)bring natural monoplies like rail and electricity back into state control. Let the state have the profits

I wouldn’t crow too much about that one, neither are particularly profitable from where I’m sitting. Still, at least the Scotrail myth should hopefully be put to bed soon unless SG can find a scapegoat from within.

Here’s Johann Lamont arguing that Scots are in her view not genetically programmed to make political decisions. She was leader of Scottish Labour at the time in 2014.

I wouldn’t want to appear to defend her, but that is not really her ‘arguing’ that Scots are not genetically… she is making a statement. I have not the foggiest idea what she meant by that and concluding anything from a 9 second clip would be a stretch.

Johan Lamont and Gordon Strachan both singing from the same hymn sheet. Who knew the Scotch genome was so limiting.

Have they ever been seen in the same room?

Checking back in after a few days off. Clear like with Brexit no one on here is going to persuade someone with opposing views that leave or remain is correct.

Although the parameters are very different, the two choices boil down very similarly to Brexit:

Leave – risk (but by no means guarantee) short term to medium term economic issues offset by potential long term improvements and decision making, preferred identity and greater control of your own country’s destiny.

Remain – avoid risk but keep status quo that many people are unhappy / bored with so the issue will keep coming back.

What decision you make is determined by how much of a risk taker you are. More control of your own destiny and future rewards coupled with potential economic problems or less political control but a more stable economy (at least in the short to medium term)?

@gauss 1777 The clip is short to be fair.  She was apparently trying to make the point that independence itself would not solve many of the problems facing Scotland. It would have been clear if she had just said that, instead she came out with a truly ridiculous statement which appears to be full of the “Scottish cringe”

Remain – avoid risk but keep status quo

See that’s just untrue tbh, the status quo just got ripped up. Let’s not pretend the uk is some safe haven. While it’s not going to collapse, it’s sitting on the precipice of massive change. There’s all the risk in the world there.

See that’s just untrue tbh, the status quo just got ripped up. Let’s not pretend the uk is some safe haven. While it’s not going to collapse, it’s sitting on the precipice of massive change. There’s all the risk in the world there.

I agree pretty much with what Tom Zesty says, but also agree things have changed somewhat recently. I think that is why a number of people who voted against independence are now reconsidering their position. My wife for example partly based her decision on not wanting to abandon the North of England to the fate of the Tories, and now that large parts of that area have voted Conservative is reconsidering her position.
My reason for voting against independence was in large part, the simple feeling that as an island we have far more in common than we differ. Like Tj I am drawn to the idea that iScotland could move towards a more equal and compassionate society. However, the claims of the SNP do not ring true. I’d be happy if they said “we may be poorer, but it will be a far more equal society”, as the benefits of that would imho improve people’s daily lives far more. The SNP are not a party of the left.
Simple questions are not answered clearly, for example what would happen at the border?, how can Scotland be open and welcoming to all while rUK want to restrict immigration? When you cannot get a straight answer to these things, you have to doubt the other claims. Also, I’m not a huge fan of democracy (although I cannot think of anything better); I cannot win a vote within my own family so a Scottish Parliament gives me little more say.
Tl;dr I’m waivering, but without more honesty and a clearer idea of the practicalities I’ll likely still vote against. I don’t think avoiding the upheaval of the split , nor the bitterness of another referendum should be underestimated either.

” how can Scotland be open and welcoming to all while rUK want to restrict immigration”

Surely that’s an argument for the Scottish Government to have control over immigration if not for full independence.

Jeebus,
I see that the economics of scotland are still in a wonderful state this morning, and that despite epi[nomics] admitting that;

The future is uncertain even for a country that is already independent.

We’re all sure that things will be better in the future, because of reasons.

I use the economic argument against independence because its the one the SNP neglects and obfuscates about (for good reason, and they do it well based on the stuff spouted here).

They told us in 2014 we’d be financially better off, that scotland supports the rest of the UK and that we’d get an extra £X,XXX per year per person under independence. But honestly, what would have happened?

People here seem to think that a government not having enough money to provide what its promised its own people is always just a choice!? You sound like the conservatives when they say to the poor “why don’t you just earn more money?”.

If only the poorer countries and people of the world were let in on this one secret .. maybe it was on an internet ad and they hadn’t paid their broadband bill?

At the risk of repeating myself, [and I’m tempted to capitalise this for epi-monics attention;]

No-one here is a saying that scotland can’t be independent, and that it would “fail” if it was, or that it could not potentially (over time) grow its economy to fulfil its promises.

But there is a massive credibility gap between the [current] reasons for doing it;
protect the [fully devolved] NHS,
improve services,
look after the poor,
basically have a better society all round etc etc.
And the reality of the effect of having less money on those very services (for a potentially extended period of time).

That gap is not covered by “We can’t know the future so it must be rosy .. right?.”

