A country is not a fiscal transfer. It can be many things – a loose federation of diverging cultures, a constitutional shotgun wedding, an unattractive compromise of history – but it cannot be a cash transaction. There is no history in a debit made, no loyalty in a credit received. Peoples are bound together by heritage, creed, shared sacrifice, and common purpose, but not by block grants or spending allocations.
Opponents of Scottish independence still cannot grasp this plainest of truths
Opponents of Scottish independence still cannot grasp this plainest of truths. Twelve years on from the referendum on secession, they remain in campaigning mode, incapable of offering the electorate anything more than a bribe. The government is at it again, as is traditional on Gers Day, the annual publication of Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland, a report card on devolved public finances.
This year it shows a notional deficit down £600 million on the previous 12 months to a trifling £25.3 billion, which at 10.9 per cent of GDP is still more than twice the UK’s deficit. Alas, the fall isn’t down to growth but to hikes in taxes. Scottish nationalists generally dismiss the deficit figure – many of them believe the numbers have been rigged by Westminster – except in years like this, when the improved fiscal ledger is cited as proof that Scotland would prosper with independence.
Unfortunately, supporters of the constitutional status quo have fallen into a similar trap, treating Gers like an MOT on the roadworthiness of secession. Since the figures always record a huge deficit for Scotland and substantially higher public spending per head than England, critics of independence like to rub their opponents’ noses in Gers. In fact, they have come to base their entire case for the UK on this collation of tables and spreadsheets.
Touting the publication, the Scotland Office said the fact that Scots receive £2,720 more in public spending per capita than the UK average ‘demonstrates the direct financial benefits for people in Scotland of being part of a strong United Kingdom’. Of course, this rather raises the question of what financial benefit there is to people in England of being part of the UK. There are parts of England just as deprived as anywhere in Glasgow, Lanarkshire or Fife; why don’t they get Scottish levels of state spending?
There is a lot of talk about the UK’s constitutional arrangements being asymmetrical but nowhere is this more noticeable than in the Treasury’s block grant to Holyrood. Scots are encouraged to treat their continued presence within the British state as a financial calculation while the English are rebuked if they apply the same calculus and ask whether holding onto Scotland is worth it. The former is just good politics, the latter selfish and unpatriotic. Self-interest for me, stoicism for thee.
If the case for keeping Britain united is about cold, hard cash and nothing more, what happens if the cash goes away? Should, for instance, a future Reform government decide to equalise public spending per head across the UK, or redraw it in such a way that it favoured Yorkshire and Manchester over Scotland and Northern Ireland, what would remain of the arguments for unity? Since the unfortunate dawn of devolution at the end of the last century, Westminster has become accustomed to addressing the Scots as though they are paying guests rather than compatriots, people to be placated and pandered to rather than countrymen who share in harvests and fallow years alike.
The attraction of bribing the Scots to stay might not be obvious to the ordinary Englishman who resents being taxed to subsidise Scottish Government profligacy; he might find himself muttering, quite understandably, ‘Let them beggar off and pay their own way!’ Realistically, however, the political, economic and security costs of Scottish secession far outweigh any gain to be had from redeploying the block grant to England.
But what does the average voter care for constitutional and strategic considerations? He sees unfairness and wants it stopped. He sees a political system bribing people to remain British while indifferent to those who are proud of their national identity and didn’t need a bung to make them that way. Those who wish to maintain the territorial integrity of the UK, if they believe in that cause and that country as much as they claim, should be able to make arguments for Britain that amount to more than mere accountancy. A country is not a fiscal transfer.
Comments