[quote=tjagain ]you really don't think oil willgo back up in price?
Let me put it like this, I'm not investing my money in oil futures. Maybe if you're so sure about it you should...
if Scotland is doing so badly under the union surely its better off out of it?
Sounds like more wishful thinking - you need to explain why it would be better off out, rather than just making unsupported assertions like that.
kimbers - Member
Do they get population or geographical share of North sea oil post indy?makes a biiig difference!
Yep, whichever it is though - it'll be 100% of that figure & not the current value.
seosamh77 - MemberWhich says absolutely nothing about continued membership.
Still flogging that horse?
Scotland cannot continue a membership that it does not have.
[url= https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/countries/member-countries_en ]List of member states.[/url]
Note the absence of Scotland.
There is provision in the treaties for exactly the circumstance of a member state dividing; I've linked to it before.
IndyScotland=new country=apply for membership like any other non-EU country.
A big plus to Scotland becoming independent is that it would immediately remove the Tories from power (in Scotland)Why, you'd still have a right-leaning party, look at the MSP's - almost 25% are conservative.
Note the 'from power' bit. Currently the UK government has the Tory party in charge/power. iScotland would be separate from the UK and hence the Tories would not be in power. I'm not advocating removing the party completely from existence in Scotland.
[quote=mcj78 ]When people speak of "Scotland's defecit" - is that the money Westminster has borrowed on our behalf to be spent on projects in areas outwith Scotland like the latest megacity-1 vanity project or suchlike, or, is it money that Scotland's independent treasury has borrowed of its own volition & pissed up the wall on frivolities like social care & education?
You can play semantics if you like, but quite simply it's the difference between what Scotland spends on stuff and what it gets as income. Figures which the Scottish government has produced (ie not biased Westminster figures) - I'm sure if you look hard enough you'll find those figures somewhere on this thread 😉
p.s. the vast majority of infrastructure projects outside Scotland result in payments to Scotland under the Barnett formula, so they're certainly not part of it. HS2 and Crossrail certainly did, Scotland isn't paying for those. The only obvious exception is the Olympics which for some reason didn't result in a Barnett payment, so Scotland did pay for that, but in real terms that was actually quite a small amount of money (I know we've discussed this before TJ - did we finish up with anything other than the Olympics?)
sbob
Still flogging that horse?
Scotland cannot continue a membership that it does not have.
List of member states.
Note the absence of Scotland.
There is provision in the treaties for exactly the circumstance of a member state dividing; I've linked to it before.
IndyScotland=new country=apply for membership like any other non-EU country.
You are José Manuel Barroso & I hereby claim my 5 Euro.
sbob - Member
There is provision in the treaties for exactly the circumstance of a member state dividing; I've linked to it before.
The link again would be handy?
IndyScotland=new country=apply for membership like any other non-EU country.
Which Spain has said they would oppose so not likely to get in. Wee Jimmy Krankie is gonna have us jumping out the frying pan and int the fire. Kinda makes me wish I and more of Scotland voted brexit cos we are getting it anyway and if figures had been significantly higher here she wouldn't have had her excuse to waste a shitload of money that would have been far better spent on other stuff.
kimbers - MemberScotland would be looking at accelerated sign up or some sort of transition deal
You're aware this would necessitate a change in EU law?
You know what that means, don't you?
@TJ I posted one view which justifies a long term oil price around these levels. Like anything in economics / trying to predict the future there is a degree of speculation / guestimation but its a complelling argument. The more oil gies up in price the more supply there is. Shale / fracking has changed the game
As for removing the Tories from power well Scotland had a Labour Government at Westminster for 13 years plus a Scottish PM and the Scottish STWers have been virrulent in their critism of that administration. An independent Scotland would need an order of magnitude more "austerity" than you are currently experiemcing.
Aracer -- we can't invest in alternative energy under he union which is a huge opportunity for Scotland. We pay huge unfair access charges to put our surplus energy into the national grid. This is the sort of thing that an independent scotland would be able to do better and would soon have benefits
Alternative Energy is an expense, you can call it an investment all day long but it doesn't work without a subsidy
seosamh77 - MemberThe link again would be handy?
Why? You've been ignoring it for years, I doubt you'll change now.
😆
I posted it under this username if you'd like to search.
Also of course acarer - that the rUKs position economically is disastrous in leaving the EU so does scotland go down with the ship or try to keep its head above water? Staying with the rest of the UK outside of the EU would be worse than independence inside the EU.
