The same group of activists who recently asked me if Scotland could afford to be independent also asked me whether Scotland would be better or worse off than the rest of the UK after independence. In this video I answer this question in a number of ways.
First of all, I say no one can be sure: the future is not ours to know. But that said, the UK looks to be making a right fist of almost everything right now. And Scotland is not.
What is more, Scotland seems to have many more fundamentally good things going for it than the rest of the UK at this moment. So, on balance I am pretty confident that the answer to this question is 'yes'. In this video I explain why.
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Richard,
A good one
It seems to me that the issue as much as anything is the English desire for a headlong dash towards failed state status.
How the English can turn that round is surely the $6 million dollar question
Indeed….
I know you’re a busy man Richard, but could you find some time to have a look at Wales regarding independence. We too have a flourishing renewable energy sector, we export lots of agricultural products and we’ve got a bit of water too.
I would, but I am less familiar with it, even with a son who is keen on your cause and seems to already self-identify as Welsh
So 3 questions for you:
1. Every major economics forecaster who has looked at the case for an independent Scotland has forccast that Scotland would be immediately much poorer, and have to implement dramatic austerity. In short, for the short and medium term at least it would be much poorer.
Why is it then you seem to think (without any analysis I might add) that Scotland would somehow do better outside he UK.
2. You argue that an independent Scotland would be a good thing outside the EU (which it won’t be able to rejoin) and with a trade border with the UK. But you at the same time argue that Brexit is hugely damaging.
Logically, how can both be true at the same time? Either both exits are going to be hugely damaging, or neither are, but it is just totally warped logic to claim that in one case (when Scotland is even deeper integrated into the UK) that it will be a good thing but the other case a disaster.
3. Under the SNP, Scotland has underperformed the rest of the UK when it comes to various public services – despite having significantly more money per head to spend on them. This includes education, where it has been nothing short of a disaster, healthcare which has much worse outcomes than the UK, life expectancy and crime.
The SNP has been in power for 10 years, and these issues have got worse, not better – and are under devolved control. Why do you think suddenly that suddenly on independence all these trends of underachievement would suddenly and magically turn around and start to outperform the rest of the UK?
1) You aren’t Ailsa Craig
2) Only Unionists say that Scotland will be poorer after independence, and do so by assuming GERS continues. It’s wrong now and it won’t continue
3) Brexit and Scottish independence are not remotely similar – as I have explained many times. You make a category error that is not worth addressing
4) I disagree
1. It’s my maiden name. Not sure why that is of any importance.
2. The OECD, IMF and the EU all think Scotland would be poorer after independence. Plus numerous international banks and investment houses who have released analysis.
Just claiming only unionists says Scotland will be poorer it false.
All say that Scotland would lose a lot of funding from the UK, debt servicing costs would increase significantly and the finance sector would be forced to relocate. Add that to a significant existing budget deficit and all serious economic houses say Scotland will take a GDP hit initially, and be forced into massive austerity.
You just claim GERS is wrong and Scotland will suddenly outgrow the UK, despite not having any data to back this up. You have literally no evidence to back up any of your claims.
3. In practical terms how are they not similar? Brexit means trade borders with Europe. Scottish Independence means trade borders with the whole world.
4. Disagree all you want, but the data doesn’t lie. Scottish education attainment has been falling down the league tables whilst the UK has risen. Scotland has the lowest life expectancy and the highest rate of drug deaths in the UK, and the healthcare system there has the worst outcomes barring parts of Wales.
None of this has improved under the SNP, yet it is all under SNP control.
Oh dear….
1. If so, apologies. You’ll be the first troll with a real unlikely name
2. If you insist on extrapolating GE%RS, as they all do, and it is stated to not be fit for that purpose that is of course what they say. But as a matter of fact the Scottish government does not incur deficits. The Uk dumps them on it. Oh, and debt servicing costs will go down. Scotland will start with no debt: the UK could not demand it take any. Every assumption you make is wrong. And why will Scotland grow – because states of its size prosper well now.
