GROWTH commission chair Andrew Wilson has told left-wing yessers that an independent Scotland is only be possible when the banks, pension funds, investment trusts, and oversea investors who buy up government debt, can be convinced.
Speaking to The National, the ex-MSP-turned lobbyist, responded to some of the criticism of his report, published just over a week ago, saying the commission’s findings were built on “ truth, certainty, honesty and credibility” and not pretending an independent Scotland could, on day one, “print money and print our way to success”.
The report, he added, was about trying to win over the 15% to 20% who voted No in 2014, and who might now be persuadable “given all the things that are happening in the world”.
Wilson also told The National that Alex Salmond had fed into the Commission’s deliberations.
Some analysis of the 354-page document, suggested it was a “takedown” of the former First Minister’s economic philosophy.
“What it is is a development of a lot of his thinking. Many of the things put in the report were discussed recently and over the years with him. I would say it is the opposite of a take-down of him,” Wilson said.
He added: “We didn’t take evidence from him but he fed in his views when we showed him the report well in advance.”
The report has proved controversial with some of the more prominent left-wingers who involved in the Yes movement.
The recommendation of a “clear strategy to get the inherited deficit to manageable levels, in an orderly fashion, over a period of time” has been compared to George Osborne’s push for austerity.
In an open letter to the Yes movement yesterday, the Scottish Socialist Party criticised Wilson’s document, saying: “If this report is put at the heart of another Yes campaign we will certainly lose again.
“The SSP will not join in such a mission,” the party’s executive said.
Dennis Canavan, the former Labour politician who chaired the Yes Scotland campaign, said the report was the product of listening to the “Scottish establishment” and not working class people.
Wilson told The National that while the left may be unhappy, the report would help convince “the country and indeed the international community” that “Scotland is ready” to be independent.
“If you look at the sort of comments it has had from critics who examine this, the sort of people who influence the people who fund government debt you’ll find it’s getting a much more favourable and creditable response,” Wilson said.
“People on the left may say: ‘Who cares about the City?’ Well if you don’t care about investors and the people who fund you and create jobs, well then you don’t win, you don’t succeed. We exist in a world where we need to get other people to put their pensions into buying our debt so that we can fund public services.”
The report, he added, was “built on the truth, certainty, honesty and credibility, that doesn’t pretend that on day one everything falls into our lap, we can print money and print our way to success.
“That is not the truth, it’s not real and people won’t believe it.”
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