Janet Daley, the expat US lady who has spent the past few decades writing about Britain, is none too keen on the idea of what is on offer from the Scottish National Party:
What Scotland would become is a kind of East Germany, sitting smack up against its prosperous English neighbour. There would be another flood of migrants heading South to escape the dead-end last redoubt of Old Labour, draining the Scottish economy of youthful talent and ambition. How long before they build a wall along the border?
Judging by the reaction of the City to the possibility of Scottish independence (falls in sterling, etc), people are getting worried. It should be noted, though, that for some time any Scot with a lot of ambition has tended to go abroad, given that the place is not a big country and smaller nations will often see their best and brightest, for a while anyway, head overseas for fame and fortune. My wife, who is from Malta, is an example (she hasn’t yet found a lot of fame and I am most annoyed she is not a billionaire yet).
Until this matter is resolved, and even for some time if it is, no major business will be comfortable about investing north of the border. Consider what happens if you have heavy borrowing in sterling, or have issued sterling-denominated shares and there is a risk of a big change, such as eventual euro membership. And look at the sort of people in the SNP with their leftist politics. Not a happy prospect. There is a free market tradition in Scotland, but it is nowadays very hard to find it.
The free market tradition in Scotland is long dead. Only the finite resource of North Sea oil is a major industry these days. The economy is more Soviet than free market, and the argument between the national socialists of the SNP and the failed international socialists of the Labour Party is over who can give the most free stuff to the Scots. Unedifying does not begin to describe it.
Well, speaking as a cold-hearted American, if the Scots do themselves in the ear it’ll be on them, and the lessons for Europe may balance any harm: An English-speaking Venezuela right at the top of Europe will be hard to miss.
And who knows? They may yet discover a Ronald MacReagan if things get desperate enough.
In the meantime, the profit to an rUK of being free of Scotland apparently isn’t to be despised.
I await the spectacle of Scotland falling flat on its arse to be another manifestation of “it’s not Socialism’s fault – its never been properly tried before”
Why ‘build a wall’ when there is already one there just awaiting a bit of repair?
In the meantime, the profit to an rUK of being free of Scotland apparently isn’t to be despised.
Especially now, if you consider that a NO vote will be close and we’ll forever be paying off the sweeteners being made and having to placate the continued whining.
Using the existing wall would give Scotland a fair old chunk of England. The fact that , in terms of shared culture , Cumbria and Northumbria are about as familiar as Outer Mongolia
to the average Home Counties dweller would make it easier to get away with , too.
It is a serious matter.
For example if Scotland repudiates its share of the National Debt (which it could do in retaliation for Mr Osborne’s silly “you can not use the Pound” stuff) it would bring on a fiscal crises. Of course a fiscal and monetary crises is coming anyway (indeed it overdue), but it would be the spark that brought it on right now.
Somewhere Boswell (the friend of Dr Johnson) is nodding – he always thought the Act of Union of 1707 had been a mistake. However, Boswell would not have liked the new Scotland.
On the positive side Mr Murdoch is said to find the leader of the SNP a reasonable person – someone whom one can deal with.
We (by we I mean – ME) must beware of hypocrisy.
We do not like the modern Scotland – the land of socialist “values”. So one can we really (honesty) say “do not leave the Union – we love you…..”, when we do not love them at all?
So where is the Scottish Stock Exchange?
I struggle to see good reason why this was not reconstituted (following its closure in 1973) after the setting up of the devolved Scottish parliament in 1999.
That is, of course, unless there was and is negligible belief in a Scottish economy separate from that of the whole of the UK.
Best regards
If Scotland repudiates the National Debt, fine. Take all the assets (military stuff etc.) and impose independence at short notice, offsetting current year tax revenues against the National Debt, issuing a note saying the debt is now written off on those terms. Now should the Scottish State collapse with no money to pay its bills, treat it as a dry run for any European welfare state going bankrupt and seal the border, with the splendidly sinister and historic Chillingham Castle in Northumberland revived as the HQ for the frontier troops, and use this example to make the case for not going too far down the route to bankruptcy (although the UK passed that exit probably in 1992.
The great joy of this is seeing the UK’s three main parties look actually panicked at the prospect of Scottish secession, and whilst the media always overstate the strength of the vile, for this next week we can dare to hope that the whole rotten structure of the UK will creak and collapse, with the matchsticks of the tornado-struck house of cards being the building blocks of, if not liberty, hope for it.
re: Mr. Ed –
While I agree with the sentiment, I must be THAT person and object to the mangled and tortured metaphor:
“the matchsticks of the tornado-struck house of cards being the building blocks”
Yow.
ns,
I confess to mangling metaphors like Rievers in Chillingham Castle dungeons, but that’s how flimsy the economy is.
