Good post earlier Husker, you clearly put a lot of time into that! I'm not a financial kinda guy but it's clear the SNP are going to have to make some strong arguments to win over those who this is a big sticking point for.

What do you think Scotland would look like 5 years after the vote if Yes won this time? 10 years? 20 years? Do you not think we can manage on our own?

Thanks for the reply, it's appreciated. From what I've seen and read it would be very bleak for a generation. I'll expand on that a bit further when I get home (without writing an essay this time )

Fantastic post, Scottish Nationalism is among the most deluded and frankly stupid political movements around today, it would be funny if it didn't have the potential to be so dangerous.

Jesus ****ing Christ the monarchy should be approximately #3891 on the left's list of priorities, now really isn't the time for this ****.

Yeah, the whole idea of self governance for a country is deluded.

There's no reason for me to do that because you won't believe any argument that Scotland could do just fine outside of the UK simply because you don't want to believe it.

If you look at the statistics for 2014, the demographic that the Yes movement did very poorly with (besides Rangers fans) was people over the age of 65. And these votes are dying off all the time. When also taking into consideration that 16-17 year olds and EU nationals living here will probably be allowed to vote again it will swing it even more in favour of yes.

I doubt very much that a significant % of the Yes voters who voted to leave will reject voting for Independence when the option is put in front of them and I'm sure big % of the labour remain vote will choose EU membership over the Tory-run anti-free movement UK.

I think that a good chunk of Unionists that think the UK is one big happy family and that we all love and appreciate each nation's contribution will also start to realise that most English people couldn't care less about what happens to Scotland. Tory and Labour MPs might talk about how much we need us other, but your average Stoke-on-Trent UKIP voting **** kicker doesn't care at all.


William Hill currently give 4/6 on Scotland to vote for Independence by the end of 2024, but I reckon the real odds are closer to 1/10. Have a punt mate, a nice little lump some added to your account might help ease the pain when the day comes.


I'm not on the left.

That's a fair point. But I think the results also defined a big cultural difference between the Scotland and England. People at the bottom of society in Scotland tend to (quite wrongly imo) blame the Tories for a lot of their troubles. Where as in England they do blame the Tories but they're also far more likely to blame immigrants.

The murdering marine has won his appeal and has now been convicted of manslaughter.

How long until he is back in the army?

i think scotland could do some eea/efta type thing like norway and then negotiate its own deal with the uk. there would just be rules of origin regulation in place for stuff entering the eu/uk.

it wouldnt be eu membership, but it would be most of the advantages.

So are you going to address any of the financial facts I posted or continue to ignore them?

Thanks


I said I'd keep this relatively brief so we'll just go with making up the £9bn fiscal transfer (I'm going to ignore various other financial downsides that I may mention later). So let's assume that to get back to current standards and level of public spending we 'only' need to make up this amount.

How do we do it, can it be done tax increases or by growing the economy?
Well, no. £9bn is 77% of Scotland's entire income tax take for a year so there's no amount of tax increases could make up this amount. There are only around 17,000 higher rate tax payers in Scotland according to HMRC (those who pay the 45p rate). At the last election the SNP refused to increase this to the 50p rate saying that doing so would reduce revenues by £30m (as people look at avoidance methods or moving their tax base to England etc). So where would the additional tax revenue come from? I have no idea

To look at it another way £9bn is 17% of Scotland's entire onshore economy so even being very optimistic it would take a long period of time for the economy to grow by that amount and that is just to get us back to the point we're at now, by which point the UK economy will also have been growing so in relative terms we'd still be far behind where we were if we were in the UK. To be on even terms with where we would be within the UK we need to grow the economy at the same rate as the UK + the additional amount needed to cover the £9bn deficit. It's impossible.

So that leaves cuts to public spending and it would have to be in every single area, Benefits, Pensions, Housing, Local Authorities, Health, Education, Public Order etc etc. Every single one would see cuts in a scale never seen before. As a comparison, the cuts to public spending during the austerity years of 2009 - 2015 were 2.3% but this would require cuts of an eye watering 13% !!! The SNP had a secret report on this in 2013 which ended up being leaked (a google search will show the newspaper reports) and here's a flavour from a report in the Evening Times


Some of the SNP report is included in the following document:


The huge concern for any independence supporters here should be the wildpromises made by the SNP at the time about how everyone would be better off when in private they were having discussions showing the opposite would be the case. They know they just need to succeed once in a referendum and there's no going back and they don't care how they get over that line. Everyone will just have to pay the consequences afterwards.

I've kept this brief and stuck to how to make up the £9bn figure but there are other issues that actually make things worse, which I can add later if I haven't bored the tits off you yet.

I think they'll go that way as well. They are a party without any politicial ideology other that independence so they will do any U-turns necessary to achieve that aim. They know there's a bit of a backlash from some out there about EU membership, including Ex SNP leader Jim Sillars who has been very critical.

Just realised the report I linked to was missed and I can't edit my post anymore.

Here it is

https://b.3cdn.net/better/c1d14076ee..._u9m6vd74f.pdf

Nationalists aren't, by definition.

No. You are merely exhibiting nationalist anglophobia, which indicates just how narrow-mindedly hostile Scots are to perceived 'outsiders'.

