He Who Pays The Piper (Part 2 - Outside Interests)

You can find part 1 here: Party Donations

One of the main reasons for supporting independence is the lack of any prospect of meaningful reform within the UK.  Regardless of which side gets in, there are certain aspects of Westminster governance that simply will not change.  As this blog could conceivably become the longest on this site we’re going to split it into three bite sized parts: donations, outside interests and honours.

Outside Interests

Politicians at Westminster have a tremendous amount of power, from the ability to create and influence our laws and gear them to favour certain practices and individuals, to ordering our troops to go to war regardless of public opinion.  It is important that their focus is to act in the interests of their constituents, and the best way to do that is to remove any potentially corrupting outside influences.

 "Why change?  We've got the best democracy money can buy!" Westminster MPs

Unfortunately we don’t get this protection.  Private interests are rife with 295 MPs receiving some form of income from outside work, totalling a staggering £7 million.  To many this will seem unbelievable but to the British ruling classes this is business as usual.

So why do they do it?  For some it is greed.  MPs at Westminster receive a basic salary of £65,738 per annum.  This compares to £27,000 for registered nurses in Scotland, between £21,428 and £34,200 for secondary school teachers and £31,032 for a police constable.  Compared to most public servants, they do pretty well.  Arguments that they will fall into poverty if they don't receive more are embarrassing and wrong.  If they can’t cope with £65,738, a fantastic pension and numerous other perks then should they be in charge of Scotland’s finances?

But immediate financial gain isn’t the only example of greed.  Social Investigations, a group which looks into political connections to healthcare companies, revealed that many of our MPs stand to make a big profit if the NHS continues to privatise.  The numbers are even starker for House of Lords members (http://socialinvestigations.blogspot.co.uk/p/key-facts-of-lords-and-mps-connections.html).

"Don't be so selfish, think about me!" anonymous Westminster MP (whilst claiming for expenses)

To see why this issue is so important, let’s look at one very famous example: Former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Being Prime Minister meant that he commanded a very generous salary however it was nowhere near enough to match the lifestyle he enjoyed whilst in office.  Don’t worry too much about the precarious nature of Mr Blair’s finances, after leaving office he found numerous sources of income and a string of companies who for some reason wanted to pay him:

£5m as an advance for writing memoirs.

£2m a year for part-time advice to JP Morgan bank.

£1.2m a year in estimated (minimum) earnings from the global lecture circuit.

£117,500 a year from Combined Prime Ministerial and MP's pension.

£90,000 a year in Public Service Allowance for the costs a former Prime Minister incurs from running an office.

£2m in expected (minimum) income from other private advisory roles.

Total £10.4m

(source - http://www.whenthenewsstops.org/2012/05/tony-bliars-links-to-jp-morgan-chase.html)

Tony Blair left office on the 27^th of June 2007.  By January of the following year it was announced that he would be working part-time for JP Morgan.  Since then, stories in the mainstream media have highlighted the possible conflict of interest that this arrangement created (Telegraph - Tony Blair 'visited Libya to lobby for JP Morgan'). 

The simple conclusion is this – politicians shouldn’t have any other jobs whilst being an MP, and should have a long gardening leave afterwards to prevent corruption.  It seems simple to us and we have a chance of making this policy with independence but the culture at Westminster means that change won’t come from there.

Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party who, according to opinion polls, is unlikely to ever have the opportunity to enact any of his policies, is only proposing a cap on payments from outside interests, not a ban (http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/09/ed-miliband-vows-to-cap-mps-earnings-from-jobs-outside-parliament-3876071/).  Ironically one of the MPs who would lose out under this set up is former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose £1.37 million pound earnings for tax year 2012/13 would have to reduce.

The alternative for Mr Brown would be to resign as an MP, but then the people of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath would need to find someone to take part in 1 debate, ask 8 questions and vote 14% of the time for a mere £65,738.  Is there anyone willing to match this commitment?

Drew

Part 3 here

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Paper Tiger - The UK's failing economy

The ‘no’ campaign has a message which it repeats ad nauseam: a stronger Scotland, a United Kingdom.  You may have seen it whilst online or come across it in debates, but does this argument have any validity?  The answer is no, in fact it is ridiculous to the point of being laughable.

"Why would you want to have a fairer society when we can be strong?" No Campaign statement

The first and most obvious point is ‘stronger than what?’  If they mean stronger than previously then why have they waited 300 years to getting around to making us ‘stronger’, and if they mean stronger than other nations then they are deluding themselves.

The UK is no match militarily to the United States, China or Russia, and that won’t change by maintaining political power at Westminster.  Stockpiles of gold and other precious metals, which can be important in times of crisis, are almost non-existent, and even Britain’s much vaunted seat on the UN Security Council won't last forever

Much of the UK’s dwindling power, be it physical, political or economic, comes from Scotland.  We know that Scotland would be a successful independent country, but the ‘no’ campaign is desperate to keep pretending that Westminster is a global player.

The UK has the 7^th largest GDP in the world according to the UN.  This is a massive decline from 1938 when Britain was 1^st (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires#GDP_size and http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Gdp29-41.jpg) and this fall from grace shows no sign of reversing.  The reality that we must accept is that the days of empire are long gone, and former colonies, such as Australia, Canada and India, are moving on and gaining ever more influence and power on the world stage. 

The decline is even more apparent when you consider the average wealth of each citizen in a country.  We consistently see small, independent European nations around the top of the list, with bigger nations trailing far behind.