[i]Not at all - this is one of the few areas where they have a plan and it's a good one. The great repeal bill simply incorporates all EU legislation into UK law (where required - my understanding is that mostly it already is part of UK law, as the EU simply issues a directive for countries to make laws). There's very little sorting out of legislation required in order to leave.[/I]
Sure, and no doubt you'll set up all the required institutions in a weekend...
Here's an easy one, recruit a few folk and find a building - easypeezy
sbob - Member
Why? You've been ignoring it for years, I doubt you'll change now.I posted it under this username if you'd like to search.
Genuinely interested in reading what it says in the treaties? post it up.
that's if you've any interest beyond point scoring.
Funny that Jamba - we are making plenty of chap electricity from alternatives. We can ell you some when you get brownouts from not investing in generation. We have a surplus and soon it will be significant
[quote=sbob ]Scotland cannot continue a membership that it does not have.
List of member states.
Note the absence of Scotland.
There is provision in the treaties for exactly the circumstance of a member state dividing; I've linked to it before.
IndyScotland=new country=apply for membership like any other non-EU country.
To be fair, if the timescales allowed it then I suspect that despite the absence of any existing process that the EU would find a way for Scotland to continue with membership when the UK leaves. It tends to be pragmatic like that and find a way around the rules when needed - though that would only apply in the case of Scotland leaving the UK concurrently with UK leaving the EU.
In reality, as I wrote before, the timescales don't allow it - given the suggested referendum date (and any earlier isn't realistic) there will be a gap between UK leaving the EU and Scotland leaving the UK of up to a year (or maybe even more) and such a transition would be stretching way beyond what's possible. What needs pointing out here is that whilst the EU is interested in having Scotland as a member, it's not really any more interested than in any of the other touted new members - Scotland doesn't bring a large budget contribution or significant trade in the way the UK does. So whilst they'll put some effort in to keeping Scotland as a member they won't go hugely out of their way.
seosamh77
You (I think) accuse me of offering a "snapshot", but the graph I showed was
scotlands public spending 1998 to 2016?
I have literally no idea why you think more detailed figures will make cutting 10Bn from a budget of 60+ will be easy or painless?
km79
Eat the pudding, why do you think there will be 10Bn in cuts in an independent Scotland but not as part of the UK? Are you proposing that in independent Scotland won't/shouldn't run a deficit?
Scotland could certainly run a deficit, but without
a) massive cuts to public spending or
b) massive tax rises
the deficit would be at a level that would disallow joining the EU for a start and possibly make borrowing extremely difficult (see Greece)
To make again a point you dismissed previously, the current deficit is not "real" as a result of being in the UK.
Here:
[img] 
[/img]
is a picture from Chokkablog that shows by his calculation that oil money flowing from Scotland to the to the UK (black line above red line) has to a significant extent come back to Scotland (red line above black line).
He calculates that by the time another £10k per person in scotland comes back north (via Barnett, probably in about 6 years) it'll break about even.
And after that the UK will still be funding our deficit IF we're still part of the UK "single market" where we pool and share resources (to Scotlands benefit).
Or we could walk away, make the deficit real and make Edinburgh the Athens of the North 🙂
Once again, I'm not saying we [i]couldn't[/i]. I'm saying we [i]shouldn't[/i] if we want to preserve public spending on welfare, NHS, pensions etc etc. All of whic would be at extreme risk in an independent Scotland (not by "choice" but by necessity).
eat_the_pudding - Member
I have literally no idea why you think more detailed figures will make cutting 10Bn from a budget of 60+ will be easy or painless?
Your continual question is "what would you cut". You can't answer that question from a graph that shows you spending in blocks.
plus I already gave you as vague an answer as I could a few pages back.
Aracer - a number of reasons why the EU would want Scotland - fishing, oil, the two main ones.
Not at all - this is one of the few areas where they have a plan and it's a good one. The great repeal bill simply incorporates all EU legislation into UK law (where required - my understanding is that mostly it already is part of UK law, as the EU simply issues a directive for countries to make laws). There's very little sorting out of legislation required in order to leave.
but theres great chunks of it that are to be removed, Liam Fox has stated quite clearly that it must be easier to hire and fire people and that workplace legislation needs to be reformed.
Laws also evlove constantly, will we be shadowing the EU amendments or will we be going our own way?
