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Well, we told you so. Some months back we predicted in this website that Labour would resort, as ever, to lying as the independence cause continued to make progress.
The big lies, we suggested, would be the following:
- Scotland is too poor to afford independence
- There would be border patrols at Berwick
- We would make foreigners of our families
- We would need passports to go from Dumfries to Carlisle
- Scotland would have a crippling deficit if we became independent
- Scotland will be a haven for terrorists and illegal immigrants under independence
- Scotland would need a new and separate currency
And so on. It was all the usual venal propaganda that we have heard a millions times before. And we will hear it all again. What those shameless Labour so-called heavyweights did not explain was why the independence cause is soaring to new heights of popularity in Scotland – and now in England. Or why the polls are showing support for the Union collapsing in both England and Scotland as we approach the 300th anniversary of the Treaty.
So, as a service to any few remaining doubters who might still be worried by this Unionist tosh, we offer this response based on facts, not fantasy. In place of disinformation designed to scare off the independence vote next May, here are a few basic truths.
1 - The legacy of the Union is that Scotland has had the lowest average economic growth of any west European country for a generation. That is an astonishing and shameful record. There is an uncomplicated reason for it: we are denied – by the Union – control over our own economy. No country can have economic prosperity when it has no fiscal power.
2 – Scotland has all the economic resources for a modern prosperous independent state – but only if the Scots are given control of these resources. But we are denied that power because Unionists like Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are determined that economic and fiscal policy must be decided in the best interests of the most populous area of the British state – and that means the south east of England. (Remember Eddie George, erstwhile governor of the Bank of England, who said unemployment in the “north” was the price of prosperity in the south.)
3 – There will be no border patrols at Berwick, or Gretna or anywhere else when Scotland becomes independent – unless, of course, an independent English government decides to put them there. Anyone who has travelled in Europe in the past decade knows that internal EU borders are coming down, not going up. You can travel across most of the EU without showing a passport – except in cases where security is an issue. The EU is all about removing internal borders and the need for passports. The only people who ask for passports inside the UK these days are airlines!
4 – We will not make “foreigners” of our families. When Ireland left the British state its citizens continued to have free access to the UK, and vice versa. The Irish could still vote in British elections for many years after Ireland became a republic. On the night that Scotland becomes independent everyone in it can choose to be a Scot – or not. This choice would unite families, not split them. Families living in different countries would see no change. Scots in New Zealand are no more foreigners to their families now than he they would be after Scottish or English independence. Do we really see the Irish as “foreigners” when we criss-cross the Irish Sea? Besides, dozens of small countries have become independent in recent times and the nationality issue has never been an issue.
5 – Scotland might or might not have a fiscal deficit after independence. The big lie is that our deficit, if it existed, would be crippling because we are so poor and dependent on the British state. It is curious, is it not, that Scotland is apparently in such a hopelessly impoverished mess after almost a decade of the best chancellor since sliced bread, that we must remain dependent. How can this happen when the Union is so wonderful? Or is it just another Labour lie?)
The truth - as even the Scottish Tory Unionists now freely admit – is that Scotland’s deficit or surplus will be decided by the independent government of the day and its running of the economy. The UK deficit now is running at just over £35 billion. If it is acceptable for the best chancellor ever to run a deficit of that order why can’t Scotland do the same proportionally? To misquote Jack McConnell, but only slightly, Scotland could happily run the best wee deficit in the world. Labour’s argument is nonsense and they know it.
6 – The argument that independence will make Scotland a haven for terrorists is pathetic. At present the UK is a terrorist target because of the illegal war in Iraq, a war based on more Labour deceit. If Scotland becomes independent there will be no Scottish armed forces in Iraq unless a Scottish government sends them there – which would be highly unlikely. Scotland is against Trident – a real cause of terror, and against the shame of rendition flights. But we have Trident and rendition and Iraq forced on us because we are part of the Union. As for immigration, Scotland needs immigrants. Our economic slide means population decline and a loss of skills. But we are not allowed our own immigration policy – because of the Union.
7 – As for the currency, well, we would probably just remain in the single currency with England in the immediate aftermath of independence. The Irish shadowed sterling for years after their independence until they joined the euro, and Scotland could do the same if the people so decided. It would be relatively painless. We have little to lose. After all, we lost our central bank centuries ago, because of the Union.
So the next time the Labour, Tory and LibDem Unionists start their scare stories – remember the truth. The Union has had its day. It is time for a fresh start with independence. It would do so very much for Scotland.
Comments
David McCann, 1/12/06
Alan makes a fair point, as Murray wrote in his previous Blog. All
of us can make a small contribution by writing letters to the press and
puting the case for independence. Mention of this website also helps. If
your letter is not printed, you can always post your comments in the on line
version.
Alan Whitelaw, 1/12/06
Well said, but its getting this information across to the "misinformed" in Scotland. We need to get at the biased Scottish Newspapers to print a balanced view and urgently require a major newspaper to champion the case for independence.
