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The Economic Case for Union
I am sure there are people like this in your family too.
Beloved family members you visit with their grandchildren and your home-made jam. But they’ve just read the Daily Mail, Record, Gaurdian, Telegraph or Express (if not the Financial Times).
“Scotland couldnae afford independence!” they tell you with utter sincerity.
You make a point of leaving politics at the door when you visit, but you can see the joy in their eyes as they thrust this belief on you.
They want you to believe their truth as much as they do.
Because they are thinking of selling the family home, and they feel the pressure to do it soon. The day after a ‘yes’ vote, their property will be worthless, their savings will be converted into brass washers, and their pensions will stop being paid.
It’s so obvious, they can’t believe anyone might think differently.
So let’s look at the economic case for union.
It is based on some pretty well-known figures (GERS). Which are now collated by the Scottish Government National Statistical Office – an unimpeachable source.
And these figures are clear: in the previous year, Scots got slightly more (£1,963) per head of identifiable* spending than the rest of the UK, whilst earning slightly less (£221) per head. [Source]
Would this be replicated in an independent state? Unlikely. But the trouble is, it’s hard to know exactly how things stand even as they are now. The economics of a tightly-integrated state are hard to unpick, and most of the measures in GERS are based on are estimates. I don’t know if any of us know for sure how things would pan out. Though it’s reasonable to assume that if Edinburgh were capital of an independent state, it would raise more revenue than it does now.
Yet, indpendence will be an absolute financial disaster if you listen to dear old ma and pa.
It would be nice if the economic case for the union was ‘there’s so many opportunities flowing from the union, you’d be mad to pass them up.’ Instead it mainly seems to be ‘you’re so shite, you need subsidised.’
How depressing.
And quite remarkable given the amount of natural and human resource this country is blessed with.
Oil, wind, water, land to spare, enough food to feed ourselves, and whisky exports as a bonus.
A solvent, English-speaking country with healthy IT, space, biotech and financial sectors and three univeristies in the global top 100.
A reassuring lack of earthquakes, droughts, volcanoes, hurricanes, floods, wars, poisonous snakes or dictators.
The romance of our scenery, history, and international recognition for ‘Scotland the Brand’.
Yet we cannae afford independence.
What could possibly be holding us back?
*identifiable spend is a contentious issue. National projects, like London Crossrail or the Olympics, aren’t included. I don’t know how much of a difference sharing them pro-rata would make.
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What Was the Point of the Union in the First Place?
Something a lot of people don’t realise is the first unionists were Scots.
It seem counter-intuitive. Surely it’s the English who spent all that time and effort fighting the likes of Robert the Bruce to unify the island?
But what Edward I offered was imperial conquest. To reheat a slogan from 2014, no thanks. The problem of having England as a neighbour saw unionism offered as a solution. As far back as the 1520s, John Mair published Historia majoris Britanniae, which first mooted the idea of a federal union.
That’s right, the first driver of union was to stop the English attacking Scotland.
Peace must have been an attractive prospect to Borderers of Mair’s age, but the concept was well before its time, rejected by the people and nobility of either country. It wasn’t until the later 17th century that any realistic prospect of union came up again. The reasons were threefold, and it finally succeeded because it brought benefits to both countries. What were those reasons? For England, they were:
- To prevent Scotland being used by France in a war against England
- To ensure the Protestant succession of the monarch
Scots also wanted to ensure the Protestant succession, plus:
- Access to English colonial trade
Do these reasons still hold today?
The union happened in 1707 for very good reasons. Few people wanted a Catholic on the throne. A 1701 English law, the Act of Settlement, banned Catholics from ever taking the throne of England, and that law was explicitly included in the clauses that set up the new British state. [See Article II.] But let’s ask a question today.
Does anybody in the 21st century care about the monarch’s religion?
If not, one of the three main pillars of union are no longer relevant.
What about war with France?
