People of Scotland deserve to see Brexit results before new independence vote

On page one yesterday, you report that Nicola Sturgeon asks us to prepare for two more referenda next year, on Brexit and “Scexit” essentially.

It seems ridiculous to me to be even considering Indyref2 until Brexit has been resolved, and indeed, there has been time for us to see if Nicola Sturgeon’s attempts to scare us about Brexit (“it will cost Scotland £11.2bn” was the first such report two years ago, with various similar figures since) come about. The SNP have been very clever in trying to treat independence as an alternative to Brexit. The OR word. In fact it will be both if we gain independence – the AND word, so we will have the current deficit of £13bn, and the above SNP estimate of the cost of Brexit making a total way past £20bn shortfall doing the obvious arithmetic.

Worse still, we have a tax black hole of £1bn (reported this week) and two weeks ago reports of projected shortfalls in NHS funding, which I understand are over and above our “usual” deficit, and these were not denied by the SNP.

Thus, until we got back into the EU we would be running, it seems, on SNP figures, a deficit of well over £20bn and too much to be repaired by reentering the EU, which might not by then be so popular if we face a hard border with RUK.

S np supporters will no doubt claim that this deficit could be trimmed a little by having almost no defence, assuming we will not get our population share of UK debt if we gained independence (why?) or hoping that we could introduce Norwegian style oil taxes (but there is only one sixth of the oil left – on independent analysis, including estimates for hard to extract oil and future new discoveries – and what would the policy be here for the future of oil taxation?).

For some reason not costed by the SNP ever, is the question of whether there would be any “exodus effect” of Indyref2.

One example might be pensioners owning their own homes considering if they are going to be hammered by tax increases as the SNP attempt to bridge the £20bn gap. (Scaremongering? No, these are the official/snp’s figures rounded down). Or small businesses who are more mobile. A week before 2014’s referendum we had warning of what the financial sector might do – and the full extent of our deficit was not generally known then. The First Minister must publish a full, transparent financial/economic analysis and give the people of Scotland time to digest it, and see the outcome of Brexit before insisting on Indyref2. Anything else is pure opportunism.

We could have had a soft Brexit already if the SNP had not abstained back in March – in the “week of the many votes”.

JONATHAN A DAVIDSON

Galashiels Road Stow, Scottish Borders