Source
r/Scotland•
miraclechains

Deep Doubts about 'Independence in Europe'

I believe in independence - voted for it in the last referendum, and I would vote for it again. But I can't help but feeling that my vote this time carries far more risk of economic calamity than before (should one actually happen).

The reason rests on Scotland's EU membership. In the last referendum, there was some technical issues with membership - many of which were very overblown. If the UK was in the EU and Scotland wanted to stay in it, then it was almost certain to happen. We're now getting a sense of how technically difficult just getting a withdrawal agreement is going to be - it is madness to think either the RUK or the EU would have done one just to tear it up a year later.

I don't get the sense that this is the case any longer.

The different models of EU relationship were well aired before the referendum, and some of them, were the UK to push for them, are not disastrous. Now, I've been watching proceedings since the vote very carefully, in particular the Lord's committee on the European Union, and the picture of the possible settlements is beginning to emerge: the UK really is not going to get them.

Free access to the single market isn't going to come without free movement, submitting the UK courts to European overrides, contributions to the EU budget, and implementation of all the regulations - and no Conservative government is going to sign up to that. I accept that lots of Tories are happy to accept go for that option, but the massive pressure from factions which are totally opposed seem to have been validated and emboldened by the weight of public opinion now. It's dead in the water.

If the UK pushes for an end to free movement, then the Norway model is impossible, and the most the EU is going to offer is a Canadian-type deal. Likely to be an enhanced free trade agreement that sacrifices some parts of the economy in favour of others, is highly technically complex, and has some agreement on restricted movement of labour.

That really would mean massive consequences for trade between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK: a customs barrier, rules of origin, and an immigration border. I don't know if I could vote for that.

Posted Jul 7, 2016, 2:59 PM UTC

1638
Shivadxb•

I disagree

If anything this time it's much clearer and the incentive is on Europe to save something out of the fucking mess.

Sturgeon hasn't secured anything solid nor could she hope to in the days following Brexit but she has made the case for Scotland quite clear to every member state and the whole parliament. There can't be any politicians in Europe who don't know about us and our pro EU choice now.

We did not vote to leave the EU and we don't want to leave the EU.

She couldn't get any meetings at all last time and this time she has met about as high up people as she could without causing a total ruckus. All have been positive as long as Scotland legally leaves the UK.

We have several influential people openly saying they are on our side and Alyn Smith got a standing ovation from most of the EU parliament.

There is no longer any doubt that the EU recognises Scotland and it's rights as a nation.

Economically the risk is about the same as before except this time leaving the UK may be the lesser risk, within the EU we will carry on most of our international trade as we do today, we will control all our exports and incomes including oil.

If we stay in the UK the only market we will have is the UK until we get trade agreements in place. Until we do everything will be done on WTO regulations which are shit.

The risk is the UK, stay and get fucked in a recession we don't control and have zero say in any deals, probably lose more powers and almost certainly lose a huge chunk of money whilst paying the same in every year.

Leave and the only thing we don't control is UK trade except we import £65 billion in goods and services from rUK annually, and export £50 billion. Both nations need to maintain a close relationship no matter what either side says.

Ultimately we will share the same island so there will be no insanity once the dust settles. We need each other more than most countries do, all we want is a different form of government and once we are gone I'm not sure Westminster will care anymore just so long as we keep buying from rUK and selling to them.

The U.K. Has a current land border with Europe and none of the fear you have will be realised there, it'd just start the troubles again and even the most insane in Europe don't want that. It'd be impossible to have that and force something in Scotland. What we may have is special UK lanes in a border as seen in many places globally. Where special neighbours have separate rules and lanes from the the rest of the world based in close ties and unique deals.

29
TheColinousGreen, fair-traded, organic, all natural stilts•

The risk is the UK, stay and get fucked in a recession we don't control and have zero say in any deals

To go off on a tangent, but the recession is completely separate from brexit in a way. It's already coming. In fact, it's already here. Over the next few weeks prices in shops will go up and up and up as imported stocks are replaced. If Sterling stays at this current level, we can expect price rises of 7-15 per cent on imported goods in just a matter of days and weeks. That's going to drive a stake through the heart of economic confidence, and we'll see a vicious circle of contraction as people start to tighten belts.

