The finances of an Independent Scotland.

GreatApe

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Well, yes.

It would seem the sensible thing to forecast for oil prices of around $50 and be in a position to cut less if oil prices rise...

Back to the point in the OP however - and as nobody else has really taken up the challenge....

There do seem to be some options for closing that £9bn gap.

1. Spend less on defence in the short term - I'd personally hate to do so but there's zero prospect of the rUK leaving it's Northern shoreline undefended against potentially hostile aggressors.

You could quite easily spend a billion per year instead of 3 billion by maintaining a small standing army, a couple of fisheries patrol vessels, a limited airlift/helicopter capacity and a handful of fighter aircraft. The really expensive bits - subs, a fighting navy, and an advanced air force could be deferred. NATO would get miffed for a while - but an intention to improve would probably be enough.

Possible savings - £1.5 to 2bn per year for the first decade or so.

2. Share of Uk national debt - Scotland could of course walk away from it. But make borrowing to close the rest of the gap unlikely for a number of years.... Not ideal.

Would save around 3 billion per year though.

3. Energy transit tax. 45% of the UK's gas supply transits through Scotland. Press a button to shut down those pipelines and the rUK gets very cold, and very dark, very quickly, and it would take a decade or more and tens of billions in investment to rebuild the capacity elsewhere. Now shutting those down may not strictly be legal - but that's never stopped Putin - as the Ukrainians found out several winters in a row.;)

Hw much is energy security worth to rUK?

A lot...

4. Trident basing rights. How much is keeping an independent nuclear deterrent worth to rUK?

Well it's not quite priceless... But it's close. Somewhere around £3-£5bn per year for up to a decade I'd guess. As there just aren't any other even remotely feasible options.

Anyway.... I doubt we'd end up actually doing all (or even many) of the above - but an iScotland does not have quite as weak a negotiating hand as many on here assume - it would be in both parties best interests to come to a fair and amicable deal.

That deal would certainly require Scotland to live more within it's means than it does today - but it's frankly nonsensical to suggest Scotland doesn't have the ability to negotiate away some of that £9bn gap before having to start cutting spending or raising taxes.

3 is moronic.

England has significant LNG import capacity and the world has an LNG excess. So what you suggest an energy transit tax would go virtually 100% to your own oil and gas industry. If the idea is to tax the Scottish oil industry more say so and see if it's possible.


However I do agree the Scots won't be left to crash and burn the English will pick up some of the tab in a divorce.

Conrad

I am all for independence for the UK so would be hypocritical to deny the Scots should also strive for such. If you want it, go for it but I do think left to your own devices under a 'compassion signalling at any cost' SNP administration you would see;


+ Growing welfare dependency with all the downside effects this presents


+ Ever worsening social mobility (a consequence of dumbing people down via dependency and framing them as worth victims)


+ Increasing welfare costs


+ Still worsening educational delivery (widely discussed on the BBC Scots Parliament channel) - a consequence of giving children the sense they are special snowflakes - shielding them from reality - causing them to become clients of the State


+ Worsening trade due to the piling up of virtuous regulations and enterprise crushing initiatives and refusing to deal in weapons and with the Saudis and others - again more pious virtue signalling at any and all costs


+ Higher taxation, reducing investment - why would investors wish to go to all the trouble of investing in enterprise in order to comply with endless petty burecracy dreamt up by very naïve straight out of University political classes that think having extended paternity rights and transgender toilets will add to the bottom line - it wont - the more you make people into soft snowflakes and victims the more they ask for and the more they want to engage in identitarian dynamics to win advantage and compensation


That will do for now


This could all be sorted with a new Scottish political class in charge - built of the stuff that gave us so many great Scots in the past

antrobus

GreatApe wrote: »

3 is moronic....

I don't believe that Hamish was serious. Any more than I was serious when I suggested that the UK could retaliate by blockading the M6 and starving the little bleeders into subsmission pdq.

But you never know.:)

GreatApe wrote: »

...However I do agree the Scots won't be left to crash and burn the English will pick up some of the tab in a divorce.

I believe that the rest of the UK would be happy to help and provide assistance. But no, I don't believe will be any picking up of the tab. Of course, if this future hypothetical iScotland did indeed crash and burn and call in the IMF, I imagine we would feel obliged to help out in some way.