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I respect Darren, he is certainly one of the most respectful individuals on the opposite side I’ve come across in my time as part of the constitutional debate. I understand his views and they are consistent with his experiences. However they aren’t always correct imo. Here’s why: https://twitter.com/lokiscottishrap/status/1296773761967038465
The argument that we are faced with either “a new country or eternal Tory rule” is a false dichotomy. We are not faced with eternal Tory rule as part of the UK and there’s no guarantee we won’t end up with a fiscally conservative Scottish government after independence...
All other similarly sized European economies have been led by conservatives for significant periods of time. The UK has been led by ‘Conservatives’ since WW2 less than Ireland for example...
Not only that, but as someone who leans left I have a fundamental issue with the idea of abandoning people across the island of Great Britain to what you believe would be “eternal Tory rule”. Where is the solidarity in that?...
Also, the choice here isn’t an abstract “poor as part of the UK or poor apart from it”, it’s “poor as part of the UK or even poorer apart from it”. The consensus is clear. The social safety nets that exist, however bad some may say they are, would evaporate after independence...
We would see economic tragedy on a scale the likes of which we have never seen. Even the growth commission says so. The governments on figures show it to be the case. This would affect the poorest the most. They can’t leave. They rely the most on social security...
They generally don’t have the means or the know how to move what little capital they have south of the border in the event our currency becomes devalued. They don’t have the money to do a runner to England if worst comes to worst...
The Scottish Parliament already has the power and resources to tackle poverty, public services and everything else short of foreign policy and defence...
If it isn’t being achieved right now, with the extra resources afforded to us as part of the Union, how can it be achieved out of the Union? The major parties won’t go away, they will continue on with the same ideologies. The Neoliberal SNP won’t disappear...
They will continue on, funnelling money into middle class vote buying policies (if we can even afford it, which I highly doubt) like the baby box, free prescriptions and free tuition...
That leaves us with the electorate, and let’s be honest here, what evidence is there of the electorate changing dramatically after an independence event so much that they encourage parties to change their ideology, or even create new parties?...
This leads me to the “democratic deficit” argument that Darren presents. One I wholly reject. What evidence is there that an independent Scotland would afford us more input in politics? The current Scottish Parliament certainly doesn’t...
I would actually make the argument that Westminster is more beholden to the public than Holyrood. The checks and balances at Westminster are much more robust, and while it still has problems with cronyism etc, it isn’t being treated with kid gloves like Holyrood is...
The SNP are a very authoritarian party, and the Greens support them rather pathetically due to their overarching constitutional desires. The Named Person, OBFA and Hate Crime Bill are illustrations of this...
There is no evidence that their support would wane after a Yes vote. So how can I trust this party, more authoritarian than any at Westminster, to create a nation which does not represent their authoritarian tendencies?...
How can we trust a party that, as a matter of course, strips power from local authorities and centralised everything they touch, will give more power in the hands of the people?...
Overall I’m afraid it doesn’t look like being 1 of 5 million rather than one of 1 of 65 million is much of an improvement when every other aspect of democracy is diminished...
And I also don’t accept that poor people should vote to make themselves poorer in order to trust a certain party to sort their lives out when that party already have the power to do so, and refuse to act on it, despite having more resources now than they would after independence.
In summary poor people (and everyone for that matter) would be making themselves poorer for nothing more than to erect a border on the Tweed and perhaps end up with a more authoritarian country. A very poor incentive in my opinion.