3. I have answered this so many times. Brexit has been chosen for the sake of isolation and separation. Scottish ind0ednece will in no small part be chosen for integration and cooperation. If you don;t get the difference I can’t help you.
4. Scotland is too poor because of neglect by a colonial power, I agree. That is why independence is required.
Scotland is not poor because of a colonial power; it is not even especially poor; but it has a lot more than its fair share of people suffering excessively from deprivation, and a lot of people in Scotland are poorer than need be, but the reason for that is quite another matter altogether. Scotland is, however a great deal worse and worse off than need be, because it has complacently allowed the UK to deliver harm to the country, through long-term, inadequate Scottish Unionist politcal leadership, and low economic and political aspirations for its people, over many decades; very ably abetting an indifferent Westminster with the soporific, supine, studied politics of encouraging austerity and political inertia that has been the hallmark of Scots Unionists. There is a comic (or should that be cosmic?) absurdity in Scots Unionists current hapless insistence that they actually represent majority opinion in Scotland, in spite of their abject failure to win any general elections, and endless poor polling results; they are simply ‘losers’, consistently overlooked by the electorate over many years (65 years since the Scots Conservatives actually won a general election in Scotland). In the case of the Scottish Conservatives, it is scarcely necessary to scratch very far below the brittle surface, to discover that a significant number even of their politicians (and perhaps a majority of members), would no doubt eliminate the Scottish Parliament altogether, in a heartbeat if they thought they could (or reduce its powers to grappling with weekly Bin collections). The sole political strategy of Scottish Unionism in the 21st century is simply to become angrier and angrier, and to fail to make any coherent, constructive, usable case for the Union at all; and they still wonder why, somehow it just isn’t working. Bereft of talent, reduced to the crude politics of populism, and dependent on ideas so scant they scarcely stretch to a whole sound-bite; all they have left is ‘project fear’; repeated over, and over, and over again.
Nobody is listening any more. Brexit and Covid-19 changed everything; Yet Unionism has changed, precisely – nothing. Ailsa’s arguments wish us naively to assume that Holyrood and GERS were designed to govern Scotland better; they weren’t. They were designed to ‘dish the Nats’ and presented an arcane and ill-conceived division of responsibilities that made it look as if Scotland was virtually independent, while Westminster pulled the strings, controlled the finances and propagandised: in Ailsa’s words “None of this has improved under the SNP, yet it is all under SNP control”. No it isn’t! This is a ramshackle division of responsibilities the electorate can scarcely understand – and that was deliberate. Well, to paraphrase the immotal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, ‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’ This is the appeal of a Unionist to the obvious form over hidden substance. Holyrood was either supposed to be run by Unionists who understood the rules of the game and had no ambition to change anything; and if it was run by the SNP, Westminster retained the advantage of making life difficult to function, while the structure deliberately made it almost impossible for the ordinary public to understand where responsibility rested, and thus, for Westminster ends at worst in a sour political dog-fight unlikely to advantage the SNP; QED. Of course Scotland is not in control, it is a mere client of Westminster.
The irony is that with all the advantages Westminster possesses over Holyrood, it is still unable to make it count politically in Scotland. In desperation to fight back they are now building a large Scottish Office administration in Edinburgh, and since it defeats the rule of Occam’s Razor most likely will conveniently create total chaos and confusion throughout Scotland for everyone; which Wesminster will no doubt consider a political win. The Union keeps losing elections, and confidence in the Union is now at rock-bottom. Then Brexit and Covid-19 arrived, and finally exposed the profound inadequacy of British government in action, the cronyism, the non-tarriff Brexit disaster they were warned about and ignored; the mess Boris Jonhson has left in Ireland; the antiquated constitution riddled with flaws, the damage austerity caused to Britain’s preparedness to fight a pandemic; and after the GFC the demonstration that neoliberalism – the sacred ideology of the UK and Union – is totally, culpably, incapable of handling an economic crisis, yet again – without abandoning the public shibboleths of neoliberalism wholesale; because neoliberalism is by definition intellectually bankrupt. The Union has been found out.