Having spoken to a lawyer that specialises in writing bioscience legal work at the EU (something the UK is/was the biggest driver of) there is going to be decades of legal wrangling, further complicated as we leave the European medicines agency,the new EU patent court we were setting up, Euratom and all the myriad other EU bodies we are leaving
seosamh77 - MemberGenuinely interested in reading what it says in the treaties
I applaud your new found interest.
They're all online; fill your boots.
You are letting the side down by examining the main arguments from both sides Aracer, rather than just telling us how things are going to be. Is this the lovebombing we heard so much about?
Good article on Scotland's deficit. Just under 15 billion. UK deficit as a whole is around 75 billion, but as a percentage of the population Scotland's deficit is far, far higher.
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-37167975 ]Deficit[/url]
If it takes 10 years for the dUK to effectively exit the EU
then shirley Scotland could easily become a member in that time
If that coudl happen then wooing car manufactureres like nissan and finance companies from the city could help to offset their deficit
In the same way that the vote to leave the EU had no valid fiscal foundation and was simply a gut reaction then similarly the vote on Scottish independence need be on nothing more irrespective of the pseudo economics being floated about.
I don't have a vote but thought that if I had last time I would have voted no but now would vote for independence. Some unions are intrinsically worth preserving and others not.
[quote=tjagain ]Aracer -- we can't invest in alternative energy under he union which is a huge opportunity for Scotland. We pay huge unfair access charges to put our surplus energy into the national grid. This is the sort of thing that an independent scotland would be able to do better and would soon have benefits
Can you not? I suspect we might have discussed this offline, but can't remember. I certainly agree that renewable energy is a big opportunity for Scotland, though as jamba kind of points out, if it's a huge economic opportunity (rather than a cost), then basic capitalist economics would suggest it should happen whether or not Scotland is independent. If it's not a big enough economic thing for capitalism to make it happen anyway then it's certainly not going to plug the hole in the finances (I've no idea of the potential scale, but would be surprised if it more than scratches the surface).
[quote=tjagain ]Staying with the rest of the UK outside of the EU would be worse than independence inside the EU.
As much discussed, that's kind of wishful thinking given that Scotland does far more trade with rUK than the EU. Apart from being unrealistic for reasons also discussed - unfortunately you're getting dragged out with UK whether you like it or not, there is no realistic chance of Scotland continuing membership of the EU it would have to rejoin.
Though it does occur to me that losing the current UK position within the EU wouldn't be such a big deal as sometimes made out - the rebate wouldn't make much difference given Scotland isn't likely to be a huge net contributor and Scotland keeping UK's veto would seem a bit of an anomaly. Are there any other significant benefits we currently have that a new member wouldn't (let's not do EZ membership - the standard answer to that is Sweden which is required to join but never will)?
Are there any other significant benefits we currently have that a new member wouldn't (let's not do EZ membership - the standard answer to that is Sweden which is required to join but never will)?
Sweden has had years of arguing over scientific funding and collaboration and was booted out of ERASMUS for its stance on immigration and FOM
[quote=tjagain ]Aracer - a number of reasons why the EU would want Scotland - fishing, oil, the two main ones.
Plenty of reasons why the EU wants various other countries to join. I'm not sure they're quite as big reasons as you think (exactly what interests the EU about the oil?) Not big enough for the EU to go to such extreme lengths as keeping the membership on hold for 12 months which would require all sorts of legal wrangling and probably agreement from all 27.
"Sweden which is required to join but never will)?"
Can someone flesh this out with some detail?
Why is Sweden required to join the EZ?
Forget it, I googled.
[quote=duckman ]You are letting the side down by examining the main arguments from both sides Aracer, rather than just telling us how things are going to be. Is this the lovebombing we heard so much about?
😆 - my apologies - I'd forgotten you're required to be totally biased on this thread! I should think my bias such as it is is quite apparent, but I don't feel the need to be a dick about it.
seosamh77 - Memberstop being a dick and post the link.
Chill Winston, who pissed in your porridge? 😮
Oh yes, it was the xenophobic minority of the United Kingdom. 😆
If you think I have (as I imagine many a poster here does) a cache of links poised from several years ago purely for the purposes of arguing on the internet in the future, you are sorely mistaken.
I'll have a search (as could you if you really wanted to take the blinkers off), be patient.
