| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Countries can't vote for exit | |
| Posted by: | Paul Corcoran | |
| Date/Time: | 17/03/17 15:31:00 |
| Elizabeth, the costs of the referendum aren't significant given the issues involved. An independent Scotland would start with a very weak financial position but as we learnt last year people will vote for something that isn't necessarily in their economic self-interest. The argument for doing so is that the Scottish economy will be screwed anyway if we move towards a WTO trading environment with low corporate tax rates. It will be very difficult for the country to attract investment outside the single market and they will have lost their cost advantage over England who will slash tax rates also. The fiscal deficit they will start with will be about 10% of GDP but they do have some advantages. If England is out of the single market international businesses will be looking for an English language speaking area to relocate to. They also have a relatively young population and low life-expectancy has the benefit of reducing the pension burden. They will be looking at what has been achieved in the Republic of Ireland which now has the highest GDP per capita in the EU outside Luxembourg (admittedly their GDP maybe overstated by the accounting practices of Irish based multinationals). The UK government has a big problem here because if they try and scare the Scottish people with the economic consequences of Jockxit it will undermine the reassurances that they are giving over Ireland and Brexit at the moment. For instance they can't say there will be a hard border between England and Scotland but won't be one between the north and south of Ireland. Secession will be complex but much much less difficult than leaving the EU as there will be only two countries involved. Also it is highly likely that the solution recently found with Irish nationals i.e. they are deemed 'not foreign' will be used for the Scots and English. In other words there still will be freedom of movement within the British Isles. The Scots can't really wait and see how Brexit turns out because if they do this they will see a large amount of disinvestment from companies who want to stay in the single market. It would takes years to rebuild the damage from this so if they are going to leave the UK they have to do it before Brexit. |