The International Monetary Fund has 5 small European states within its top 10 wealthiest nations.  The World Bank has 6 as does the CIA World Factbook.  The United Nations puts the total at 7.  At best, the UK stumbles in at 23^rd, which is far behind Iceland and Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita).

Of course, this doesn’t consider the extreme concentration of wealth that successive UK Governments pursue.  The Independent describes the situation very well:

The (United Nations Human Development) report shows that the poorest 40 per cent of Britons share a lower proportion of the national wealth - 14.6 per cent - than in any other Western country. This is only marginally better than in Russia, the only industrialised nation, east or west, to have a worse record.

In an unpublished paper Michael Bruno, chief economist of the World Bank, says: "Reducing inequality not only benefits the poor immediately but will benefit all through higher growth."

Perhaps the ‘no’ campaign is suggesting that an Independent Scotland would be weaker without Westminster.  Militarily this is nonsense.  In December 2011, a Russian Fleet arrived within a few miles of the Moray Firth without being detected.  The Royal Navy sent its nearest available vessel to intercept, however it took days to arrive having travelled all the way from Portsmouth.  Politically this claim is nonsense too, as Scotland has just 6 MEPs to represent us in the EU compared to 12 from Croatia (which has a population around 1 million lower than ours).  We don’t get to attend every EU meeting and we don’t even have a seat at the UN!

But let’s return to the main point of economics.  The Scottish economy is falsely described as being dependent upon oil however this is a strange accusation.  Oil is a commodity which gains value in times of economic hardship: this means that nations which export (which Scotland excels at) do well when petroleum prices are low, whilst oil producing countries gain extra revenue during periods of uncertainty and economic hardship, exactly when we would want extra revenue.  North Sea oil is a fantastic stabiliser for our economy and one which Mrs Thatcher used to fuel her ambitions.

Compare this to Financial Services industry, which constitutes 9.6% of the UK's entire economy.  Unlike oil, which has 100 years of production remaining, is based in our territory and will be required for the foreseeable future, banks and other financial institutions are much more volatile.  Only constant appeasement prevents them from moving elsewhere.

The simple truth is this: if bigger were automatically stronger and better, then the members of the ‘no’ campaign would be pushing for a European Super State.  Their actions, however, are very much the opposite.  Instead they ironically argue that becoming Independent means that we’ll be merged into a much stronger organisation than Britain and that we’d have no influence ( see here - http://www.nowpublic.com/world/nigel-farage-ukip-scottish-independence-youre-swapping-your-masters-westminster-brussels - we particularly like Mr Farage’s admission that MPs at Westminster consider themsevles to be our ‘masters’).

The UK economy is a paper tiger, and advocates of Westminster are trapped by the Goldilocks Axiom.  They can keep pretending that they’re still important, but we, the people who live in Scotland, don’t need to share their delusions.

Drew

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What voting 'Yes' won't do

A ‘Yes’ vote will change many things.  It will guarantee that the Government of Scotland has the support of her people, something that haven’t been true in 25 out of the last 43 years (since 1970).  Voting ‘Yes’ will also guarantee that an unelected, unaccountable body like the House of Lords doesn’t form a second chamber, removing one source of government corruption.

"History is unlikely to change with Independence," anonymous Doctor

But voting ‘Yes’ will not change certain things.  It will not be a final statement of our position in Europe.  It will not set in stone what currency we use, or what wars we enter.  All of those things will be determined by the Governments we elect, just like most of our neighbours.  Independence will not result in [insert latest Unionist scare story here].  And finally, there is something else that voting ‘Yes’ will not do.
 

One of the reasons often cited for voting no is the history Scotland shares with England, Wales and Northern Ireland (the last 300 years, not the millennia before).  I have come across those who argue that we need to be ruled from Westminster today because that’s what we did when we stood against Hitler and the Nazis, communist USSR, and countless other nations.  This argument makes even less sense than most for many reasons but let’s focus on the most obvious one: becoming independent will not change history.

"Scotland might miss out on the next war!" No campaign threat? 

Do we think less of the over 50,000 Canadian deaths during the First World War because they subsequently became independent?  Or, would Canada continuing to be part of the empire during the Second World War have made any difference to its outcome?  Such a statement would be condemned as ludicrous and yet this is the level of discourse of many within the no campaign.

There are countless other examples of why this ‘logic’ fails.  What of the 1,500,000 (1.5 million) Indians who died during the Second World War, did Indian independence lessen the importance of their loss?  Was it wrong of Malaysia to become independent when 100,000 of their citizens died alongside ours and those of other countries?  Did Indian and Malaysian independence make the world a less safe place?

"Westminster is the best place for these types of discussions to take place," says everyone at Westminster

The fact remains that the decision to become a sovereign nation should be made by the people based upon their needs and wishes.  Vague hints that doing what’s right will somehow be an insult to the dead are wrong, not only in a practical sense, but in a moral one too.  Modern day wars are often fought by many nations working together yet respecting each others boundaries.  Just as Denmark, Estonia, and the Netherlands have important roles to play in NATO and other international organisations, so would Scotland, however important decisions such as will we go to war can only be made in Scotland if Scotland is independent; otherwise we rely on the judgement of a government in Westminster who may not even have popular support here.

 

Westminster logic

A ‘Yes’ vote will change many things, one of them being the quality of discourse in our country, but our history will always remain the same.

Drew

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