Scottish Independence: Overview
Should Scotland be Independent? There has been a wave of nationalistic fever sweeping the country ever since the SNP came to power in 2007. Independence is on their agenda and now there is a referendum set for 2014. But why should we go independent? After all, we have been married to England for over 300 years and our country is ‘too poor’ and ‘too wee’ to square up to the economic giants in the global market today and what would happen if the our banks were to self-destruct again? Would we manage to govern our own country independently?
Increasingly people are beginning to see autonomy as a panacea for the predicament Scotland faces. However, there are masses out there that are still worried about the myriad of ‘unanswered questions’ about independence. Furthermore, misconceptions are conceived through the unionist’s tactics, ‘throw enough mud and hopefully some will stick’, and now that the referendum date has been announced, we can observe the wild thrashing Scotland will receive through the masses of propaganda that the London controlled media will propagate. Firstly, it is important to consider if Scotland is prosperous enough to survive on its own.
Scotland is a rich country, yet many Scottish people are poor. Scotland has a surplus of energy, yet many Scottish people struggle to heat their homes. Scotland produces an educated workforce thanks to our tradition of free education for all, yet Scots are forced to emigrate to find work. Why is that, if the Union has been so great for us? Poverty, which disfigures much of our country, is a direct product of the Union. If Scotland really is so poor, a derelict society dependent on handouts, then just why is it that Westminster is so desperate to keep a hold of us?
Those opposing Scotland’s independence claim that she would be unable to cope in a situation like the HBOS and RBS bailouts. The truth about one of the bailouts is illuminated if we consider the name – HALIFAX Bank of Scotland – it was not solely a Scottish bank; it was run from Halifax, in Yorkshire, England. All the management and decision-making was carried out in England. So half of the blame deserves to be placed on the avaricious muttonheads at Halifax. After all, it was coping just fine before Halifax came along.
Unlike what the media skewed towards, Scotland actually deserves the minority of the blame for the crash at RBS too. As Andrew Hughes Hallett, Professor of Economics at St Andrew’s University put it, speaking on Radio Scotland. “…by international convention, when banks which operate in more than one country get into these sorts of conditions, the bailout is shared in proportion to the area of activities of those banks, and therefore it’s shared between several countries. In the case of the RBS, I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but roughly speaking 90% of its operations are in England and 10% are in Scotland… “1
Therefore, in reality, Scotland was only responsible for 10% of the crash at RBS. Which is quite a substantial deviation from what the media proposed. I wonder how they managed to dodge that fact. Oil is a finite resource and eventually it is going to run out. But what is the point in pretending it’s not there now just because there’s a chance that it may only last 30-40 years? According to the oil companies. Which I am sure must be absolutely 100% accurate. Why would an oil company want to underestimate the length of time their reserves will last? It does not at all sound like simple business logic to me.
Let’s all face it; if a doctor tells a family that their granny has three years left and she passes in six months — the doctor will be met with a multitude of beetroot faces demanding explanations. In addition, the more people that begin to think that oil is drying up the higher the price will be. And that means mega bucks for the oil companies; when they make money – Scotland makes money (that is if it were independent). As it stands, Scotland currently wants to set up an oil fund. It does not sound like a bad idea; that is how the Norwegians powered their way through the recession.
They were smart enough to seize the opportunity. However, the UK is against this because it wants the money for bank bailouts and nuclear toys. So what happens when it eventually does run out? Well, as it runs out, a 50% reduction does not exactly translate to a 50% fall in revenue; prices will rocket and despite this possibly not boding well with the consumers, it will still boost the nation’s economy. In addition, it is possible we will stumble upon even more financially viable reserves – which no one seems to account for in the ‘horrifying’ statistics.
If not, then we will just simply have to be a bit more economical and is Scotland not the perfect place to go green? We are geographically sound in terms of wave and wind energy. With the oil fund pot, that we will have if we go through with autonomy, we will be able to fully open the door into the renewable industry. This will propel us through any economic crises that may face us later down the line. And the country will be clean. However, if we do not go through with independence now, before our oil runs out, then yes, we probably have very little chance of independence being successful.
I bet David Cameron would happily let us devolve after that. Scotland is not uniquely incapable of governing itself. We are not too ‘wee’. We have a larger population than the Irish Republic, Norway, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovenia. We have approximately the same population as Denmark or Finland. In area, we are larger than Slovenia, the Irish Republic, Belgium… We are approximately the same size as the Czech Republic or Austria. Plus, the Scottish parliament appears to be plugging away just fine and if all of these countries can manage on their own why can’t we?
People of Scotland, vote for independence while we can in 2014! After 300 years of a helpless bickering marriage, I think it is time for an amicable divorce. It happens every day. Sometimes it just does not work out and it is time that we all come to grips with that fact. 1 “http://www. muzzerino. com/2011/08/truth-about-hbos-and-rbs-bail-out. html” http://www. muzzerino. com/2011/08/truth-about-hbos-and-rbs-bail-out. html “http://www. newsnetscotland. com/index. php/scottish-opinion/4341-a-unionist-lexicon-an-a-z-of-unionist-scare-stories-myths-and-misinformation#poverty”
