The FT says in an editorial today that:
The die is cast. Parliament has backed Boris Johnson's withdrawal agreement, putting Britain on course to leave the EU on January 31. It is now clear that the future of the UK union itself will move centre stage next year. The Scottish National party, armed with electoral gains this month and the argument that Brexit is a material change to the UK's constitutional make-up, wants a new vote on independence. Supporters of the union must make the case for its survival.
All the usual arguments are rolled out, including this:
The economic case for independence has, however, weakened further. Brent crude was at $100-plus a barrel before the 2014 referendum. Today it is $65. That makes it all the harder for Scotland to fund itself without the sizeable net budgetary transfer it receives from the UK. The annual Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland review found Scotland ran a notional budget deficit of 7 per cent of output in 2018-19, even after including a share of North Sea revenues. The type of Brexit Mr Johnson is targeting would reduce the future UK-EU relationship to a trade deal. If Scotland then broke away but remained in the EU this would create a hard border between it and England, causing further economic harm.
First of all, it's hard to see how harm could be caused by being in the EU when the FT considers that to be to the benefit of the UK as a whole. Second if, as is inevitable, rules to handle Northern Ireland being outside the rest of the UK for trade purposes can be developed and functional there is no reason why they could not also be applied to Scotland.
Second, though is the more important question of selecting inappropriate evidence. It is well known that I have long been a critic of GERS. There are numerous reasons for being so. As I wrote in August this year:
It is important to remember that this data is now published by the Scottish government. It was not always. It began life in the early 1990s as a deliberate exercise to supposedly prove that Scotland was not a viable independent state. Now the Scottish government says of it:
The aim of GERS is to enhance public understanding of fiscal issues in Scotland. The primary objective is to estimate a set of public sector accounts for Scotland through detailed analysis of official UK and Scottish Government finance statistics. GERS estimates the contribution of revenue raised in Scotland toward the goods and services provided for the benefit of the people of Scotland. The report is designed to allow users to understand and analyse Scotland's fiscal position under different scenarios.
GERS captures the entire public sector in Scotland and includes activity by each of the constituent sub-sectors of the public sector: central government, local government and public corporations. In addition to providing an analysis of aggregate expenditure and revenue, the report contains a detailed breakdown according to individual expenditure and revenue components.
That, in my opinion, is a generous interpretation, and in some respects just wrong. I have not seen the data as yet, but I have no doubt that I was right to have created the term CRAp to describe it. That means ‘Completely Rubbish Approximations'. And that is what GERS is.
So, before we see anything let me remind those who will get excited by this (and I am sure some graphs will be coming our way) of just why I think this.
First, this was and to some extent remains a Unionist exercise. The short name says it all, and is not, I am sure coincidence. No one puts expenditure ahead of revenue in the name of an accounting document. It was done here for a reason, and it was to make a point that is still repeated. I will treat it with more respect when it is renamed.
Second, this is very largely UK based data. It is simply an extrapolation of that data to Scotland in most cases. And UK data is prepared for UK purposes. The result is that the inherent reporting bias in it, recently referred to by the Tax Justice Network, for example, is not removed. Large amounts of economic value created in Scotland is not reported there as a result.
Third, GERS is not intended to show how an independent Scotland would perform, and does not. For the sake of the independence debate it is almost irrelevant.
Fourth, GERS reflects a lot of spending Scotland would not incur. It would not have a nuclear deterrent, for example.
Fifth, as I have argued many times, the accounting is biased and theoretically utterly flawed. When accounting it is vital that all estimates are prepared consistently and on the same basis. GERS has not been. Income is estimated on the basis of that arising IN Scotland but spending is estimated on the basis of that arising FOR Scotland. So, only taxes paid in Scotland are included. But expenditure in England (mainly), Wales and Northern Ireland is also charged to Scotland when Scotland is deemed to benefit from it. But the tax paid to generate that expenditure is not taken into account. The system is, then, inherently designed to show a deficit. This is why the Scottish government claim about it is wrong.
Sixth, no one really has a clue about the level of Scottish imports and exports, including services, because as yet the data to check these does not exist. And since this data might significantly impact GERS, and any other debate on the Scottish economy, that leaves a gaping hole in the estimates that nothing can fill.
