The UK Government has diverted Scotland’s wealth to the UK Treasury to pay off its debts. Thus it creates 100% of Scotland’s supposed debts and 100% of its phoney deficit. This is the impact of Westminster’s debt loading alone, and upon that accounting trick, rests the entire economic case for the Union. Would an independent Scotland have to pay the rUK a population share of the UK’s historical debt? No – there is in fact a very strong case for Scotland to be compensated for having already paid more than it’s “fair share” of the UK’s debt
The UK Government has diverted Scotland’s wealth to the UK Treasury to pay off its debts. Thus it creates 100% of Scotland’s supposed debts and 100% of its phoney deficit. This is the impact of Westminster’s debt loading alone, and upon that accounting trick, rests the entire economic case for the Union. Would an independent Scotland have to pay the rUK a population share of the UK’s historical debt? No – there is in fact a very strong case for Scotland to be compensated for having already paid more than it’s “fair share” of the UK’s debt.
For generations, the people of Scotland have been fed a negative narrative on Scotland’s economy. A depressing picture of Scotland has been drawn by Westminster politicians, portraying it as a subsidised state dependent on the UK for charitable handouts, with higher levels of debt and a dependency on the public sector. Scotland has been told that without the generosity of the UK to bail it out, it would be a bankrupt nation, unable to meet the very basic needs and wants of its people.
This narrative is fundamentally untrue. There is simply no evidence to support it whatsoever.
So manifestly untrue, in fact, that all the available economic data entirely contradicts the age-old, absurd and tired Westminster proposition that Scotland could not succeed as an independent self-governing country. The “too small, too poor and too stupid” argument has become so completely discredited that none of the major players in the 2014 No Campaign dared to suggest it. ...
There is an expenditure line in GERS called Public Sector Debt Interest (PSDI). It’s the fifth-largest expenditure of the Scottish Government and a larger spend than Scotland’s allocated share of the UK Armed forces expenditure. Historical analysis of GERS reports demonstrates that every year since records began, Scotland has been paying interest on a population share of the UK’s debts. In 2019-20, PSDI added £4.5bn to the cost of running Scotland.366
That’s not paying back the capital on any debt, it’s just the interest on the UK’s debt. Scotland has recently been granted very limited borrowing powers, but while the UK’s debt was being built up Scotland had no borrowing powers. In fact, Scotland’s economy was either in surplus, or had a lower deficit than the UK, so Scotland did not contribute to the creation of the debt.
How does a nation without the ability to borrow end up paying billions of interest on debt every year? It does so because the allocation of the debt is not related to the UK region or nation which generated the debt, nor where the money was spent or the economic benefit felt. The UK’s debt is allocated to Scotland’s accounts on a population percentage basis, even though Scotland did not generate that debt."