The rise of Scottish nationalism of late has accelerated calls for an independent and sovereign state of Scotland, a move that would nullify 300 years of union with England. There have been several thoughtful articles discussing what the aftermath of such a move would look like. Predictably, there is some disagreement as to whether an independent Scotland would be better off, both in terms of economics and policy.
The first big issue concerning an independent Scotland is its prospective status within the European Union. The Scottish National Party (SNP) maintains, probably rightly so, that independence would have no impact on EU membership, stating,
The 1992 Maastricht Treaty has already conferred on Scots the status of European citizens and the EU will have no more reason to reject an independent Scotland than to reject the independent remainder of the UK.
For the past two decades the overwhelming weight of legal and political opinion has stated that an independent Scotland would inherit EU member ship on exactly the same terms as the rest of the UK. The SNP has consulted widely throughout the EU and we are confident that an independent Scotland would not only remain in the EU as a full member, but would be welcome as such.
If this is more or less true—which I believe it is—how does the addition of an independent Scotland affect the EU? The EU’s handling of Scottish accession would not be a small matter, for while Scotland itself is a relatively negligible state in the grand scheme of things, its move toward full sovereignty is something to which many regions in Europe aspire; in other words, Scottish independence could begin a process throughout Europe toward greater regionalization, and the case of Scotland would serve as a precedent-setting example of what happens when EU member states break up.
Already, there is much discomfort within the Union over the latest round of expansion, which saw the Union grow to 25 members, nearly doubling in size in one fell swoop with the May 2004 addition of 10 new member states. Most of the new member states are substantially poorer than the Union average, and this has inspired fears throughout the Union of low-cost workers freely crossing borders, throwing the delicate balance of labor and management out of kilter and adding to the problem of persistent joblessness that hounds advanced European economies.
There is also the problem of the EU’s subsidy regime. The EU doles out some €200 billion in subsidies each year to so-called undeveloped regions throughout Europe (not counting the €50 billion or so in farm aid). These subsidies have traditionally flowed to countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, and Ireland, where several regions have been—and in many cases, remain—economic laggards. The accession of 12 new members, nearly all of which are poorer than the EU at large, has forced Europe to recalibrate the subsidies, redirecting money toward poor regions of new member states at the expense of older members.
Naturally, Scotland is not a poor country (though it, too, has some poor regions), and therefore, it would not add to the EU’s burden in this regard. In terms of economics and logistics, the Scots present none of the problems associated with new members. After all, Scotland, by virtue of its union with England, is already an EU member. In fact, whether Scotland has needed it or not, it has enjoyed its own subsidy regime, as the country gets far more goodies from Westminster than its tax receipts would seem to warrant. It would be ironic, then, that an independent Scotland might suddenly be expected to become a net exporter of capital within the EU.
That being said, the more troublesome area for the EU is that an independent Scotland would increase the number of vote-wielding countries. You might say, what’s one more vote? Perhaps not much, but clearly, the Union’s size has spooked some of the long-time EU members who are used to getting their way. The Union’s policy-setting apparatus proceeds according to consensus, not majority voting. Either all member states come to agreement, or simply put, there is no agreement. This was a lot easier to manage back when the EU was a small regional free-trade bloc, but now that it is a quasi-governmental body of continental proportions, obviously, consensus is nearly impossible. Imagine how the United States would fare if all federal-level policy required the assent of all 50 governors.
Some long-time members, particularly France and The Netherlands, have used the Union as a means of punching above their geopolitical weight. Indeed, some of the loopier elements of French politics have long dreamed of a Europe dominated commercially and politically by France, a domination made possible (in theory) by its key role within the EU, and that’s why, traditionally, France has been a loud voice in favor of ‘ever-closer’ union, not just economically, but politically as well. So when French and Dutch voters rejected an EU draft constitution that would have provided the framework for closer union, it left many observers scratching their heads. But it’s really quite easy to see why the constitution was rejected. As the EU has grown, the relative strength and influence of France and The Netherlands have decreased. They no longer call the shots quite like they used to (witness Iraq), and many folks saw how ever-closer union could tie their countries to policies deeply unpopular at home. So, yes, adding yet another voice to the already-thronging EU chorus might well create more angst, particularly so if Scotland’s independence presaged similar moves by other restless European regions, such as Catalonia or the dozen or so northern regions of Italy that have long threatened secession, not to mention the eternally vexing Balkan nations, the welfare mothers of Europe, spawning new states as they do.
Back in Scotland, these considerations hardly take center stage. The independence lobby is motivated more by Scottish economics and a nebulous, unaccountable dislike for things English, a kind of chronic Scottish inferiority complex that waxes and wanes throughout history. The question for Scots is, put simply, would independence from England bring about greater prosperity? This is a much more complex question than what it might seem, for it’s not a simple matter of number-crunching.
For example, this month’s Prospect magazine published a cantankerous essay written by Michael Fry, a Scottish ex-Tory journalist and historian with conservative instincts. Fry numbers himself among the converts to the cause of Scottish independence, chiefly because he feels that union with England has produced a “dependency culture” that threatens to supplant the traditional virtues of the Scottish people, which according to Fry includes self-reliance, entrepreneurship, and the like. Devolution, the process that increased Scottish autonomy and provided Scotland with a parliament, has not gone far enough, says Fry; in fact, it has made things worse, or as he writes,
Devolution affronts me in two particular ways. First, it has become a huge pork barrel. Scots have enjoyed high public expenditure for a half-century without improving their prosperity relative to England. Though spending per capita in Scotland runs at 30 per cent above the English level, GDP per capita runs at 5 per cent below it. The ratios change from year to year, but the long-term trend is consistent: overall growth rates in the two countries are not converging.