🙂
We pay huge unfair access charges to put our surplus energy into the national grid
It isn't unfair to charge for generating electricity in regions where it is not in demand (i.e. Scotland). National distribution is a pain in the backside and the grid is heavily loaded. If generation in Scotland increases, massive investment in the grid is required.
Under the current arrangements, charges are levied to encourage investment in generation nearer demand centres. I expect that will change over time once green energy comes to the fore properly. Personally, I favour micro-generation but that isn't popular because the capacity is expensive.
Scotland is also doing pretty badly for base load, which is mostly what is under threat at the moment. Variable energy sources are an even bigger pain - the grid has to cope with peaks and not averages.
He calculates that by the time another £10k per person in scotland comes back north (via Barnett, probably in about 6 years) it'll break about even.And after that the UK will still be funding our deficit IF we're still part of the UK "single market" where we pool and share resources (to Scotlands benefit).
Or we could walk away, make the deficit real and make Edinburgh the Athens of the North
Do you honestly believe that with the political climate in England that a 10Bn deficit would be tolerated for Scotland for any length of time in the future? My thoughts are that as part of the UK and with the limited control over spending the Scottish Government has then the deficit is only going to get worse and the 'subsidy junkies' jibes will get worse along with it. A Tory led UK Government has different priorities and ideals from me and what I believe to be the majority in Scotland. I would much rather break away from this scenario, take whatever hit is coming (which I believe will be coming either way) and have full control over what we do next to improve things and grow.
km79
Thats a big "maybe" as opposed to the pretty definite "OMFG where did all the money for NHS and pensions go!" of indy.
Maybe the SNP should campaign for full fiscal autonomy, and get the pain over with now?
Mind you, I recall they (SNP) actually started doing that after the 2014 neverrendum, no doubt pumped up with their own indy propaganda about the "nth richest country in the world".
Until they realised (had it explained by someone with a bit of maths) what the results would be, and quietly accepted Barnett (pooling and sharing).
Weirdly without the usual shouty fanfare that accompanies SNP decisions/announcements that make the UK look bad?
sbob - Member
If you think I have (as I imagine many a poster here does) a cache of links poised from several years ago purely for the purposes of arguing on the internet in the future, you are sorely mistaken.
I'll have a search (as could you if you really wanted to take the blinkers off), be patient.
Well if you don't keep a library of your links, why would you expect me to keep a library of your links? 😆
Cheers.
Grumpysculler - the scottish government had good plans laid out but because energy is a reserved policy they couldn't put them into action.
Maybe the SNP should campaign for full fiscal autonomy, and get the pain over with now?
There were two amendments to the last Scotland Bill related to this. The SNP wanted the power to unilaterally declare FFA to be permanently devolved. This got voted down by all other parties.
There was also a Tory amendment to give Scotland FFA. It got voted down too but [b]the SNP voted against it[/b]
EU referendum = Economic disaster where approx 10% of GDP is EU related, and even the most devout Remainers agree only a fraction [u]may[/u] be lost.
Scottish Independence = Great opportunity, where fiscal black hole of 6% of GDP [u]will[/u] have to be funded.
Gotta love the logic.
May's arrogance and hypocrisy over this announcement is absolutely breathtaking and is quite likely to backfire on her, as Scots tend not to like being talked down to by self-serving rich idiots from the south.
I'll vote yes for one reason - to make my vote meaningful. Counts for SFA right now.
Money-wise, it might be worse, might be the same. Might eventually be better.
But in 30 years, at least I'll have a meaningful input within a group of people who are much more aligned with my views and priorities.
But in 30 years, at least I'll have a meaningful input within a group of people who are much more aligned with my views and priorities.
Exactly why I would vote for independence if I was Scottish.
I voted remain for EU as not worth the effort and loss of leaving. Being in the EU is not that big a deal to me.
I would vote leave for Scotland as is worth the effort and loss of leaving. Being governed by a series of right wing governments with screwed up priorities is a big deal to me.
Please remember that many of the stats that central government have been using & quoting for several years have been heavily massaged to make Scotland look a fair bit less wealthy than reality. Plus some systems have been set up specifically to produce these sort of outputs. Scotland will do fine on it's own. We have a huge range of natural resources, tourism, fantastic universities, great people, food, drink fresh air and fresh water. We'll be fine without the English millstone holding us down. Divorce is rarely easy at every step and there will be pain. However, things are usually much better afterwards once the new life begins...
