Scotland at Risk: The SNP’s Broken Economics and False Promises by Stephen Bailey
Written by Stephen Bailey.
Swinney is kicking off for the umpteenth time on his monomaniacal and pathological ‘independence’ obsession. Below is a new article dissecting the many manifest faults in his plans::
STEPHEN BAILEY: THE SNP JUST WANTS TO FORCIBLY SEPARATE SCOTLAND FROM THE REST OF THE UK AND HAS NO VIABLE PLANS FOR IMPLEMENTING ‘INDEPENDENCE’
They are not offering genuine independence, says Stephen Bailey in his new article.
The SNP are just separatists who want to break Scotland away from the rest of the UK at any cost against the will of the majority of Scots and aren’t offering genuine, viable independence, just as Plaid Cymru is in Wales and IRA/Sinn Fein are in Ulster.
INCORRECT OIL ESTIMATES
All the anti-UK separatists in the devolved parts of the UK (Scotland, Wales and Ulster) have completely failed to devise a remotely plausible economic plan for separating their part of the UK from the rest of the country. As for the SNP specifically, even their own economic advisor, Andrew Wilson, who drew up Alex Salmond’s embarrassingly economically illiterate 2013 ‘White Paper on Independence’, subsequently admitted that they were wrong because fluctuating oil revenue was ‘baked into the numbers’.
See for example, his quote at https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2017/03/snp-growth-guru-admits-party-was-wrong-on-oil/
Added to this, the then SNP leader Alex Salmond’s predictions for the price of oil, on which he based his whole economic plans, were later proved to have been considerably overestimated.
Then to cap it all, the then SNP deputy leader, Nicola Sturgeon herself admitted the SNP had been wrong to base their plans on the price of oil. The Daily Telegraph estimated they could have been out by as much as 13 times.
See for example https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/SNP/11483905/Nicola-Sturgeon-admits-independence-oil-figures-were-wrong.html
If Scotland had voted ‘yes’ in 2014, it would have been thrown into a state of real economic disaster which would have had very greatly exacerbated the severe economic problem faced during the subsequent 2020-21 lockdown period.
THE SNP ARE CONFUSED ON A ‘SOVEREIGN FUND’
The SNP 2018 Growth Commission Report was another complete dud.
Its conclusions that allegedly drew on the experiences of other small countries like New Zealand and Norway, and which asserted that a Scotland separated from the rest of the UK could build up a similarly sized sovereign fund, were flatly contradicted by these countries themselves.
It was pointed out that it took them 30 years to build up a sizeable fund and their economies were of a different kind. Therefore, the SNP were comparing apples and oranges. Once again, the SNP was wrong on the assumptions behind their plans for ‘independence’.
For example, see https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/new-zealand-model-may-not-be-right-for-scotland-warns-kiwi-mp-1428851
THE SNP HAVE NO IDEA ON CURRENCY
The separatists have compounded their ill-considered plans for separation with a flip-flopping, contradictory policy on currency. Initially, they insisted on retaining a fiscal union with the rest of the UK by keeping the Bank of England in charge of Scotland’s economic policy after ‘independence’.
How can they claim they are advocating genuine independence when a ‘foreign’ country (the rUK) would be controlling Scotland’s economy? They can’t. The reality is that the SNP’s proposals are an illogical rag-bag of half-baked notions with little or no credibility to them.
They then conveniently changed their mind and insisted there would be a new Scottish currency, only to have these plans trashed by experts who revealed that such a currency would be worth 20% less (at least) than Sterling. See https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scottish-independence-average-household-faces-20-hit-to-income-under-loss-of-pound-due-to-independence-expert-forecasts-3916525
GIVING SOVEREIGNTY TO THE EU
The bizarre nature of the SNP’s ‘independence’ plans is further highlighted by the SNP’s conflicted attitude to the EU.
They decry how Scotland is supposedly ruled by faraway dictatorial London in the UK Union but advocate allowing Scotland to be ruled by diktat from the faraway autocratic and dictatorial EU (65% of all Scotland’s domestic policies would be controlled by mandatory directives and regulations decided and enforced by the EU).
See for example, this report from 2015 which said that ‘64.7 per cent of the laws made between 1993 and 2014 have either been made or influenced by the European Union’ at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2974938/Two-thirds-laws-Britain-past-two-decades-inspired-Brussels.html
NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS
As part of the UK, Scotland enjoys wide-ranging influence over the formulation and implementation of UK-wide policy.
Scotland has provided 10 Prime Ministers and several cabinet ministers who have held positions of considerable power and influence over UK-wide matters.
What’s more, the Scottish electorate has directly decided the result of UK General Elections 4 times since 1945-see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11552991/The-general-elections-where-Scotland-decided-who-ran-the-UK.html
The SNP are a sham. They are xenophobic, monomaniacal and pathological about forcing Scotland out of the UK against the will of the pro-UK majority of Scots who have clearly stated their desire for Scotland to stay in the UK
in most opinion polls.
See this analysis at the end of 2024 for details: https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/merry-christmas-everyone-union-clear-34367595 And here: https://ballotbox.scot/independence
They and the other anti-UK separatists in Wales and Ulster have no viable plans for separation (especially for the economy). They don’t know at all how they would run the parts of the UK after separation from the rest of the country. They can’t be trusted.
© 2017-2025 Stephen Bailey
