Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

I'm not making the case for independence so fortunately I don't have to do the maths.

But if each Scot is even a grand or two poorer that's not third world standards by any stretch of the imagination! Good case situation it's level with Japan. https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

I thought nobody voted to be poorer. Silly me..

:D

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

If it's any consolation, i'm happy to agree with one of the above sentences. :D

---------- Post added at 10:08 ---------- Previous post was at 09:59 ----------

One of the issues I understand driving Scottish independence is that in the 2014 referendum, one of the benefits of being in the UK was it meant you were in the EU. A path to EU membership for an independent Scotland would not be instant. This is important to the country which voted 62% voting to remain.

Take that benefit away, and you've removed a key reason for some people to vote to remain in the UK. 2014 may have bene described as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but with the UK leaving the EU, it's a bit of what insurers would call a force majeure - unforseeable circumstances - which can be positioned by devolutionists to legitimise another devolution vote.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Is anyone actually preventing Scotland from having (yet) another vote on independence?

The majority voted to remain in the EU a couple of years ago, I doubt much has changed since then . . . so come on, let's see them do it again . . or is it all political bluster ;)

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

One of the most important things you need to understand if you’re going to grapple with the issues is the terminology. Devolution means something entirely different than independence or separation. Devolution is the authorising of the Scottish Parliament to exercise powers that remain held sovereign by the Westminster parliament. This is what was voted for in 1998 and which has been modified several times since.

What is at issue here is not devolution and the SNP and its supporters are not devolutionists. The vast majority of Scottish voters continue to support devolution as a concept. Independence is about creating a wholly sovereign Scottish nation state.

Support for separating Scotland from the U.K. is being driven by the febrile atmosphere around, first, Brexit, which is as yet unresolved, allowing the usual suspects to keep claiming they told us so (even though it being unresolved necessarily makes that untrue) and Covid, which has allowed Nicola Sturgeon to conduct a daily, live party political broadcast on national TV during which she has delivered essentially the same message as the Tories have for England, but in a way that makes her look caring and vulnerable in contrast to bumbling Boris, who is already widely disliked this side of the border.

There is no substance to the poll shift because the fundamentals haven’t changed since 2014, and I say that fully aware of the EU issue. The SNP has been allowed to get away with portraying the EU as a preferred partner over England despite cold hard reality. Size isn’t important, it’s what you do with it - and the single market of the U.K. is far more significant to Scotland than that of the EU. It doesn’t matter how many millions more people there are in the EU single market if they’re not buying your stuff, and you don’t make enough stuff they might want to buy anyway.

Scottish economic activity services its own public sector, the U.K. public sector, its own domestic commercial sector and the rest of the UK’s commercial sector. A significant chunk of that would be catastrophically damaged by wrenching it out of the U.K. - far, far worse than the worst doomsday scenarios postulated for the UK’s exit from the EU single market. None of these issues are being given any serious consideration at the moment, and nor would they unless an independence referendum were to be held. The SNP has the luxury of making its case without actually having to back it up, and hence we are where we are.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Thanks for your considered reply, Chris.
Sorry, I meant independence not devolution, more haste and less speed on my part.
I get the economic arguments but I wonder if the EU argument for Scotland is non-financial too. You can work anywhere in the EU, you can study anywhere in the EU, your ambitions aren't confined by the island you were born on, etc.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

This is an argument that sounds great in theory, but if you sat down with the average SNP voter in Dundee and challenged them to be specific about how and when they might actually use any of these benefits, you wouldn’t get a very long answer. The truth is, EU membership as far as SNP strategists are concerned is about differentiation - from England, broadly, but from the Tories, specifically. The SNP was anti-EU until the early 90s when Salmond converted it into a Euro-enthusiast party, right at the same time as serious euroscepticism was taking hold in the Tory party and in the national (Fleet Street) Press.

There was a small but significant Brexit vote within the broader body of independence-chasing SNP supporters in 2016; the truth is, Scottish Independence is founded on the very idea that decisions are best taken locally and the EU’s long march towards centralisation and loss of ability of member states to exercise sovereignty is not compatible with it. Many of the SNP’s oldest members understand this and still hold to the party’s previous, long-held commitment to withdraw an independent Scotland from the EU.