The people who would accept “hardship” for independence and drag their ball bags across broken glass for it are already going to vote for it.

You have to convince the rest of us.

Lying about economic reality isn’t doing it. Its brexit squared, and more brexshitting isn’t going to fix it.

And honestly, you should be ashamed to try and scooby the poor into painting their faces blue and voting for it against their own interests, even in the short term.

The Yoons are getting really desperate now with the anti Indy propaganda

https://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/independence-could-expose-scotland-to-an-environmental-disaster-claim-us-scientists-1-5064283

Jesus christ, that is desperate!

Thought this was an other wee interesting find having a gander at GERS and trying to figure out whether Scotland is subsidised.

I went and found UK public expenditure for the last 20 years, and had a look to see if Scotland has been getting more than it’s share expenditure compared to the UK.

What is noticeable, that it all adds up to on average 8.27% over the last 20 years (I’ve estimated 18/19 btw, can’t find that exact figure.)

What is also noticeable is that before the independence movement started to gain traction, it actually looks like Scotland was being underfunded.

Interesting I think, to project what might happen once/if the independence movement is roundly defeated…

So once again, Scotland is not subsidised by rUK, it is through borrowing though, but it’s all just getting stuck on the UK credit card, there is no subsidy in the sense of one group paying for another, and as shown in an earlier post, we are paying our share of those maintenance costs.

Don’t really have info to look further back, ultimately it looks like the Scottish parliament at least has been a good thing in Scotland getting it’s fair share.

I think eat_the_pudding makes a good point. Yes, other countries gained independence and did well. But in many cases they were colonised and/or being systematically and actually repressed. What is happening in Scotland isn’t repression. Even historically (not that it’s especially relevant) Scotland got a far better deal than Wales and especially Ireland.

Sure you can make the argument about political direction, but really – that’s just part of being a part of a democratic state i.e. the entire UK. There are loads of regions that rarely if ever vote Tory. You cannot split up every part of a state just because it votes differently to the majority government, or even if it feels like a different place to other parts, otherwise we’d end up with dozens of tiny statelets. It’s only possible in an empire or in modern terms a federation.

So if I consistent majority emerges, nup, you can’t, the UK borders are sacrosanct for ever more?

Sounds more like opinion than anything else to me.

What is happening in Scotland isn’t repression.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.oilofscotland.org/MccronereportScottishOffice.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjZiKzS4sHmAhXEQUEAHVJkBCkQFjAJegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw3_JWQBltxw5cpkl6d6QMmR&cshid=1576760556824

The country would tend to be in chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree and its currency would become the hardest in Europe with the exception perhaps of the Norwegian kroner

I’d say the suppression of the McCrone report qualified as repression

” how can Scotland be open and welcoming to all while rUK want to restrict immigration”

Surely that’s an argument for the Scottish Government to have control over immigration if not for full independence.

Why does this place always make me feel ignorant? I thought I was clear, but…
What I mean is, if Scotland gains independence and welcomes people from all over the world to come and live there, what is to stop them travelling to rUK where they are not welcome? Eg Instead of camping in Calais and trying to jump on a truck, get the ferry to Scotland and a train from there.

Boris’s wall.

seosamh, I don’t think thats what that says. The amount scotland get is decided by the barnett formula, and I think any changes to that would have been looked at very carefully by interested parties on both sides.

In “figuring out whether scotland is subsidised” or not thats a non question.

This graph is a history of scottish spending and deficit including and excluding oil revenue and shows that the only recent year that the oil revenue would have covered scottish spending was just before the 2014 ref (which was handy :O).

From the start of the oil boom the figures are more stark and obviously in scotlands favour but still show that the money that went south (in black) was similar to the money that came north (in red) over a longer period.

if Scotland gains independence and welcomes people from all over the world to come and live there, what is to stop them travelling to rUK where they are not welcome? Eg Instead of camping in Calais and trying to jump on a truck, get the ferry to Scotland and a train from there.

Probably the same thing that stops them landing in the RoI, then travelling to the mainland via ferry

In “figuring out whether scotland is subsidised” or not thats a non question.

This graph is a history of scottish spending and deficit including and excluding oil revenue and shows that the only recent year that the oil revenue would have covered scottish spending was just before the 2014 ref (which was handy :O).

I’m not claiming that Scotland’s revenues cover it’s expenditure. I’m saying that for the entire uk, the revenues don’t cover the expenditure, so that it gets thrown in scotlands face is disingenuous.

We know scotland operates in the red, so does the uk.

It’s a bit off to hold Scotland to a standard that few keep to.

Scotland is subsidised by the credit card, but so is the uk.

The uk has a net assets and liabilities £2.5trillion(as of 17/18.) It’ll be higher now.

