A lot of the English politicians and commentators are saying that if Scotland left the United Kingdom, it would severely weaken the UK's global influence blah blah blah. Well, the UK has little global influence and I don't see why we need it, but let's address the issue.
Let's assume the Scots vote 'Yes' (and I will be laughing like a drain if they do); become an independent country; leave NATO; refuse to accept their share of the UK government debt (while merrily taking their share of UK government assets like roads, bridges and buildings, which is a bit of a cheek) and keep all the North Sea oil revenues to themselves.
What would this mean for the rest of the UK?
Pretty much naff all.
1. The ONS says that the UK population is 64.1 million, an increase of about 5 million since the 2001 census. Scotland's population is 5.3 million. So in population growth terms, that has knocked the UK back about twelve years.
2. NATO members are supposed to be spending (wasting?) about 2% of their GDP on defence. So that's about £32 billion a year for the UK. Even if the residual UK has to pay for Scotland's 'share', that's an extra cost of about £3 billion a year.
3. The National Debt was a very manageable 40% of GDP until 2007 and has shot up to 89% of GDP since then; financial crises don't come cheap! So it's been going up at 7% a year. If the rest of the UK has to shoulder all of it, that will increase our per capita National Debt by about 9%, in other words, it adds an extra fifteen months' worth of deficit. Which is not good, but not a catastrophe.
4. North Sea oil revenues are dwindling anyway. Over the past few decades, the extra per capita spending in Scotland (aka 'Barnett Formula') has been broadly equal to North Sea oil revenues; so the UK would lose a bit of income but lose a larger amount of extra spending, which is a net win for the rest of the UK and will go towards paying for the extra costs from 2.
Debate Magazine
