Imagine the mess an independent Scotland would be in right now

Blackleaf

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If an independence referendum ends in a vote to leave, subsequent negotiations can take some time – so Alex Salmond was keen to make sure that, in Scotland’s case, talks would not drag on too long. He set March 24 2016 as Scotland's Independence Day. History does not record, alas, what celebrations he planned – but we do know what kind of a future he promised. More generous pensions, a fairer education system, protection from welfare cuts – all bankrolled by huge oil revenues which the SNP expected to come flooding in from the North Sea. Now all that has changed, and changed utterly...

Imagine the mess an independent Scotland would be in right now


Alex Salmond would be about to deliver his first budget – and he’d be in a state of blind panic


Pro independence supporters march through Glasgow en route to BBC Scotland where they staged a protest against their perceived bias Photo: Getty


By Fraser Nelson
04 Feb 2016
The Telegraph
1331 Comments

If an independence referendum ends in a vote to leave, subsequent negotiations can take some time – so Alex Salmond was keen to make sure that, in Scotland’s case, talks would not drag on too long. He set March 24 2016 as Scotland’s Independence Day. History does not record, alas, what celebrations he planned – but we do know what kind of a future he promised. More generous pensions, a fairer education system, protection from welfare cuts – all bankrolled by huge oil revenues which the SNP expected to come flooding in from the North Sea. Now all that has changed, and changed utterly.

Just as the discovery of North Sea oil transformed the prospects for Scottish nationalism in the 1970s, so the collapse of the oil price has destroyed its economic rationale today. America has mastered fracking and doesn’t need to import much oil now; this has helped depress the price of a barrel from $110 to $30. Such prices mean less North Sea tax revenue, but the average motorist is also spending about £30 a month less at the pumps. For the UK, the stimulus from cheap petrol generally balances out the effect of lower North Sea receipts: a country of 65 million can absorb such shocks. A separate Scotland could not.

Had the referendum gone the other way, Salmond would be preparing his first Budget by now. In all likelihood he would be in a state of blind panic. His White Paper on independence envisaged Scotland enjoying almost £8 billion a year in oil revenue by this stage. But that was before the crash. The forecast today is just £100 million, some 99 per cent less than the SNP imagined. So the first question a newly-independent Scotland would have to answer is how on earth to fill the £7.9 billion black hole.

Borrowing it all would not be an option. To prove that an independent Scotland is feasible, Salmond would have to prove it was creditworthy and would not go the way of Iceland in 2008. The UK has been able to borrow eye-watering sums because HM Treasury has never defaulted on a loan. An independent Scotland would have no reputation to trade on, save for the bankruptcy which led to the Act of Union with much richer England in 1707. The performance of Scotland’s flagship company, the Royal Bank of Scotland, hardly inspires investor confidence.

So if newly-independent Scotland wanted to trade and borrow like a normal, successful country, it could not start life as an economic basket case. Salmond would also have negotiated his share of UK national debt, perhaps taking a lower sum in exchange for keeping nuclear submarines at Faslane. But this would not help him fill the hole in his day-to-day budget. He’d need to cut spending by 18 per cent, raise taxes by 21 per cent or implement a mixture of the two.


Alex Salmond, Scotland's then First Minister, with the White Paper for Scottish independence Photo: JEFF J MITCHELL/GETTY IMAGES


The tempting promises made by the SNP in the days where oil was at $100 a barrel – more free childcare, a delay in the raising of pension age, cuts in corporation tax – would be utterly unaffordable now. Even the little luxuries that the Scottish Parliament has allowed so far – free social care for the elderly, free prescriptions – would have to go. As things stand, the free tuition fees are already unaffordable. A study this week showed that a Scottish teenager from a poor background is a third less likely to apply for university than a poor English pupil, despite the fact that English pupils have to pay university tuition fees. Sado-austerity, implemented in the name of national liberation, would not help their plight.

Indeed, the first Budget of an independent Scotland would have to announce emergency support for the North Sea oil industry. It would be banking on a recovery; it could not afford to let the apparatus disappear or Scottish expertise slip away to the Gulf of Mexico. And things already look awful. Cromarty Firth, near Inverness, now looks like a metallic graveyard – full of unused oil rigs, waiting to be dismantled. Even the job of pulling them apart has gone to Turkey. BP recently announced the loss of 6,000 North Sea jobs; some 70,000 have gone in the last year alone.


Alex Salmond with Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP Photo: Getty Images


The SNP’s plan for renewable energy to take the place of oil is not going well. This was the scheme for Port of Ardersier, once the largest employer in Nairn, my hometown. The idea was for it to start making offshore wind farms, but it went into administration three months ago – another casualty of an energy sector in freefall. All of this is a tragedy for my part of the Highlands, but if Scotland were independent it would be compounded by a national crisis.

Both Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon are wonderfully talented debaters, capable of inspiring Scots not to think of boring statistics but dream about national destiny. But no amount of dreaming can change the facts. In his inaugural 2016 budget, Salmond could fire every policeman, release every prisoner, dissolve the military, remove every penny of funding for the Scottish arts and still not fill the gap created by the missing oil money. It’s hard to think what would work. Taxing the top earners at 60 per cent would risk an exodus of talent to England.