Seventh, even now Scotland has a tax authority we know it is having difficulty identifying Scottish resident people and their tax liabilities. And that is for easy taxes. On VAT, corporation tax and many other taxes the figures are stabs in the dark, especially as much Scottish added value is recorded elsewhere.
To base an argument for or against independence on data that was not intended to show the financial position of Scotland if it was independent makes little or no sense.
But let me suggest too that the FT should consider the Tax Justice Network paper noted above. Written by Nick Shaxson and John Christensen it looks at how UK regional accounting data (i.e. that for all regions and not just Scotland, but of which GERS is really an abstract) is likely to be seriously wrong. As they note:
A 2017 article in the Financial Times, entitled “Why London deserves a thank you note from the rest of Britain,” argued:
London “is definitively the cash cow that allows [politicians] to promise the high quality public services all parts of the country crave.... Official estimates show that “In 2015-16, average Londoners paid £3,070 more in tax than they received in public spending . . . if London was a nation state, it would have a budget surplus of 7 per cent of gross domestic product, better than Norway. . . . the idea that London sucks the life out of other parts of Britain is absurd.”
Supporting this view, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) presents regional data for Gross Value Added (GVA,) showing London's per-capita productivity at 179 percent of the UK average, while West Wales & the Valleys are at just 63 percent. While other studies suggest that the true picture is less stark after adjusting for workforce, housing, industry mix and other factors, this has not dented the conventional view.
They then argue, convincingly, that this is wrong. Their argument is that the financial power of London extracts talent, investment, and most importantly income through the extraction of rents in the firm of excessive interest and literal rent charges that are recorded in the south-east of England as income and which are shown as deficits in the regions, including Scotland for these purposes. As they conclude:
A simplistic approach to addressing Britain's regional economic imbalances, on the above analysis, would identify parts of the financial sector as extractive, then seek to shrink such parts, in the name of regional rebalancing. It may indeed be possible to consider how and which parts of the financial sector may usefully be made smaller, and regional and national cost-benefit analyses conducted of various strategies for doing this.
However, a more nuanced approach would recognise that many of the more extractive sectors, and more broadly those forces that represent the ‘gravitational pull' of investment and resources and effort and talent away from the regions (and from poorer parts of London) towards the parts of London and its hinterlands that represent the ‘winners', are frequently inseparable from one another. Useful and productive lending and investment, for instance, are entangled with leverage techniques and securitisation, which contributed to the global financial crisis and may do so again.
Measuring these effects will be difficult, requiring innovative new ways for identifying financial extractive mechanisms, or other gravitational effects. For instance, might one estimate the scale of wealth extraction via excess market power and put this in a regional context?
If this were done a very different view might emerge. I believe that they are right.
Nonetheless the FT concludes:
The UK prime minister is right to refuse Ms Sturgeon's calls for a new referendum in 2020.
It adds:
This newspaper firmly supports the United Kingdom as one of the most successful political marriages in history. But the argument that Britain's departure from the EU changes the constitutional situation is legitimate. If parties that unequivocally support a new independence referendum win a majority under Scotland's proportional system in the 2021 election, the case to grant one may become unanswerable. Before then, if it is to preserve the UK, the government must do all it can to persuade Scots once again to vote No.
Let me assure the FT economic argument will not do that: the data does not make the case.
More important though is the fact that the FT does not understand that Scotland thinks like another country. And that is what will be insurmountable.
What is remarkable is that sometime soon England will really face the end of its Empire. Northern Ireland and Scotland, at least, will leave the Union. As a political economist it's impossible not to be fascinated by this. As an observer of the failing English elite it's as fascinating to watch their failure to come to terms with it, as the FT evidences. For Scotland, at least, it brings hope. For Ireland it's more complicated. But I believe it too will get there. We live in interesting times.
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Having read the above article I can only assume tje writer is a pro independence person. I am a Scot resident in Scotland and I along with the 55% of other Scots are totally against independence. The SNP only speak for 45% of Scots and there statement that they speak for Scotland is factually untrue.
However, if the SNP did have another indy ref2 they would lose it again as they have shown themselves to be totally incompetent in goverment. Eduction, health, and farcical ferry contract they placed with Fergusons show they should be allowed any more powers until they demonstrate some competence in what they are supposed to do rather than continually rattle on about independence.
