As a resident
of lucky Scotland and the big ship UK I thought I would look at what would have
happened if Scotland had voted for independence in the 1970s, instead voting
over and over in each UK General Election to stay in UK (or being hoodwinked
each time to try to get the Tories out before 1997).
And before you say Scotland didn't have the opportunity to vote itself out of the UK before now, it did. In each UK General Election it could have voted a majority of SNP or pro-independence MPs to Westminster who would then have had the clout to negotiate terms for independence.
Between 1990 when Mrs T resigned or 1992 when the UK election took place and 2013
And before you say Scotland didn't have the opportunity to vote itself out of the UK before now, it did. In each UK General Election it could have voted a majority of SNP or pro-independence MPs to Westminster who would then have had the clout to negotiate terms for independence.
Between 1990 when Mrs T resigned or 1992 when the UK election took place and 2013
- We would not have had Mr Major and his Conservative Government either meaning public assets continued to be sold off and run down.
- We would not have a privatised Railway which costs more to run as it is as compared to the nationalised version and a lot of the subsidy given just goes into the pockets of big business.
- We would not have had the continued diminution of workers rights.
- We may still have had a steel mill at Gartcosh, as Ravenscraig may well have stayed open to service a restructured Scottish engineering and manufacturing sector, rather than the retail, temporary and zero hour contract job hell we have today.
- We would not have PFI or private finance initiatives, renamed by Labour after 1997 as PPP or public private partnerships, which have proved time and again to be poor value for money to the point where the public are paying private companies over and over again for things they could have afforded easily without their involvement in the first place.
- We therefore would not have been dragged into the Iraq war.
- We would not have had the vast increase in PFI or PPP which occurred during this era vastly increasing the public debt for future generations.
- We would not have further deregulated the banking and financial system meaning more foundations for the credit crisis of 2008 would not have been laid.
- We would not have a separate Scottish Parliament within the UK meaning that Scottish MPs can vote on some English matters but English MPs cannot vote on the same Scottish issues. This would however be irrelevant as Scotland would be in charge of its own affairs nonetheless.
- We would not have had the continued diminution of workers rights.
- We would not have the New Labour version of the minimum wage, but we would still have had the old Labour one which was actually more generous (this being abolished during the 1980s by the Conservatives).
- We would not have sold Scottish gold reserves at the time when the UK god reserves were sold by Gordon Brown, as gold was at the lowest possible value ever. We may have sold some but when the price was higher.
3 We would not have had the CON DEM
coalition Government.
- We therefore would not have had very harsh cuts to public spending during this period.
- We would not be facing the privatisation of the Royal Mail.
I am sure
many of us could add even more to the list if we actually thought about it,
although we can never know what negative things the Scots Government would have
done over the same time period. I think it is an interesting experiment however as it shows just how much Scotland has been damaged by Westminster rule since the 1970s.
