Scotland Indyref 2

I remember now aracer – its was originally going to be considered UK strategic funding but after protest it was dropped. Trust you to prove me wrong 😉

I’m not THM, but I’ll answer that in what may be a more grown up fashion. No, I don’t support independence because it would be bad for both economies. That’s not going to change. The current balance sheet problems are just an additional issue – clearly we need a crystal ball here, but the only way that’s likely to significantly change is if the oil price picks up (though I guess current exchange rates do you no harm there)

thm, wee question, given your arguments are largely based on the financial unsustainability of Scotland, at the moment. If Scotland was in surplus in 15 years time would then support independence?

No Joe, that’s a false premise. My starting point is how to maximise the interests of the people of Scotland (ok, and the UK). In that, you do assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Scottish economy and whether they are addressed better within a larger or smaller economic and political structure. The current financial situation is just one element of the debate, albeit a crucial on at the present time.

Like Keynes and Salmond (joke) I reserve the right to change my conclusions if the circumstances demand it. I hope that is grown up enough for you – aracer, still hasnt got the game yet. 😉

cheers, was just curious.

Not sure about the exchange rates helping at the moment aracer fuel prices at the pumps rising rapidly. Thanks Brexit

Its a pleasure as always Joe.

A good start would be for Salmond to be focusing on how to achieve better (note comment from IFS above on why), more sustainable and more diversified growth. Without that an independent currency (which is the only option) might become viable in time. Whether an anti-austerity (no really) government can/will deliver a surplus within that timeframe, we shall see. Our supposedly austerity version is struggling as we can all see.

It helps Scotland’s balance sheet relative to the UK when the major difference is oil exports and oil is priced in dollars. Might still be a negative thing for Scotland, but we’re interested in performance relative to the UK

I believe that independence would make a huge positive difference to Scotlands economy. But thats all it is – belief and crystal ball gazing. Remember Scotland has been in surplus for most of the last 40 years if oil is included but Scotlands non oil economy has suffered from having economic policies geared to the needs of londons financial centres rather than its own needs. Ie interest rates high suits London but not Scotland ( not recent years obviously)

The trouble is that even with independence you won’t have full – or even much more – control of your economy. Lower interest rates for example would just result in capital flight. You’ll still to some extent be dominated by England, but with no influence at all on their policies. Unfortunately geography means that you’re in a different position to most small countries.

We would have a lot more control than the zero we have now. We have zero influence over westminster as well

One of the most telling things for me was in the independence debate when we were told – iS would have no more say in world affiars than Finland and we all went – thats morethan we have now and sounds about right for a small country on the edge of europe

There is a huge philosophical gulf between mainsteam English political thinking and Scotland. !5% of the vote here goes to tories / Ukip. 50% in England. Scotland has no desire to posture on the world stage etc etc.

You don’t have zero now, thats the whole point. As much as you might complain, some account is taken of the interests of Scotland.

The irony of course is that some of the major issues I’m worried about may be significantly less of a problem if we’re both outside the EU – we can just decide to have free trade!

Really aracer? really? Examples please? We have no say in Europe, no say in how the UK is governed. Our fishing rights were traded away to the EU in exchange for a project in the west country. Last time the EU discussed fishing no representation from scotland was allowed by wqestminister

You don’t have zero now, thats the whole point. As much as you might complain, some account is taken of the interests of Scotland.

Aracer, seriously, why attempt a serious or should I say grown up debate? Every response so far has been a lie inaccurate. You might as well debate whether a tomato or a plank of wood is a better car. The premises for all the last few pages have been equally as false.

You have 6 MEPs, the same number as Luxembourg. Earlier in the year I might have even been able to name one of them. You have a say proportional to your population – I thought you favoured democracy?

If we were independent we would have more than 6 tho – mep numbers are weighted to smaller nations IIRc. Luxembourg has a much smaller population than Scotland – and we would be able to have trade delegations, someone on the council of ministers etc etc. We would have representation in government to government discussions

Ok to say we have Zero is wrong – call it minimal instead

Aracer, seriously, why attempt a serious or should I say grown up debate? Every response so far has been a lie inaccurate.

Just because you are attempting to belittle him do you have to appeal to aracer to join in? Can you actually deny his point about the impact horse trading fishing quotas has had on the North East coast of Scotland?

Though I was discussing economic things, and minimal is more than you’d have after independence on some of the most important economic drivers. Sure you could set exchange rates, taxes etc totally independently, but to do so ignoring the differential with rUK would do huge economic harm.