I am wholly pro Scotland having an informed choice
And I am wholly in favour of countries controlling their own futures
The SNP and independence are also quite emphatically nit the same thing
Surely the term “were” and not “are” would be more accurate, in relation to your 55/45%?
Since 2014 there have been many changes, Brexit included, and the latest Boris election will swing many to the independence cause.
Alan you are confusing independence with the SNP. Not at all the same thing. Under our proportional representation system, pro-independence parties form the government at Holyrood, and they do therefore speak for Scotland. Obviously not for all voters, but a majority. With regard to independence, much has changed since the last referendum and we need another, particularly since the recent UK election shows clearly what different visions Scotland and England have for their futures.
It has always puzzled me that those who are so adamant that Scotland does not want independence are so frightened of putting the question to the people in another referendum.
Or are they worried that the majority do now want to have control of their own affairs?
Yes, in a word
I’m sure you understand that Westminster elections aren’t based on vote share but on winning seats. It doesn’t seem fair to run an election under FPTP and then change the rules after the fact, to suit an agenda.
But if you wish to insist the GE did not create a mandate for a second independence referendum then, for the same reason, you must also accept that Johnson did not win a mandate for Brexit.
Either way, we are due a referendum: either for Brexit or for Scottish independence.
I’ve got simple questions for Alan Austin:
1. Do you believe we could make a bigger hash of running our own affairs than has been made by Westminster Gov’ts have made on “our behalf” over the last 45 years?
2. Do you recognise that, had we had full control over our own affairs, Scotland would by now be one of the richest nations on earth with a sovereign wealth fund resulting from oil roughly similar to that of Norway?
3. Do you really think it preferable that the governance of Scotland should, through simple superiority of numbers, be entrusted in perpetuity to politicians whom frequently don’t vote for and whom we cannot vote out of office when they make a hash of running things?
4. Are you comfortable with the fact that your children and grandchildren, along with the entire population of Scotland, live at the centre of the biggest nuclear target in Western Europe?
If they are so sure of their gers figures why did they hide the Macrone report??? Blair
McCrone Report for those looking for it.
“The UK prime minister is right to refuse Ms Sturgeon’s calls for a new referendum in 2020.”
If Johnson can claim a strong mandate for Brexit based on a parliamentary majority, then Scotland has an even greater claim to hold a 2nd independence referendum because of the SNP’s overwhelming success in the same election. No other party could even get into double figures.
There cannot be one rule for Scotland and another rule for the rest of the UK. That is not democracy.
Scotland does not just think like another country, it *is* another country!
I know that
Very useful piece and the debunking of GERS needs to continue (thanks for restating). Not only are it’s assumptions nonsense, it lays bare the motivations of Westminster. Those against Scottish independence fail to answer the key question – how to overcome the democratic deficit inherent in the Westminster system. The FT is bang-on in stating that the pro-Indy parties need not only justify the economic future of an independent Scotland, the London political elite need to justify the iniquities of the status quo.
The article also assumes all independence supporters vote for the SNP which is untrue.
Agreed – and I am well aware of it
Not all independence supporters vote SNP either.
I also fascinated with how tenacious Empire is culturally, and the almost comic inability of the English elite to comprehend what is going on.
Nigel,
There’s an interesting article on Bloomberg suggesting the estrangement of Scotland was an entirely intentional Tory maneouvre to steer Scotland on a path to independence.
http://www.progressivepulse.org/brexit/the-unmaking-of-britain
I don’t buy the supposition, but at the same time I don’t underestimate the deviousness of the UK Deep Stats, which could give lessons on deviousness to Machiavelli. I’ve suspected all along that the demise of the UK will start in N Ireland, where politics are more unstable than in Scotland and the direction of travel suggests that it’s at/near to a crucial tipping point. Sean Danaher’s articles and comments on Progressive Pulse are the place to go for a detailed and insightful analysis of unfolding events in NI politics. His latest comments in response to a recent article are a good place to start: http://www.progressivepulse.org/brexit/the-unmaking-of-britain
Trend lines are what is important here. The trend North of the border is towards local solutions to local problems. If HMG were clued up rather than clueless they would accept this to reduce the potential for a clean break. Sadly they cannot even accept that Glasgow should be able to set its own drug policy.