It's in that environment that indyref2 will happen. I just hope that people will keep their focus on what is causing all this - brexit and leaving the EU.

15
Shivadxb•

Agree, the next recession is overdue, brexit has just shoved the UK of the cliff into it and added a whole bunch of other valid reasons to crash the market

5
miraclechainsOP•

I agree completely with the first half of your reply. I think the outpouring of support and goodwill has been tremendous - and though it will be highly complicated, Scotland will be able to stay in the EU.

What I have doubts about is this trade between Scotland and the rest of the UK. You're right that sensible negotiation would conclude it would be mad to erect trade barriers, because there is such mutual interdependence between our two countries. That was a position I believed in the last referendum - and I think it would have been the case.

However, staying within the EU isn't just about maintaining funding from its institutions and participating in its decisions, say. It's about accepting rules in relation to trade.

Whatever the UK's deal with the EU becomes, is our deal with the UK.

My argument is that here the land is different - there really is the prospect of trade barriers being raised, because the UK cannot accept free movement.

2
wild_quinine•

My argument is that here the land is different - there really is the prospect of trade barriers being raised, because the UK cannot accept free movement.

Firstly, the UK will have free movement anyway. There is absolutely no chance at all under any circumstances that the UK is getting access to the single market without it.

And there is basically no way that the UK won't agree to this, because they need access to the single market.

It's almost unthinkable that the UK would just turn its nose up at a chance to access the single market for the sake of 'controlling the borders' (whatever that really means when it's clear most of the people selling it to the punters don't really want to do it anyway).

But let's say the UK does decide to sacrifice access to the single market in order to control their borders... well, whatever your political leanings, I think it's fair to say that we will all be much better off out of a UK that denied itself access to the single market.

As for borders, they'd really only come in the event that the rest of the UK put themselves into a situation I would describe as economically cataclysmic, and the only reason they would ever put themselves into that situation is xenophobia.

If that were really the outcome - and I put the odds at less than one in a thousand, well, fuck it - they couldn't build a wall big enough to protect us up here from the stupid.

Bear in mind the very salient point that the UK has an existing land border with the EU in Ireland. There are differences there, of course, but they are more serious not less serious concerns in Ireland than they would be on the mainland.

There is nothing they will do over there that could not apply to Scotland with less reason for concern, but also nothing so geographically different that they could justify different rules for Scotland.

And once again, an England xenophobic enough to let the troubles start up again just to avoid having to see the Polish deli counter in Tescos is not a country we need to worry about remaining in.

9
miraclechainsOP•

You make some great points. I agree that we can't forget many of the issues that would apply to an independent Scotland are already on the table with Ireland.

I hope that the consensus is that the referendum was about more that than just immigration, and that free movement does end up being accepted. You put it very well, how stupid it would be to turn away from the single market just for an ideology of xenophobia. Everything will depend on this point, I think.

But if you look at Theresa May's speech on immigration and at her leadership speech, where she talks about how 'Brexit is Brexit, and there can be no attempt at joining by the backdoor'. And how Boris Johnson got the boot for even talking about rowing back on things like free movement, then I think we're going to see a huge push for it to be a red line in the negotiations.

It's still early days.

6
Shivadxb•

Maybe, it depends how suicidal the rUK goes for

2
TheColinousGreen, fair-traded, organic, all natural stilts•

My support for independence has always come out of a calculation that a) Westminster is a retarded model for how to run a country, and b) that Westminster is fundamentally incapable of reform. I have been in minority for that view. Mainly, I think, because people are used to it, and aren’t used to actual good governance like they have in the Nordic countries or Germany.

