Initially Scotland would have to raise taxes by 20% or reduce expenditure by 20% ish (or a bit of both).

Genuine question (because I’ve been racing all weekend and can’t be arsed doing the calculations myself) what would that do to your current deficit estimate? Half it? Eliminate it? Just get it to EU acceptable levels?

The rental for Faslane and Coulport will come to a fair bit….

The rental for Faslane and Coulport will come to a fair bit….

Indeed. And there’s nowhere else in the UK that could support it, so renting it out is probably the only option

The rental for Faslane and Coulport will come to a fair bit…

As will the oil tax income and mineral rights income (etc).

Personally, having paid this a few times in the last couple of years, I’m all for a £1 a night tourist/visitor tax on accommodation, paid direct to councils.

I would have thought that Faslane rental would be a non starter, unless a great many people are happy to forego their moral compass.

I think it would be morally wrong to close down those facilities at short notice and deprive rUK of the nuclear “deterrent” it so badly wants. IScotland could rent the facilities out while a replacement is built in Devonport/Wales etc.

Aye, for me it’s not a moral issue, it’s just a matter of sanity, there’s no magic money tree except when you’re buying nuclear white elephants or irish politicians. I’m perfectly happy for Westminster to keep pissing money into the loch, if it’s their money and our loch. (which I see is now officially estimated at £50.9bn for the next decade by the National Audit Office, 25% of the entire military budget, even though they’re only 2 years into budget overruns)

The irony is, we’ll never know how much damage Trident would do to an enemy but we can see fine well the damage it does to the UK.

The replies since I last put up my  graph seem to indicate that people  aren’t grasping the size of the deficit. look at the graph.. its about 50ish Bn total spending. knock off 13.

You don’t replace that with a tax on motorhomes.

You can grow out of it.

But look at the best and fastest growing economies in the world.

How fast and at what cost to their social fabric, and what happens to the poor in the meantime.

Add to that that the latest reasoning for suggesting this comes on the basis of a grievance about ‘stolen’ powers that Holyrood has never had.

Anyway its Monday. Time to move on. Weathers nice here 🙂 What’s it like where you are?

I think you’re placing all your eggs in one basket with the 13BN deficit.  Let’s ignore all the issues with the figures and assume it’s 100% accurate.

You said you don’t want to look at the historical average even though it shows that Scotland’s deficit is below that of the UK’s.  Fair enough.

Come August, it could be the deficit is back below the UK’s (again, £8 billion in oil revenue with oil price at $100/bbl vs £0.2 billion with the oil price at $50 vs the current price of $75).  Revenue will be higher although we can’t say by how much.

Let’s take a hypothetical where the deficit returns to it’s historic average of being less than the UK’s. What other factors make you think Independence is a bad idea?

As you said, it’s Monday. Let’s try changing the tune.

Anyway its Monday. Time to move on.

We live in hope….

Leaving aside the fact that the scenario you put forward is unlikely. (2014 was a perfect storm for the SNP of high oil price, toary govt, alignment of the stars etc. and still failed).

I’ve spent time on the ‘broken record’ of the deficit because people kept denying it without evidence.

But the shorthand added reasons for staying in the UK are:

Think of all the reasons its foolish and self defeating for the UK to leave the EU (closest neighbours, customers, market, putting up unnecessary barriers to trade etc. )

That’s why it’s foolish for Scotland to leave the UK.

I know someone will come along and say there would be no barriers and trade would be seamless, and that we would be in a partnership of equals and that nothing bad would happen. We’ll if that’s what you’re thinking then I have a Brexit I’d like to sell you (and we can all see how that’s working out).

We’re better off together. There may be downsides, and imperfections but devolution protects us from the worst and the rest of the UK is still a massive part of our economy and lives (is it 5x more trade than the EU? or more?). There is definitely more that unites us than divides us.

Even if it’s a marriage of convenience rather than love for many.

Look again at the EU. It was hard to describe as perfect in the face of brexiers shouting “freedumb!” and “muh own laws!” and “sovrin parlymunt! ” .

That’s because it’s not perfect, and never will be, because what political construct is?

But now looking at the hard realities are you wanting in or out?

Scottish independence is (in my opinion) the same (brexity) answer to a different union and could well strip the country of the very things we claim to value.

A social conscience is worth sweet FA if you can’t pay for it.

Indy would bring some things too. But you have to balance the pluses and minuses and the minuses are hard and real, and the pluses sound (to me) a lot like: “freedom!” and “our own laws!” and “sovereign parliament!”.

Not necessarily bad things, but sometimes badly prioritised.

People have raised perfectly valid issues with the deficit.  You’ve provided no evidence to contradict them.  It swings both ways.

As I said earlier, there are plenty of issues leaving the UK and joining the EU, that’s why I suggested one solution would be to join the EEA instead.  It would mean an open border with England while disruption to trade with the EU would be minimised.  We wouldn’t be held hostage to the whims of the little-englanders and their desire to keep foreigners out no matter the cost to the economy.

I said I wouldn’t post again in this thread, but this is a major coup getting this acknowledged at this time.

From Hansard tonight:

“Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question accordingly put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House endorses the principles of the Claim of Right for Scotland, agreed by the Scottish Constitutional Convention in 1989 and by the Scottish Parliament in 2012, and therefore acknowledges the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs.”

Apparently unanimous.

It highlights the difference in sovereignty in Scotland compared to England.

Basically in Scotland the people have always been sovereign, in England the parliament is sovereign. (Our different legal system is protected by the Treaty of Union, and its priority in Scotland has been affirmed by various court cases since).

What I expect to see out of this is a political challenge to the right of Westminster to strip Scotland of its powers that are returning from the EU.