My latest letter to be sent to the John OGroat next week. I’d like to thank Mr. **** for his response to the letters of Mr. **** and myself. It is very edifying that such an important topic for Scotland is generating the debate it deserves. Naturally I disagree with the core of Mr. ****’s argument, which seems to consist of two basic strands: that it is all about Alex Salmond and the SNP; and that the difficulties posed by Scotland regaining its rightful sovereignty are so great that that it is better to stay with the “benefits” of the union. Regarding the first point, I can only repeat what I wrote in my previous letter, that support for independence goes far beyond the SNP. The head of the YES campaign, by the way, is Blair Jenkins, NOT Alex Salmond. Of course, credit must be given to Alex Salmond and his party for keeping the flame of independence alive and fighting Scotland’s corner at every opportunity, and for giving the people of Scotland the right to have a vote on their country’s status for the first time in history. Of all the political leaders in Britain, Alex Salmond has the surest mandate, achieving a majority election victory against enormous odds in a parliament created with the specific intention of denying his party a majority. The referendum was part of the SNP manifesto and it is perfectly right that it should be held. Breaking manifesto promises is after all the forte of the Westminster parties. I ought to make it plain that I am not a member of the SNP. I do, however, have the greatest respect for Mr. Salmond, who has achieved remarkable things against remarkable odds, and whether one voted for him or not, he is at present the First Minister of Scotland. Mr. **** does his argument no favours by his open animosity to a democratically elected leader. As to the NO campaign, for which Mr. **** proves himself a most eloquent spokesman – its main aim is to create FEAR, UNCERTAINTY and DOUBT. After all, it has christened itself PROJECT FEAR – this is indeed a title used by its own members and not a label invented by its opponents. In order to achieve these aims, using its allies, most of the main stream media including the BBC (the reality of BBC bias is another subject and has been rightly highlighted by **** in his letter last week) it promulgates reports by so-called “independent” think tanks intended to rubbish the idea of Scottish independence. Anyone who cares to investigate, however, soon discovers that in most cases, these organisations are not independent at all, but have vested interests in maintaining the status quo, interests that most of the time do not at all coincide with the interests of the people of Scotland. No better example can be given than the recent debacle of the Confederation of British Industry coming out for a NO vote, then, after a stream of bodies resigning from the CBI in protest, realising its mistake and begging to be taken off the list so it could once more pretend “neutrality”. It will, of course, continue to promote the interests of Westminster despite its reputation being now in tatters. Most of the arguments these bodies use, by the way, are similar if not word for word re-statements of the arguments used in the 1997 campaign against the Scottish parliament i.e businesses would leave and Scotland would become a basket case. Running through all the talk of economics, a subject beyond the average voter but one by which doubt and uncertainty can hopefully be sown in their minds by PROJECT FEAR, are three strands which are repeated ad nauseam: the EU, the currency and the bank bailout. The NO campaign has literally had a split-personality when it comes to deploying its European argument. Firstly we would be kicked out of the EU and have to re-apply, despite the fact that there is no mechanism for ejecting a country from the EU; then in the next breath we would be forced to join the Euro (which would be a disaster apparently), despite the fact that we couldn’t join the Euro without participating in the Exchange Rate Mechanism, which is itself non-obligatory. Of course no-one is saying that there would not need to be negotiations to formalise Scotland’s new status, but surely these are to be welcomed; I’m sure there are many areas in Scotland’s relationship with Europe that would benefit from a re-negotiation involving a fully independent Scotland with Scotland’s own interests as priorities. It would make a welcome change to being locked out of the negotiating room while Westminster sells us down the river. The second strand is the currency issue. The Scottish Government has proposed that a formalised currency union is the best option for both Scotland and the remainder of the UK. This is indeed the most sensible option, at least in the beginning. Most importantly, removing Scotland’s contribution would hardly be healthy for sterling – in fact if you were to take oil, whisky and food exports out of the sterling zone, it is possible that the balance of trade deficit could cause sterling to sink like a stone, taking the English economy with it. Neither let it be said that we wouldn’t be fully independent under this arrangement. Try telling this to France or Germany, both of which are in a currency union. But perhaps this argument is moot? We already know that Mr. Osborne’s statement was a bluff don’t we? He had hardly made it before an unnamed senior figure in the coalition let the cat out of the bag and confessed it was a campaigning ploy. But even if the Government at Westminster really wanted to damage everyone’s interests in this way, a formal currency arrangement is not the only option. The fact is that no-one can prevent Scotland from using its own pound, formal currency union or not. Sterling is a fully tradeable currency and the pound as such is not the sole property of the British state. Thirdly, Mr. **** mentions the banks. It’s odd that it is rarely advertised that Barclay’s was bailed out largely by the US Federal Reserve. Why? Well, as Andrew Hughes Hallett, Professor of Economics at St Andrew’s University, explains: “The real point here…is [that] by international convention, when banks which operate in more than one country get into these sorts of conditions, the bailout is shared in proportion to the area of activities of those banks, and therefore it’s shared between several countries. In the case of the RBS…90% of its operations are in England and 10% are in Scotland, the result being…that the rest of the UK would have to carry 90% of the liabilities of RBS and Scotland 10%.” But there is another important point here. Just where did the said banking crash originate? Dare we suggest that it had its birth among the spivs of the City of London and the incompetent Westminster politicians (including one Alistair Darling) who did so much by their de-regulatory policies to encourage casino capitalism? A union dividend indeed! In short, the anti-independence campaign consists of fear-mongering and obfuscation combined with the false idea that everything about the union is OK and we’re just one big happy family after all. I suggest that this latter idea does not stand up to scrutiny. Scratch the surface and you will find nothing of substance behind the NO campaign; behind its empty slogan of “Better Together” it is bereft of argument, bereft of imagination, bereft of integrity, and consumed by a petty resentment against the First Minister of Scotland. My blinkers were removed a long time ago Mr ****. I shall be voting YES for Scotland.
Posted on: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 07:56:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015