A lot of people here seem pretty optimistic about the consequences of Scotland leaving. I hope they’re right, and I have had similar thoughts/fantasies. I just hope this commentator at Tim Worstall’s blog isn’t closer to the mark:
“My utterly cynical prediction is that it will cost the English when the Scots leave, and cost them again when the Scots come back having totally stuffed up. Nobody wants a failed state on their doorstep.”
I don’t mean to single you out in a hostile way, Mr Ed, as on this issue I find myself in disagreement not just with you but with most of Samizdata’s posters and commenters, it seems. But why on earth should this statement be true?
“with the matchsticks of the tornado-struck house of cards being the building blocks of, if not liberty, hope for it.”
What makes you think hope for liberty should arise from the rubble? What chain of events do you envisage; you specify none? What precedent is there for something like this happening?
Addressing the company generally:
I thought Mugabe would be gone from Zimbabwe by now.
I thought Maduro would be gone from Venezuela by now.
I thought the Castros would be gone from Cuba by now.
I thought Greece would be forced out of the Euro by now.
I even thought Germany would have exited the Euro on its own accord by now.
I wasn’t alone in any of these predictions among the regulars here.
It ought to work that way, if the world were a moral fable. Maybe it does work that way if you are willing to wait decades and be indifferent to vast numbers of lives ruined. What we actually see all around at the moment is the strength and persistence of what all rational observers know to be discredited policies among the irrational. There are always whites / bankers / gringos / speculators / Anglo-Saxons available to blame. And let’s not deceive ourselves that there is a sharp difference between levels of irrationality between Glasgow East and Lambeth.
I’ve got kith who still follow old-school kith-and-kin values. We look across the pond at who the Scots are today and don’t recognize them at all. Nothing to do with us at all culturally — England would be better off without the whole lot, so far as I can tell.
Bloody hell! We all knew that our Lib/Lab/Con politicians in Westminster can’t do Economics or Science or even pass coherent law anymore, but it appears they can’t even do backstabbing, devious Machiavellian Politics either!
The leaders of all the major parties are now charging up to Scotland, in a blind panic, to promise them the earth on stilts, if they will please, oh pretty pretty please, not break up the Union. Pathetic!
Even if the Yes vote lose, Wee Eck will win bigtime.
Scotland made a huge contribution to the world in the 18th and 19th centuries. One was its wonderful thinkers like Adam Smith and David Hume and the second was exporting its people to the new world where there are now 20 million of us. I wish to thank my ancestors for leaving Scotland and England in the 17th century. If my ancestors still residing in Scotland today screw it up by declaring independence and going even further left, I will consider buying the country for pennies down the road.
John, if your ancestors are alive today, your family must be incredibly long-lived!
how do they do it? Raw Haggis daily? Bathing in Whiskey? Are they vampires? Please, tell!
I think a new wall (Salmond’s Folly?) would be a great make-work scheme! Think of the revenue to be raised from toll-booths and departure taxes!
And I think that Cameron must be in big trouble, whatever the result. It is close enough that he will be blamed for ‘losing’ Scotland. Will he stay as leader? Who would replace him?
When they run out of toilet paper, I’m sure the media won’t blame socialism, they’ll blame the whiskey.
No, Taylor, they’ll blame the English for the raw deal they got at independence when we welcomed businesses to rUK, expected them to take on some of the national debt, failed to set the interest rates to be in Scotland’s favour, failed to return the oil we used up when we were united, started fracking for our own energy sources, stop paying to subsidise their “green” energy, failed to pay compensation for the last 300 years of oppression….
Must say I’m heading towards agreement with Natalie on this. If the whole show goes under (Scotland because of it’s longer term economic policy, rUK because the initial kick to the system of loosing oil revenue and having to pay the rates Alex sets) I have no confidence that what will emerge in the next few decades will be anything worth wanting.
“Judging by the reaction of the City”
History shows us that the City panics if a cat gets stuck up a tree or Tarquin gets his dick stuck in an elevator door.
Have they suddenly realized, outside their pampered bubble, their Attack on Titan like walled city, that there is a referendum in Scotland? These are the same clowns who were so thick, so dense, that they could not foresee the obviously coming financial crisis and had to be bailed out by the British taxpayer.
