mixture; and only 8% said they were British. In various polls the sense of Britishness was higher because an extra category was used resulting in less people saying they were only Scottish. People could say they were "more Scottish than British" but couldn't do so in the census. It seems many Scots are happy to say they are British too but many of those are not willing to give it equal status with their main Scottish identity. So multiple identities are quite complicated.

I know some English born people living in Scotland who call themselves Scottish - I know some who say British - and I know others who say English. It is up to them!