ON Thursday June 23, 2016 there were 3,987,112 people, in Scotland, who were entitled to cast a ballot. Some 2,679,513, that is 67.2% of the electorate, actually put pen to paper and bothered to cast their vote.
So 62% of actual voters in Scotland, thought that the people of the dis-United Kingdom would be better off as members of the European Union. Which, surprisingly, it seems to some people, must mean that 1,661,191 Scottish voters caught-on that outside the European Union we Scots would endure a much lower standard of living, if the UK were to relinquish membership of the European Union.
It may be that many of them listened to Pascal Lamy, former head of the World Trade Organisation, who said, in the run up to the Brexit referendum, that the UK exiting Europe on WTO terms was “not hell but it was far from today’s heaven”. He also likened the situation to that of a football team leaving the first division and finding itself at the bottom of the fourth division.
Last September The Herald newspaper reported that UK exports had decreased by 5.5% since 2016, making the UK the only economy in the region with a negative balance of trade.
We have heard endless stories of the difficulties exporters face with extra red tape and huge extra costs.
The UK Government might try to say that they do not have a plan to choke off the supply of labour to increase wages, and decrease the number of people living on benefits, but with their rhetoric over immigration and asylum seekers, the reluctance to fully engage and make it very easy for those fleeing Ukraine, suggests that that is the line they have been pursuing. Reduce supply and the price rises.
At the same time they have reduced the supply of goods entering the UK, and because of the increase in wages costs for businesses, prices are rising in the shops.
My question is why is this a surprise? It was not only Pascal Lamy who gave warnings.
The Johnson government has fallen upon a stream of luck which is really unbelievable, and the sad reality is that what has been lucky for them has been absolute and utter tragedy and horror for millions. The pandemic and the now the horror of Putin’s evil, war on Ukraine have given them a smokescreen to hide their Brexit failure.
Without a doubt these awful things have added to the problems but Brexit is the enormous economic issue.
It is my thought that Brexit was a factor in Putin’s thinking when he decided, for whatever disgusting reason, to send his weapons and troops into Ukraine. He had a notion that the EU was less strong, less united, with the rumblings from Poland and Hungry and the UK’s exit.
So all the hype and nonsense of Rishi Sunak and his “Spring Statement” lead me back to the same question as I asked above: “Why is all this a surprise?”
I am sorry I cannot warm to this man at all, a billionaire, at the despatch boxes, doing a very weak impression of a master trader on the Barras, Gallowgate.
“Not one, not even by two, but by five pence per litre.” The sentences before that were full of bluster about how big and strong the UK economy is, and we should be happy for that because it allows “us” to fund our defence, and to send help to Ukraine.
Heavens we should help Ukraine. In 1994 we promised to, and if anyone in government had had the forethought they would have snuggled a wee nest egg away for that rainy day. Then again the UK has two trillion pounds of debt.
Planning for the future that is not the way of things in the UK. The UK is always “Oh my we didn’t expect that, now what do we do?”
The fortune in that is; that the UK population is very good in a crisis, and the good women and men step up and give all they have to pull inept governments out of the mire they continually make.
My heart is heavy with the sadness of Ukraine, and I am incensed that are still tied to the rUK where a Chancellor can boast about the great, strong, wealth of the nation and yet do absolutely nothing to help ordinary, everyday, people who were hardly getting by before 6% inflation.
Then again it is no surprise, and there will be many here in Scotland who consider that strong economy of the UK as something to be voted for. As Sunak with his smoke and mirrors blinds them with his nonsense yet again. To all those people, I know they will never read this, please think, we are Scotland and we are big enough, strong enough, clever enough and rich enough to do so, so much better as an independent country.
Cher Bonfis
Via email
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