You only have to look at the hoo-hah around repatriation of powers to see the real game the SNP is playing here. Certain single market rule-making powers that have resided with the EU, in some cases for decades, will be repatriated to the U.K. at the end of this year. Westminster proposes retaining some of these as U.K. competencies, on the basis that there is still a single market in the U.K., but because the Scotland Act did not anticipate us leaving the EU it is drafted in such a way that those powers should, automatically, go to Holyrood. That Westminster is planning to hold on to them is therefore a “power grab” and “disrespecting Scotland”, even though SNP policy is for an independent Scotland to join the EU and hand those powers to Brussels anyway.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Old Boy please cease from misrepresenting my views. You, and many others, spoke strongly against the spectre of a Corbyn Government due the risk to capital flight following tax increases. Saying it lowers tax revenues overall.

I’ve proposed Scotland do the opposite, promoting inward investment and higher overall revenues as a result. Are you saying capital flight is a myth? You simply cannot have it both ways.

You are either lying to left wing voters, Scotland or my suspicion to both as it suits your needs and ideology.

Why would a company not relocate to Edinburgh with lower wages, lower corporation tax, and lower property costs in an independent Scotland?

As always your points are contradictory nonsense trying to get a rise out of others.

There are at least some forum members trying to make a considered case for the Union.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Seeing as the SNP, Labour, and the Lib Dems are all in favour of increases in corporation tax, then talking about the benefits of lower taxes is a bogus argument. Anyway we're not talking about a few million extra or even a few hundred million extra, we're talking about several billion. If somehow lower wages, corporation tax, and property costs were the complete solution, then why are parts of the UK still not very great economically?

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

What the SNP (or any of the other parties quite frankly) would legislate for in the UK Parliament doesn’t necessarily equate to what they would do give the economic circumstances of an independent Scotland.

Your post is an entire red herring. You’re also ignoring the jobs that such companies would create - increased income tax, spending, VAT, and the full cycle of the economy that would be impacted.

Part of the UK aren’t great economically because they’re being failed by a London based Government that rules for the financial sector and the south east. I thought that’d be obvious?

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

So where do the SNP say they are in favour of lower corporation taxes only for Scotland?
Link


But those areas still have lower wages, corporation tax, and property costs. What part of London and the South East were Northern Rock based in? Same goes for other building societies and banks.

More recently Oct 2019.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

You're a fine one to talk about misrepresenting views! What I said was that The Sturgeon's left-wing SNP government would not sit easily with a tax reduction for business.

Of course I agree that lowering taxes for business and the rich encourages investment and I have never said otherwise.

I am beginning to think that you are forever disagreeing because you read something and you interpret it as meaning the opposite. With Scottish independence, I am merely saying that the figures simply do not add up, and given the political stance of the SNP, I cannot understand why they think they can make it work.

Yes, I am sure there are solutions, but like the Venezualan government, they would find it unpalatable to grasp them. Not that I am saying they compare with the Venezualan government, of course.

In any future independence campaign, the opponents of separation need to ram home the fact that there is no economic argument for Scottish independence that would be acceptable to the SNP. That's why they don't want to talk about it.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Old Boy your seeming ignorance to Scottish politics knows no bounds. You continue to slur the SNP as 'left wing', you've dropped in a Venezuela reference just to cross another one off the bingo card.

It's unfortunately the fact you are so far to the right that you become apoplectic at the notion that the state more effectively carries out and funds some roles that private sector parasites drain as much profits as they can at unsustainable rates then come crawling back for corporate socialism.

Again I extent my invitation for you to come and share your ignorance with us next May.

---------- Post added at 11:07 ---------- Previous post was at 11:05 ----------

Again what the SNP would vote for in London doesn't represent the economics of an independent Scotland.

You can run an economy in the interests of London and the South East with outliers. You present it as a zero sum game - as always a simplistic and straightforward narrative that doesn't consider the scale of what you are taking about.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

They were talking about taxation in an independent Scotland.:rolleyes:From my previous link and quote.
The "rest of the UK" bit, states that they ARE referring to Scotland only tax policies. Where is there ANY evidence that current official SNP policy is to reduce corporation tax? I can't find any, and you are not providing any evidence of your claims.

So did those Scots Blair, Brown, and Darling also disadvantage Scottish businesses? Any supposed "disadvantage" would also apply in the rest of London and the South East. The claim that inward investment is needed to solve the "problem", is admitting that the solution cannot come from existing businesses, and that new businesses are needed. That is not a sign that existing businesses are being hampered by London or anywhere else, except by Scotland itself.

Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK?
 

Nicola Sturgeon's dream to re-join EU brilliantly dismantled by ex-SNP Cabinet Secretary

"If Scotland were to be allowed into the EU, they would have to slash their current deficit of more than eight percent to less than three percent, laying waste to the public sector in Scotland which would quite simply no longer be able to exist.

"From eight percent to less than three percent is a very long way indeed.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...-SNP-alex-neil