The Big Picture and the Bigger Questions

If the polls are to be believed there is a very real possibility Scotland might vote for independence on September 18^th, but is this just another example of people ignoring the big picture?

For starters, let’s make one thing clear, this poll is actually pretty meaningless and does not under any circumstances mean an independent Scotland is on the cards.

Yes, the gap is much narrower than it was a month ago, but the lack of polling (there were more polls in Clacton in the week following Carswell’s defection than in Scotland in the past three weeks) means the margin of error for a one off poll like this is colossal.

However, what is undeniable is the Yes campaign is picking up momentum and is bridging what was seemingly an unbridgeable gap.

So how has this happened?

Essentially it comes down to the same thing which has dogged politics for many years, an ignorance 

of the big picture.

Alex Salmond has the better sound-bites, the opportunity to invoke the memory of William Wallace and play on people’s natural patriotism, but fails to address and (more to the point) has not been forced to address the really big questions.

Can Scotland be an independent country? Of cause it can. It has the people and resources to survive outside of the UK, this is undeniable, but this is the wrong question to ask.

The Isle of Wight could be an independent nation, but that does not mean it is in its best interests.

The real question is whether or not Scotland would be better off outside the UK and how would it achieve this, but time and time again Alex Salmond, the SNP and the pro-independence campaign has failed to answer the serious questions and essentially these questions are all economic.

What currency will Scotland use? Mr Salmond still insists an independent Scotland will use the pound and refuses to come up with a plan b, despite being told multiple times this is not going to happen and yet nobody seems to care.

It might not seem important what currency is in your pocket as long as you can spend it, but in fact it matters a lot, not to the person on the street, but to the businesses that employ the person on the street, Scottish exporting companies and those potential investors in Scotland.

If you want an indication of how important the currency is then all you have to look at is the effect the tightening polls had on trading value of sterling.

Will Scotland join the European Union? Again, Mr Salmond claims an independent Scotland would aim to join the EU, but has not answered the question of how long it would take to complete this process.

The EU has already stated Scotland would have to join the back of the queue, meaning the process could take many, many years, but has Mr Salmond addressed this, no.

What about North Sea oil? Mr Salmond’s claims of fiscally security are entirely based on North Sea oil being owned by an independent Scotland, but quite frankly his calculations are at best questionable, at worst deluded.

On the NHS, Mr Salmond has made the even more elementary mistake of claiming to be able to provide well-funded public services while lowering tax, the greatest and most consistent lie ever told by politicians.

While it is not fair to place all of these failures at the door of Mr Salmond, what we have ended up with is an argument over Scotland being governed by Westminster, not a debate over how an independent Scotland would survive.

All those in the No camp, Better Together campaign, Westminster establishment and Conservative party, have, in retrospect, made a mess of the referendum by taking victory for granted and assuming the serious arguments would win over the day.

But herein lays the problem, not just with the Scottish independence referendum, but politics in general. The big picture does not matter.

The same thing has been seen with the other popular ardent nationalist, Nigel Farage.

While the long-standing MEP and his party have enjoyed strong support, rising poll numbers, an election victory and look set to win its first Westminster representative, all sides of the anti-EU argument are yet to answer the big-picture questions.

Yes, the UK could survive outside the EU, after all it did for practically all of its history, but this drowns-out the greater issue of is the UK stronger outside the EU.

Like Mr Salmond, Mr Farage has all the good sound-bites and poetic licence for Churchillian oratory, but scratch the surface and his plans are at best half-baked.

At no point have UKIP outlined how the UK would go about leaving the EU, how long it would take to renegotiate trade deals, addressed the opposition to leaving the EU from parts of the business community, assessed the impact on the estimated 4 million jobs linked to European trade, or discussed why companies like Hitachi, Siemens, Nissan and Honda all state the UKs membership of the EU as a significant factor for investing in this country.

Yet again, all the really big questions are not nationalistic, but economic. Ordinary people want jobs and, more importantly, secure jobs and it is unclear if any job in Scotland would be secure if there was a yes vote, in the same way jobs would be at risk if the UK left the EU.

However, the most frustrating thing here is this comes down to an ignorance and apathy, not among the career politicians, but the voters.

The reason politicians like Mr Salmond, Mr Farage and many others (including the leaders of the three main Westminster parties) can get away with dodging the issues is because we as voters let ourselves be conned into believing it is possible to have the best of both worlds, when in fact it almost never possible.

Voters often complain about the quality of politicians on offer, but perhaps we are to blame for this because we demand so little of those we elect.

