Nicola Sturgeon thinks that If Scots could have predicted
what would happen after 2014, we would have voted for independence. In that
case we would indeed have been wealthier, happier and fairer, but not for the reason
she thinks. We could have bought Bitcoin when each one cost less than a pound.
We could have predicted the winner of the Derby and bet the whole of Scotland’s
GDP on the winner. We could have bought only shares that were going to rise and
dumped all the shares that were going to fall. You don’t need independence to be
wealthy if you can predict the future.
Many Scots were indeed disappointed by Brexit and
Boris Johnson’s Government. But we were pleased indeed to receive furlough and
billions of extra funding during the pandemic. We were grateful for the vaccine
that was developed because the UK had left the EU and because the British
Government decided not to join the EU’s programme as the SNP at the time
wished. This meant that the UK was one of the first countries to vaccinate its
population, which saved many lives.
So, a Scottish voter looking into the future in 2014
would have needed to figure out how an independent Scotland just a few years
after separation would have dealt with the pandemic. Would Scotland have been
able to borrow at a similar rate to the UK Treasury and if not, how could we
have afforded to stay at home? Not every country even in Europe could afford
such generosity.
The present cost of living crisis is mainly a result
of Covid and the war in Ukraine. In addition, over the past decades the UK has
not done enough to secure its own energy supplies by digging coal, drilling for
oil and gas, fracking and building nuclear power stations. If we had done so,
we would not now have to rely quite so much on expensive imports.
It was inflationary for people to sit at home watching
TV while the Government borrowed money to pay them. But Nicola Sturgeon did not
oppose this at the time. Instead, she wanted Lockdown to last longer and for
furlough to be more generous. Every time the British Government decided to
allow people outside or go back to work or cease wearing masks, Sturgeon
delayed. So, if she had been in charge of an independent Scotland, inflation
would have been worse.
The SNP also opposes drilling for oil in the North
Sea. It opposes fracking and building nuclear power stations. So, it is
entirely unclear how Sturgeon thinks an
independent Scotland would have cheaper energy than we do at present.
It is in part because of the UK Government’s desire to
be green that it failed to make Britain self-sufficient in energy, but Sturgeon
far from repudiating this strategy would have gone further and faster in the
drive towards Net Zero.
Things are more expensive and we have less money to
buy them because we have forgotten the basic lessons of the past. The route to
wealth is through working harder, spending less, producing more, lowering taxes
and increasing private ownership.
But Sturgeon would like people in an independent
Scotland to work less. She wants them to be paid a universal basic income so
that they can choose not to work at all. Every problem that ever existed she
thinks is to be solved by higher public spending funded by increased taxes. Far
from wanting to increase private ownership she wants to nationalise failing
industries and subsidise them with public money.
Newly nationalised Scotrail will thanks to Sturgeon
pay its employees even more, which will mean fares will either have to go up or
be subsidised by the tax payer. But how will giving in to trade unions make
Scotland wealthier any more than paying shipyards not to build ships?
It’s easy for Sturgeon to predict that Scotland would
be wealthier, happier and fairer, but we don’t need a crystal ball to see that
the problem is not so much what currency Scotland would use or how it would
deal with a hard border caused by Scotland being in the EU while the former UK
was not. These problems and others are
bad enough, but they are nothing compared to having the SNP running everything
rather than merely a devolved administration.
The first election after independence would almost
certainly see the SNP returned to power. If he had won in 2014, it is unimaginable
that Alex Salmond would not have been the first leader of Scotland. But in
subsequent years Scots may have chosen someone else. But Scottish Labour would
be indistinguishable from the SNP after independence. The Greens would be even
more Left-Wing and Scottish Tories are so wet and wibbly they are in need of an
airing cupboard and a hair dryer as much as a backbone.
So, Sturgeon thinks that after giving up the free
money Scotland gets every year from the UK Treasury and leaving the UK’s
internal market even though we trade more with the UK than anyone else, we will
be wealthier by electing a Scottish Government so Left-Wing that it thinks the solution
to every problem is to pay Scots to do nothing while nationalising everything,
increasing public spending and paying workers not to build ships. Even the
Scottish Tories would be telling Sturgeon to spend more, increase benefits and
abolish private property, because it’s theft.
Scotland might indeed be fairer with every one of us
on a universal basic income locked down whenever someone sneezes with the flu,
but we would be equal in our poverty. Why build anything when Sturgeon pays you
just the same to not build it? Why be more productive when Sturgeon pays you
more to drive empty trains than full ones?
There isn’t anyone in the Scottish Parliament at
present who favours any policy that would actually lead to wealth creation.
There isn’t one of them who wants to spend less, tax less and work harder. Not
one of them wants to get rid of regulations that hinder business or lower tariffs
so we can trade more freely. But if no one in Scotland is in favour of the free
market policies that might actually lead to wealth creation how do they expect with
such people in it that their Brave new Scotland would be wealthier?
With modern monetary theory paying us all to sit at home
shooting up Buckfast the only people making any money would be the monks.
