It was in January 1707 that Scotland gave up the fight for independence and joined with England to form Great Britain. At that time Scotland was regarded as being too weak to stand on its own two feet, so what has changed? Devolution of powers occurred following a referendum in 1997, allowing Scotland to once again have its own parliament. In 2007, Scottish National Party candidate Alex Salmond, was elected as first minister. Up until 2011 his party was a minority within the parliament, but the 2011 Scottish Parliamentary elections proved fruitful for the SNP and they emerged with an over all majority. This has allowed Salmond to put forward the Scottish National Parties key policy; Scottish independence. A referendum is now imminent, causing arguments between the first minister and the prime minister about the legalities of such a proposal and splitting the opinion of the nation. So could Scotland really survive on its own? The energy reserves of Scotland are vast. The North Sea has been renowned for its oil reserves for decades, with Aberdeen being titled the oil capital of Europe. This generates huge financial income for Scotland, but a large fraction of that income is currently being removed from Scotland by Westminister. In 2008 it is reported that London took £12.9 billion from Scotland in oil and gas revenues, this equates to every single Scot giving away £2300 a year. However, with oil reserves set to run out within the next century and drilling in rapid decline, this source of income will not support the country in the long term. Fortunately, Scotland is rapidly heading towards becoming a world leader in renewable energy, with 13% of the countries energy requirements being produced from renewable energy, mainly from onshore wind farms. Plans to build one of the worlds largest onshore wind farms on the isle of Lewis and the major developments recently seen in harnessing the wave power off the coast of Scotland, have made the future of Scotlands energy sector look bright. Other natural resources of Scotland which provide large incomes are the agricultural, forestry and fishing industries. A quarter of the land in Scotland is used for agriculture, mainly with cereals but also with soft fruits such as strawberries. Higher ground which cannot be cultivated is used to graze sheep. Around 15% of the land in Scotland is forested, most of which is owned by the public and governed by the forestry commission. The waters around Scotland are regarded as some of the richest in the world, although the reduction in fish stocks has lead to quotas being put in place to aid conservation. Scotlands natural environment is also a source of huge income in the form of tourism. People come from around the world to ramble in the mountains, play golf and sail on the many beautiful lochs and in doing so they are staying in our hotels, shopping on our high streets and eating in our restaurants, making the tourist industry stong and fruitful. It is not only natural resources which adds to the economy of Scotland as the manufacturing industry still remains strong. The production and export of Whisky contributes £800 million to the Scottish economy and supports 41,000 jobs. It also opens important trade links around the world, particularly in Asia where demand in recent years has been increasing rapidly. Scotland is also a well known manufacturer of electronics. 'Silicon Glen' is an area in the central belt of Scotland where the electronic industry thrives, supporting 45,000 jobs and producing 28% of Europe’s PCs and more than 7% of the worlds PC's. Textiles are another reasonably large product of Scotland, particularly tweeds and knitwear. Companies such as Pringle have created an international market for the more traditional knitwear of Scotland and as such provide 22,000 jobs throughout Scotland. The construction industry sees 24,000 new homes being built per year, in 2006 this contributed £5 billion to the Scottish economy. This is just a selection of the many industries currently supporting the UK economy, which could be contributing to the Scottish economy instead. I believe that in terms of income Scotland could be in a position to support its self, however a potentially catastrophic issue with the independence referendum is the currency issue. If the pound sterling is retained, the Scottish economy would, rather ironically, be entirely dependent on the UK governments economic performance and with such a huge deficit currently hanging over the government, the collapse of the sterling is not by any means out of the question. Another option is to join the euro. This would make trading with Europe easier and is likely to create new trade links, however this is unlikely to provide a more stable alternative to the sterling due to the precarious position of several economies within the eurozone. The only other option is to create a new currency for Scotland which, in the long term, would create the most economically stable Scotland, however it will take many years to get there. The chances of a new currency crashing is considerable, thus causing a decline in the confidence of investors and as such the income of the country. Borrowing cost would also be much higher, putting the country ubnder consierable strain and potenially leading to the dreaded cuts. On the plus side though, Scotland would be able to borrow money in a currency which they have a large influence over, making the debts much more managable. There is also the idea of 'pegging' the new scottish currency to the Sterling, allowing it to follow the stronger, established currency and preventing the huge loss of confidence amongst investors, but this once again leads to financial dependence on the UK, rendering the idea of independence rather pointless. There isnt only financial problems with the independence referendum, there are legal ones too. Recently all we have heard from westminister on the subject is that Alex Salmond is breaking the law as Scotland does not have the power to hold a referendum. When the Scottish parliament was first outlined in Law in 1989, constitutional matters were retained by the UK governement, meaning that Salmond would infact have to get Westminister to agree to and organise the referendum. If Westminister got their way, the referendum would take place as soon as possible, allowing the SNP very little time to persuade the public that independence is the way forward and avoiding the dreaded anniversary of the battle of bannockburn. Fortunately, Salmond is scottish and rather stubborn and has quite rightly refused to bow to the Tories heckles, allowing Scots time to make up their own mind. Besides, if the public really don't want independence, a few more months of Salmond wittering on wont change that. David Cameron does seem to be cutting off his nose to spite his face though. By dictating that we can't hold a referendum unless he makes it happen, he is causing us to realise just how little power over our own future we have, thus driving the independence campaign forward.
So what do I think of independence? Well, I still don't know. Before writing this I was all for independence, but I do find the financial side of it quite worrying. If independence does happen there will certainly be a few rough years before Scotland is strong again, but maybe those rough years would have its rewards. I guess we will just have to wait and see.
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