And England, looking on, might be sympathetic to Scotland’s plight. But it might not. While it’s likely that there would be demands in Scotland for a second referendum – a “we’ve changed our mind!” vote, ostensibly to pass verdict on the final settlement – it’s far from clear that England would oblige. After all, England’s politicians, businessmen, even the late David Bowie, begged Scotland to stay in 2014, and repeatedly warned against taking the needless risk of independence. Had Scots chosen to leave anyway, there would not now be much English appetite for a bail-out. And besides, the Chancellor in Westminster would doubtless have already found other uses for the billions not being sent to subsidise Scotland.

All this is not a wild exercise in counterfactuals. The argument persists; the same SNP team is making the same case for independence and is still supported by about half the country. It’s not that Scotland couldn’t be independent; it’s just that the price would be austerity on scale seldom attempted in Europe. David Cameron should never grow tired of making that point.


Imagine the mess an independent Scotland would be in right now - Telegraph
 
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Blackleaf

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My niece traveled to Scotland and great Britain last year She took pictures and Scotland is a beautiful place but I'll bet it rains a lot.

Scotland is like Canada: cold, grey, wet, mountainous and sparsely populated.
 

Ludlow

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Scotland is like Canada: cold, grey, wet, mountainous and sparsely populated.
When Mel Gibson was making the movie Braveheart he commented that it was difficult filming because it rained almost every day. The pictures my niece posted on facebook of Scotland showed a lush green mountainous place. It was very pretty. Not gray at all.
 

Blackleaf

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When Mel Gibson was making the movie Braveheart he commented that it was difficult filming because it rained almost every day. The pictures my niece posted on facebook of Scotland showed a lush green mountainous place. It was very pretty. Not gray at all.


Although Braveheart was actually filmed in Ireland.

All scenes depicting London were shot at Bective Abbey, County Meath. The Battle of Stirling Bridge was filmed on the Curragh Plains, County Kildare, and the scenes set in York were actually filmed at Trim Castle, County Meath.
 

Ludlow

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Well you know,, I have the DVD of Braveheart and the commentary is part of that with Mel
Gibson as the narrator and what you say doesn't match that commentary there Blackleaf. I'll watch it again to make sure but maybe you should check your facts.
 

gerryh

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Although Braveheart was actually filmed in Ireland.

All scenes depicting London were shot at Bective Abbey, County Meath. The Battle of Stirling Bridge was filmed on the Curragh Plains, County Kildare, and the scenes set in York were actually filmed at Trim Castle, County Meath.


Scotland and Ireland. Plus one scene in Arizona.
 

Ludlow

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Yeah Glen Nevis is one of the locations. Beautiful place and I did hear on the commentary that part of it was filmed in Arizona.

Love that type of landscape maybe in a past life I lived there or some place like it.

My niece took pictures of Great Britain as well and it's pretty there too. Not as pretty as Scotland though.
 

Bar Sinister

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Although Braveheart was actually filmed in Ireland.

All scenes depicting London were shot at Bective Abbey, County Meath. The Battle of Stirling Bridge was filmed on the Curragh Plains, County Kildare, and the scenes set in York were actually filmed at Trim Castle, County Meath.

Does anyone really care where a movie that was that historically inaccurate was filmed?
 

Blackleaf

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Harry Potter is more historically accurate than Braveheart. Braveheart is just a racist, anti-English film. Just imagine the uproar if there ever was a pro-English and anti-Scottish film, showing how the brave English defended their land by destroying the invading Scots at Flodden Field in September 1513, even killing the Scottish king James IV, Mary, Queen of Scots' grandfather. We'd never get away with. There'd be uproar and people calling for the film to be banned,

There was more anti-Englishness in the media again last night. Sky News presenter Mark Longhurst (who is English) was showing us the photograph of Tim Peake in his England rugby shirt onboard the ISS ahead of today's Scotland vs England match in the Six Nations which is to be shown live on the ISS. Longhurst said that Peake is wearing "a certain rugby shirt" (not an England rugby shirt, a "certain rugby shirt") and then remarked that "For balance, I hope he'll be wearing a Scotland rugby shirt tomorrow." And that angered me. Peake is an Englishman who supports the England rugby team. Why should he be expected to wear the shirt of England's rugby rivals Scotland? He's not Scottish and he doesn't support the Scotland rugby team. There's no need to show "balance." Such "balance" generally doesn't exist when it comes to supporters of sports teams. I doubt had it been a famous Scot photographed wearing a Scotland rugby shirt ahead of today's clash - like Andy Murray, for example - Longhurst would have said "For balance, I hope he'll be wearing an England rugby shirt tomorrow."


 

damngrumpy

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Well part of my family heritage on both sides is anti English and I don't
deny that for a minute. England was nothing more than a fascist state
that plundered the world and gave little in return. Not at least in terms of
what they took.

Oh and I am not anti monarchy I just want a British Monarch not the
current crowd of German imposters
 

Blackleaf

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England was nothing more than a fascist state



England was nothing more than a fascist state
that plundered the world
The Scots were as complicit - if not more so - than the English in the British Empire. And the world was far better off under British rule than it is now.

and gave little in return
Apart from the English language, English Common Law, Westminster parliamentary system, the monarchy, the civilising effect, the ending of barbaric practices such as suttee, railyways, tea, democracy, football, cricket, rugby, golf, darts, snooker, hockey, baseball, squash, tennis, etc, the foundations of entire nations such as USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Zimbabwe etc.
 
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Curious Cdn

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Scotland is like Canada: cold, grey, wet, mountainous and sparsely populated.

Canada I a hell of a big and varied place. Canada occupies a fair bit of the world's landmass and if you think that your statement applies to any one part of it, it show just how ignorant you are about our country.