Richard Walker: Unionists relish using GERS to make Scotland look hopeless

Everywhere you looked the naysayers were jumping on an increasing but entirely notional “deficit” as proof that independence would bring Scotland to the brink of ruin.

The most disingenuous critics affected surprise that the rise was so steep, hoping that we might forget that they make exactly the same point about independence every GERS day, whether the deficit goes up or down.

Are we REALLY surprised that economic figures look worse after more than a year of lockdown, furlough, travel restrictions and a general business shutdown all over the country?

It’s like one of those academic studies which make a habit of trumpeting the results of months of investigating the bleeding obvious. You know the type of thing: spending bucketloads of public money to discover that a cat is likely to attack a mouse.

READ MORE: Kate Forbes 'committed' to producing pro-independence GERS data after pandemic

So GERS suggests the Scottish “deficit” has grown from £15.1 billion to £36.3bn in a year. Well, not just any year. The year of lockdown.

Is that more than you would have expected? Less? Like me, you probably have no idea exactly what effect you would think lockdown would have on the economy beyond bad.

So yes, I agree that £36.3bn sounds bad. Let’s face it … the figures were never going to be good.

But I don’t care. Whatever steps had to be taken to protect people were justified. Whatever help firms needed to stay in business and save jobs was fine with me. What happens now is anyone’s guess. We’ll have to cope and continue to protect people. What exactly that means I don’t know.

What I do know for sure is that this so-called deficit has no relevance to the independence discussion whatsoever.

I’ll leave it to my colleague Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp to dissect the figures, which he does with some aplomb at businessforscotland.com.

GERS was also thoroughly discredited in this newspaper’s Open Minds collaboration with Believe in Scotland earlier this year, so I don’t feel the need to get over that ground again.

Suffice to say that GERS tells us only how Scotland is dragged down by being part of the UK, which does everything it can to destroy national self-confidence even if it means twisting the facts in its bid to convince us that black is white.

It’s the reaction to GERS that has me bamboozled. Reaction like this from Labour’s Jackie Baillie (above): “This year’s GERS figures tell a story about the state of Scotland’s economy —flagging before the pandemic and made worse by it. Fundamentally, however, the report exposes the dangers of independence whilst demonstrating how, by £1800 per person, Scots are better off in the UK.”

Or the Scottish Conservatives: “The latest GERS figures show that every man, woman and child in Scotland is £2210 better off within the United Kingdom. The UK Government has delivered a war chest to fight Covid, back our NHS, and support Scotland’s economic recovery.”

Or Labour MP Ian Murray: “The Scottish Government used to dine out on the GERS figures but they show the significant financial dividend of pooling and sharing resources across the UK. That’s £billions for our NHS and other public services.”

What do these and other Unionist responses on social media have in common? They all relish the prospect of Scottish failure and inability to survive with support from other countries.

NOW I completely understand that some people do not believe that independence offers the best future for Scotland.

I think they’re wrong and I hope that one day soon they will change their minds but I respect their passionately held beliefs.

What I don’t understand is the joy they seem to display at coming across any evidence they regard as showing Scotland as a failure which will never be able to support itself or be trusted with the major decisions about its own future.

Ian Murray is Scotland's only Labour MP

It speaks volumes about the present state of the Labour Party that it would so obviously prefer Scotland to risk being ruled by the ragbag of charlatans, buffoons and incompetents that comprise the current Conservative cabinet than by politicians we chose ourselves and can replace ourselves. What evidence can they possibly present which would suggest that Westminster politicians make better decisions than those in Holyrood?

Brexit, a classic case of self-harm which has devastated experts – particularly Scottish exports – cleared supermarket shelves, closed restaurants and brought businesses to the brink of disaster?

Allocating pandemic contracts to friends and colleagues and thus ensuring their pals trouser as much cash as possible?

Leaving Afghanistan to be taken over by the Taliban? The Prime Minister delivering a bewildering speech claiming that country had enjoyed better education, women’s rights and free elections since 2001 at exactly the same time as terrorists ban women from working, studying and even going out their homes without a male relative?

And let’s never forget the support for the American invasion of Iraq, which was based on not a shred of evidence that it was in any way connected to the 9/11 atrocity which was put forward as justification.

READ MORE: 'Isolationist UK is enabling dictators': Tory rebellion brews over Afghanistan

Are we really supposed to accept that Scotland can’t be trusted to shape its own future while at the same time leaving the UK in the hands of the idiots responsible for those disasters?

In fact we’re being asked by Unionists not just to “accept” that nonsense but to actively celebrate it?

What kind of self-loathing persuades someone that control over their own country is better placed in the hands of an institution responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths rather than a parliament democratically responsible to its own people?

Is this the legacy of more than 310 years of being a member of the United Kingdom? A country content to remain in a union in which our opinions and our votes are routinely ignored because we have been drained of the confidence to stand by our own decisions.

A country in which most of our political parties prefer to trumpet our failures because they have more faith in the mediocrities in London than they do in the best Scotland has to offer.

As I write Boris Johnson is trying to justify his shameful failure to set up a scheme to properly help Afghan refugees beyond those that have been involved by the military and embassy.

Does the Prime Minister’s pathetic response satisfy those who yesterday rushed on to hail GERS as justification for Scotland’s lack of power and influence in the current constitutional arrangement?

Are they content to leave the vital job of rebuilding a better, greener, fairer society after Covid to a government we all know will fail to meet that challenge? We know that because it has failed every single challenge it has faced since it came to power.

Are they happier sitting smugly twisting the facts in GERS than actually doing something to help their country reach its true potential?

If so, let’s leave them to it. For the rest of us it’s time to get on with the job of wresting from Westminster the powers we need to ensure a better Scotland emerges from the havoc wreaked by Covid.

Believe in Scotland has already announced a day of action for independence. Keep your eyes on The National for more information, which will be revealed very soon.

Let’s use that day to kickstart a revitalised and refreshed push for Yes. If GERS proves anything it is that independence must be at the very heart of the Covid recovery.

A reinvigorated Yes movement can put it there.