There is a case now to prove how retarded the Westminster model is, particularly as it now looks likely that a very mean-spirited form of Conservatism are about to take over the UK. We’re talking about a xenophobic, anti-LGBT form that’s going to try to unravel a lot of progress that has been made in the last few decades.

Andea Leadsom is, basically, a British version of Ted Cruz, and she has a good chance of winning. If she does win, expect full retard paleoconservatism to rule. Gay marriage will be banned again, LGBT will be chased back in the closet, and all the homophobes who now shut up about their bigotry will feel as liberated as the xenophobes.

Theresa May is not much better. She’s an arch-authoritarian who is going to pay close attention to what you wank to, and she’s going to have publically expressed views about your human worth in light of your wank-fodder. She’ll compel the internet to tell her all about it, and then she’ll strip you of rights to defend yourself against it.

This in conjunction with the fact that the Westminster model is a retarded way to run a modern democracy. Maybe, just maybe, this time people will see it as I do and not chose what they’re used to our of fear for the unknown. Maybe this time the unknown is preferable to what is likely to come. Maybe this time the known is much scarier than a leap into the dark.

9
PJM1990•

Imagine Scotland, the EU country with the largest fishing area, having actual representation at the EU fishing summits for the first time ever. That is worth voting for.

You cannot base your Scottish Referendum vote on the difficulties it would cause England, or the hypothetical trade tariffs that they would impose.

8
staybeautiful•

A place at the summit, only to give most of our quotas away to Spanish fleets? What's the sense in that?

1
PJM1990•

How defeatist.

7
staybeautiful•

Scotland has a budget deficit higher than Greece. We'd have to make huge cuts in public spending (or huge tax rises) before we would even be eligible to join.

We would also need to join the Euro, which will see an increasingly centralised fiscal policy if it wants to survive. We'd have less influence over fiscal policy than we do as part of the U.K.

The U.K. leaving the EU will give Scotland control over its agricultural and fisheries policies. This would be gone if we were to rejoin.

Overall, we'd be taking back power from Westminster only to give even more of it away to Brussels. Totally crazy in my opinion.

4†
lux_roth_chop•

Scotland has a budget deficit higher than Greece.

And GDP per capita double Greece's. It's fine to have the same debts as someone who earns half what you do.

2
VillainsDefender•

Scotland has as higher % budget deficit than Greece relative to its total income.

So the relative sizes of each country's GDP was accounted for in that statement.

2
Classy56•

Well said, i like many in the rural communities voted leave to get agricultural policy back to local control.

1
Kn45h3r•

To be honest, from somebody from a rural community on the other side of the Irish sea, I really can't understand your position at all.

The EU is deeply protectionist about agriculture, the entire point of the cap is protectionism, and once the UK leaves, it is not only going to be unaffordable for the UK to fund that, but it runs against long standing UK policy and opening up the UK markets to Australia/NZ & Latin America is something I've heard all three mention, and something Westminster would absolutely bargin away for the trade deals it's basing it's future on. Farming in the UK simply can't compete against the low wage, farm size, farming practice and climate of those areas. It would be the death knell of rural communities here, and I fear it will be the same there.

10
ExtremeZeroII•

And prey tell how the fuck you are going to get agricultural policy back to 'local control' when farmers relied on the EU subsidies from fucking them over. If Westminister didn't give a shit about agriculture, it won't now.

6
BlueHorde•

Yes, completely. End the subsidies. It's about time you guys competed in the global economy like the rest of us. /s

3
CyberGnat•

It should be noted that Scottish independence would change the dynamics at play when the (r)UK negotiates its future with the EU. Trade between the rUK and Scotland will be comparable in scale between the rUK and the EU (internal trade is always far larger than external trade), and so Scottish independence would make the rUK even more dependent upon a good trade deal with the EU. Having a land border that cannot be 'solved' by imposing passport controls on travel to Northern Ireland will also make it far less likely that the UK could ever drastically change its immigration policy even in the full non-single market scenario.

2
LowlanDair•

Independence stops Scotland paying £200m a week to Westminster.