Edit: well I suppose you’d have flexibility to move in one direction and the tail might wag the dog, but my understanding is that you don’t want to go in that direction

I read an article a while ago that talked about a triangle of sovereignty, openness, and democracy. Increasing one is always going to involve trade offs with the other two.

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21701501-economists-who-foresaw-backlash-against-globalisation-consensus

Deeper integration will therefore lead either to an erosion of democracy, as national leaders disregard the will of the public, or will cause the dissolution of the nation state, as authority moves to supranational bodies elected to create harmonised rules for everyone to follow. These trade-offs create a “trilemma”, in Mr Rodrik’s view: societies cannot be globally integrated, completely sovereign and democratic—they can opt for only two of the three

The UK is currently undemocratic. That is how we ended up with an internal party conflict becoming a spectacularly ill-informed referendum which led to an unelected quasi-president and some morons she found in a skip trying to make Britannia rule the waves again

The UK is relatively sovereign when compared to other countries in the EU while still enjoying the full benefits of openness. However, it has been decided that sovereignty is more important that democracy and openness so here we are.

Scotland has the chance to increase it’s democracy not only by bringing governance to Scotland but using an election system that isn’t based in the dark ages. We won’t so much increase openness as keep it the same by making sure we stay in the single market.

That leaves the question of sovereignty. As has been mentioned Scotland will have to sacrifice a lot of sovereignty to maintain democracy and openness but compared to the amount of sovereignty it has now is that really such a huge loss?

The UK is currently undemocratic.

This is a good game if a little unchallenging now

Duckman that a THM quote? Of course he can’t back it up. He doesn’t have the knowledge or the experience.

Remember I don’t see his posts. If he is being offensive you could do me a favour and report it.

Ah right TJ, I forgot he was a factor in your self imposed break. I don’t think he realises you have blocked him 😀

teamhurtmore – Member

You don’t have zero now, thats the whole point. As much as you might complain, some account is taken of the interests of Scotland.
Aracer, seriously, why attempt a serious or should I say grown up debate? Every response so far has been a lie inaccurate. You might as well debate whether a tomato or a plank of wood is a better car. The premises for all the last few pages have been equally as false.

Posted 2 hours ago # Report-Post

Remember we are thinking long term about Scotlands future. Too many folk confuse SNP policy now with the future scottish governments position.

20 years on from independence Scotland will IMO look very different politically. Once / if we have independence I am sure we will see a big realignment in Scottish politics. Remember we have PR with an effective threshold of around 6% to get representation.

I would expect the SNP to split. Its a very broad coalition held together by the glue that is the aim of independence. It spans the political spectrum from socialist to conservative. (small C) Labour and tories will also split and realign

I would expect the future make up of Holyrood to be a true socialist Party – the assorted Socialists we have now plus the far left of the SNP and the left of labour, A centre left party consisting of the bulk of lLabour plus the bulk of the SNP, a centre right party ( farming, hunting shooting fishing) consisting of the right of the labour party, the right of the SNP and the left of the tories. Possibly with lib dems. The greens along with some lib dems and even some from the left. finally a fringe far right party consisting of the right of the tories plus UKIP and assorted other nutters.

Once we have independence then we elect a government for an independent Scotland

Edit – I would expect coalitions of the left and centre left alternating with coalitions of the centre left and centre right forming the governments with the Greens often holding the balance of power

Duckman – only self imposed in that it was clear I would be banned for saying what I did.

Of course. You’ll have sorted yourselves out with a proper right wing party in charge by then, having kicked out the SNP who got you into the mess in the first place 😉

Once we have independence then we elect a government for an independent Scotland the central belt

FTFY

teamhurtmore – Member
Our supposedly austerity version is struggling as we can all see

More curiousity; do you advocate, real austerity, or investment to grow the economy? (Speaking on a uk wide basis this time.)

tjagain – Member
Remember we are thinking long term about Scotlands future. Too many folk confuse SNP policy now with the future scottish governments position.

Doubtful, if independence is achieved based on 50%+1. you will still have a unionist/nationalist outlook to the parliament. The former just becomes less openly so. you really need the scottish parliament to reflect what scotland will look like post independence for people to buy it imo. either that or people just won’t buy what you are selling. The scottish parliament imo, is a massive indicator of how successful an IS would be, you need upward of 70% of that parliament to be pro-indy and competent. imo.

tjagain – Member
20 years on from independence Scotland will IMO look very different politically. Once / if we have independence I am sure we will see a big realignment in Scottish politics. Remember we have PR with an effective threshold of around 6% to get representation.

