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Originally Posted by Chris
You do know that GERS is commissioned by the Scottish government and compiled by independent statisticians, yes? Blaming its findings on a supposed U.K. government smear campaign is batty even by sep standards.
Besides all this, if you reduce Scotland’s apparent military spending to the same level as Ireland (around £0.8bn a year) then Scotland’s deficit is still eye-watering. Obsessing over the size of the UK’s defence budget, which is not even out of proportion for a NATO member, is missing the point entirely.
Of course within a single unitary state called the United Kingdom none of this is a problem. Throughout history, different corners of this island have seen their fortunes rise and fall, and rise again. The whole island does not have to be equally prosperous, all the time, for all its inhabitants to share in the opportunities presented by the prosperity of the whole.
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GERS has underlying problems with the source data. In many cases the only source is the UK Government departments and again it’s based on Scotland not having the macroeconomic levers that an independent country has.
I fail to see how having defence spending behind only the US and Israel cannot be out of step for a NATO member considering Israel isn’t one, so every other NATO member except the USA has lower military spending per capita than Scotland.
Real tax receipts from income tax, VAT and corporation tax aren’t readily available figures based on trade carried out solely within Scotland.