That is the priority. Our EU membership would be £10m. If we voted to be EU members. Which would be the first choice of an independent Scotland.

1
PrehistoricPigeon•

We pay £200m to Westminster a week? Got a source for that?

6
LowlanDair•

That's Scotland's contribution to UK debt, UK Defence overspend, UK National Infrastructure Plan (the whole of the UK paying for London).

There's other stuff, but £10bn is a good estimate for what Scotland pays for membership of the UK. Which pretty much eliminates the idea of Scotland having a deficit after Independence.

2
PrehistoricPigeon•

Jesus man, we've got another £350m-a-week'er here.

How exactly will Independence stop us paying off our national debt?

Also, you've not really given me a source for that figure, just vaguely listed off some of our expenditures as a nation.

2
lux_roth_chop•

How exactly will Independence stop us paying off our national debt?

It won't.

But it'll give us control of our own debt and the repayments instead of being tied into servicing debts created by an economy which is only prevented from immediate failure by accumulating more and more debt.

2
LowlanDair•

That's down to the negotiation. For one thing rUK vitally needs a letter from Scotland acknowledging it as the continuator state, that's quite a biggie and even that might not be enough to keep the UN Security Council seat.

But moreover, GERS currently charges Scotland £5.5bn for the UK debt interest payments. However, as half the debt is owned by the BoE (which does not charge the Treasury insterest) the actual pro-rated share should be £2.65bn. That's £3bn in Scotland's "deficit" which absolutely does not exist on day one of Independence.

1
VillainsDefender•

The deficit is the difference between what you make and what you spend. It already accounts for all those things.

The current Scottish deficit is about £15bn and is currently cover by Westminster by a combination of borrowing and taxes from other parts of the UK.

When Scotland becomes independent it will have to close that gap ether by borrowing, or cutting public spending.

Your pulling the same trick as farage with his 350 million as week quote, counting the money going out and ignoring the money coming back.

2
LowlanDair•

The usual duplicitous nonsense.

Scotland does not have a deficit because it is not an Independent state.

GERS is a measure of Scotlands position as part of the United Kingdom and allocates around £10bn of spending to Scotland which would not and could not be incurred by an Independent Scotland.

What the deficit of an Independent Scotland would actually be is not readily estimated because there would be numerous changes to the figures. There are a number of different arguments as to where they would end up, the most credible is that Scottish Revenue would be marginally higher (a tax border ironing out the Head Office effect being the biggest influence) and Scottish Spending would be considerably lower (predominantly by stopping sums outlined above current paid to Westminster)

These are the facts. You can argue all you want that black is white but the reality is you will still be lying.

2
Jamie54•

but Scotland want to continue contributing to the UK debt?

0
ExtremeZeroII•

I see you are using the Leave campaign's excellent strategy of "Lol NHS 350 million poonds"

2
SteveJEOLiveware Problem•

Wouldn't support a Westminster government or an ideological EU hegemony.

One wants more power over people and the other is the fucking borg.

0
ExtremeZeroII•

I don't remember the EU getting rid of Human rights and LGBT-rights and achivements.

I can remember Westminister doing that and it will do it again when May or Leadsom get in.

7
aviationinsiderCraic on stilts•

How do you operate in a world dominated by globalisation? European stability post ww2 has been pretty good, the EU may collapse to a certain extent but this could be a good thing long term, to re assess the nature of the EU integration model, the idea is good on paper but I'd like to see it relaxed and transition away from the € and expansion being slowed. If brexit doesn't give the EU the wake up call that it really needs then what will?

The reasons I want to be in the EU are cooperation on the environment, medicine, education, science, engineering and large scale projects that no single state could hope to achieve eg LHC, fusion reactors etc, we are looking at a bleak future environmentaly and the EU can provide a forum for cooperation on that, can anyone see Europe without the EU now? It may happen but a lot has changed and I think it would be a regressive step toward isolationism in a world dominated by large blocks like Russia, China, India and USA.

1