PARTY manifestos offer a clear choice for Scotland’s economic future. General Election 2017 is hotting up as we move into the last week. All the parties’ manifestos are out – and what they say, or fail to say, offers some clues as to what the future might hold for the economy after the election.
Despite the damage it will do to higher education, life sciences and a host of other industries, the Conservatives have again committed to reducing immigration. But given Theresa May’s abject failure year after year to come anywhere near her immigration goals when she was home secretary, the chances of her hitting this target are slim to zero.
It’s a policy that causes more damage from the mood music it creates – sending a “you’re not welcome here” message to those who keep our NHS afloat, and a “Britain is shut for business” message to the talent we need to attract from abroad.
I sit on the finance committee at Holyrood and when I quiz expert witnesses and think tanks I ask what immigration levels they have built into their post-Brexit economic forecasts. I can tell you that no-one expects the Tories to meet their immigration targets.
The people who study the economy for a living all know that were they to achieve this goal, growth rates would tank and deficits would soar. No doubt this commitment to reducing immigration is an attempt to lurch the Tories further to the right as they seek to mop up Ukip votes.
A more cynical analysis is that the Tories know the economy will struggle post-Brexit and immigration will fall naturally as jobs and opportunities in the UK dry up. The inevitable fall in immigration can then be sold to the public as an achievement, and not a manifestation of their failure to manage the economy.
The Tory position on tax is also illuminating. In 2015, they expressly promised not to increase income tax, VAT or national insurance contributions. No such commitment appears this time around, and we have already seen an embarrassing Budget U-turn over the attempt to increase national insurance charges on the self-employed.
Is Theresa May leaving room for more substantial tax increases in the next parliamentary term?
The Institute for Fiscal Studies seems to think so, with revenues from taxation projected to be at their highest level since 1987 in the next two years. It’s certainly difficult to imagine how the shortfall from a hard Brexit could be paid off otherwise.
The SNP’s manifesto commits to protecting our place in the European single market, avoiding a hard Brexit, and protecting Scotland’s growth industries during the Brexit negotiations.
We want to avoid the economic chaos the Tories are hell bent on imposing on the people of Scotland in return for right-wing Ukip votes.
We will fight for powers over immigration to encourage and incentivise the best and brightest people from all over the world to work and live in Scotland and contribute to our economy and society. The choice for the future of Scotland’s economy could not be clearer.
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