The main reason for this used to be that much of the public money went into propping up the bankrupt old heavy industries. It ensured Scotland's economy would remain backwards, reliant on the brawn rather than the brains of the people. But the steelworks have vanished—the site of the last, Ravenscraig in Lanarkshire, is about to be turned into a retail park—while precious little remains of the coal mines or shipyards.
Nowadays the swelling flow of subsidy goes into an inflated public sector. This accounts for nearly 50 per cent of Scottish GDP, 10 percentage points higher than the British figure. In depressed areas, the state and its agencies are often the only major employers—in East Ayrshire they provide over two thirds of jobs. Across Scotland, spending rains down on groups organised enough to lobby the government. Among them are rich pensioners, now entitled to free personal care from local authorities who previously gave it only to poor pensioners. Also among the successful supplicants are the white settlers in the Highlands, that is to say, the Lowlanders and English who have moved into the depopulated glens. Not content with displacing the culture of the indigenous Gaels, they profit from a new right of “community buy-out” to expropriate private estates with money from the government. This is supposed to be settling the scores of the Highland clearances of two centuries ago.
On pure economic grounds, Fry is quite right to refer to Scotland’s rather grotesque, state-sponsored economy. The Labor Party has basically carved out a continental-style economy among the lochs and firths, with the subsidies from England serving as a means to protect enterprises and industries against their own financial collapse. To my mind, however, the question is not whether Scotland’s economy is in tatters (it is), but whether independence would remedy the situation. Obviously, Fry believes it is worth trying. He clearly feels that Labor has gained an artificial political advantage thanks to the subsidies flowing in from down south, and once those are removed from the equation, conservative ideology will be able to fill the vacuum (assuming, of course, that the EU doesn’t become Scotland’s new barrel of pork).
The problem with Fry’s argument for independence is not its diagnosis of Scotland’s woes, but his sunny belief that Scotland would necessarily become more economically conservative post-independence. After all, as he correctly asserts, the Scottish National Party—the chief proponent of independence—is hardly a nest of old Thatcherites, or as he puts it,
Yet Scotland is exceptional in Europe in having a nationalist party of the left rather than the right. Since the 1990s, under Alex Salmond, the SNP has constantly tried to outflank Labour on the left. If Labour gives us the highest public spending inside Britain, then the SNP undertakes outside Britain to raise it higher. The SNP, somebody once quipped, promises four taps to every Scottish sink: hot, cold, oil and whisky. As a big chance for the SNP approaches, voices have arisen within it saying this sort of nonsense will not do in a party contending for power. The most successful small countries are not those with big public sectors left over from somebody else’s empire, but those which never had them or got rid of them, such as Ireland or Estonia. Salmond, while not quite silencing these critics, makes clear that they will not be allowed to cloud the prospects he sees before him.
Still, in May I will vote SNP without qualms. I will do so first because my support for its principle of independence supersedes any particular policy, and second because it must surely soon see that the rest of its programme is unrealisable. Never having been in government, the SNP has no notion of the constraints likely to operate there. Fortunately, the U-turn has become a favourite expedient of modern politics.
Fry’s post-independence vision for Scotland is to transform the SNP into a more economically conservative party, a transformation he believes will occur quite naturally after it is actually tasked with the chore of governing. Seems like a pretty sketchy plan, but better than none at all, I suppose.
But Fry and conservatives of his ilk could be making a huge mistake, one born of frustration and desperation. Scottish conservatism—at least as a political entity—is a spent force. The Tories are an embarrassment and cannot even be called a major political party at this point; therefore, as The Economist’s Bagehot pointed out last month, there is no where else for these disaffected conservatives to go but to the SNP. The one glimmer of hope for Fry’s thesis is that Scottish Tories have typically been viewed as agents of English interests and English commerce. Thus, in this way, Scottish conservatism acquired the taint of being associated closely with England, and this might explain why the nationalist elements within Scotland are of the Left, not the Right, as Fry explains above. So yes, it is possible that, once Scottish conservatives shed the Tory baggage, their ideology might begin to take root in Scottish soil.
But that is a long rear-guard action, a generation of work. In the meantime, somebody must govern an independent Scotland, and that somebody will be the lefties who maintain fantasies of economic plenty based on North Sea oil revenues. Scotland would necessarily have to endure a generation of inept governance, not unlike Ireland of the 1960s and 1970s, and for exasperated conservatives like Mr. Fry, that would be a small price to pay to resurrect those old Scottish virtues deadened by Westminster’s milk and honey.
On the flip side of the equation, how would Scottish independence affect England? I would venture, North Sea oil notwithstanding, that England would be a big winner in the short term. First, and most obvious, the money sent north would stay in England. Second, Scottish independence might restore a little balance to the political landscape in England; Labor undoubtedly would be hurt upon losing such a staunch region of support, and since the Tories are a non-factor in Scottish politics, they would lose nothing in the bargain.
In sum, Scottish independence would inaugurate a period of great uncertainty for Scotland marked by economic failure and political upheaval. For England, on the other hand, it loses a little (rapidly vanishing) North Sea crude and gains a measure independence itself, independence from those pushy Scottish Labor MPs who are so successful at taking Westminster’s money.
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