Today neither Britain nor France are first-rate powers. Both live under the umbrella of NATO, controlled by the USA. If Britain and France ever looked like heading for war, the US would knock some heads together until sense was seen.
The idea that we need saved from a war with France is a non-starter today.
That leaves trade. Union brought immense riches for some: not just the tobacco trade in America, but India, Africa, the peopling of Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and the sugar trade in the Carribean, which depended upon a regular supply of slaves who were worked to death in horriffic conditions:
‘What a glorious and advantageous trade this is!’ said slaver James Houston, ‘it is the hinge on which all the trade of this globe moves.’ [Houston, Some New and Accurate Observations, Geographical, Natural and Historical, p. 43.]
Imperial investment and export markets brought heavy industry, railways, shipbuilding. It completely changed the face of Scotland. But we no longer have an empire to exploit. The final reason for union, colonial trade, no longer exists.
In terms of trade we swapped empire for European Union, which voters in England (and Wales) took us out of. Ending the UK may seem a further act of economic harm, but I don’t think that advantageous terms with England and Wales only, to the detriment of trade with the rest of the world, is the great argument unionists think it is. Being stuck in the union is harming our trade.
Are there any reasons to keep the union today?
Yes, there’s two I can think of.
The first was mentioned at the top of the article. Union prevents England attacking Scotland. Fortunately that is a remote prospect, which I will cover in another article.
That leaves only one reason. Are you British? If yes, then why would you want to break up your country?
Time will tell if the BBC, King Charles III, and blood ties across the border are strong enough to maintain the British identity critical to the maintenance of the union. But if I were a unionist, I’d be getting gey worried at Britannia’s fading glamour.
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The Status Quo
Are things going alright for you?
I hope so.
They must have been for a lot of people way back in 2014, when we gambled on stick, rather than twist.
We’d had a financial crash, but Gordon Brown Saved the Banks. It wasn’t enough for an ungrateful electorate who brought the Conservatives back in 2010, worried about where all those Eastern Europeans were coming from.
2014 came round and people were worried about any more change. Of course they were! We’d had enough change by then. Independence was a step too far. We just wanted to keep bumping along like… oh fuck.
What no change looks like, 2015-2022:
- 56/59 SNP MPs
- Brexit
- Boris Johnson as PM
- Covid and lockdown
- We’re all sitting at home working in our pants and there’s massive floods and wildfires everywhere else
- The Prime Minister fined by the police for breaking his own laws
- Businesses shutting left right and centre because they can’t get the staff
- Russia invades Ukraine
- Cost of Living Crisis
- 10% price inflation
- 250% fuel inflation
- Train strikes, bin strikes
- Death of the Queen – long live Charles III
It’s human nature to be wary of change, even if a change might do you good. But the brutal truth is the status quo doesn’t exist. Times change whether you like it or not.
Gonnae do yourself a favour?
Fix your mortgage, stock up this winter, and hold your family close.
Change is coming.
It’s the status quo.
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The Claim of Right – Is It What You Think?
The Claim of Right has been in the news as Alex Salmond said it should be front and centre of the independence campaign. The Salvo.scot campaign has taken up that challenge.
Quick quiz – what is the Claim of Right? It is the Scottish doctrine that the people are sovereign, in contrast to the English doctrine that the House of Commons is sovereign, right?
But rather than assume this, I thought I’d read the text of the Claim of Right. It turns out to be a bit different. Do you want to go through it?
Background
The Claim of Right was published in 1689 after James VII ran away to France in the face of an invasion by William of Orange. The root cause was religious: English Protestants didn’t like Catholic James appointing Catholics to high office, something he could only do by subverting existing sectarian laws. Scottish Protestants were of the same mind, and after William and his wife Mary had been made joint monarchs of England, the Scottish Convention of Estates (opposed by a minority called the Jacobites) offered them the throne on condition of their acceptance of the ‘Claim of Right’.
That’s the background: here’s the text of the Claim of Right.
