SCOTLAND : INDEPENDENCE NIGHTMARE.

The agreement on a referendum to determine whether or not Scotland should become independent raises far more questions than it will ever resolve.

 

The agreement gives everyone who lives in Scotland and is aged over 16 an opportunity to vote on the independence question; this will include many non-Scots who happen to live there and exclude many Scots who live elsewhere. The inclusion of 16 and 17 year olds raises issues about their possible involvement in elections in the future, something which I consider to be ludicrous. Given that Scotland is an integral part of the United Kingdom and that breaking the Union apart will have a dramatic effect on the rest of the Kingdom, why isn't the rest of the population being given an opportunity to voice its opinion on the matter ?

 

These basic points aside, there would be many far more complex political questions. Would an independent Scotland retain the British monarch as head of state ? Would they retain sterling as their currency; in fact, would they even be able to ? The word seems to be that if Scotland became independent it would then have to apply for membership of the EU as it could not simply ride in on the coat tails of its UK association, and would then be required to adopt the Euro. There would be serious issues regarding border controls, overseas links and representation, defence and so on.

 

Scotland's population is around 5.25m, obviously larger than many already independent nations but hardly a giant; in fact, Scotland would be one of the smallest contries in the western world. Given that it is the western nations which are under most pressure in the conomic woes of our time, would independence really make sense ? It was the UK Government that 'bailed' out both the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland when they became insolvent, not the Government in Edinburgh. Future similar problems would have to be resolved by Scotland alone and we all know what's happened in Ireland, Greece, Spain and the rest, when governments found this to be impossible.

 

Alex Salmond is a fanatic who leads a party of fanatics. His determination to break away from a 300 year old Union is so strong that he will happily ignore all of the difficulties in order to achieve his aim. He uses statistics in a way that is highly selective and he ignores the high level of subsidy which Scotland currently receives from the UK Government but which, in reality, comes from English taxpayers. He has talked nebulously about Scotland joining other small northern economies in some sort of economic resurgence - Ireland and Iceland, 2 countries which have experienced almost total economic collapse, have been mentioned in the past. Can Salmond truly believe his own spin ?

 

If Scotland becomes independent, it will have a permanent socialist government, while England will benefit from the removal of a raft of Scottish Labour Members of Parliament and will probably become permanently Conservative as long as immigration is brought under proper control. The potential benefits to England, which will no longer have to support a weak Scottish economy and unsustainable spending by the Scottish Government, are huge; the disbenefits to Scotland, which will then have to balance its own budget and try to compete on its own merits, will be enormous and debilitating.

 

Separating the 2 countries will have its issues. Resiting defence capabilities, potentially separating controls over defence forces, railways and public utilities and, worst of all, separating the finances of the 2 nations will be far from simple although, no doubt, the civil service will cobble something together. Salmond really doesn't care about all of this, he just wants to be the leader of an independent country. Cameron, in agreeing to the referendum, no doubt believes that the Scots will vote to remain in the Union; let's hope he's right, although, as an Englishman, I might be encouraged to think that getting rid of these troublesome neighbours would not be an entirely bad thing.