Inedeed. The myth of views on immigration

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015...n_6838296.html

Ok fair enough. I actually have more sympathy with tartan waving, Burns' quoting right wing Scottish nationalists than I do with their more progressive liberal nationalist brethren. Sure they're equally misguided but at least there is some consistency to the narrow minded nationalist world view of the former group.

Husker absolutely bossing it ITT

Peston reporting that May has said no.

From https://www.facebook.com/pestonitv/p...07476696243734

Indeed. Difficult to argue with though it would be interesting to hear a re-buke in these terms.
What I argue is that the terms need to be broadened to account for the major political consequences and the impact on incomes, potential revenues etc rather than simply focussing on the apparent subsidy which Scotland currently receives (by the way is this not susceptible to change, and is the threat of independence not a bargaining chip to continue the funding model?)

Oil was mentioned by example to which the answer was the volatility of the oil market. Which isn't particularly convincing, the global system is inherently volatile, immunity is not granted through membership of the UK, or EU.
The SNP in power in a fully independent Scotland probably wouldn't mean any more of a progressive programme than what is currently on offer, though the opportunities to do so would be more likely, a progressive government would certainly be more likely achievable than the UK as a whole. Consider also that rich countries aren't necessarily fair and equitable (the US for example), likewise poor countries can lead the way in terms of (some aspects of) welfare (Cuba for example).

The second point is whether it is politically advantageous to argue against indyref2, I would say no, because it implies dishonesty and a contempt for democracy.

Appears it is not a "no" it's merely a "not at the moment" which is fair enough

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-39293513

After the Brexit vote and subsequent shambles how can May say things like "It would be unfair to the people of Scotland that they would be being asked to make a crucial decision without the information they need to make that decision" with a straight face?

Not wanting to be in a union with a politically dominant entity that always tends much further to the right would seem an entirely consistent position for progressive liberals in Scotland.

All other things being a rather large vacuum, being independent from England and consistent governments of the Conservative party would seem to give the left more scope in Scotland.

The reason I've focused on the £9bn subsidy is it's straightforward, it's there in black and white in the Scottish governments own figures and can't be disputed. It's the easiest starting point and in itself is massive.

With regards to the fiscal subsidy changing, you're right it could change but the signs are it's going to grow. The main, but not only, reason for he £9bn figure is the collapse in oil prices. Now there may be a recovery in that area but in terms of the tax take it won't recover to anywhere near what it was, oil is a declining resource, as you can see from the graph below (despite the small bounce at the end)


The large oil companies are moving out and it tends to be smaller companies looking to squeeze out any further possible profit in what is the costliest area on Earth to extract this resource. Oil is actually currently costing us money due to tax breaks for the oil companies. The other thing to add to this that people may not realise is that oil is about to become a burden due to decommisioning and that much of this will be paid by the government through tax reflief. Here's a couple of reports giving figures that start at £24bn of costs

https://www.ft.com/content/9b1d17d0-...b-680c49b4b4c0

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...iness-38048562

So we know that the gap won't be closed by some recovery in oil and massive boost in production. So why do I think the deficit subsidy will increase? Well Scotland (and Wales and NI) receives funding based on public spending in England. As it stands the UK economy as a whole is growing 3 times as fast as Scotland's so the gap in revenue will be widening at a time when public expenditure is increasing. This is why next year Scotland's spending will go up by so much (just over £1bn), it's due to the UK economy doing surprisingly well.

https://www.ft.com/content/022aeeb2-...c-be108f1c1dce


As for the impact on income and revenues I'd mainly covered that in my previous post. The country would have to go through a severe austerity program that we haven't seen in our lifetime and we have very recent examples of the impact austerity (on a far smaller scale) has. Jobs are lost, wages are depressed, businesses close down etc.

Finally, with regards to the potential to increase revenues post independence, what exactly would these be that are outwith the powers of the Scottish government at the current time? They have tax raising and tax setting powers (but fail to use most of them after screaming for them). No doubt the SNP Growth Commision will soon report findings that will make vague claims about how they will grow the economy further but if that was possible they would be doing it now.

I'll quickly mention one other thing, the currency question. If the SNP say they'll adopt the Euro they'll probably lose the referendum. If they choose to stick with the pound or create a new currency then the reserves required will be massive. Here's a talk by economist Ronald MacDonald (really ). His credentials are as follows: Professor MacDonald is Research Professor in Macroeconomics and International Finance at the Adam Smith Business School; he has acted as an advisor on currency and exchange rate issues to the European Commission, IMF, World Bank, European Central Bank and a number of other central banks. He was previously Bonar Macfie Chair of Economics and Adam Smith Chair of Political Economy at the University of Glasgow and Professor of International Finance at the University of Strathclyde.



The numbers he gives are very scary indeed and he also talks about other things that would happen such as a flight of capital etc. Note that this speech is from 2014, before the collapse in oil prices and even he underestimates the deficit by suggesting it could be between 5-7% (it's almost 10%). Anyway, check it out from 7:00 onwards

I'm not 100% sure I've fully answered your question as it was a little broad but if there's any specifics you think I've missed let me know.

Yeah I guess that's a reasonable point, although if Scottish nationalism didn't exist there is a chance we wouldn't currently have a Conservative government (although admittedly this is a stretch).

Sorry if I offended anybody earlier, the SNP and Scottish nationalism more generally riles me up a lot more than it should.