This week’s Scotland on Sunday is full of the usual outpourings of fear and madness (our absolute favourite is a standout piece of howling-at-the-moon insanity from frothing Tory loonbag Gerald Warner, magnificently entitled “Feminism driving holocaust of abortion”), but one in particular caught our eye.
Headed “Independent Scotland at risk from bank crash“, the Tom Peterkin effort (based, in fairness, on an imminent UK government document) kicks straight off with an opening line that’s a top-shelf example of hysterical sub-Daily-Mail scaremongering. But it’s the second line that makes it special.
We got an email from our Prague correspondent last night, but that’s not the only thing the disgraceful pun in the headline refers to. As Michael Moore was kicked around the playground by Nicola Sturgeon in the first Scotland Tonight debate that same evening, the soggy security blanket he clung to more than anything else was the currency issue, which the No camp appears to believe is now its most powerful weapon.
It’s a two-pronged Trident, if you’ll forgive the even more tortured wordplay in that metaphor. Firstly there’s the scaremongering part containing the (empty) threat that the rUK would refuse to enter a currency union with an independent Scotland, forcing it to join the embattled Euro, and as back-up there’s the claim that if we DID get a currency union, Scotland would somehow end up getting less consideration from the Bank of England governors when it came to monetary policy than the none it gets now.
Let’s take the briefest look we can manage at both of those assertions.
We’re indebted to the alert reader who sent us a link to this last night:
If you don’t have time to sit through it all now, it’s an STV referendum debate – not about independence in 2014, but about devolution in 1997. In short, all the arguments and dire warnings we’re fed by Unionists now about independence were also deployed against devolution, which doesn’t in fact seem to have caused the sky to fall in.
It’s also interesting to note a BBC news story uncovered by National Collective this morning which reports a poll finding that “76% of businesses believe a double-yes vote in Thursday’s referendum would harm the climate for business in Scotland”.
While right-wing, conservative organisations like the CBI and FSB will doubtless never stop bleating about the terrible “uncertainty” of constitutional change, it’s good to see that there’s been at least some progress made in that field.
Hang on. The heart of the latest No campaign/media scare story is that the enormous pension deficit currently looming over the UK like a great big multi-billion-pound fiscal sword of Damocles (but which everyone is feverishly avoiding looking at) will become much more urgent in the event of Scottish independence, because according to EU rules “cross-border” pensions can’t just boot the problem into the long grass for years, and have to ensure any shortfall is funded immediately.
EU rules? But haven’t the Unionists spent most of the last six months telling us that an independent Scotland wouldn’t be an EU member, and would have to wait years at the back of the queue to join as a new country? Phew! Problem solved!
We’ve taken quite a lot of cold medication this week, readers, and it’s caused us to have a bit of an epiphany. We’ve realised that our constant advocacy of independence is a recklessly optimistic position which takes no account of the very real dangers of separating Scotland from the rest of the UK (and the world), and that in order to be responsible citizens we ought to present a more balanced picture.
We’ve decided, therefore, to use this page to keep track of the numerous and often serious potential consequences of a Yes vote in 2014, as helpfully pointed out by our concerned countrymen south of the border and the cooler heads in our own land.
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Stop talking utter shite. It’s Westerners who are squatting all over the ME & Asia Pacific. Military bases everywhere &…” Mar 12, 21:30
Geri on Looking up at the stars: ““What can take it’s place. Well my answer to that is nothing will take it’s place. ” A vacuum will…” Mar 12, 21:14
Northcode on Looking up at the stars: “James, you are one of those ‘fortunate’ Scots who sees the truth of Scotland’s relationship with England and has broken…” Mar 12, 21:11
Northcode on Looking up at the stars: ““…we don’t even have our own academics of anti-colonialism.” There’s a Scottish academic who goes by the name of Professor…” Mar 12, 21:05
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “One interesting side effect of the opening of World War 3’s third offensive front is seeing all those maps of…” Mar 12, 20:54
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Bet Wilson is white and thus an easy target for two-tier justice.” Mar 12, 20:42
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Irony of ironies, Alf. We’re so colonised, we don’t even have our own academics of anti-colonialism. We have to import…” Mar 12, 20:37
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Looks like James has the sock puppets. But considering what he’s been doing in them, best await an offer from…” Mar 12, 20:25
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Dodged the questions again, Alf. Entirely expected, but don’t kid yourself the alert readers don’t notice.” Mar 12, 20:20
agentx on Looking up at the stars: ““A mother-of-10 who kept a vulnerable woman captive as a slave for 25 years has been jailed for 13 years.…” Mar 12, 20:20
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Fact has it that you’re a man whose word can’t be trusted. Someone who swears an oath of fealty. Then…” Mar 12, 20:13
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Whatever we Scots have achieved, Northy, it’s fuck all to do with you. You’re a Pict. An untermensch. We Scots…” Mar 12, 20:03
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““We’ve only had one vote and we voted yes” Don’t you just hate it when commoners adopt the royal we?…” Mar 12, 19:59
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “PEERS VOTE TO GO BEYOND GOVT’S PLEDGE TO END NON-CRIME HATE INCIDENTS The House of Lords has voted to strengthen…” Mar 12, 19:26
James Che on Looking up at the stars: “Northcode, Three hundred years and more of conditioning has to have had an effect on the people of Scotland, Goodness…” Mar 12, 19:06
Sven on Looking up at the stars: “Diabloandco @ 15.55. He did indeed, D & Co, in the (very) late 1700s. His statue stands outside the establishment,…” Mar 12, 19:00
James Che on Looking up at the stars: “Factchecker, You are right of course, the Scottish people have to attain the will to wake up first, prior to…” Mar 12, 18:48
James on Looking up at the stars: “Apologies, Geri, but I’ve got to correct you there; it’s not “rubbish” the site Prick babbles 24/7, but pure, unadulterated…” Mar 12, 18:46
James Che on Looking up at the stars: “Mark Beggan, The age of aquarius is supposed to be the age of enlightenment, so its said, when truths are…” Mar 12, 18:32
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “James Rumour is that Hatey likes Dickens, just not on the first date! Allegedly..” Mar 12, 18:31
Northcode on Looking up at the stars: ““Scotland , its country and its people have been independent since 1707” Maybe so, James, but the Scots, as a…” Mar 12, 18:30
James on Looking up at the stars: “Oh no….you’ve pumped and followed through again, haven’t you?” Mar 12, 18:28
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “Geri If a God of light and love ever existed then he is long gone. Someone, some thing now sits…” Mar 12, 18:26
James Che on Looking up at the stars: “Alf Baird, I do remember how the long term effect of Colonialism dances with and on the reality of the…” Mar 12, 18:19
Sven on Looking up at the stars: ““When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of…” Mar 12, 18:11
James Che on Looking up at the stars: “Geri, You are missing the point, You did not have to vote for your independence or ask permission to be…” Mar 12, 17:54
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “@CC I think a large part is sadly BTL has become a symposium for the bored and the mad. The…” Mar 12, 17:35
Alf Baird on Looking up at the stars: ““It is not only the Scots kirk that has little interest in the liberation of the Scots people, it is…” Mar 12, 16:27
Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “In the last two thousand years we have seen western orthodox religion rise and fall. We now see the fall…” Mar 12, 16:05
Geri on Looking up at the stars: ““It is not only the Scots kirk that has little interest in the liberation of the Scots people, it is…” Mar 12, 15:59
