If the staunchly pro-Union, right wing, GBNEWS channel had wanted to make an impression on Scottish people by further stirring up the, already rancorous, Scottish-constitutional-debate over the past year, it has succeeded.
Now, obviously, it’s a truly appalling impression – cheapo, shoddily made programmes, featuring the opinions of people determined to repeatedly label half the country as illogical, xenophobic, anti-English bigots for wanting independence. But it is an impression.
So, for this Nat anyway, it was mildly amusing to read a GBNEWS presenter’s repeatedly stated view that an independent Scotland could become the richest country on earth.
The author, Dominic Frisby, formerly of MoneyWeek and Money Pit and now GBNEWS ‘Headliners’ presenter said:
“I want to offer my 2p worth on the debate about Scottish independence. An independent Scotland could become the richest country on earth, on a per capita basis. I’m not joking when I say that, it has all the necessary ingredients”.
“There is one characteristic which is common to all of the top 10 ranking nations, bar one. It is that they are small. This is because there is a direct correlation between the size of the state and the wealth of the people. The bigger the state, the poorer the people. The more power is concentrated, the less wealth is spread”.
“But in a small nation, forced to live from a small tax base, there is more of a limit to how big state institutions can grow. Monitoring becomes more efficient- it’s hard to obfuscate, so there’s more transparency and accountability and less waste. Change is easier to implement in smaller organisations which makes the nation more flexible, more dynamic, more competitive. With fewer people there’s less of a wealth gap between those at the top and the bottom. And the evidence of history is that the free-est countries, with the widest dispersal of power have always been the most properous and innovative”.
“Scotland now has the opportunity, if it votes for independence, to enact the same legislation, taxation, regulation as the other top 10 countries on that list employ, following, I don’t know, the blueprint of Singapore or even Iceland. It already has a rich tradition in trade, finance and banking and it has the oil. And with just 5 million people it’s small. It has all the ingredients to be the richest country on Earth on a per capita basis, it has ‘the triple’. I can think of no other nation in the world with such a wonderful opportunity“.
Strangely, Dominic hasn’t spoke about this on GBNEWS. They’re probably not even aware they have a potential anglophobe working for them.
Small Is Beautiful
This idea of ‘small’ being economically beneficial for a country’s population is hardly controversial. It is backed up by research from the World Economic Forum in its ‘Inclusive Growth and Development Report’ which looks at how the economies of states actually benefit their citizens. It found Scotland sized, and smaller, countries do better and dominate the top of the list. Norway (1), Iceland (2), Luxembourg (3), Switzerland (4), Denmark (5)…
The UK was 21st out of 29 advanced economies.
Some seriously awkward questions, for Unionists, quickly arise.
For example; what good are those ‘broad shoulders’™ of the ‘5th largest economy in the world’™ Scottish people are constantly told about, when people in the smaller countries around us have it so much better?
It’s so, firmly, established in British society that it feels like a cliche to even mention but, Westminster’s continued Neoliberal ambivalence to the plight of great swathes of the British population has, demonstrably, led to significantly higher levels of inequality and poverty than in its neighbours. With all that entails. Britain is, as they say, Great, for the rich. Another truism.
It’s controlling your own economy, stupid.
Some more: Do Unionists genuinely expect Scotland to ever match the better standard of living in our independent neighbours as a northern part of the UK? Why don’t we already, if the Union is so great? Where’s the big Unionist plan? How could it ever be done with so much of our economy controlled, centrally, by a government (we normally didn’t vote for) in London?
Unionist or Nat, we all know how ‘The North’ traditionally fairs in that arrangement.
Dominic Frisby is right about small countries, they do do better.
If bigness of shoulders, gross size of economy, access to the ‘UK single market’ and this particular currency set up – it all sounds impressive – are as great for Scotland as we’re always being told, Unionists would be able show, all us illogical Nats, how we actually do better than our, less fortunate, independent neighbours.
It should be an easy thing for them to do and there’d be no strong Nat counterargument. We should be seeing, proudly Union Jack’d, international comparison everywhere.
Afterall, we have ‘the best of both worlds,‘ while they’re only Scotland sized or smaller and outside the UK’s ‘protection’ and market. It sounds so risky.
But here’s the weird bit- they all do better for themselves than the Union does for us. Why?
It can’t be down to geography or resources. Scotland compares favourably in those respects with Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark etc. The Nat analysis goes, therefore, that, their greater success must, logically, come from the main difference between them and us – the difference in constitutional arrangemments.
They control their own economy. We don’t. They each have their own varied distinct economic strategies but they all do better than Scotland, where the strategy is done, for us, in London.
We’re still not sure what the Unionist explanation for all of this is, and we’ve been asking them for years. But, whatever it is, at its heart, it can’t be very complimentary (or true) of the Scottish people. It seems like a question Unionists just can’t answer.
