I thought I'd look for a more fiscal orientated argument then Broker's Trumpesque "Great" offering. Post was found here;
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=51867439&postcount=4635Okay so lets look at the case for remaining in the UK (outwith the EU) and leaving the UK (and joining the EU)
First of all, what are the benefits of being within the UK?At the moment Scotland is running a massive deficit of almost £15bn (actually £14.833bn if North Sea oil is distributed on a geographical basis). See the table below from the Scottish Governments Expenditure and Revenue figures (for 2015/16)
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To give an idea of just how big this is the devolved Scottish government’s budget which includes areas such as Local Government, Health, Law and Order, Education, Housing, Farming etc is currently £36.93bn. The Scottish NHS budget, which is included in this, is £12.9bn alone.
Total expenditure in Scotland in 2015/16 was £68.58bn and of the amount that isn't devolved by far the biggest item is Social Security which amounts for over £23.59bn (some of this is in the process of being transferred to Scottish Government control)
Now the UK is also running at a deficit but in comparative terms the UK deficit is 4.2% whereas Scotland’s is 9.4%. This additional deficit, which is £9bn in cash terms is covered by a fiscal transfer from the UK government. Basically this is an additional £9bn over and above Scotland’s tax take. So leaving the UK means losing at least £9bn immediately on independence.
I should add the following for those who’s only reason for independence is ‘The Tories’, the Scottish government’s budget is now higher in real terms that it was pre-austerity in 2007. It went up £100m last year and next year was due to go up by a massive £900m but it will actually be slightly over £1bn when we take into account the figures from last weeks UK budget. You’ll find these figures in the recent Scottish budget document. Note that they’re hidden away in a table on page 179 (out of 186), it’s almost like the SNP don’t want us knowing this.
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With regards to the EU and the impact of Brexit, the idea that this is solved by leaving the UK to join the EU is utter nonsense that is easily disproven.
Scotland exports £12.3bn to the EU single market but it exports £49.8bn to the (rest of) UK single market. So the idea that you leave your largest trading market to join one a quarter of the size is madness.
Below is a graphic showing the comparative figures:
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This graph shows how the trade has been changing year on year and you can see it’s been stagnant within the EU but growing within the UK.
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As you can see since 2002 exports to the EU have increased from £11.4bn to £12.3bn whereas those to the rest of the UK have increased from £28.6bn to £49.8bn
The SNP’s only answer to this is that the EU is a bigger market with bigger potential but this ignores the fact that there has been absolutely nothing blocking our trade with the EU up to now so why hasn’t this ‘potential’ been exploited and how would it suddenly be exploited post-independence?
I should add another quick, but major, point about the EU v UK. Within the EU countries are required to either have a deficit of below 3% or be seen to be taking steps to get below 3% (Chapter 17 of the chapter of the Acquis
https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/policy/conditions-membership/chapters-of-the-acquis_en ). Scotland as it stands has a bigger deficit than Greece so the austerity we would endure by joining the EU would be on a scale never seen before. Within the UK this gap is funded by the UK so there is absolutely no impact whatsoever for us financially.
So to quickly sum up
In the UK (and ouwith the EU) +£9bn fiscal transfer to cover the Scottish deficit (over and above the UK deficit)
Free access to our biggest trading partner where we export £49.8bn
We lose free access to the EU single market where we export £12.3bn
In the EU (and outwith the UK) We lose the £9bn fiscal transfer from the UK
We actually have to pay the EU an unknown amount for membership (seen figures of over £1bn mentioned)
EU imposed austerity to achieve a 3% deficit
Free access to the EU single market with exports of £12.3bn
We lose free access to the UK market with exports of £49.8bn
These figures are just the basics and there’s much more I could add on the matter but I thought it was easier to stick to the large headline figures for now rather than throw up a huge wall of text by going into other areas. If anyone wants to know more, or query the figures etc I’ll do my best to answer where I can. I know that there are various pro-indy sites out there that do their best to spread misinformation about the finances but as most of them have been debunked I can probably address these as well.
Sources:
Scottish Govt Revenue and Expenditure Figures
http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/08/2132/downloadsScottish Govt Draft Budget
http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/12/6610/downloadsScottish Govt Export Figures
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Economy/Exports/ESSPublication*Note that I have clearly used the SNP governments own figures at every point.
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