Wow. Didn't realize the deficit was that high.
The UK is basically a failed state in the making. But an independent Scotland would need to pay for things like embassies and a military. Seemsike they don't have the cash for that at all
Too bad we lost the first Scottish Independence Referendum mega-thread during the forum migration. Besides the endless Braveheart memes, It would be a treasure trove for quotes for sure, especially since the "Stronger Together" and "Take Back Control" table has turned on the British isle.
Economic wise, basically all the Scottish politicians who pushed for independence at the time were adamant that high-flying North Sea oil revenue is enough to pay for everything, right before it cratered.
They dodged a real bullet there: had the referendum passed, Scotland would be so broke right now with oil hovering around $50/barrel, while their public programs and daily expenses are no longer subsidized by London to the tunes of over £10,000,000,000 each and every year.
I was hoping the SNP would learn to diversify the Scottish economy and be fiscally independence before calling for another vote, but it appears that economic factors are less of a priority this time around, or as the newly-invented SNP argument goes: the only reason why Scotland's deficit is so large and needed subsidy all this time is BECAUSE it's part of the U.K.
I'm not sure how convincing that line of creative reasoning is to economists, but it just might work with Scottish voters.
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Why economic warnings may no longer be enough to stop Scottish independence
By
Chris Deerin | 23 August 2019
Does money matter in politics any more? It does, of course, hugely — but perhaps not in quite the same ways or with the same potency that it once did.
There may indeed be more to life and politics than money (and there’s more to the Union than money, obviously, though that case has been less effectively made). That Brexiteer “take back control” slogan niggles away, especially as the European Research Group and the hard left wrestle for ownership of the UK. Where do Scottish values and preferences fit into this? Do we have to just sit here and take it?
This is the climate into which the latest Scottish Government Expenditure and Revenue figures (more commonly known as GERS) emerged earlier this week. Each year these stats show much the same thing, with some variation — Scotland receives an annual subsidy of somewhere north of £10bn as part of the UK, and state spending per head is around £1,600 higher north of the border.
This is always a useful moment for Unionists and an awkward one for nationalists. The fact that the figures are produced by Scottish government economists — who work for the SNP — means they cannot be dismissed by the Nats as a UK fiction. They show current Scottish public spending levels are reliant on redistribution within the Union, and suggest a newly independent nation would have to observe eye-watering levels of austerity to keep the show on the road.
Much of the SNP’s energy since 2014 has been focused on finding a persuasive counter to this argument. The line now is that membership of the UK is a major reason Scotland requires such a subsidy, and that independence would provide the opportunity to do things differently and close the gap. As Andrew Wilson, who chaired the SNP’s influential Growth Commission, tweeted this week: “Scotland has an unsustainable deficit as a result of the way the UK is now. That deficit needs to be made sustainable for the sake of us all.”
https://www.newstatesman.com/politi...o-longer-be-enough-stop-scottish-independence