The long-term poverty we have in Scotland is not an accident. It is a direct consequence of our own failures, because we never, ever do enough to change it; and we never have done enough; and we rarely even try. That is the real long-term legacy of Unionism. Frankly, we have too many ideologicaly motivated, ill-informed, neoliberal, blinkered, utterly complacent, self-righteous Unionists in power within Scotland; leaders who are unambitious for their wider community – and ‘Ailsa’ appears to convey the fairly standard tropes representing, rather well the general intellectual myopia of Unionism. Thank you Ailsa for providing the template for the preservation – of a desert.
Richard,
I commend Mr Mathieson’s excellent deconstruction of Ailsa’s argument. I confess I suspected Ailsa already knew the answers; so I decided to tackle it from a different direction. I was rather hoping for the Gold Star award of “coolly reasoned”, but must resign myself to the fact that Mr Mathieson has strolled off with the prize, and I am rediced to the position of ‘also ran’!
You have your own gold star moments, I promise
Point 1: There’s a remarkable paucity of firm, reliable data that’s Scotland-specific: most Scottish data is lost in general UK-wide figures since UK governments have never seriously bothered to try to understand where money is being made and lost internally. You couldn’t run a successful sweetie shop on that basis, but it’s part of the Great British acceptance of “muddling through”. You assert without any evidence that “Every major economics forecaster who has looked at the case for an independent Scotland has forccast (sic) that Scotland would be immediately much poorer, and have to implement dramatic austerity.” Bearing in mind the absence of firm data, GERS is generally cited as the basis of such assertions, yet, as Richard points out, GERS reflects the estimated financial outturn of Scotland as it currently exists: as part of the UK, largely under UK Government policy and not free to make its own decisions on most matters, so in no way does GERS represent a future independent Scotland’s policies or finances. I’d add that approximately 96% of all the component data of GERS comprises estimates and allocations (i.e. cannot be substantiated by probative audit trail).
Point 2: You seem to think Scotland wouldn’t be able join the EU, but EU membership is an SNP policy, our laws are align with EU laws and our people have resoundingly demonstrated a preference to remain in the EU. It’s perfectly conceivable that, depending on the outcome of secession negotiations with rUK, that EFT/EEA membership might be the preferred outcome, but however it plays out, closer co-operation with our European neighbours will be central to an independent Scotland’s outlook. It is, after all, the clearly expressed wish of the majority of Scots.
Point 3: Again you offer no evidence for your claim that Scotland’s public services have been disastrously managed. Much of the criticism of education in Scotland results from the disruption caused by the pandemic, which has similarly impacted numerous other nations. An exam-based system cannot function in a socially-distanced, highly infective environment, so compromises have to be made. You also assert that “… healthcare .. has much worse outcomes than the UK”, but all the data from multiple sources shows the complete opposite. Significant changes in life expectancy will only come about over a number of generations and what we’re seeing in Scotland now is the impact of the austerity imposed by Tory governments from Thatcher onwards.
I don’t know where you do your reading, but there’s plenty of readily available sources showing reliable data that differs radically from your claims. You claim that things have got worse under the SNP government, but bear in mind that, as part of the UK, any Scottish government works within highly constrained financial limits and the SNP Government has been forced to “rob Peter to Paul” in its budgeting in order to mitigate some of the worst outcomes of UK government policies which would have adversely impacted us (cf university tuition fees).
Thanks Ken
Cooly reasoned
EDITOR NOTE:
This comment was deleted because the commentator has used techniques that normally indicate trolling, and I do not tolerate that
Very fair, expert summation Richard. Thanks.
Seems Westminster has finally admitted that England does NOT subsidise Scotland.
https://archive.is/https://www.thenational.scot/news/19098598.petition-makes-westminster-confirm-england-not-subsidise-scotland/
I have to say that I do not think that looks like evidence to me
It is unlikely they would be any worse off.
Thank you.
You did rather cover this, really, but it’s always worth saying explicitly that most of the time Scotland operates under a government it has not voted for. Not since since 1955 has Scotland voted tory.
