The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Could an independent Scotland shine a light on the disaster that is Brexit?
When you’re in a hole, stop digging. It is one of the most persuasive pieces of advice given to politicians, yet also the one least adhered to. For more than six years, the UK has been digging a deep Brexit pit and shows no sign of putting down the spade.
The damage of quitting the EU – and the extreme version of Brexit pursued by British governments – is becoming more obvious by the day.
A particularly painful moment will be tomorrow’s Autumn Statement by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. It’s shaping up to be a grisly grue of spending cuts and tax rises.
What seems like the bad dream of Liz Truss’s short-lived administration may have taken us to this point. But Brexit provides the broader economic context.
There is also the political context. Which is that unsuitable candidates such as Ms Truss and Boris Johnson would never have become prime minister had the UK not started spinning away from its European orientation in 2016.
This week, a senior economist said what needs saying about Brexit.
In an interview on Bloomberg TV, Michael Saunders told the truth, saying: “The UK economy as a whole has been permanently damaged by Brexit. It’s reduced the economy’s potential output significantly, eroded business investment.
“If we hadn’t had Brexit, we probably wouldn’t be talking about an austerity budget this week. The need for tax rises, spending cuts, wouldn’t be there if Brexit hadn’t reduced the economy’s potential output so much.”
Let that sink in.
The politicians who so casually jeopardised Britain’s place in Europe with an unnecessary referendum should have studied why governments in the 1960s and 1970s worked so hard for us to become a member in the first place. Among other reasons, it was pursued as a means of arresting British economic decline.
As a “by the by”, there ought to be a constitutional rule that a government can only hold a referendum if it actually advocates its proposition.
Ukip – the party of Brexit – only ever had a measly one MP elected, initially in unusual by-election circumstances.
As a Scottish “by the by”, the UK Government held a referendum in 2016 about a proposal it was strongly opposed to (Brexit) but denies the Holyrood government a referendum for something it strongly believes in (independence).
I’ve never heard a convincing explanation for why the former should have happened but the latter shouldn’t. At UK level, however, it isn’t enough for economists and experts to speak out.
The Labour leadership at Westminster should have the bravery to point out that the Brexit emperor has no clothes.
And it wouldn’t require that much political courage, given the sizeable polling majorities in England as well as Scotland for the view that Brexit was wrong and that Britain should rejoin the EU.
At the very least, Labour should be in favour of getting back into the European single market and restoring freedom of movement.
The Libdems are committed to “a longerterm objective” of EU membership. But the harm is happening now.
The best hope for Europhiles south of the border may be an independent Scotland joining the European family and shining a light to guide the rest of the UK.
● As the days get darker, it’s easy to imagine that everything is doom and gloom.
Bad stuff tends to dominate the news, which means a lot of good things that are happening – where there may be a high degree of political consensus – go unreported.
Even when they are covered, positive stories rarely make the front page.
That’s understandable, but there are some brighter prospects if we care to look for them.
Scotland has just become the world’s first Daily Mile Nation, for example.
The initiative started 10 years ago at St Ninian’s in Stirling, and now more than half of primary schools are signed up.
Around 187,000 children across all of Scotland’s local authority areas are getting active by doing the Daily Mile.
Another bit of better news is that the Scottish Child Payment – a benefit with no counterpart elsewhere in the UK – has gone up by a fiver to £25 and been extended to include eligible children up to age 16.
And when Brexit is shown to be a resounding flop, I’m glad to learn that Holyrood will ensure Scottish drinking water continues to align with EU standards.
In the pithy words of Scotland’s highest accolade, these stories are “no bad”.
There is some brighter news around if we care to look for it