The UK is in long term decline. Why would Scotland choose to be part of it? Back in 2014 the “Better together” No campaign kept tell us that the UK in the EU was the best place for Scotland to be economically. Since then we’ve had Brexit forced on us and successive unionist parties in power who want to prolong austerity as a matter of policy. Scotland’s best choice is to support Independence and EU membership, so we can leave the UK’s decline behind us.

Just consider what’s been happening:

• Poverty: in the last year about three million people received emergency food parcels from Trussell Trust foodbanks to help them and their families. And that doesn’t include the rapidly rising number of independent food banks. Back in 2009 the figure was 25,000. The main reason by far that people give for needing a food parcel is poverty.
• Corruption: according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, in 2000 the UK was 10th in its list of least corrupt countries. The UK is now 20th.
• Wealth: until about 2019 the UK was on a steady upward trajectory of GDP per head of population, according to the UK Government’s own Office for National Statistics (ONS). This rise has been reversed.
• Trade: Again, according to the ONS, the balance of exports vs imports for many years up to about 1980 was equal – the UK exported as much as it imported. But since then there has been a rapid and increasing reduction in exports as compared with imports. To no one’s surprise, Brexit has accelerated this decline in exports.
• Income inequality: in the UK the top 10% have received quite a bit more of the UK’s national income than the bottom 50% – in contrast to its European neighbours. This situation has been worsening for some time – irrespective of which unionist party is taking its turn in power in the UK.

Scotland’s choice

Do Scots want to get increasingly poor, with the few rich getting increasingly rich, because of being tied to a UK that is getting increasingly corrupt whilst exporting less? Or do Scots want to control their own spending, receive all the benefit of its extensive renewable resources, and proposer in trade as part of the EU? It’s certainly not better being together.

Sources

Transparency International

World Inequality Database

Office for National Statistics (ONS) – GDP per Head, Balance of Trade