First Minister’s conspiracy theory masks a rising panic over failing separatist dream

NICOlA Sturgeon’s message to her party faithful was a simple one: ‘They’ are deliberately making Scotland poorer in order to make independence less likely.

We all know who ‘they’ are. ‘They’ are the demonic hobgoblins of nationalist nightmares, the descendants of evil Tory landowners of generations past who forced Highlanders off their lands in order to make way for the more profitable activity of sheep rearing.

‘They’ are the people formerly ruled by Edward I, the ‘Hammer of the Scots’ who invaded and subdued Scotland in medieval times.

‘They’ are the people who still vote Conservative and are therefore anti-Scottish and undemocratic, who dare to deny the democratic right of Scots to pursue our own destiny.

The First Minister’s speech to the SNP conference, brought to delegates virtually via video conference, was for the most part exactly what you might expect to hear: independence, Covid, NHS, referendum, independence and so on.

But it was her final comments that took many observers by surprise: ‘By making us poorer, they’ll say we can’t afford to be independent. By cutting our trade with the EU, they’ll say we are too dependent on the rest of the UK. By causing our working population to fall, they’ll say the country is ageing too fast.’

There has always been a number of nationalists who are only too keen to believe the wildest conspiracy theories, so long as they confirm their own prejudices.

So, for example, before oil became a swear word for progressive politicians, back in the days when SNP politicians, including Miss Sturgeon, based the entire economic case for independence on Scotland’s oil wealth, there were plenty of her troops who insisted that there were as-yet unexplored and unexploited oil fields in Scottish waters which the dastardly UK Government were keeping secret.

This was because if we found out about these new resources, we would surely vote to disentangle ourselves from the Union and restrict the benefit of such wealth to Scots only.

Then there are those who still believe the myth that, just a day before the Scottish parliament came formally into existence in 1999, the UK Government redrew Scotland’s maritime map in order to take possession of Scotland’s natural resources.

During the 2014 independence referendum, I was frequently challenged to deny that in the event of a No vote, the UK Government would abolish Holyrood altogether.

And let’s not forget that Alex Salmond, Miss Sturgeon’s former close friend and mentor, actually warned that a vote against independence would mean the privatisation of Scotland’s NHS, despite it being entirely controlled by our devolved parliament.

Absurdity

But no level of absurdity and implausibility is enough to deter paranoid fanatics. The only new development is that the First Minister herself has now been sucked down this particular rabbit hole.

So why has she chosen to fan the flames?

The argument she used was a clue to what she sees as the biggest threat to her dreams of separation from the UK.

Since June 2016, when Britain as a whole voted for Brexit but 62 per cent of Scots voted Remain, she has seen our departure from the EU as nothing more than the most convenient available grievance on which to base her latest demands for a rerun referendum. Now there are signs that she recognises the dangers that Brexit holds for the nationalist movement.

The First Minister claimed Brexit, having ‘cut our trade with the EU’, was forcing Scotland to rely on our imports to the rest of the UK instead.

But this is smoke and mirrors: England has always been, by far, the biggest market for Scottish exports, outstripping the amount of trade we used to do with the EU by a factor of four.

If trade with the Continent has fallen, it’s as much to do with Covid as Brexit, but Miss Sturgeon wants us to believe that after independence the EU will provide a bigger market than our nearest neighbour. This is utterly false.

It is becoming ever clearer that an independent Scotland in the EU would face economically challenging import and export controls as it seeks to trade with what has always been our biggest market: the rest of the UK.

But let’s take a step back and examine the core of the First Minister’s peroration and her suggestion that ‘they’ are ‘making us poorer’.

Of course, such nonsense is lapped up by the party faithful and accepted as an article of faith. But the Scottish Government’s own data for the amounts raised by taxation and spent on services here – the infamous GERS (Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland) figures – show that in 2020-21, Scots paid a total of £62.8billion in tax and enjoyed £99.2billion worth of public services.

The difference of £36.3billion was met by the UK taxpayer via the Treasury.

These are not UK Government figures: they are compiled and authenticated by Scottish Government economists in Edinburgh according to a methodology they developed themselves.

Scotland has enjoyed eyewatering levels of financial support from the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, during the Covid pandemic.

The Treasury spent an average of £6,700 per household in the UK to help families through Covid – that works out at nearly £16billion for Scotland alone.

Nearly a million Scottish workers were furloughed during the pandemic – 15 per cent of the total of six million across the whole of the UK.

Thanks to a UK Government which, according to the First Minister, is conspiring to make Scotland poorer, Scottish workers have kept their jobs, businesses have been able to survive and every family in Scotland has benefited to one extent or another from the help offered to us by our fellow UK citizens.

Evidence

The fact is that Scotland is wealthier and more secure because of our membership of the UK, not despite it.

Was there just a hint of panic in Miss Sturgeon’s voice as she addressed the faithful this week? Could it be that she is finally seeing the economic picture as it is and not how she wants it to be?

Is that why she has started to indulge the conspiracy theorists in her ranks, those who would never accept the evidence of their own eyes if it contradicted the prejudice in their own hearts?

It’s one thing to demand a rerun referendum that you have no legal right to run yourself when the economic facts are on your side; it’s quite another to ask the UK parliament for the right to hold a referendum in order to embrace decades of appalling SNP austerity.

Perhaps the First Minister is content to ask repeatedly for her referendum and for it to be continually denied.

That way she can have the best of both worlds: a constant political grievance with which to solicit votes for her party, and the economic security of being part of the UK.