So the population share of that, is about £200bn.

incidentely, scotlands borrowing over the last 20 years, equates to £170bn if you include the geographical oil share, and about £270bn without it.

Scotland pays about £3.5bn a year at the minute to maintain this debt level. ie. scotlands share of the interest payment (cause it’s never getting paid off anyhow.)

get the ferry to Scotland

Might be difficult that as I don’t think there is any ferry links to other countries from Scotland anymore! 😆

So the population share of that, is about £200bn.

incidentely, scotlands borrowing over the last 20 years, equates to £170bn if you include the geographical oil share, and about £270bn without it.

So from that you’re estimating Scotland needs to put roughly £10bn per annum “on the credit card”. If Scotland’s GDP is £180bn, then that’s annual deficit borrowing of around 6% GDP. UK as a whole is at 1.9% of GDP last year.

Gowrie

So from that you’re estimating Scotland needs to put roughly £10bn per annum “on the credit card”. If Scotland’s GDP is £180bn, then that’s annual deficit borrowing of around 6% GDP. UK as a whole is at 1.9% of GDP last year.

Yes(well, GERS says 7% with geographic oil share, 8.5% without last year.), but let’s not pretend that the UK is always that low. The debt to GDP ratio also for Scotland would probably be about 110ish% to 87% for the uk as a whole.

But yip, I’m not trying to fudge the figures at all, the uk’s percentage is very low at the minute.. And it’s accepted that at the minute Scotland runs a deficit, usually higher than the uk. It’s high, but it’s manageable, the question becomes what is the potential for Scotland to grow it’s economy outside of the uk.

Which is where the discussion should centre around imo, the figures are the figures, a snapshot in time. Constantly trying to prove this and that is just a merry go round.

I already posted similar sized nations and where Scotland should aspire to be.

4 out of the 5 similar sized nation in the EU, are performing better than Scotland, outside of the uk.

GDPPC for the uk $47,042

Scotland: $43,740

Closest in size to Scotland(I’d suggest using close european neighbours is better than talking about india and singapore):

Ireland – 4,914,714 – GDPPC – $81,686
Norway – 5,399,422 – GDPPC – $76,620
Denmark – 5,781,776 – GDPPC – $54,564
Finland – 5,536,952 – GDPPC – $48,221
Slovakia – 5,459,014 – GDPPC – $37,268.

I’ll give that that’s a simplistic look at this.

But I don’t really think it can be argued that under the UK, Scotland performs poorly.

Better together, we sure about that?

I think the figure considered to be sustainable is up to 3% GDP for a deficit – largely because inflation, GDP growth and population growth can be expected to keep total debt at a constant percentage of GDP. Of course if GDP increases to the levels of some of those countries mentioned, you could be borrowing more initially and end up being able to pay it all back out of increase GDP. But at today’s figures, an IS would be starting in a tightish spot, I’d think.
Interestingly Ireland’s GDP/head has got to the levels it has due to low corporation tax and multinationals domiciling in Ireland. Much of that $82k is Apple posting profits in Ireland, but the money going to Apple, not the Irish. Overall its probably been good for Ireland, but the low tax approach which it has come from is the antithesis of what many who look for a more equal society would be advocating for an independent Scotland.

@gauss I am not sure there would be any such mass gathering of immigrants at Gretna or anywhere else on the border.  For the simple reason that they would still have to pass through UK customs so why add an extra stage to the journey and possibly an extra customs crossing if Scotland was to be outside of the EU. Further to that crossing the North Sea in a rickety boat is longer and tougher than crossing the Channel

But at today’s figures, an IS would be starting in a tightish spot, I’d think.

Agreed, seems to be improving year on year for the last 7 or 8 though. The deficit was 15%.

Indeed, as UK as a whole has improved, so has Scotland, being part of that whole.
I think if there is any reason for an independent Scotland, it isn’t obviously economic, either in a positive or negative way in the long term. Although I do believe it would more likely be economically negative initially, and it would for rUK initially as well.
No-one knows where or when or to whom the sunlit uplands will appear.

Did you miss the whole bit about the comparison to others? 😆 Ireland is skewed granted, but Scotland is still low. So is the UK as ‘the whole’…

But yeah, sunlit uplands, blah blah blah…that’s the winner that argument, keep it up, life is great in the dark lowlands..

Yes – but can you plot me a path from a newly independent Scotland to one of those others? What triggers are there to a higher GDP, what levers does a new iScotland have to pull ( and can they pull them) to raise GDP? What negatives that are a consequence of independence (eg closing Faslane and that loss to the economy) have to be overcome, at what cost and how? I think initially its more likely to be negative.

I don’t have all the answers. But that question applies to unionists also.

The question of where the hell we are going under the UK is completely unanswered. I keep hearing about the safe haven of the status quo. There is no status quo.

I think the next 10 years is going to be negative regardless. There’s risk on either path.