I believed this, but the intervening years between the ref and now show you that people are basically just populist and go with who has the most competent image. That’s SNP at the moment, but I don’t see very many revolutionary changes in the make up.

tjagain – Member
I would expect the SNP to split. Its a very broad coalition held together by the glue that is the aim of independence. It spans the political spectrum from socialist to conservative. (small C) Labour and tories will also split and realign

i actually asked nicola sturgeon that question directly pre indy ref once at a meeting in govanhill, she was adamant, no, I believed her.

tjagain – Member
I would expect the future make up of Holyrood to be a true socialist Party – the assorted Socialists we have now plus the far left of the SNP and the left of labour, A centre left party consisting of the bulk of lLabour plus the bulk of the SNP, a centre right party ( farming, hunting shooting fishing) consisting of the right of the labour party, the right of the SNP and the left of the tories. Possibly with lib dems. The greens along with some lib dems and even some from the left. finally a fringe far right party consisting of the right of the tories plus UKIP and assorted other nutters.

A True socialist party? Lala land stuff that tbh.

tjagain – Member
Once we have independence then we elect a government for an independent Scotland

yip, for good or bad.

tjagain – Member
Edit – I would expect coalitions of the left and centre left alternating with coalitions of the centre left and centre right forming the governments with the Greens often holding the balance of power

i’d think it difficult to predict the left/right split of coalitions, though I do believe they are likely. But look at the current make up, labour? who the he’ll knows where they stand, the tories, right, SNP, a mixture of everything to everyone. So I wouldn’t discount the possibility of rightist coalitions.

AN independent Scotland’s chances of automatic EU entry got a massive boost yesterday as a big supporter of the move was made a chief Brexit negotiator.

Former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, 63, will co-ordinate the European Parliament’s response to the UK’s vote to leave.

He has previously said an independent Scotland should be let into the EU straight away.

Verhofstadt added: “If Scotland decides to leave the UK, to be an independent state, and they decide to be part of the EU, I think there is no big obstacle to do that.”

He said it would be “suicide” for the EU to refuse entry to people who are “sympathetic” to the EU’s aims.

Verhofstadt was also supportive of Scotland’s vote to remain in the EU following June’s referendum.

“It’s wrong that Scotland might be taken out of EU, when it voted to stay. Happy to discuss with Nicola Sturgeon,” he tweeted on June 24 after the result.

Professor Michael Keating of Aberdeen University also said it was good news for Scottish nationalists but warned there would still be “hostility” from other forces within the EU.

He told the Record: “Within Brussels and around the European Parliament there are different attitudes towards Scotland.

“Some, such as the Spanish Government for example, take a very hostile position, some are more sympathetic and some just don’t really understand the complexities of the situation in Scotland.

“Verhofstadt is certainly somebody who takes an interest in Scotland and is more sympathetic, but that does not change the rules of the game.”

From the Glasgow herald. thought some of you might find it interesting

I don’t think an IS scotland should enter the EU immediately, (If it’s dragged out with rUK.)

seosamh77

I agree the various socialist groups we have now live in la la land and they simply can’t get their act together but they have polled up to 10% IIRC and if they could form a group with the left of the SNP and the left of Labour then they could potentially take 20+ % of the vote ( so long as the can resist splintering every few weeks)

Of course the SNP would split up and of course Sturgeon would deny it. The only thing that holds the tartan tories and the city socialists together in the SNP is the aim of independence. Once that glue is gone then a realignment is inevitable.

BTW – I think I owe you an apology for accusing you of lack of knowledge. I think I confused you with someone else. I must remember that reaching different conclusions from the same evidence does not always mean you don’t understand but are looking from a different direction ( I still think you are wrong tho 😉 )

Dunno, success is a strange motivator. Re: SNP, we’ll wait and see. They’ll lose some of their fringe at either end, but not a great deal I’d imagine. They seem to have that american presidential hero worshiping thing down to a T, and people are lapping it up.

Anyhow, back to the socialists. The SSP/Radical independence RISE thing fell flat on it’s face last election.- 0.5% on the list (although, admittedly early days, it is just a rebrand of the SSP coupled with a few idealists mind you). The greens wouldn’t touch it with a barge poll and even they only managed 6/7% on the list.

So the left vote has around 7-8% at the moment, from the list more or less.

I think the highest it’s ever been was around 2003. and I think the various parties got around 13%. Which is essentially their ceiling I think.

The only half viable version is the greens really, imo. So if you want a semblance of leftism, as well putting your efforts into that.

Ultimately though, I’d think that 2003 result is probably their limit. So the left is limited to somewhat of an idea factory, hoping that some of their policies are adopted. (Not a bad attutide imo, as any form of power, bar proping someone up, is out of the question. Which turned out well for the Lib dems, as a warning to everyone.)

