The agony and ecstasy of the 2014 Scottish independence

Are you sure ? I imagine that Moray has an entirely different take on the matter 

Appropriately, given the occasion, the sun was out today for once so, to mark the 10th anniversary of Scotland rejecting the self harm of voting YES, I met up with a few like-minded chums in our local beer garden to celebrate with a few beers. As it turned out, we were not alone as there were a few other tables doing much the same - so a good time was had by all.

I guess if anything good whatsoever came out of the whole indyref debacle then this excuse for a little impromptu party (and others like it across Scotland, presumably) was it. Roll on the 20th, the 30th and (dare I hope to still be around by then?) the 40th anniversary of a victory for traditional Scottish pragmatism and common sense over wilful self-delusion and toxic anti-English sentiment.

You do talk a lot of crap don't you? You are entitled to your opinion though, as delusional as it is.

Your doom laden scenarios surrounding an Independent Scotland don't hold water.

There are many countries, of similar population size to Scotland (& smaller), who fare very well in this bad old world. What is it, in your mind, that sets Scotland apart from successful states like Norway, Denmark etc.?

We have oil! However, any benefits that might have accrued were thrown away by successive UK Governments. Norway, on the other hand invested, and look at the amount their Sovereign Wealth Fund is worth now www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/Market-Value/

We are so awash with energy sources that we end up exporting to England (as does Wales). But don't let that deter you from your delusional opinions.



If Scotland is, as you profess, such a basket case, why did the UK Government fight tooth and nail to prevent us leaving?

Why do they persist with the lie of the massive deficit. A deficit there might be, but nowhere near the level you spout on about.

ScotGov has to balance the books, something you seem to be oblivious to. Because of that little fact, any deficit that materialises comes from UK Departments that supposedly spend on, or on behalf of, Scotland. It is mostly guesswork since, in many cases, there is no statistical breakdown below the UK level, so no believable figures are produced. It is all made up!!! You should do some critical thinking, and not meekly accept the propaganda emanating from Whitehall. Scot Gov can only go with the figures given to them.

The GERS figures have been disputed by economists such as Richard Murphy, a man who is demonised in Unionist circles because they know he is telling the truth and they can't have that. The too wee, too poor, too stupid mantra must be forced on the natives - like it was in India, Ireland, Malta etc., and look at them now, Independent and thriving.

Let's have some critical thinking from you. To start with widen your sources from the biased msm.

No, I don’t talk a lot of crap, at least not very often and not on here, and I certainly wasn’t doing so in my post above.

Amongst other things, having access to the annual GERS reports, having a basic understanding of how money markets react to gearing and risk, being aware of Scotland’s heavy reliance upon rUK for its “export” market, being in possession of a decent academic grounding and decades of career experience in financial and business matters, and the complete absence of a credible and robust financial plan for an Indy Scotland from the YES movement after more than 10 years of asking, very much suggests to me that my scenario around an Independent Scotland, doom laden or otherwise, holds water quite nicely.

Scotland is neither Denmark nor Norway and Scotland’s circumstances (even if we were independent)  are not and would not be those of Denmark nor Norway. That is part of what sets us apart from them. If you want to win people over to the YES side then provide a detailed and robust financial plan convincingly demonstrating that, far from suffering the severe long term fiscal and general economic damage that most NO voters firmly believe would result from Indy, we would instead be clearly better off going it alone; pointing to Denmark and Norway just doesn’t cut it for anybody other than the wilfully gullible.

Whatever has happened with our oil in the past is in the past. We can’t go back and change that so you should try to stop sweating over it. It’s where we are now and where independence is likely to lead us compared with where remaining part of the UK would lead us that matters, not where you think we could have been now had we done things differently over the past 50 years.

So what if we supply England and Wales with some of its energy? The fiscal benefit derived from that is included in GERS figures but, despite that, we still run up an underlying annual notional fiscal deficit of £25 billion - and what’s to say that rUK or anybody else would continue to want or need our energy if we ever left the UK? What is delusional about any of that?