“The annual Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland review found Scotland ran a notional budget deficit of 7 per cent of output in 2018-19, even after including a share of North Sea revenues”.
The clue is in the word NOTIONAL budget deficit.
notional
/ˈnəʊʃ(ə)n(ə)l/
adjective: notional – existing as or based on a suggestion, estimate, or theory; not existing in reality.
GERS is and always has been a propaganda tool engineered by Ian Lang (the then Tory Secretary of State for Scotland in in 1991) to disparage Scotland’s ability to run it’s own affairs. It’s wholly unacceptable for the SNP to even remotely give GERS any credence.
Well said
The real point is ‘*a share* of North Sea Oil revenue’…I wonder what difference retaining all of it would make? We only need look a few hundred miles North East to see that.
Norway has almost the same population as Scotland, the same demographics, the same logistical problems that a mountainous landscape causes, produce almost the same amount of oil, the same social attitudes, the same natural resources, and are probably the one country in the world that is more like Scotland than Scotland is, yet they are in the top ten of almost every quality of life measure, and more often than not in the top two…so how come Norway is Norway, but Scotland would be Greece?
It’s demonstrably nonsense to suggest that Scotland couldn’t be a successful, independent country.
David, I agree entirely: “It’s wholly unacceptable for the SNP to even remotely give GERS any credence.” I’ve been banging on about this here for some time as it’s clear that requiring Scot Gov to publish GERS infers the approval of Scot Gov to the contents.
I’ve also wondered why the Scottish Gov doesn’t get Audit Scotland to provide an audit report of GERS and ask AS to certify whether GERS represents a true and fair view of the Scottish Public economy. While AS may confirm that the contents conform to the methodology set out for completion of GERS, I don’t see how any reputable auditor could give a positive certification to a set of numbers consisting of estimates and allocations of UK data which, in itself (as Richard has described), is drawn from divergent sources which are expressed on a number of different bases (differing time periods, accruals/cash-based accounting methods etc). From an accounting perspective it’s a house built on sand and, if it shows anything at all, demonstrates that the current status quo within the UK is profoundly damaging to Scotland.
Thanks Ken
Good idea
The unionist’s assume that the UK is a success story. When compared with our European neighbours the evidence says otherwise – UK vs Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden and just for good measure Norway as well. Over the past 30 years –
GDP per capita PPP
Gini income inequality
Current Account % GDP
Capital Investment % GDP
R&D expenditure % GDP
Health Spend % GDP or per capita US$
Prisoners per 100,000
The UK has the worst figures for each measure. Year in, year out.
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/compare-countries/
The evidence implies that the UK will never reach European levels of wealth, equality & overall standard of living, so why exactly would Scotland be better off staying in a moribund UK?
The graphic in this link shows a breakdown of who would have won constituencies for different age groups at the 2019 GE.
http://www.progressivepulse.org/economics/15329
It is interesting to note that in Scotland the younger voters seemed more attracted to Labour than the SNP. Generalising – the SNP took the middle aged and Tories the older votes.
Do the young people of Scotland, as some older radicals do, see the SNP as an obstacle to Independence?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/12/london-will-never-give-independence-we-must-take-it/
I hardly think that the younger voters are drawn to Labour as much as you may think. See https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2019/12/23/the-fresh-face-of-scotlands-18-24-year-olds-with-only-one-wee-plook-in-edinburgh-south/ for a different Scotland.
And it is dangerous to generalise, I know quite a few of my generation, war babies, are even more vocal in their support for independence than I.
Thanks Willie John and sorry for the error. My comment was based on a map from a usually trusted source, but I didn’t check it myself. Having gone back to the origin now, I realise your map was the correct one and my conclusion invalid.
The opposite is actually the case as you can see from this stunning diagram showing how the map of the UK would have looked based on actual votes of 18-24 year-olds in 2019 GE:
https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2019/12/23/the-fresh-face-of-scotlands-18-24-year-olds-with-only-one-wee-plook-in-edinburgh-south/
Err, those maps are wrong, check out the updated maps from same source.
https://mobile.twitter.com/i/web/status/1208718729661632512
To be fair the source was the same in each case but the one I posted is their updated version, yours was the original.