Rob, you’ve hit on one of the most potent arguments for Scottish Independence: at long last we’d be able to vote out any government whose policies and performance in office failed to improve the lot of the Scottish people and/or its economy and ecology. Without that ability we don’t live in a functioning democracy. History shows that we are consistently governed by UK governments which fail to meet our expectations and frequently act against our interests (cf Brexit), so the ability to get rid of failed governments is right up there along with ridding our land and seas of WMDs and preserving our laws, culture and identity as a European nation.
In an Ian Fleming book of short stories there is one entitled “A Quantum of Solace”. In this the main character is so mistreated by his wife over such a long period that he eventually cuts her out of his life while living in the same house. This is now I feel the position of Scotand – the emotional detachment is what is increasingly important, and impossible to value in a cost benefit analysis.
I’m pretty confident Scotland will do well economically as an independent country, just like many others – Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Estonia and so on. It’s really a preposterous anti-intellectual position to take that of all the small nations in Europe, indeed the world, Scotland is uniquely disqualified from being a successful independent state, for reasons that are never fully spelled out beyond the absurdity of GERS and the “too wee, too poor, too stupid” mantra.
No doubt there will be difficulties for some time, but you know what, I wouldn’t care if we’re all a bit poorer for a while, as long as we insist that whatever government we elect post-indy drives forward an agenda of social justice and equity and redistributes wealth to those who need it most.
When I look at Scotland’s history since devolution I see quite a few social justice programmes being implemented by various administrations: PR voting for Holyrood (AMS) and Local Authorities (STV), (good enough for Scotland but totally unsuited to the UK) land reform and access, free prescriptions, free university tuition, free personal care for over 65’s, and various measures to mitigate some of the nastiest Tory policies such as the “bedroom tax” and some tweaks to income tax rates to benefit the majority of taxpayers, among many.
Of course many of these policies probably don’t go far enough, but it suggests to me that there are politicians across the spectrum who will support social justice being at the heart of a new Scotland. And of course it’s up to the citizenry to push for it too.
Richard,
Why are you campaigning for Scottish independence and shilling totally false claims backed up by nothing but your own hot air when you have no skin in the game?
If Scottish independence is a disaster and we Scots suffer because of it, you lose nothing. You will just skulk off back to your house in the UK and pretend that all the claims and promises you made never happened or something.
I don’t understand why you are doing it. Is it your ego? Is someone paying you? Either way I think you should be forced to somehow put your money where your mouth is and reap the “benefits” of what you are trying to sow.
I may well move
I suspect thousands will
M,
Richard is doing a great public good by exposing false claims by the UK government on Scotland and in many other areas. People who read his work can make up their own minds, but based on facts not falsehoods
I confess when someone makes an insulting accusation of “shilling totally false claims backed up by nothing but your own hot air”, while cowering behind anonymity, offers not a shred of evidence for the claim and claiming the target should be “forced” to do something; I confess I am at a complete loss to understand why anyone could be dim enough to believe that he, she (or an internet ‘bot’).
I genuinely have no idea Richard, why you put up with that bottom-feeding, squalid, trolling trash ill-disguised as comment. I find trolling utterly despicable; doubly despicable when anonymous, and I do not believe we should just constantly allow it to pass, with a mere shrug. It polutted debate and has wrecked social media.
I confess I am at a complete loss to understand why anyone could be dim enough to believe that he, she (or an internet ‘bot’) could persuade a single rational person.
I am so disgusted, and annoyed I am wasting my time on this rubbish, that I forgot to finish my sentence!
Others ask me why I bother
I think I must be a lot more tolerant than many suggest
I’ve wondered about Richard’s patience with trolls too, but just denying them “airtime” means that counter opinions don’t get aired and inevitably exposes the site to criticism of silo mentality. I think Richard gets it right in that counter opinions get aired and, as we’ve seen on occasions, are accepted as valid or are accepted on an “agree to differ” basis. If the complainer can’t sustain a logical argument/provide reliable sources or data, they rightly get shown the door.