It’s an honest discussion we all should be having.

A lot of the predictions seem based on two assumptions of our post independence state.

One that the SNP will continue to be the government of Scotland longterm.

Two that we will continue to run Scotland in the same way Westminster has.

What do you reckon the odds on that are?

In the short to medium term I would expect the SNP to be the party of govt

I’d expect them to govern the entire country the way they govern the bits they have just now. So higher taxes. Major projects like hospitals and ferries a shambles. Over centralisation of things like the police. Why is UK devolved power good, devolved power in Scotland bad?

I’d be interested in what the bill would be for the subsidies contracts for all the wind farms. Currently shared among all UK bllpayers. After independence down to Scotland? Projected to be £265 per household in 2021 with current system. So big electricity price increases then?

irc
…Over centralisation of things like the police. Why is UK devolved power good, devolved power in Scotland bad?…

Centralisation is one of the reasons my vote for the SNP (after independence) is not guaranteed. There’s others. 🙂

@gauss I am not sure there would be any such mass gathering of immigrants at Gretna or anywhere else on the border. For the simple reason that they would still have to pass through UK customs so why add an extra stage to the journey and possibly an extra customs crossing if Scotland was to be outside of the EU. Further to that crossing the North Sea in a rickety boat is longer and tougher than crossing the Channel

I’m being slow here. Firstly for some reason I’m presuming there would be ferries from Scotland to mainland Europe, to avoid passing through rUK. Who knows, I guess you might need a visa to visit rUK? But presuming Scotland is looking to welcome people from ’Anotherland’ and pays their transport to Scotland, what stops them making their way to rUK?
Maybe it’s such a small issue that it doesn’t matter, but their seem to be so many uncertainties.

irc
…Over centralisation of things like the police. Why is UK devolved power good, devolved power in Scotland bad?…

Centralisation is one of the reasons my vote for the SNP (after independence) is not guaranteed. There’s others. 🙂

Yes after iScotland, we could have independence for everyone who lives within 50m of the East coast, share the oil wealth between them all. (I’d have to check, but I think I’d be included).

The question of where the hell we are going under the UK is completely unanswered. I keep hearing about the safe haven of the status quo. There is no status quo.
I think the next 10 years is going to be negative regardless. There’s risk on either path.

Well I’d agree there’s a lot of uncertainty about in the UK ATM. And if the economic situation in the UK deteriorates overall then Scotland will be affected by that as well. But we’re along way from a newly independent Scotland’s fiscal position being better initially than it would be remaining in the UK. Agreed there’s risk on either path. But I’d say undeniably more risk on the iScotland path initially.

seosamh,
I’m glad that you’ve accepted that scotland has a big deficit, but don’t try to minimise what that would mean for post indy scotland.

You describe it as “manageable”, but manageable, does not mean easy, or trivial, and managing a deficit means either growth or saving. So wheres the growth coming from (at the scale required), and where are the areas of social policy we are spending too much on at the moment?

Its not just current economics, but the future as well.
epi-nomics tells us that no-one knows how things might develop, and what the details might be. Fair enough.

However the rUK is a much bigger market for scotland (64% of “exports”) than the EU is for the UK (45%). Would having barriers to trade with rUK be an attractive prospect for scottish business?

On that basis, how can anyone be pro EU (for economic reason)s, and anti UK at the same time?

The SNP will probably tell us that there will never be a border between indy scotland and rUK, but thats the same thing that boris claimed about N&S Ireland, and brexit will now (shortly) lead to a border in the irish sea.

brexit is a shitshow, but in fighting it the SNP have said a lot of things that would come back and haunt them in a new indyref.

And thats not because fighting brexit was the wrong thing to do, but because they spoke the truth about brexit without thinking how the same good arguments mean that leaving the UK “single market” into which we are even more integrated, and on which we are even more reliant will be even more involved and potentially disastrous.

Its like the brexit argument, but in a situation where UK government spending (£772 Bn in 2014 from wikipedia)) relied on being given 140Bn a year by the EU.
(Based on scotlands 77.5Bn spending and a deficit of 14.1Bn 2018/19 from https://www.gov.scot/news/government-expenditure-revenue-scotland-2018-19/)

Manageable? Anyone?

Thought post brexit britian was all about trade? Is rUK just going to give up on the £60bn on exports they send up here?

seosamh
Did you just say “They need us more than we need them” ..

Even I am surprised how quickly the flawless arguments of the brexit aficionados have taken root in scexit. ;o)

Give it 20 minutes and it’ll be all “Boris will only play hardball as long as it takes Tunnocks and Irn bru to arrange a meeting”.

No asked what I asked. Seems a fair question given post Brexit free trade focus of the current gov, and the brave new world we’re about to enter.

You’re the one that decided to try and frame it with condescension and piss poor wit.