Gers, as stated, has always been deeply flawed and whilst better now than it has ever been it is still not fit for purpose in determining Scotlands economic position. It will not get any better until there is a proper account of inflows and outflows as per the National accounts Pink Book. Until that happens all you will have is estimates of estimates of who owns what and where it is located which is open to manipulation and obfuscation. The solution is simple although the methodology may not be. Simply supply a proper set of accounts if necessary for ALL regions of the UK which will identify contribution and need. What is consistent however is that in Scotlands case there is a consistent net outflow of income of 6-10% from 1973.
The 55-45% referendum split was bought by the “vow” of the three main political parties for further devolution fairness of the allocation of resources. The Smith commission watered down all the original proposals so what was actually delivered did not match the “vow” and for that reason alone the result was open to question just as the Brexit vote was due to the mendacity involved. But there is now a party split which would indicate there is an 81%-19% split in favour of remaining in the EU which translates into a call for independence as it cannot be delivered any other way.
The thing is …folks can’t have it both ways. If Scotland IS too financially poor to stand on its own (as we are constantly being told), and ‘England’ subsidises Scotland out of the generosity of its own purse …then why does ‘England’ turn itself inside out to prevent Scotland from leaving the UK?
Would YOU fight tooth and nail to keep nuisance lodgers in your home who weren’t paying their way?
If all this Too-Weak-Too-Poor-Too-Stupid crap is a lie–which of course it is–then ‘England’ must be scared shitless that they’re in danger of losing their cash cow and Trump bargaining chip. Hence Johnson’s stubborn attempt to block Scotland’s right to another referendum. Cameron’s Tory government was supremely confident they would win in 2014, so they agreed to IndyRef1. They did win–but only barely–and only by trotting out a bunch of false promises and bonhomie at the last minute. Johnson’s government isn’t confident at all. So they ‘refuse’ another referendum. Because they (think they) can.
The last of the British Empire is melting away, isn’t it? Time for England to stand on it’s own two feet, I’d say. The question isn’t ‘can Scotland stand on its own?’ but ‘can England stand on its own?’ Both of them can, of course, but it’s going to require some new thinking, both sides of the border.
Independence is normal. I can’t think of any country anywhere (large or tiny) that achieved independence from anybody, and wasn’t improved by the experience. Yet the SNP is constantly portrayed in the media (when the media can be bothered with them at all) as a party whose aspirations are out of touch with reality.
Once Brexit kicks in, we’ll see whose voters were out of touch with reality, I reckon.
As an Indy curious 55er this article makes a lot of sense. It is an inalienable fact Scotland could function as an independent state.
I am now more interested in hearing the positive case for the union rather than the negative case for the status quo.
You’ll be hard pushed to find a positive case for the union Paul. I’ve been asking unionists for decades and I’ve yet to hear any plausible benefit of staying in.
Without Scotland’s natural resources to service it’s huge debt and with the economic damage that Brexit will bring – England is screwed.
I take no pleasure in saying that, it’s just how it is. Unless Westminster takes draconian measures that will make austerity look like a picnic (with all the implications of higher taxes and slashing public services that entails) I fully expect the rUK economy to crash.
That is why they will fight tooth and nail to prevent Scotland’s independence. They will start by saying no to indyref2. Then they will slowly start transferring powers back to Westminster from Hollyrood, using it as an excuse to cut funding. The Scottish Government will eventually become the parish council talking shop it was always intended to be and close. Remember the Tories were and still are dead set against devolution. To them control is power and they will never willingly give it up.
As things stand with the prospect of 10 years or more of tory rule, I can’t see a democratic route to independence. Westminster will never play fair and holds all the cards. The SNP don’t have the courage to do what it takes to gain independence – at least not with the current leadership.
On that cheery note I’d like to wish Richard and everyone all the best for this festive season.
If the ‘Leave’ side (SNP or whoever) successfully argue that Scotland, rather than being a drain, makes a positive contribution to the U.K. economy (something which I don’t dispute); surely they’d be on the back foot when it came to discussing the ‘maintenance‘ payments that will be needed (way into the distant future) to help support the weaker partners of the Union?
There is no obligation on a leaving country to pay anything in international law
I won’t argue with what you assert re. the absence of a legal obligation; although, I’m sure that rUK may see it differently during any trade negotiations.
