In my column in The National newspaper in Scotland yesterday I wrote:
I happen to think that political economy is at least as important as pure economics. We got a perfect example of that at last weekend's SNP conference. Dr Tim Rideout steered his motion calling for work to start on the creation of a Scottish Central Reserve Bank to significant electoral success amongst the delegates present.
However, as I have heard time and again since then from members of the SNP who want this to happen, the expectation is that the leadership will ignore the wishes of the SNP members who voted for this resolution, just as they pretty much ignored the 2019 vote on sterlingisation.
Political economy ... very strongly suggests that the time has come for the SNP leadership to decide whose side they are on. My suggestion is that there is only one answer that they can choose if they are serious about independence. They have to choose to trust the membership of the SNP and the people of Scotland that they represent. The alternative is failure.
That alternative is, as I argued in the article, that the SNP leadership trust a very narrow financial elite. I would suggest that the time for trusting such elites has long gone and that one of the primary reasons for support for Scottish independence is that Scots want to be free of rule by those with such narrow interests.
What will Nicola Sturgeon do? I wish I knew.
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Alex Salmond had a close business relationship with Fred the Shred, and at an early stage, with Donald Trump. Those were in the days of Salmond’s hoped for “arc of prosperity” that would include fossil-fuel-rich-whale-hunting Norway, low tax neoliberal Ireland, and Iceland. Hopefully, things have improved since then with Nicola as First Minister.
As an S.N.P member I wish I knew. While I have none of Richard’s knowledge on this subject, I have read his articles on this subject, and it seems to me that his reasoning is sound.
It’s hardly surprising is it that even the SNP sucks up to the ‘financial elite’ for fiscal management capability when our own Chancellor is a Thatcherite wide boy from the City (as was his predecessor although a more moral and intellectual one than we’ve ever seen for some time) , and that the Ministry of Health is ran by one too. Thatcher’s Government was rife with them.
The U.S. regularly appoints ex-private bankers into their own Treasury. I don’t care how their system works BTW – they just should not be there IMHO.
And what makes me laugh is that we describe them as ‘ex’ this and that. Well, they’re not ‘ex-bankers’ or ‘ex-traders’. The simple fact is that they bring to their public post the same thinking & mindset they had when they did their previous job. That is the problem. A leopard cannot change its spots.
They’re nothing but foxes in the chicken coop.
And the SNP would be wise to get their heads around that asap.
But you know what is really sad?
That modern politicians just don’t have the faith to believe anything different – in line with Tim Snyder’s ‘inevitability politics’ paradigm.
Without that change, we are likely to continue our kamikaze economic thinking and our death dive into fascism and a more threatening biosphere.
I think it’s quite simple really…. what the SNP hierarchy are proposing is a bourgeois independence not a people’s independence. Is Alba hierarchy any different? Is Believe in Scotland any different?… I have my doubts
Nationalist movements are broad churches and inevitably steeped in xenophobia of some form on one wing and more radical , loosely anti-capitalism on the other. Common to both wings, as to British politics in general, is political semi literacy. The advantage of that is a lack of ideological commitment and an openness to discussion not prevalent in either the Tory or Labour Parties, both of which are irretrievably lost to Neo liberalism. It is therefore that I feel greater optimism about the outcome for the SNP. However, the elite are sadly lacking stupidity (at the more senior levels) and will undoubtedly have a raft of reliables ensconced among the SNP policy advisers. They will require both subtlety and political ruthlessness to remove.
I thought Craig Murray put it succinctly during his speech on release from Saughton Prison. He said that the UK Government could invest billions on simple house insulation, that this would provide work for many thousands of small employers. However the UK Government prefers to spend those billions on small scale nuclear reactors which suits the money markets, hedge funds and bankers.