Will Scotland really secede from the UK? Will secession even serve its interests? Or instead, will unionism prevail and stomp out any efforts at independence? Contrary to the lofty hopes of nationalist highlanders, the prospects for Scottish independence are low. Despite constant doses of austerity coming out of London and a highly unpopular Tory government, the Scottish are not ready and may never be ready to secede from the UK. Opinion polling alone reveals this reality and shows an electorate highly divided over its future. While nearly a third of the population supports independence, over half are opposed to any changes.
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| Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond (left) meeting with PM David Cameron |
This spells trouble for Alex Salmond and his Scottish National Party who came crusading into government last year with the goal of delivering independence to the politically subjugated country. Trends seemed to be going Mr. Salmond's way, and at the time that the SNP government came to power, almost 40% of the population expressed support for independence.
But Mr. Salmond's honeymoon is over and the popularity of his government has soured. In only a year's time, he has let all prospects for independence slip through his fingers, and while the prevailing mood of the nation can certainly change, the chances that any referendum will pass are low.
Still, it's not Mr. Salmond and the SNP who should be worried. Rather, David Cameron and his seemingly unionist Conservatives should take the falling popularity of independence as a missed opportunity to rid the UK of its most Tory-hostile region. Sure, "preserving the union", which sounds much more like an 1850s Republican campaign slogan, may be a valiant goal, and secession may prove embarrassing internationally, but in the long term, it only has probability of playing in the Conservatives' favor.
Of the 59 seats in the House of Commons from Scotland, only one went Tory in 2010 and the vast majority of contests were blowouts where Conservative candidates didn't even stand a chance. Compare that to Lib Dem victories in 11 constituencies and, more importantly, Labour's 41 Scottish seats. It doesn't take a genius to realize that retaining Scotland only hurts David Cameron when it comes to winning at the polls and forming a government. In fact, had Scotland not been part of the United Kingdom during the last general election, the Tories would have captured a single party majority government and would have avoided all the inevitable friction they have been forced to endure with the Liberal Democrats. Issues like Europe would have never plagued the government and further brought down its approval numbers.
But beyond just electoral ramifications, Scottish independence is central to the Conservative agenda in one more very obvious way: austerity. If austerity is indeed the Conservative consensus when it come to tax and spend policies, then there's little doubt that the huge sums of grant money sent to Edinburgh every year don't fit into that equation very well. In fact, public spending is a whopping 22% higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK, and the very fact that the Scots spend almost £2,000 more than they take in makes it crystal clear just how much they have been the perpetrators of annual deficits, public debt, and fiscal irresponsibility.
So are we supposed to believe that David Cameron's party of restraint should support this recklessness? Has union with Scotland not brought about this recklessness? Furthermore, do the Conservatives have anything other than token prestige to lose from independence?
I contend not. Independence, as paradoxical as it may seem, will only serve their interests and help them at the polls. It will also be central to bringing down the UK's public deficit. So at the end of the day, Mr. Cameron and his party should eat their peas, swallow their pride, and support Scottish independence once and for all.
Hi Can you please supply links to confirm your ludicrous financial assertion as to Scotland's financial viability!
ReplyDeleteMore realistic.
I agree that the Tories will benefit or reduce the Labour bias in elections depending how one sees it when Scotland regains its rightful place in the world through independence.
So the statistics I listed above are in line with what the Telegraph published in 2011 related to public spending Scotland. One thing to keep in mind is that the figures above are from 2009, so they're slightly out of date. Nonetheless, they're still very close to what the Telegraph published in it's article, which I've posted below.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8730055/Government-spending-gap-between-England-and-Scotland-widens.html
Now, in terms of your figures, one thing that your chart completely neglects is the fact that Westminster still has a large degree of authority in non-devolved policy areas. In other words, it needs to use some of the money it takes in as tax revenue from that part of the UK to cover the very services provided by lawmakers in London to Scottish citizens. While some of these services are less desirable than others, like say a foreign war in Afghanistan, there's little doubt that at least some minute portion of what Westminster does on behalf of Scotland is favored by a some proportion of the Scottish people.
So in other words, the $17 billion that your chart declares as wasted money is far from just being a waste. Some comes to benefit Scotland and her people.
But how exactly is it that Scotland is less financially well off than her neighbors to the South? Well, to begin, public spending accounts for 50% of GDP in Scotland whereas in the rest of the UK it barely gets above 40% of GDP. Combine that with the fact that Scotland's GDP per capita is nearly 10% smaller than the rest of the UK, and we've got a real problem.
How is it that a welfare state closer to France than Britain in its approach can somehow survive in the long term when its GDP simply doesn't have the tax base to support its level of public spending. After all, less than a quarter of Scottish tax payers are actually net contributors to the social welfare system, and that statistic is coming right from the SNP. Is this what we call a sustainable model for growth?
And the numbers speak for themselves. In 2010-2011, the Scottish government ran a public deficit of £14.3 billion, which amounted to 12% of GDP (these are official Scottish Government figures). To put that in perspective, David Cameron's Conservatives in London are running a deficit half that size and even then, they are being criticized by the likes of the UKIP and their own right wing for not doing enough to bring down the deficit.
So the facts are clear. If Scotland were to declare independence and run public deficits at the astronomical amounts it currently is running, the bond markets would react with fury. After all, Spain and Greece have public deficits 8% of GDP and even they can't enter the bond markets. So if a deficit of 12% somehow seems more sustainable and attractive to investors than an 8% one they've utterly rejected, then those investors truly lack any sense at all.