This issue was agreed in 2014, in effect
It will be a matter of negotiation, not law
While I agree with much of what Jan Foley says and I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, there are one or two countries that have not been enriched by independence, Zimbabwe for one, but that is solely down to greed and dictatorship being allowed to run amok.
I started campaigning for independence in the ’60s when it became evident that successive “English” governments (for that’s what they were and still are, Scotland never gets the government it votes for) were ripping the heart out of Scotland with scant regard for its inhabitants, it became more evident into the 70’s and 80’s when Thatcher decimated our industrial base and the truth became crystal clear with the disclosure of the McCrone report in more recent times, as has been stated above, if Scotland is such a basket case why does Westminster do so much to stop its independence ambitions?
Being a part of this iniquitous union results in Scotlands natural and huan wealth being continuously sucked ot of the country, predominantly towards London. This has happened for hundreds of years. Over the past fifty years alone, if you include lost economic multiplier effects, this has cost Scotland trillions of Pounds.
This happens in all sorts of ways but the North Sea oil and gas industries provide a good illustration of how it works and why so few people notice.
Norway has produced slightly less oil and gas than Scotland since first discovery but has gained far more benefit from it. There are many reasons for this. The principle one is that Norway is an independent country. It set policies to maximise the economic and social benefis of the industry to Norway. Scotland is not independent and suffers Westminster policies that do not take the best interests of the Scottish economy and society into account. Instead, it does what benefits London and the Southeast.
Norway kept substantial state control of its oil and gas meaning that they share in the profits. They have a more efficient industry where state ownership means that investments can be shared accross multiple fields. Their ownership stake makes it more difficult for oil and gas companies to make excessive profits and to hide them from taxes. The UK privatised Scotland’s oil in the 1980s and handed the profits to private investors. Taxing these private companies has resulted in a game of cat and mouse between industry and governments of every colour. It is a game that the public purse has demonstrably lost.
Norway tied oil and gas licenses to the creation of local jobs. The result is that Norway has a substantial fabrication and shipbuilding sector. It not only supplies a high proportion of its own needs. It sells huge amounts to the UK. Successive Westminster governments of every colour have done nothing, since privatisation, to tie the licensing of Scotland’s oil and gas resources to the creation of local jobs. Worse still, because Westminster policies are set predominantly to suit London and the Southeast, manufacturing industries the length and breadth of the UK have been sacrificed on the altar of the financial services sector. The result is that Scotland has built very little of the oil and gas infrastructure, ships, etc since privatisation. Instead, Scotland’s oil wealth is spent on infrastructure, ships etc that are imported from Norway, South Korea, Singapore, Spain, Italy, Poland, Germany and many other countries. The same thing is now happening with Scotland’s renewables sector where most of the infrastructure is imported with only final assembly taking place locally.
People sometimes describe Aberdeen as being the oil capital of Europe. That is a lie. The oil capital of Europe is London. Nearly 60% of UK oil and gas jobs (circa 180,000) are in England. Only 38% are in Scotland. The English jobs are predominantly in London and the Southeast. This is where most of the design, development, subcontracting, finance, legal, regulatory, corporate and countless other top jobs are located. By contrast, jobs in Scotland are predominantly in the services and supply sector.
The economic and social benefit of oil and gas to Scotland has only been a tiny fraction of what it would have been had Scotland been independent.
So far, I’ve only illustrated the way that oil and gas wealth has been systematically sucked out of Scotland. The same is true of many other industries. Scotch whisky is produced in Scotland but most of the companies are headquartered in London. Malt distilleries only operate for a small part of the year and only employ a handful of people, mostly on low wages. The sales, marketing, advertising, legal, finance and other corporate jobs, together with other support services are predominantly in London.
These same effects are repeated accross most of Scotland’s industries and services.
If you add up the lost jobs over 50 years, then add in the payroll taxes, corporate taxes and the economic multiplier effects these could have had, it would be easy to show that being a part of the UK has cost Scotland trillions of Pounds.
GERS isn’t just CRAp. It fails to take any account whatsoever of the different decisions that an independent Scotland could take to maximise the benifits that Scotland’s huge natural and human resources could make to Scotland’s economy and society. The really disappointing thing for me is that the SNP has done little or nothing to point out these issues. Instead, they meekly accept GERS and fiddle around the edges. They have been utterly incompetent at making the case for independence. They have no vision for how the powers of independence could be used to transform Scotland’s economy and society.
