I AGREE wholeheartedly with RJ Bulloch of Glasgow about the excellence of your Letters pages (Letters, January 13). I can also tell you that I am continuously building up from your ongoing issues a valuable file of key articles on economics, constitution, the Union, the EU/EFTA/EEA, currency and fiscal issues (English, not Scots-law meaning!), farming, fishing and many other subjects. These have been educative to me in ways I have never seen attempted in any other daily newspaper I have ever read in the UK.
I recall back in the 1950s or 60s when the UK was striving to join the European Economic Community, the Daily Express ran a small box on its page one which gave alleged reasons against doing so. Too young to judge at that time, I nevertheless suspected that it was somewhat free with the concept of truth (no change there then!) However, it strikes me as a good idea to do something similar – but truthful – in The National between now and indyref2: a regular digest of key facts illustrating the disadvantages of Scotland in staying in the Union and the advantages of taking our place in the EU, or EFTA. Some of this could be targeted specifically at farmers and fishermen, who may be walking into the understandable trap of believing that staying in the Union, just to get away from the CAP and CFP, is preferable to joining the EU or EFTA. What do you think?
My next point is to urge campaigners who are expert in constitutional matters to ensure that a feature of the next prospectus for independence will be a sample abbreviated constitution for the new Scotland. The importance of this is, I suspect, is not appreciated: I feel that two of the most significant factors preventing many from voting Yes last time were: a) fear and b) lack of imagination. Many of our No compatriots knew so little about the theory and practice of governing a sovereign state, that they had no personal understanding of the concept of Scottish independence. A sample constitution could show them what politicians, companies and others would be, respectively, empowered to do and banned from doing. (For example, no freedom for a government to sell off public property like a railway system; and no freedom allowing companies to dispose of employees’ pension funds).
I conclude with a snippet I learned from The New European newspaper the other day. In a wide-ranging summary history of Ireland (south) we were reminded that the Brits left that country, then the Irish Free State, with one of the most poverty-stricken populations in Europe. When the (eventual) Republic availed itself of the opportunity to join Europe, it still had a lot of economic catching up to do. One part of achieving this was for its government to borrow and invest. But a state (like anybody) wishing to borrow has to convince the lender that it has sufficient assets to be able to pay the sums back, and of course, at this time Eire had insufficient. This is where being a Euro-member came in: the assets available to the Republic as security were in fact a portion of Germany’s surplus wealth. So Ireland borrowed and thus boosted its economy.
I am not suggesting that Germany will permanently be in that happily generous position. But given Scotland is presently unable to wrest from the UK sufficient levers of economic power to do much about its economy; given also that the same UK presently does not permit the Scottish Government to borrow and invest more than a small portion of what it needs; and given that a sovereign Scotland in Europe would be sure to continue to receive benefits like farm payments, is it not clear these are a few of the plusses of staying in Europe which we are unlikely to get from an economically straitened post-Brexit UK?
Michael F Troon
Gauldry, Fife
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