Scottish Independance

Scottish Independance

Scottish Independence David Carlin

After the 1997 British General Election, New Labour was voted into power, referendums, on the devolution of power, were held in both Scotland and Wales, resulting for victories in the ‘yes’ camp. This resulted in the formation of The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh assembly for the first time in hundreds of years. There are those, including myself, who believe that Scotland should become completely Independent from the UK and there are also people who are opposed. In this essay I will convey the arguments for Scottish Independence.

The strongest argument for Scottish Independence is that we have 70% of all of Europe’s energy reserves, excluding Russia (which is considered to be in Asia), primarily in the form of oil that is found in the North Sea. Profits from the extraction of such oil, for example are channeled to England (In the past 30 years, taxes from North Sea oil have amounted to about £200bn, at today's prices. Last year's receipts were around £8bn, and this year's will be higher, possibly up to £12.5 billion) and distributed amongst the other countries in Britain. Meaning that we may actually enjoy more robust economic growth than at present, were it not for the policies of the UK government which are biased towards the South-East of England. Thus, Independence would lead our GDP to grow in each of the four years of just over 0.5 per cent above the level it would otherwise be within the UK. On this basis, a cumulative £26 million in additional Corporation Tax receipts per annum would be generated. Although oil is due to run out within the next 50 years according to The Mackay Consultants' analysis of the SNP's economic programme, using their model of the Scottish economy shows that “116,500 jobs would be created over the four years and a total of 200,000 jobs would be created over all” which could decrease unemployment rates in Scotland and strengthen our economy when Oil does eventually run out.

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