Thanks
Here’s the link to the North Sea oil and gas jobs figures I refer to; https://www.oilandgaspeople.com/news/15310/new-uk-north-sea-workforce-numbers-revealed
Another good article Richard.
It is beyond dispute that the GERS data is of negative value in trying to examine the Scottish Economy with even fundamentals such as income and expenditure just estimates.
What surprises me is why the Scottish Government and people close to them use these figures.
What is badly needed if a proper data agency established by the Scottish Government to collect and collate real data in Scotland in order to build up the statistics we will require in an independent Scotland. Why are the Scottish Government not addressing this?
Andy Anderson
They are starting a Scottish statistical agency
But do not expect miracles as yet
OK. why has the SCOT-GOV not commissioned its own report, by a noted team of economic experts, on the true situation. Why indeed. Sometimes I wonder what is going on in the SNP Command bunker. They sometimes lack basic governmental skills. This would, for once and all times, , settle the matter. Instead, utter silence. Why?…..the Government has its own internal economic team. what the hell are they doing?….This is idiocy.
EXAMPLE: I have seen estimates putting the export value of whisky at about two billion pounds. That’s because the hooch is sent direct to English ports and exported there, and logged as an English export. actual export value is about 40 times higher. Irish whisky is mysteriously about 10Billion, even though its a very small output. I could give many other examples. After Independence, if the Government set up check points at the borders and required logging of all exports, everyone would be shocked. It seems, (my own rough estimate) that Scottish GDP is at least about a quarter higher than is admitted, plus the oil and gas. So no more bullshit. also, the vast amount of useful alnd that could be growing crops and forest, but instead is being ruined by the oligarchs for their blood sports, has to be considered. Finland, produces about 20 billion Euros of timber product exports per year. Scotland, could develop a similar output, as trees grow twice as fast in Scotland as in Finland, and is a fully sustainable resource. At the moment, they are heavily subsidised by the Scottish tax payer, with low vat, and various tax dodges. A complete reform of the countryside eco-system and re-population, on small farms and homesteading, would put the Highlands back on its feet. Also generate about 20% more GNP. Comments please.
Land laws in Scotland are desperately in need of a serious overhaul – the Scottish government started on it, but is taking the softly softly approach – maybe because how it works now is to benefit rich landowners and help with tax dodges (so the government will come up against opposition) – no one knows who owns half the land in Scotland and it’s an outrage. It’s an outrage that half of the Scottish people think it’s okay. The way land is owned and run in Scotland is keeping us in a perpetual state of the Clearances, jobs are so scarce in the rural areas and houses and land still too expensive to buy for normal folk. Young people keep having to leave because there is no livelihood to be had and so few choices.
So much could be done. But can’t be done effectively while part of the Union.
Scotland has been ‘preserved’ just so those elites can have their hunting shooting fishing grounds, they will not give it up easily, or allow Scotland to progress while they have them.
Graham,
I agree entirely that there is some confusion as to the true figure of Scottish exports. I was told by a former senior customs officer that there are two forms for each dispatch going for export: One records the ultimate destination of the goods, while the other names only the immediate destination. So if a container load of, say, whisky is being sent to Brazil, the first form will record the destination as Brazil, while the other will show Felixstowe, if that is the port where the container is loaded on to the ship. If the data accumulated at UK level contains two different definitions of export and two entirely different total values, it’s obvious that a misleading picture could be painted either intentionally or through ignorance of the underlying data. This is something that the new Scottish Statistics Department has to investigate and correct as a matter of high priority.
Re the question of land ownership/management, I agree again. Too much of our land is grossly underproductive and its real ownership too opaque. However I suspect nothing substantive will change until independence is gained: the connection of land ownership to the UK Establishment is too deeply embedded and it will take major constitutional change before any progress is likely. Contrary’s point is spot on that much of Scotland is “preserved” for elite “sporting” interests, with significant, consequent social and environmental damage being done. My wife’s view is that Scotland’s future as part of the UK is increasingly likely to be as a massive Theme Park. There’s certainly plenty tacky tartan tat already available to buy!