This bares repeating:
“We have established by looking at the 2011/12 independent Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland report that Scotland generated 9.9% of UK tax revenue but received in return only 9.3% of UK spending. If we had received 9.9% of the spend we would have been £4.4bn better off last year alone. The London-focused No Campaign’s argument is that when Scotland runs a financial deficit the 9.3% of spend is a larger absolute sum of money than the 9.9% of revenue.”
I would also add that multi-culti Arab-owned London (its properties a favourite of Saudi Islamist terrorists, indeed London’s partnership with these wealthy Wahibist scum is a source of much of its much trumpeted wealth), and of course one effect of its exorbitant and deranged house prices is the absolutely gigantic cost of Landlord Benefit, not to mention the bloated, parasitic, and incompetent public transport, as well as its crumbling, urine soaked slums.
Scotland, for all its faults, at least does not eagerly, with bottom raised and cheeks open, fund and host Saudi terrorists in the whorish manner London does.
“Everybody hates the nation state. And why should they be jammed together – it’s only because of conquests in the past. And it does no good. It gives the central government all sorts of powers that it ought not to have over the citizens.” – Gore Vidal
When Scotland fooks off give them the ten northern counties as compensation.
Natalie,
“if not liberty, hope for it”
Let’s face it, with libertarians often waxing lyrical about sci-fi novels as examples of liberty, at least this is a hope based on a possible reality. It is a hope that the realisation will come that with government, more of the same produces less.
Ah well, if we’re talking deal sweeteners, aren’t the NI Protestants of Scottish descent?
RlJ,
Yep, and Wales too, that’ll learn ’em.
The spectacle of our so called leaders pleading with Scotland to stay is shameful. It is ridiculous enough for a decision of this importance and magnitude to be decided simply by a majority of one without having to see the major parties who represent the Union crawling about as if the only thing they can offer is everything that makes a mockery of the what we as a nation are supposed to represent. It is pathetic, but the right interpretation of what we as a nation have become. Go Scotland is you wish, although it is fair to say the Union is already dead!
Indeed Barry, As an advert for the Union, we have Dave ‘cast-iron’ Cameron, Nick ‘Tuition Fees’ Clegg, and Ed Milliband, the Fraternal one (But he was perfectly entitled to run against his brother). If they are the answer, (along with Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling), then what was the question?
Worst…Monarch…Ever…
I dare anyone to name a worse monarch in Englands history… “oooh no I cant say a single word about anything at all, ever, because it would be improper”….
Its taken what? One, maybe 2 generations to not only completely dismember the British Empire, but to lose the UK as well.
While the Scotch politcal classes may be out and out Chavezistas, to say all the people are frothing left-wingers isto strecth the truth towards breaking point.
I agree TomJ, and I for one will be welcoming all those Scottish entrepreneurs when they start to decamp to London!
Why worry about them repudiating their share of the National Debt? What is it, about £70bn? That’s one year’s deficit under Labour with their ‘investment’. If Scottish independence makes a Labour government less likely, aren’t we saving money in the long run ?
Rob,
You’re not suppose to point shit like that.
(Note to self: proof red this properly after all the tyops above)
We (rUK) would be losing money hand over fist in the short-to-medium term. The public sector is not the most efficient beast in the world as it is; come a Yes vote, a very substantial amount of its effort will be spent unpicking itself, which will be used as an argument against any reduction in management. For a change, this argument might be valid, because having spent 300+ years interwining it will be incredibly difficult reasonably to aportion things.
This article goes into more detail, with the added bonus of one of the most glorious Venn diagrams I have seen in some time.
Perhaps as a measure of our arguably justified paranoia concerning Obama here in the USA, it would not surprise some of us to learn that Obama has quietly promised to Scotland that he will, through unilateral executive action, slide significant funding to Scotland in the event of a “yes” vote.
Given his background and his apparent philosophies, the ability to claim that he was instrumental in the breakup of the British Empire . . . er, Union . . . would be seen by him as a powerful addition to his somewhat barren presidential legacy.
One should also note that very acceptable whisky is now being made in Norfolk.
Then you clearly have no idea what the ‘monarch’ is. It is a bit like saying “worst… flag… ever…”
The monarch’s job is simple: look unifying so people do not kill each other en mass by standing on a balcony and keep the military apolitical. That’s it. End of story. And long may that continue.
bobby b, yes that is pure Obama Derangement Syndrome.
Another ineffectual attempt at influencing the Scottish from the ruling class on the front page of the Tele today — John Major says “Suddenly Scots who work next to us live next to us are our friends, our neighbours, our work mates suddenly become foreigners. Is that not an extraordinary proposition for a nation that had marched together?”
