Scottish independence vote: 2

The following editorial appeared on Bloomberg View:

Only two years ago, 55 per cent of Scots voted to remain in the United Kingdom, which was then part of the European Union. Since then, the U.K. has decided it does not want to be part of the EU, so Scottish nationalists now want another vote. If their fellow Scots agree, they should get it. Just not yet.

Scotland has legitimate concerns. Some 62 per cent of Scots voted to stay in the EU in the June referendum on Brexit, compared to 48 per cent in the U.K. overall.

Meanwhile, U.K. ministers are signalling they will prioritize curbing immigration over access to the single market, and Prime Minister Theresa May is packing her negotiating team with euroskeptics. By now the dangers of such votes are clear. Despite the different outcomes, the 2014 Scottish independence campaign was depressingly similar to this year’s Brexit debate. Both were short on economic facts, long on political scaremongering, and damagingly divisive.

Surely the main issue over any departure from the U.K. is economic — and there, what’s happened since 2014 reinforces the risks of going it alone. Scotland is reliant on trade with the U.K., the main market for the bulk of its $92 billion) of exports: By far the bigger economic challenge, however, is the collapse in oil prices. Scotland’s share of North Sea oil revenue was 76 million pounds ($101 million) in 2015-2016, down from 2.25 billion pounds a year earlier. As a result, its budget deficit for the most recent fiscal year was 9.5 per cent of gross domestic product, more than double the U.K. shortfall.