If you want any evidence of this then look no further than Scotland, where they might be about to put Mr Salmond in charge, despite the fact he cannot tell Scots what currency they will be using.

The general public are short-termists by nature. We are not prepared to wait for a decade to see improvements, we need to see them now, which in a democratic political world is never going to happen.

However, if a voter was going out to buy a new mobile phone they would not make up their mind based on incomplete facts, they would do their research and find the best deal and this is the way we should deal with politics.

Your decision of who to cast your ballot for should not be rushed, but considered and should take into consideration the facts available at the time, not opinions, but facts.

If we continue to fail to look at the bigger picture this cycle of second rate politicians filling their own pockets at the people’s expense will never end and as nations we will continue to fall behind because of it.

Perhaps we should turn to the worlds of fictional President Josiah Bartlett “we can do better, and we must do better, and we will do better, and we will start this moment today.”

In, Out, In, Out - The European Question

The European Union is one of the most divisive arguments in British politics and has once again been pushed front and centre by the televised debates between Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and UKIP frontman Nigel Farage.

According to the subsequent YouGov polls Farage emerged the clear winner of the first debate, where facts took second place to grandstanding and rhetoric.

This blog is, as anyone who has read it will know, unashamedly pro-European, but this is not to say it stands by how the EU currently operates. In fact reform of the EU is desperately required, but this should be done with the UK at the top-table, not as an outsider.

The main focus of these reforms should be to return the EU to something closer to its original conception as a trading block. Unfortunately, the EU itself has become far to political and the fears of Eurosceptic’s about powers being delegated away from the country’s parliament do certainly have some validity.

Currently, we can only assume David Cameron holds a similar view-point, with the Prime Minister determined to renegotiate certain treaty aspects with the EU before holding a referendum in 2017, if he is re-elected, but the public still have no idea about what powers will be put on the table.

While certainly not directly opposed to a referendum in 2017, after all it has been many decades since the voting public were given a say on this issue, the main problem is the confusion and doubt this has the potential to cause, not to mention the issues arising if the UK votes to leave.

The pro-European argument centres on one of the big issues of the day, the economy and jobs, and this remains the key reason for wanting to remain as a central member of the club.

While the 3 million job losses figure used by Nick Clegg is certainly questionable, a recent report by the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) suggests 4.2 million jobs are currently supported by the UK exporting to the EU.

The CEBR does not go as far as to claim 4.2 million jobs will be lost if the UK leaves, but it is hard to imagine a situation where a UK exit does not cost jobs.

A good example of this is the head of Nissan, who said the Japanese car giant would have to seriously consider relocating its manufacturing base to continental Europe if the UK were to leave.

It would be easy to claim this is just big business towing the line, but why would Nissan choose to stay in the event of a UK exit?

The population of Europe is around 485 million people, with the UK accounting for about 70 million of that total, meaning there is many times the number of consumers on the mainland than there are in Britain.

With this in mind, and taking into account the confusion a referendum would bring, Nissan and any other company associated with the import export market would, at the very least, need to plan for a move to the continent.

Some would choose to leave, others might risk staying to see what deal a UK government independent of the EU could achieve on trade, but either way jobs would be put at risk.

Then take into account how long it would realistically take the UK to negotiate trade deals, not just with the EU, but India, China, USA, Russia, Brazil and the dozens of other major trading nations worldwide.

Trade deals, however, would prove problematic as again we have to accept we have a small percentage of the EUs overall consumers, so countries know they will get a better deal from talks with the EU than an independent UK.

If a UK exit resulted in Germany and France similarly ditching the experiment then fine, but this is an unlikely scenario.

Even if the UK could get a good trade deals, something which is certainly not guaranteed, it could take years, if not decades to iron out all the details, leaving the UK with a government unable to do anything of purpose during the interim period.

Yes, the UK might eventually reclaim some of the jobs lost due to the exit, but there is no guarantee they would come back or how long it might take, leading to the nightmare scenario of large scale unemployment and negligible growth for the foreseeable future.

This scenario does not just account for car manufacturers or import/ export based companies.

The UKs financial sector contributes billions to the exchequer in corporation and income tax, not to mention making the UK an obvious centre for international businesses looking to trade with Europe.

If a referendum is called there would be untold fluctuations in the stock and currency markets as brokers try to second guess what the outcome will be, not to mention the fact many of the financial institutions would similarly be forced to consider moving to Germany.

This is not scare-mongering, this is the reality of the UK contemplating leaving the EU.

