INDEPENDENCE OIL PROMISE BRANDED LIES
Nicola Sturgeon’s economic guru confirms to the nation what was as plain as the giant Pinocchio nose on Salmond’s face in 2014 .. Opponents say claim proves Yes plans were reckless fantasy
ALEX Salmond was wrong to base his economic case for independence on oil, the man tasked with forming a new winning strategy for the SNP has admitted.
Andrew Wilson said the former first minister blundered by including wildly optimistic forecasts for oil and gas revenues in his white paper on separation.
The projections – which were also endorsed by his successor Nicola Sturgeon – predicted Scotland would rake in between £6.8billion and £7.9billion of oil revenues in the first year of independence.
In reality, UK oil and gas production generated negative receipts of -£24million in 2015-16 because of industry tax rebates after the global price collapsed.
Wilson, a former SNP MSP and RBS economist, leads an SNP growth commission examining how Scotland could close the resulting £15billion black hole in its budget.
Salmond repeatedly claimed oil was a “bonus not the basis” of an independent Scotland’s economy prior to the 2014 referendum and accused anyone who questioned his claims of “scaremongering” and “talking Scotland down”.
But in an interview with the BBC, Wilson admitted: “We did have oil baked into the numbers and it was indeed a basis.
“So I can say with some certainty in terms of our own work that we’ll assume for the purposes of our projections that oil is producing zero revenues and therefore treat any revenues that we get from oil as a proper windfall to be used on intergenerational projects rather than spent on spending today.”
Opponents said the admission was proof the SNP had lied about independence in 2014 and would do so again in the event of another referendum.
Labour’s Jackie Baillie said her party had “warned time and again during the 2014 referendum about the SNP’s rose-tinted fantasy of an independent Scotland’s finances” but had been accused of “talking Scotland down”.
She added: “Now the SNP’s own economics guru has admitted promises of a land of milk and honey were a figment of Alex Salmond’s imagination.
“That reality has hardly changed. With a £15billion deficit, the cost of independence to public services would be even more brutal.”
Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Murdo Fraser said Salmond had “never admitted he tried to mislead people on oil during the 2014 referendum. Now that his SNP colleagues are owning up, it is time he did so himself ”.
Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said: “The SNP will need to explain which public services will be cut to pay for independence.”
Economic arguments are widely seen as the main reason for the No side’s victory in 2014.
Sturgeon, who said a second referendum is “highly likely” because of the Brexit vote, put Wilson in charge of the growth commission last year to improve the case on key points like currency.
Wilson also admitted it is “true that the economic circumstances are fraught at present”, and that the “world sea is very stormy”. He added: “The energy sector has had troubles and the fiscal inheritance that we would have from the rest of the UK is a very difficult one.
“All of the above would be a reason to change the way you’re operating rather than to stay stuck to your deckchair on the Titanic.
“There are plenty of precedents that we’re looking to from around the world of small countries who have put governance and programmes in place that can both ensure that their economy grows and the welfare of people increases.”
Wilson rejected the idea that an independence campaign would be based on the idea of “short-term pain but long-term gain”.
He said: “There will be a very purposeful approach to all of us working hard to make it successful.
“That’s why oil’s not a helpful argument. It gives the suggestion that somehow there’s a free lunch and that we won’t have to work, and we all will have to work.
“Independence would give us more tools. That’s what’s different.”