Jim Real, 2/12/06
Of course it is expected that this site would be bias in its content. Those Unionist devils who purposely stifle the Scottish economy so that they will not escape from the tyrannical grasp of the united kingdom's imperial aspirations. Quite frankly i see the gentleman Murray Richie as using the same essential tactics as he accuses his 'enemies' of using. Now of course no government or system is perfect, far from it but the belief that a nation of five million could sustain itself after so many years reliant on a larger union is fantasy. Scotlands economy has been integrated into the unions for the past 300 years and any change to this would undoubtedly be harder on the smaller country, in this case Scotland. Scotland spends more on public services and expenses then it can maintain through current taxation levels. The Scottish essentially use more English taxpayers money then the English use of the Scottish. You would be quite foolish to think the English government would sit idly by and let independence go head go ahead smoothly. Your arguments against lies are weak and can be broken by the mere statistics of taxation and services spending itself. Scotland would have no political say for its people globally it would have no military influence, its service based economy would go into recession as 5 million people cannot sustain businesses that usually had 55 million people. Scotland will regress, the economy will fail, people will get angry and in the end they will wish they never left. The bitterness in this blog is bias and is not objective beyond its purpose to spread propaganda. Obviously this comment will not be shown as it wouldn't further your aspirations of a 'Free Scotland', wake up and smell the coffee - the world community is just that, global. Europe will most likely form closer bonds and become in the future a single entity, Scotland cannot now and in the future survive on its own, nor can the UK or England. Base your argument around Facts and figures and realistic interpretations, not around the misguided emotions that often prompt irrational campaigns of ignorance.
Paul Henderson Scott, 6/12/06
The Labour Party conference in Oban at the end of November was a weird performance. It was not a party conference in the ordinary sense with debates and votes on party policy, but a series of impassioned speeches. Ministers from the Scottish Parliament spoke mainly about their policies for the Scottish administration, but Westminster ministers, Blair himself, Gordon Brown, John Reid and Douglas Alexander made violent and almost hysterical attacks on the SNP and their proposal for the recovery of Scottish independence. This is presumably how they propose to fight the Scottish election next May.
These attacks, often in very fanciful and exaggerated language, made four main points, all of them at variance with the facts. The first was that the idea of Scottish independence was out of date in the modern world which is increasingly interdependent. It is true, of course, that we are all closer together with globalisation and the increasing role of international organisations such as the European Union. But this has developed simultaneously with the break-up of the old empires and multinational states into their component parts, such as Ireland, Norway, Finland and more recently Estonia, Slovenia and so on. All of these new states are much more prosperous and contented as independent countries than they were as parts of a larger state. It is Scotland, the oldest nation in Europe, which is now out of date by not yet asserting its independence.
Secondly, these labour orators talk about the “break-up of the United Kingdom”, separation and such like as if it were proposed to build a new Hadrian’s Wall along the border. Gordon Brown even in a wild moment spoke about the need for a passport to travel between the two. Blair said: “We are two open countries, England and Scotland – open to each other, open to the world”. So we shall remain when Scotland regains its independence. The whole of the European Union is open between its member’s states and Scotland and England would both remain members. Both Scotland and England as independent countries would remain as open to the world as they are at present.
Then, thirdly, they tell us that independence would be bad for our economy. The experience of so many other small European countries which have become independent suggests the opposite. At present virtually all decision on economic policy are in the hands of the Westminster Parliament and the City of London. Naturally, and properly from their point of view, they are influenced by the needs of South-East England which are very different from our own. The consequence is that control and wealth are drawn irresistibly to that part of the world. At the end of the 19th century Scotland was a major industrial country with its industries almost entirely owned and managed in Scotland. Now ownership and management of virtually our whole economy have almost completely migrated to the South. We have to be able to take our own decisions on taxation and all other aspects of economic policy.
It is not only in the economy that it is untrue that “we are stronger together and weaker apart”. The Union places us in even more hazard in matters of defence and foreign policy. In England there is a persistent nostalgia for the days when they were the major power in the world. In spite of his Scottish birth and education, Blair is a firm convert to this idea, and from that follows his invasion of Iraq and his desire to renew his weapons of mass destruction, the nuclear-armed submarines on the Clyde. Countries with such aspirations disturb the peace of the world; not the small countries which are mainly concerned with their own affairs.
Fourthly, Blair talks about “policies of grievance”. There are, of course, many reasons for a sense of grievance in the semi-impotence of the Devolution constitution, and in England as well as Scotland, as the opinion poll in The Sunday Telegraph of 26 November demonstrates. With both countries independent most of these would disappear. As members of the European Union we should probably agree on most issues and give each other mutual support. Where we have different views or interests (as over fishing, for example), Scotland would be able to argue its own case, which we cannot do until we are a member state.
All of these Labour orators are intelligent and well informed. I do not suppose that they are deluded enough to believe their own arguments. What then are their real reasons for their hysterical reaction to the idea of Scottish independence? In the first place of course, is their need to oppose the threat of an SNP victory in the Scottish election next May. Scottish members of the Westminster Parliament will loose their jobs when Scotland becomes independent. Then no Government ever willingly surrenders power or territory. Scotland has the important asset of North Sea oil which they have succeeded in taking over. Scotland has resources of water and the possibilities of carbon-free renewable energy which will become more valuable as global warming proceeds. But I suspect that the main point which troubles Blair is his nuclear submarines. They have built an expensive base at Faslane. Where would they put the submarines when Scotland becomes independent? No English constituency is likely to welcome them.
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