Introduction
Wheras King James the Seventh Being a profest papist did assume the Regall power and acted as King without ever takeing the oath required by law wherby the King at his access to the government is obliged to swear To maintain the protestant religion
The introduction gets to the heart of the matter – James was a Catholic king in charge of a Protestant country. The next set of provisions describes what he had to do to force through his pro-Catholic policies:
By Erecting publick schooles and societies of the Jesuites and not only allowing mass to be publickly said But also inverting protestant Chappells and Churches to publick Mass houses Contrair to the express lawes against saying and hearing of Mass
He let Catholics have schools!
By allowing popish bookes to be printed and dispersed
He allowed Catholics to print books!
By takeing the children of Protestant Noblemen and gentlemen sending and keeping them abroad to be bred papists
He allowed young aristocrats to go abroad for their education!
By Dissarmeing protestants while at the same tyme he Imployed papists in the places of greatest trust civil and military such as Chancellor Secretaries Privie Counsellors and Lords of Sessione thrusting out protestants to make roome for papists and Intrusting the forts and magazins of the Kingdome in ther hands
He gave Catholics key jobs in the military and government!
So far it is hard to see what the issue is, apart from the obvious. But wait, he did more:
By Giveing gifts and grants for exacting money without consent of Parliament of Conventione of Estates
Messing with people’s money never goes down well.
By levying or Keeping on foot a standing army in tyme of Peace without Consent of Parliament
Definitely an unpopular move. Especially as…
By Imploying the officers of the army as Judges through the Kingdome and Imposeing them wher ther were heretable offices and jurisdictiones by whom many of the leidges were put to death summarly without legall tryall jury or record
He subjected Scotland to martial law… oh dear… and this wasn’t the only way justice was falling apart:
By Imprisoning persones without expressing the reasone and delaying to put them to tryall
By imposeing exorbitant fines to the value of the pairties Estates exacting extravagant Baile and disposeing fines and forefaultors befor any proces or Conviction
He put people in jail without them having committed a crime, then exacted large sums from them.
By Causeing persue and forefault severall persones upon stretches of old and obsolete lawes upon frivolous and weak pretences upon lame and defective probationes as particularly the late Earle of Argyle to the scandal and reproach of the justice of the Natione
By Sending letters to the chiefe Courts of Justice not only ordaining the Judges to stop and desist sine die to determine causes But also ordering and Commanding them how to proceed in cases depending befor them Contrair to the express lawes and by chainging the nature of the Judges gifts ad vitam aut culpam and giveing them Commissions ad beneplacitum to dispose them to complyance with arbitrary Courses and turneing them out of their offices when they did not comply
He interfered with judges in their cases… alarming stuff. This all went way past simple anti-Catholicism.
So what would be done about it?
Therfor the Estates of the kingdom of Scotland Find and Declaire That King James the Seventh being a profest papist Did assume the Regall power and acted as king without ever takeing the oath required by law and hath by the advyce of Evill and wicked Counsellors Invaded the fundamentall Constitution of the Kingdome and altered it from a legall limited monarchy To ane arbitrary despotick power and hath Exercised the same to the subversione of the protestant religion and the violation of the lawes and liberties of the Kingdome inverting all the Ends of Government wherby he hath forfaulted the right to the Croune and the throne is become vacant
The Claim then reiterates all the things it accuses James of doing, this time making the point in each provision that it is ‘Contrary to law’, then offers the vacant crown to William and Mary on their acceptance of these provisions.
Well, this wasn’t what I expected from the Claim or Right. At no point does it clearly state that the people of Scotland, rather than their king or parliament, are sovereign.
What I Thought the Claim of Right Was
I thought the Claim of Right was the doctrine that ultimate power in Scotland lies with the people, rather than the doctrine that power lies with MPs in the House of Commons. But there is another Claim of Right, issued in 1989, that more closely matches modern thought.
The entire text of the 1989 Claim of Right:
We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount. We further declare and pledge that our actions and deliberations shall be directed to the following ends: To agree a scheme for an Assembly or Parliament for Scotland; To mobilise Scottish opinion and ensure the approval of the Scottish people for that scheme; and To assert the right of the Scottish people to secure implementation of that scheme.