The UK government didn’t fight tooth and nail to prevent us from leaving. Like just about any government anywhere at anytime across the world, its instinct was and is to preserve the integrity of its borders from external and internal threats so its default position was to preserve the status quo. However that doesn’t mean that it was or is in any way unreasonable or that it has come anywhere close to doing as you claim. The UK government generally kept its distance from the referendum, certainly much more so that the ScotGov which fought tooth and nail to drag us out of the UK against our will to the near exclusion of almost anything else before, during and for the last 10 years following the indyref (despite the Constitution not even being a devolved matter and therefore not one that Holyrood should concern itself with btw). If the UK government had fought tooth and nail to prevent us from leaving as you falsely claim then it wouldn’t have agreed to a referendum in the first place or allowed the SNP ScotGov to heavily gerrymander the referendum process, would it?

GERS calculations are produced to exacting international standards and are reliable and fit for purpose.  As you are aware but doubtless choose to ignore or deny, the SNP ScotGov has advised us that decisions on the compilation and publication of GERS are made by the Scottish Government’s Chief Statistician entirely independently of UK government departments and Scottish ministers and that GERS reports are held by the UK Statistics Authority to be produced according to sound methods and to be managed impartially and objectively in the public interest. So there is none of the corrupt behaviour or pro-UK bias that Indy zealots, in an attempt to hide or obscure the truth from the Scottish people, maliciously claim takes place. There is therefore no lie about the fiscal deficit other than the one that the Indy-lies machine, aided and abetted by its Indy zealot foot-soldiers, contrives to promote. It does this because it cannot contemplate acknowledging the truth of GERS for fear of decimating support for independence. To actually buy into, or to promote, the embarrassing GERS conspiracy theories shows just how prepared Indy zealots are to lie to themselves and to the Scottish people rather than be honest about the devastating fiscal damage that independence would bring to bear upon Scotland. 

I know that ScotGov has to balance the books and have made that clear on here many times. I also know that you don’t understand how irrelevant that is to this discussion hence your usual inept and spurious arguments on this matter.

As I have explained before, Richard Murphy does not command much respect amongst the GERS aware community in Scotland, so the fact that the YES movement can only offer up his views (and pretty much his views alone) against the overwhelming majority of the experts and commentators, and the fact that Indy supporters all cling on desperately to his utterances and ignore the overwhelming weight of expert opinion, says it all really.

The ”too wee, too poor, too stupid” mantra is one utilised by the YES movement only. Too comfortable, too much to lose, and too advantaged through being part of the UK are the reasons why most Scots don’t support independence.

For a close-minded Indy zealot to talk of critical thinking and bias as you do above is risible.

Richard Murphy is not an economist - he is a retired accountant.

Sept 21, 2024 3:27:37 GMT 1 morayloon said:
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“ An Edinburgh University study, after the Referendum, found that Scots born people had voted YES, while those born in rUK voted 72% to 28% NO. The Referendum was stolen from us by people who don't have Scotland's interests at heart. I am all for the franchise that was set out for Indyref, but the 'new' Scots have to be aware that Scotland is not just another part of England. Good to see that 28% of those immigrants showed some sense. Having said that, since you voted against the majority of Scots born people, perhaps it is you who should be moving, and leave the rest of us to run our country.”


As if blaming the rUK minority group for the NO outcome in the 2014 indyref and suggesting that they might want to get themselves back home wasn’t bad enough, a quick and easy calculation appears to demonstrate that the figures come nowhere close to backing you up.

From what I can see, there were approximately 474000 people from rUK on the electoral roll in 2014. If we assume that the turnout from this sub-group was in line with the overall referendum turnout of 84.6% and apply the 72% to 28% NO/YES split that you report above, this means that the majority for NO amongst this rUK sub-group was in the region of 176000. As NO won the referendum by a majority of 383937 then, despite your claim, it looks like this sub-group came nowhere close to stealing the Referendum from you and your fellow Indy zealots, as you claim above.


BTW - I suspect the assumption in my calculation that the turnout percentage from the rUK sub-group was in line with the general turnout is overstating it. I have quite a few English friends and neighbours and many of them took the view that the decision on Scotland’s future was a matter for us Scots so they left us to it, even though a YES outcome would have impacted quite significantly upon them. There is nothing particularly unusual about my English friends and neighbours so I am pretty sure that plenty of others from rUK who could have voted in 2014 will not have done so for much the same reason.