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Can I return to the issue of Scottish independence for a moment, Grass, seeing as we're on a Scot-related toic .........


Dominic Raab reminded everyone yesterday that the EU sets down a 3% of a country's GDP deficit as a prequisite for joining.

Doing a little look-up, I notice that Scotland's deficit for 2014/2015 ( the most recent availabe) was £15 Billion ............ 9.5% of GDP.

So, if Scotland voted for independence, it would then take many years of severe austerity and personal tax increases before it could hope to reduce this deficit to the necessary level to join. Are the Scottish people prepared for this? For tax hikes of around 25% and large cuts to services and benefits? For this is the only way to achieve the European requirements. An option might be to apply for loan funding  but an independent Scotland will not be able to secure lending unless at extortionate rates as it will have no "history" of such a loan application (the UK as a whole has no problem raising necessary loans as it has never defaulted on a loan, but an independent Scotland is a different fish). So realistically, the only way to satisfy the 3% requirement will be savage cuts and tax raises.


Is Scotland really prepared to carry out an act of harakiri on itself by voting for independence? Honestly, an independent Scotland would be an economic basket-case that nobody would want to touch.


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