But why will the Scots living in Scotland care that the Scots living in England will become foreigners to the English? Nor will they care that they (the Scots in Scotland) will become foreigners to the English — that’s the whole point. Nor would the Scots acquire the general status of ‘foreigner’ — they’re not foreigners to themselves, it’s the English who become the foreigners from their point of view.
As for marching together in the war, well, us Australians marched together with the British in the war, but we’re still (from the UK point of view) foreigners. Nor did it seem to worry my workmates in England, or myself, at the time before I got UK citizenship, that we were foreigners working together.
I’m not convinced that all of the Scottish entrepreneurs will decamp to London, Perry. The financial folks maybe, for obvious reasons, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the rest ended their trek Southward at Newcastle.
Now there’s an interesting question: who would get to decide, post exit, who is a Scottish citizen and who is an rUK one? What criteria would you use?
Fine by me!
Huh? The reasons Scotland does not “eagerly, with bottom raised and cheeks open, fund and host Saudi terrorists in the whorish manner London does” is purely and simply because the Saudi terrorists do not want to live in Glasgow: to most of the world, especially the wealthy and dodgy, Great Britain is London and nothing else. But if you want to persuade me that if millions in dodgy money started streaming into Scotland, you lot would reject it out of principle then you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.
Yeah, and anyway supporting Scottish independence on the basis that London has Saudi money seems an odd reason.
By me too! We know from history that Tyneside can support a hell of a lot more industry than it currently does. Couple that with becoming the nearest major city to a national border and the fact that, as a port city it’s already set up for international trade and we could be looking at a Geordie boom.
What I don’t get is the contradiction between the English attitude seen here (Scotland go, please) and the actions of the UK (all in a panic now that a “yes” vote is considered possible).
Personally, I think secession is generally a good thing, simply on the basis that it reduces the power of individual politicians. Governments of smaller countries seem, in my experience, to spend more time actually taking care of their country, and less time being generally corrupt and evil. Take the US and Russia as examples of the latter – and perhaps Switzerland and Sweden as examples of the former.
It’s a shame, in Scotland’s case, that the general politics are socialist, as this pretty much dooms an independent Scotland to poverty. On the other hand, without their own central bank, it is possible that sense will be forced upon them, since borrowing money will be very difficult indeed.
M. de H:
I’m pretty certain it’s a bridge too far, but O’s expressed and apparent attitudes towards colonial powers and England in general takes this well out of “deranged” territory.
TomJ said:
Hopefully the work of unpicking Scotland from the union would soak up so much time we would enjoy a pause in Westminster’s legislative output. Government busy with cutting away Scotland and the authorities busy enforcing existing legislation rather than lobbying for an endless stream of new shit.
>Hopefully the work of unpicking Scotland from the union would soak up so much time we would enjoy a pause in Westminster’s legislative output. Government busy with cutting away Scotland and the authorities busy enforcing existing legislation rather than lobbying for an endless stream of new shit.
But with a bureaucracy, every time change is needed, of whatever sort, they always manage to grab more power as they do it.
WRT the debt, the answer is simple. Just total up all the votes that have increased the debt and apportion an amount of the debt to each MP that has voted to increase the debt according to the number of votes that they cast to do so. Then apportion the amount that was voted for by Scottish MPs to Scotland and the rest to rUK.
Neither so thick nor so dense as the British taxpayer, who couldn’t foresee the obviously coming bailout. We have a similar problem here in the US.
Tim:
there was the 2007 Glasgow Airport attack, one of the two perpetrators had lived in Saudi Arabia, before being kicked in the goolies and dying of burns from his own conflagration.
My irony detector seems to be out of order. Is this intended to be taken at face value, or as a reference to something a Mr. Chamberlain once said?
That’s what was said about Gorbechov, wasn’t it?
I believe the most prominent contemporary usage is Bush saying it about Putin.
Getting back to Scotland, I see England is now in the position of a man who keeps a straight face while his useless brother-in-law announces his intention to leave, only to discover his wife has bought b-i-l a Rolex on the shared credit card to persuade him to stay.
I thought Bush was claiming to be psychic, able to see souls in fellow statesmen, emphasis on the fell.
And there might be many Conservatives happy that Scotland will keep all those left-voters on their side of Salmond’s Folly, or whatever they call the border.
On the contrary: it’s exactly not having an independent central bank that allowed the Greeks to borrow like there is no tomorrow.
The Italians didn’t, however, so one can hope that the Scottish ruling class shows at least as much sense as the Italian.
Also, an independent Scotland might set up its own currency at any time, unless and until they too join the eurozone; so rates for Scottish treasuries are likely to stay high.