Why can’t SNP ‘see oursels as ithers see us’?
EVEN by modern standards of political spin, this was some effort. There was Nicola Sturgeon, dressed in bright pink and surrounded by the adoring faces of her SNP parliamentarians, explaining why it didn’t matter that Scotland was up to its oxters in debt.
The fact Scotland has a £15 billion deficit doesn’t undermine the case for independence, she argued, it simply shows what a rubbish job Westminster has been doing. Her MPs clapped and cheered, delighted to be told what they already believed to be true.
Miss Sturgeon was in Stirling to launch her ‘conversation’ on independence.
The SNP would listen, she insisted. She claimed her activists would go out, take note of why the country voted No in 2014 and change its approach accordingly. Oh really? How does that sit with her complete refusal to acknowledge how bad Scotland’s finances are?
This is the core problem for the SNP. It can argue and listen and debate and cajole all it likes – but if it refuses to acknowledge the enormity of Scotland’s parlous financial position it is not going to get anywhere.
Unless it starts to address this issue, unless Miss Sturgeon accepts Scotland has a real and serious problem at the heart of its economy, every push towards independence is going to be dashed against the rocks of this hard, unpalatable message.
THE cold truth is that Scotland is earning less and less each year and is spending more and more, money that has to come from taxpayers in the rest of the UK. As a result, Scotland is becoming more dependent on the rest of the UK, not less and any break from the UK would leave Scotland broke – more so than any other country in Europe, including Greece.
It may seem odd to outsiders, but the SNP’s most fervent supporters just can’t see it. They still believe Miss Sturgeon can tour the capitals of Europe, selling the case that Scotland is an asset for Europe, that Scotland could help the EU get out of the quagmire Brexit has led it into.
They think she is promoting a good bet in Scotland. But as far as Europe is concerned, we aren’t a good bet at all: we are a liability, and a pretty horrendous one at that.
It is therefore inconceivable that Europe would let Scotland remain a member of the EU without imposing some pretty stringent conditions.
The EU would demand the Scottish Government lowers its deficit level as soon as possible. It would have to do that by either cutting spending or raising taxes or, probably, both.
This will be the price of Scotland remaining within the EU.
A few years ago, the SNP claimed the EU would love to gain Scotland as a new member state because of all those oil reserves. How could the EU, so the argument went, possibly keep the continent’s biggest oil producer on the outside?
Well, it is oil that has pushed Scotland into its current predicament.
Revenues fell by an extraordinary 97 per cent last year. A resource for the Government that used to be measured in billions and which could, a few years ago, have paid for all the lavish spending commitments made by the SNP Government, is now counted in mere millions.
To put it in perspective, the £60 million an independent Scottish Government would have earned from oil last year would not have even covered the bill for the country’s court service, let alone helping to bankroll the health service or our schools.
The extraordinary part of all this is the SNP Government’s determination to keep spending money which is not earned in Scotland at all. Not only that, but it does this while complaining it doesn’t have enough and that it wants even more from Westminster.
The SNP administration spends a mighty £1,200 per person more on public services than the UK Government does for the rest of the UK.
Scotland also raises £400 per person less than the UK does, which means Scotland is living well outside its means and it is being bailed out by UK taxpayers – all the time.
WHEN she was questioned about this, Miss Sturgeon insisted that, if we looked at the figures for the past five years, Scotland would have paid in more than it took out. She is right, but every year she has to go further back to make this true. For the past few years, the trend has been in one direction and one direction only: Scotland is becoming more and more dependent on the rest of the UK.
So, while Europe sees Scotland as an economic basket case, the rest of the UK sees Scotland as a subsidy junkie.
Robert Burns is often quoted by SNP politicians. They love his couthiness and his ‘a man’s a man for a’ that’ sensibilities. But it is amazing how much they forget one central tenet of Burns’ work: that we would do well ‘to see oursels as ithers see us’.
Perhaps this listening exercise will do just that. Perhaps the message will get back to SNP leaders that they have to start acknowledging the dreadful position Scotland’s economy is in before trying to drive ahead with independence.
But perhaps not. If last week’s extraordinary attempt by Miss Sturgeon to spin away Scotland’s financial travails is anything to go by, that prospect seems – unfortunately – a long, long way off.
THE tension has been rising at Holyrood ahead of the MSPs versus Journalists cricket match today. The press team has had to bring in several former hacks who have ‘gone over to the dark side’ to be political spinners. This will surely mean more googlies and doosras than usual.
Should they lose, however, the hacks will at least be able to find a way of making the defeat appear like a victory.