In the last few months many of us have either been paid for doing nothing (furlough) or been paid for working at home. It has created a sense of unreality. If Rishi Sunak can conjure up huge sums of money just by waving his wand, why couldn’t Kate Forbes do the same in an independent Scotland? If there is a magic money tree called borrowing why do any of us go to work at all. Why not just borrow ever larger sums so that we can all live the life of luxury while doing no work at all. Unlike most European countries Britain is still psychologically in lockdown. We are still scared, and we prefer to think that nasty reality can be kept away by nice people like Nicola Sturgeon saying we don’t need to go back to the office. It is for this reason too that we shrug our shoulders at nasty economic figures that the Scottish Government publishes and blame someone else.
I strongly suspect that Scottish Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives
are not going to work together with Alliance for Unity. They will not stand
down even in the seats they cannot possibly win. Alliance for Unity will make a
difference, but it may not be enough. At present the SNP are likely to have an
overall majority at the next Scottish Parliament election. We don’t know what
the winter will bring, but that is my honest assessment.
If the SNP campaign on a second referendum manifesto,
the British Government would have the choice of saying No or saying Yes. I
would prefer that it said No, but it’s not up to me. What if it said Yes?
I don’t believe during any independence campaign that
Scottish voters would be any more realistic than they are at present in a
Scottish Parliament campaign or in a General Election. This is our problem we
need to bring realism back into Scottish politics. Whenever anyone talks about economics,
they might as well be talking of zillions and squillions, no one pays any
attention. What would make them pay attention?
The process of Scotland becoming independent needs to
have a reality check built into it, whereby Scottish voters would have to
experience the reality while they still had the chance to vote to stay in the
UK.
There are different ways of doing this, but perhaps
the best is to say that if the SNP ever won a vote for Scotland to leave the
UK, then during the transition period Scotland would be treated by the British
Government as if it were already independent and that Scotland could only
proceed to full independence at the end of divorce negotiations on condition that
independence won a confirmatory referendum.
It may be that a £15 billion, 8.5% deficit is no big
deal. It may be that lots of countries have deficits so why shouldn’t Scotland.
It may even be that such a deficit show that the United Kingdom is not working
and that fiscal transfers from the British Government do us harm. I doubt somewhat
that the SNP argue that if Scotland had a £15 billion surplus and transferred huge
sums every year to England that this was grounds for staying in the UK, but
this just goes to show that under the present circumstances the SNP can argue
anything they like and be believed by a section of the Scottish population.
After a vote for Scottish independence the British
Government would begin the divorce negotiations with the Scottish Government,
but it obviously would have no obligation to continue fiscal transfers to Scotland.
The Scottish Government would be given the power to borrow on international markets,
raise taxes and begin the process of either using the pound unilaterally or
setting up its own currency. During the period of negotiations everyone would
assume that Scotland really was going to be become independent after all the
Scottish voters would have just voted for it. In so far as it were possible the
Scottish Government would be responsible for everything. What would be the
result of this?
It would not be possible to implement independence.
Both sides would try to negotiate seriously, but as soon as it became clear to
the markets that the Scottish economy could not survive the shock of attempting
to run a £15 billion deficit, they would be forced to revert to the status quo.
To attempt to cut spending and raise taxes sufficiently would simply crash the
Scottish economy. It would lead not merely to capital flight it would lead to
people flight too. When people in Glasgow found that the Scottish Government
could not afford to pay their benefits, they would move over the border to
somewhere that could.
Scottish middle class remainer liberals who lent their
vote to the SNP as revenge on Boris Johnson for dragging them out of their beloved
EU, would rapidly find that they couldn’t sell their houses for the price they
paid for them and possibly not at all.
It isn’t at all that Scotland is too poor to be independent.
We are far wealthier than lots of independent countries. But the process of disentangling
Britain would be far worse than Greece trying to leave the Euro. The mere
attempt would do such damage to the Scottish and possibly the British economy
that both sides of the negotiations would give up as soon as reality hit.
This then should be the stance of the British Government.
It should say “No” that issue has been decided decisively, but if enough “Pro
UK” journalists (Massie, Farquharson etc) and Scottish opposition politicians
put enough pressure on it to agree to SNP demands, then the Scottish people should
be given a second referendum only on condition that they try independence with
all its consequences before being given a final say in a confirmatory referendum.
Arguments have become ineffective in Scotland. Let the
SNP take full responsibility for its independence without the possibility of blaming
England. Only reality will change minds now.
