YOUR new columnist, Andrew Wilson, chief author of the Sustainable Growth Commission report, has waited a whole two weeks before launching into a defence of this much-maligned document within the Yes family.
He is to be commended for his patience, if not his capacity to engage in a real discussion about the wide-reaching criticism of his report, and the reasons why many who seek independence have taken it across the coals. Rather than take on board any of it, Mr Wilson chooses instead to characterise his critics as “Marxist revolutionaries”.
READ MORE: Andrew Wilson: Next Scottish White Paper will learn from 2014 – and from Brexit
That might be true of myself and others in the Scottish Socialist Party, but I could not characterise the thousands of people attending the Yes gatherings, the SNP’s assemblies, Scottish Socialist Voice forums, local Yes meetings and Common Weal as such.
By and large, they are people who had the political education of a lifetime during the 2014 independence campaign, and are people who seek independence to improve millions of lives, and to use the tools of democracy to ensure that their voice is heard over the doctrine of continuing neoliberal economics and corrupt banks which have left more than a million Scots impoverished, and more than half of them in working families.
Such activists and the people who will campaign hardest for independence are looking to it to provide the framework for a clear, stable and material improvement to their lives.
You don’t have to be a Marxist or revolutionary to reject the conclusions of the Growth Commission – you simply need recognise that many of its recommendations would not look out of place on a Tory Chancellor’s desk. The fiscal choices it pushes in its pages limit the ability of future Scottish governments to recast the Scottish economy in favour of its people and industries. It chains us to British banking and financial regulations – as though 2008 didn’t happen, and consumer debt isn’t presently at its highest on record.
I reserve most ire for his repeated use of Sterlingisation – citing “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. This is why it is important, in times of Brexit uncertainty, to have a solid plan for establishing a new currency. Having the full slate of fiscal and monetary tools in our hands to handle the transition to an independent state helps create an island of certainty in a sea of critical uncertainty.
His “six tests strategy” is virtually identical to Gordon Brown’s tactics for moving to the Euro. Brown’s tests were chosen to be almost impossible to meet.
In conclusion, it is hard to read Mr Wilson’s report and subsequent column as a recipe for anything but the most damaging continuing austerity. If Scotland were to adopt Britain’s lax financial regulations, use the Bank of England’s money unilaterally, and tie our economy to harsh deficits, we would have in no real way effective democratic and economic control of our future.
When Mr Wilson chooses to address his critics rather than mischaracterise them, I will gladly welcome it. However, his column’s slickly written repetition of much the same UK capitalism locked into British money has shown he has learned very little from the wider Yes family giving up their time and talents to share their concerns about his economic plan. It won’t do.
Scott Macdonald
Lothians SSP
I WAS somewhat taken aback at the subheading and text of Andrew Wilson’s recent article “The lesson of Brexit is that honesty, candour and a realistic vision is more likely to succeed”. The Leave campaign’s lies, deceit, racism and unrealistic promises of £350 million a week for the health service unfortunately won the support of 52% of the vote.
Brian Lawson
Paisley
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