Who’s left wing?

Andrew Wilson’s roadmap for separating Scotland from the rest of the UK blows apart the illusion that Scottish nationalism is a left-wing project focused on social justice.

Even in 2014, when the numbers showed Scotland running large fiscal surpluses on the back of healthy oil revenues, it was clear that taking one of the world’s most advanced, complex, integrated yet open economies and breaking 10 per cent of it off could not be achieved without decimating the new standalone economy for some considerable period of time.

The damage inflicted on the economy would make the poverty of those impoverished more acute, while risking placing those just managing into poverty, particularly public sector workers who rely on a solvent state to pay their wages. The poorest would suffer the most, while the richest would no doubt find a way to protect their interests. The Growth Commission does not fully confront the economic reality of implementing a separation plan in the context of a modern, advanced economy, but it does at least acknowledge that a right-wing agenda of putting in place measures to rapidly bring down a large deficit – crystalised overnight as a Scotland-only liability – would be the inevitable outcome.

Despite heroic attempts by the SNP to spin a positive story from the report, those on the left in Scotland have rightly seen through it. Scottish nationalism is now unquestionably a right-wing project.

JOHN FERRY Chair, Midlothian South Tweeddale & Lauderdale Liberal Democrats, Craigerne Crescent Peebles