I’ve just read this Sky News article on what Scotland may gain or lose by declaring independence.
In this day and age of unity and bringing cultures together in harmony and common purpose, we can’t even keep our little island united. Scottish independence would be a disaster for all involved.
Assuming that Scotland does get the lions share of North Sea oil (and that’s a bit IF if my book), what are you going to do when it runs out? Look at the Middle Eastern countries like Dubai, who have realised this and are ploughing hundreds of £Billions in to building a tourist infrastructure in the hope people will flock there when the oil money runs out and they’re just left with a hot desert.
Can you really see the entire Scottish economy, public services, police, army, NHS, benefits, education, roads etc etc being maintained purely by taxation on salmon and whisky exports and a few golf tourists?
And things this article doesn’t cover is all the debt that Scotland will gain, e.g. the public sector pensions deficit and their share of the UK national debt, and their share of liabilities for the bank bailouts, e.g. the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Scotland may do ok on oil revenues for 50 years say, but it’ll be another bankrupt Greece in your children’s lifetimes. Voting for independence is an utterly selfish move that will doom generations to poverty.
