Why feeling smug may be mug’s game for Unionists
UNIONISTS this week endured their annual struggle not to look too gleeful at the news Scotland is practically bankrupt.
The GERS report on the nation’s balance sheet showed we spent £13.3billion more on public services in 2016-17 than we raised in tax.
If it had been the first year of independence – as the SNP intended prior to the 2014 referendum – we would have been completely screwed.
If you think the Brexit negotiations are tricky, imagine what it would have been like trying to plug that gap in a brand new state with no credit history.
And, of course, we’ll never know what currency the resultant debt would have been accumulated in.
So it’s not surprising those who advocated a No vote have taken some relish in pointing out it’s now beyond doubt that Alex Salmond tried to sell us a pup.
The much maligned Better Together campaign focused relentlessly on the economic uncertainties of a Yes vote. The collapse in the global price of oil validated their argument.
UK-wide sharing of resources meant Scotland was still able to increase public spending – rather than make the massive cuts that would’ve been required otherwise.
The upshot is that the unionist side is feeling pretty smug.
The last couple of months have seen Nicola Sturgeon humiliated at the ballot box and forced to ditch plans for a second referendum.
The once untouchable First Minister has been so wrongfooted by recent events that she’s apparently even scared to admit she’s a nationalist.
This all must mean the sun is shining on dear old Blighty, right?
Well, actually I wouldn’t be surprised
Independence might look like a more attractive option once Brussels has finished with us
if the continued focus on finances ultimately comes back to haunt the unionists.
For a start, Brexit is about to put a bomb under the whole British economy. Independence might look like a more attractive option once Brussels has finished with us.
Sturgeon’s attempts to spin the GERS figures on Wednesday seemed half-hearted.
She now knows she’s got years – possibly a decade or more – before there’s any realistic chance of another referendum.
The wise move would be to devote the SNP’s energy to using the powers of Holyrood to boost Scotland’s economy.
Rather than thinking up ways to deceive voters about Scotland’s finances, why not try to improve them? Sometimes you need to renovate a house before you can sell it.
Sturgeon is already moving in this direction.
The Growth Commission she set up under former MSP Andrew Wilson is expected to report soon.
Whatever they come up with will now have plenty of time to produce results.
The economic arguments were on the side of the union in 2014. That’s even more so the case today.
But what do they have left if that changes?
The No side lost the emotional argument in 2014. The Brexit vote – and the UK Government’s current determination to trample all over devolution – means they’re losing the political argument too.
If the only point of the United Kingdom is to protect Scotland from fluctuations in the global price of oil, it has no long-term future.