The SNP's pensions plan makes the case for Union
If you want to keep bits of the UK, what's the point of independence?
HOW best does Scotland negotiate its relationship with the rest of the UK? How do we share this windy little island? As independent nations or in a Union? In recent days, Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, has unwittingly shone the spotlight on this, the eternal question hanging over our country. And this connoisseur of Scottish grievance has come down fully on the side of the Union he insists we must leave.
The issue revolves around Mr Blackford’s latest claims about pensions in an independent Scotland. Back in 2014, before Scotland voted No, the SNP declared that the cost of pensions after independence would be met by the newly minted Edinburgh administration. This has now changed. Mr Blackford now says that the bill will be met by London. He used the example of ex-pat Brits living out their retirement in the Costa Del Sol. They continue to receive a state pension despite living in a foreign country. So, he argues, the same will apply to Scots as well, although the weather will still not be quite so good.
Step forward UK pensions minister Guy Opperman on Sunday to make clear this assertion was baloney. “If Scotland chooses to become a foreign country, then working English, Welsh and Northern Irish taxpayers should not pay for a foreign country’s pension liabilities,” he clarified. Once we’re no longer British, the British state pension will no longer apply to us. End of story.
On the surface then, this is just another example of Nationalist mendacity as the SNP seeks to pull the wool over the eyes of Scottish voters about the consequences of independence. But there is more to it than just that. Go deeper and Mr Blackford’s comments reveal an intellectual hole at the heart of the SNP’s thinking on Scotland’s relationship with our neighbours on this island. It’s this that helps make the case for the Union.
Whether it’s naivety or just a simple unwillingness to confront reality is hard to know. Here, though, is the SNP’s position. Explaining Mr Blackford’s comments last week, Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament: “When Scotland votes for independence, as was the case in 2014, the distribution of existing UK assets and liabilities, including those for pensions, will be subject to negotiation”. Miss Sturgeon was referring here to the divorce talks that would take place after a vote for separation between Scotland and the remainder of the United Kingdom in which the two sides would thrash out who gets what, who pays for what, and how the future relationship would work. It is Miss Sturgeon’s position (and Mr Blackford’s) that, in this negotiation, she — or whoever is leading the Scottish delegation — will somehow be able to persuade London to fold and agree to pay for our pensions to the tune of £8.5bn a year.
Really? Peering ahead at these negotiations, let’s imagine the circumstances under which they would be taking place. Scotland would have just unilaterally decided to end the United Kingdom. So firstly, they would be marked by a sense of bitterness and hurt on the part of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Secondly, they would be dictated by the overwhelming imbalance in negotiating chips held by both sides. Scotland — whose economy relies heavily on trade with the rest of the UK — would desperately need an amicable split, with free access to English markets, free movement of people, and — as we see with pensions — some kind of ongoing financial support (given Scotland’s older age profile than the rest of the UK, this would be particularly acute). By contrast, the UK would have far less to lose. In short, while London would probably want to keep the relationship stable, Scotland would have precious few sticks and carrots to guarantee any kind of golden farewell, and London would be in no mood to grant one. Nonetheless, Miss Sturgeon insists that we’d still get that annual £8.5bn a year for pensions. This is fantasy.
Of course, it’s hard to predict exactly how this drama would pan out. But surely even the SNP has noticed the prequel. Prior to the Brexit referendum, many Leavers insisted that the UK could have it all: full control at home and open access to European markets. The reality was that sovereignty came with a cost. Similarly, in the negotiation which Miss Sturgeon hopes to conduct, the most likely scenario is that Scotland would simply come up against the hard fate that befalls all weaker negotiating partners. It’ll have to take what it’s given.
So this is why we should be grateful for Mr Blackford’s latest comments. Because he has shown Scotland the nature of the choice facing us. Under the SNP’s plan, Scotland would walk out of the club one day, and then knock on the door the next to ask that it keeps bits of the Union that, on second thoughts, it would like to keep. Scotland would be in the humiliating position of asking to keep things we had by right the week before. But with our negotiating position having been blown to pieces. You have to wonder — why stop at pensions? If you follow the logic of the SNP’s position, perhaps we’d also ask to retain access to a UK wide NHS, to protection from the UK Armed Forces, and for support from the UK wide financial system. Perhaps in return for an open border with England, Scotland will accept there therefore needs to be a UK wide immigration system. Perhaps we’ll agree we should pool and share tax resources with the London to pay for all of this. Perhaps the SNP negotiators will finally then accept that this new arrangement should have a name: perhaps we could call it something like “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.
At a time when our public services are stretched post Covid, and the country desperately needs an economic plan to restore growth, Scots are entitled to ask why our ruling party is wasting its time on this. And particularly so, when we already have a far better way to negotiate our relationship with the rest of the UK. We can elect a group of decent MPs at Westminster who make it their job to argue the case for their Scottish constituents. We can have a Scottish Secretary in cabinet banging the drum for Scotland’s corner and making sure government departments heed our voice. In a better world, we could have a powerful Scottish Government in Edinburgh which, every day, fights hard for Scotland’s interests, demands change from the centre when needed, but works with Westminster and Whitehall on the key issues of concern to us all. Isn’t this a more productive way of ‘standing up for Scotland’ than storming out from an arrangement that even you say you want to keep hold of? Of course it is.
So thank-you, Mr Blackford. If this is the SNP’s new prospectus for independence, it leads only in one direction: as further evidence that the most durable and equitable way to negotiate the relationship between us all on this island is through the evolving attempt at a political union of peoples. And it throws open the central question facing the SNP as it once again prepares to make its case for separation this spring. What on earth is the point?
ENDS
The SNP's pensions plan makes the case for Union
Funding Both Sides: How Jewish Money Controls British Politics . . .
“During the previous Labour government, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were ardent Zionists because they accepted the justice of Israel’s cause, not because Labour’s chief fund-raisers were first the Jew Michael Levy and then the Jew Jonathan Mendelsohn (both are now members of the House of Lords). And during the current Conservative government, David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson have been ardent Zionists because they too accept the justice of Israel’s cause, not because the Conservatives’ chief fund-raisers have been first the Jew Sir Mick Davis and then the Jew Sir Ehud Sheleg.”
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2021/10/04/funding-both-sides-how-jewish-money-controls-british-politics/