Countries with such resources and a small population can work if they create an innovation economy: for example, a tech nirvana based on low rent, free electricity, situated in remote low tax villages on a train line with free internet.

That could become a viable economy with the right imagination and leadership without costing much.

Why rely on traditional trade with England when it is so minor compared to the potential wealth freedom from it could offer?

Brexit is the end of the UK, ultimately there is little point being ruled by a dominant economy except that it creates traditional economic dependence rather than jobs for their children who go to work in English cities.