Clear, concise, something we can all get behind, and unlike 1689, no mention of papists. If the 1689 Claim of Right references the sovereignty of the people then I am too simple to find it. The 1989 Claim of Right is what I was thinking of. It is surely the text for activists to quote.
But wait! There’s one more thing!
It’s less the text of the 1689 Claim of Right that matters. It is more who agreed it. Who were the Convention of the Estates in 1689? Who were the Scottish Constitutional Convention in 1989? And what is today’s equivalent? But that’s a topic for another post.
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Should Scotland be an Independent Country?
Is the wrong question.
Here are some better ones:
Should people in Scotland live free of fuel and food poverty?
How can the health of Scots be improved?
Should Scotland host nuclear weapons?
How can Scotland be made a safer place for women and children?
How can Scots get better houses, neighbourhoods, and communities to live in?
How vibrant is Scottish culture?
How could Scots be more prosperous?
What can we do about climate change?
In the event of an attack by its enemies, how best to defend Scotland?
These are better questions.
The answers to some of these questions might include independence – and they might not.
Hi, I’m Robert Mac, and I support Scottish independence. I grew up British, taking my unionist upbringing for granted. In my teens I discovered Scottish culture and became a nationalist. But under Swinney’s time in charge of the SNP I was put off, thinking it a nice idea, but financially disadvantageous.
That all changed the day I read the McCrone report.
If you haven’t read it, please do. It might open your eyes.
In the 1970s, the SNP campaigned on ‘its Scotlands oil’ and how the country could be more prosperous with independence. The claim was publicly ridiculed by politicians from other parties. The tl;dr of McCrone, a secret report prepared for the eyes of government ministers only, is that the SNP’s claim was in fact a gross underestimation. With an honesty only ever seen in reports not intended for publication, McCrone talked of a potential independent Scotland being ‘in chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree’ with the hardest currency in Europe except perhaps the Norwegian kroner.
After forty years under wraps, the report was placed in the public archive at Kew where it was ferreted out by SNP researcher Davie Hutchison.
Government ministers at the time had warned Scots they could not afford devolution, never mind independence, when their own secret advice was telling them the exact opposite.
I don’t for a second believe Scots had prosperity stolen from them in the 1980s. It had been their own choice to share. In the 1960s and 70s Scottish Secretary Willie Ross successfully lobbied the treasury to increase identifiable public spend in Scotland to 1.2 times the British average. [Devine, The Scottish Nation, pp.579-80]. The attitude in return was illustrated by Gerry Hassan:
I do remember my parents, both on the left, saying firmly that they were voting No in 1979. Their reasoning was that class mattered more than nation, and that they believed in Britain as the future and best means of lifting up working class people like themselves. It was a commonly held view then.
A noble, if naive view. It wasn’t for the workers of Liverpool or Glasgow to profit from oil. When Tony Benn advocated a Norwegian-style nationalised oil industry his proposal was defeated. The UK had been bailed out by the IMF in 1973, and the treasury gulped down the new oil revenues like a parched man in a desert finding water. Save for the future? The money was needed immediately to save the basket case of the UK economy! Once it was saved? We know what happened next.
Reading McCrone made the scales fall from my eyes. Not about lost potential, but about the attitude of the UK Government to Scotland. It does not work in Scotland’s best interests. It works in the interests of the UK, which is a different thing. A gilded elite in London and their enablers do alright from the current set-up. The rest of us could do better.
I don’t think independence will magically make things better for Scotland. But I do believe a necessary prerequisite is a government working in the interests of Scotland.
However, I want to keep an open mind on exactly what that means. I want my biases exposed, my preconceptions questioned.
So that’s where I’m coming from and how this blog will work. It’s going to explore arguments for and against independence. You are very welcome along.
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Should Scotland Be an Independent Country? 