Ah right TJ, I forgot he was a factor in your self imposed break.

If by self imposed you mean permenant lifetime ban, but not for obsessive arguing with THM, but his reaction to the ban for obsessive arguing. Why do you think he’s back as tjagain instead of TandemJeremy.

Of course the SNP would split up and of course Sturgeon would deny it. The only thing that holds the tartan tories and the city socialists together in the SNP is the aim of independence. Once that glue is gone then a realignment is inevitable.

I wouldn’t count on it TJ, they are by far the best organised political party in Scotland (probably the UK). I don’t think in the event of independence the SNP splitting up is a certainty, or even probable.

I think with Sturgeon as a leader they are leaving the tartan tory stuff well behind. They are firmly entrenched in the center ground – while admittedly espousing more left wing ideals than they actually put into practice.

Still with Tank Commander Ruth as your strongest opposition its difficult to see the SNP going anywhere.

The SNP might not split up, but enough members would leave to join other parties (or new ones) that they may as well have had.

More curiousity; do you advocate, real austerity, or investment to grow the economy? (Speaking on a uk wide basis this time.)

sorry Joe, been at the theatre all afternoon and then dinner so wasnt able to respond. Went to see the political play 😉 This House = absolutely brilliant and quite appropriate for today

You question suggests an either or that does not exist, so difficult to answer. Ditto given the current level of reporting its difficult to determine what real austerity means. So at the moment the adjective is applied to a government that continues to spend more than it earns (and more than left wing governments in the rest of Europe) – which is a bit confusing.

But lets ignore the silly reporting that exists right now and assume that by austerity that you might mean running a budget surplus – do you remember them?

Ok, and assuming that TJ’s comments earlier that i have neither knowledge and experience is just another in a long list of lies, let me answer.

I approach your question from two theoretical perspectives – Keynesian economics and the much more modern Modern Money Theory. I will spare you the detail (unless you are interested) by my conclusion is that it is complete folly for the government to be attempting to run a budget surplus right now. The fact that it is part of the debate merely indicates that those in power (1) do not understand the nature of the recent recession and (2) do not understand MMT. We should not even be debating the issue, but we are led by people who are ignorant of current macro economic thinking.

So I am in favour of investing in the economy and I am in favour of the government running a budget deficit right now. Why? Because the government needs to counter-balance the behaviour of the household and corporate sector – who are both deleveraging at the moment. But I am now getting into detail which for this forum is unnecessary.

p.s. love the fact that the very same people who routinely abuse Jambas for posting falsifiable opinions are so sensitive when their same actions are pointed out!! Breathtaking hypocricy.

Cheers, interesting. I shall google modern money theory when I’m skivving the morra! 😆

ps and the play!

I thought the normal assumption was that they do understand all that (at least the civil servants, if not the COE, though Osborne clearly wasn’t totally stupid and I don’t think Hammond is either)? The suggestion of austerity is surely just the way they’re spinning it (and those passing on the news are too ignorant) and they have no intention of running a budget surplus.

Pleasure. You may find that MMT and Keynesian economics get confused. This is a shame.

Google the late Wynne Godley, Martin Wolfe in the FT and my old colleague Richard Koo in Japan. A simple text is Wray Randall’s primer available on kindle. But it’s a bit technical. But health warning none of the above have either knowledge nor experience so you might want to listen to others who know so much better

The play was awesome, but currently on tour in Chichester so miles away from you!!! Had a great chat with some of the cast who interested in how mini THM (currently down from Scotland) viewed the political balance in the play!! It’s going back to London but not sure about Scotland. Shame, it’s brilliant

Interesting Aracer. IME they do not understand and this is evidence by the over reliance on QE.

IME Osborne did a good job by accident not design. To his credit he realised that the initial priority was to address market concerns about the level of UK debt at the height of the crisis. The market swallowed his rhetoric which was a good thing. At the same time, he abandoned austerity quite quickly – the question is whether this was by accident or design. The bottom line is that the UK had been running one of the most expansionary fiscal policies among the developed world which is why our recovery has been relatively strong. Of course, none of this forms part of the current narrative that still equates the Tories with austerity which is patently absurd.

Personally, I think Osborne achieved this more by accident than by design. Either way it doesn’t matter, The UK abandoned austerity a long time ago. Indeed it is doubtful whether it existed at all.

FWIW, my old colleague believes that they do not understand thins. But what does he know, like me, he is neither knowledgeable nor experienced!