This country has already seen how disruptive major referendums can be, with the Scottish independence vote causing problems despite the fact it is unlikely Scotland will vote to leave the UK.

However, it would be naive to think the out campaign did not have some validity, in fact even some of the most disliked groups, such as the English Defence League, have at the centre of their argument a sensible point.

Yes, unlimited mass immigration is a problem, but the facts simply do not back up the case.

Farage claimed during the debate that the entire population of Europe has the right to come to Britain and while he is technically right this totally misses the point.

Why would the entire population of Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and every other EU country suddenly move to the UK? This would be so economically counter-productive that the idea is almost laughable.

Similarly there is no evidence for benefit tourism, in fact immigrants put in far more to the government coffers than they take out and in fact contribute a higher percentage than British people.

There are of course some problems, such as the undercutting of wage, cash in hand work, non-payment of taxes, overcrowding in rental properties and bed-sharing.

However, the best way to deal with these things is to attack the cause of the problem, not by demonising immigrants, as this benefits everyone in the UK.

It is wrong companies can get away with paying immigrants below the minimum wage and undercut UK workers, but this should be dealt with by dealing with the companies paying low salaries, not by restricting immigration.

Similarly the non-payment of tax, or cash work is also the fault of the businesses operating in this way, not the people who take the work.

UKIP recently floated a policy which said immigrants should be forced to pay into the tax system before being allowed into the country as to many were taking cash-in-hand work.

On the face of it this seems quite logical if you are worried about tax evasion, but the problem here is if a company is unscrupulous enough to pay immigrant workers in this way why would they not similarly pay British workers in cash?

What the companies in these situations are doing is wrong both legally and ethically, so the clampdown should be on these businesses not on the immigrants.

The same goes for overcrowding in rented properties.

Obviously the fact immigrants are willing and able to cram themselves into properties and bed-share is not the fault of the people living in the properties, but the landlords who are renting them.

Landlords simply take advantage of the situation. Rent is taken in cash and not declared to the Inland Revenue and the property is not maintained because the owner does not need to meet the more exacting standards or UK born renters.

For years those living in the rental market, including UK citizens, have complained about the way private landlords behave, but these complaints have been dismissed as undue interference in a private market.

What this comes down to is the negative impact we associate with an immigrant population are not actually the fault of the immigrant population, but caused by those who employ and house them.

Yes, we need immigrants to contribute to society, to pay for the NHS, schools and other public services, but it is the way they are treated by employers and landlords which result in the negative impact we associate with an immigrant population.

If all companies paid the minimum wage and all landlords abided by basic housing standards, there would not be the pressure on low wages so often seen as a by-product of a cheap labour influx.

In fact, economists of all political leanings agree a level of immigration is not only beneficial, but essential for growth and a key indicator of a growing economy.

One of the greatest pressures currently facing the UK is not jobs or public service provision, but an aging population.

The immigrants coming to this country are young people, exactly the generation we need to encourage to prop-up the social costs of helping our older generations enjoy their retirement.

Conveniently, this does bring us onto the overcrowding issue, the argument about Britain being basically full and not able to accept any more people.

While this, like so many of the other arguments, is valid, it again misses the point.

For starters, the fact the UKs indigenous population is aging means there is a massive short-fall of younger people, a place now being taken by migrants and those who come over here, work hard and pay taxes should be welcomed with open arms.

Secondly, there has been massive under-building in this country for decades in terms of schools, hospitals and housing and if it takes an influx of Eastern Europeans for the government and developers to notice this then so be it.

Lastly, all available data, and remember The UK has a long history of immigrant populations, suggests the levels naturally even out.

In recent years, for example, it has been shown Polish people tend not to settle in the UK for the long-term, but contribute to the UKs economy before returning to their homeland to help improve the prospects of poorer European countries, particularly if their country of origins economy starts to pick up.

This trend is well established, having been seen already from immigrants coming from commonwealth countries and parts of the British Empire.

On a related point, we often forget the EU open boarder rules work both ways, allowing UK residents to easily move from their home to work and set-up businesses all across Europe, benefiting the people of the continent as a whole.

In fact the number of UK residents currently living abroad is similar to the number of Eastern European migrants currently estimated to be in the UK.

The one thing I personally found striking about the EU debate last week was how Farage has no answers on the big questions.

Yes, he has a position on the key issues such as immigration and EU membership costs, but he is unable to provide any answers on the big-issues and it is probably best to not even mention his Putin-supporting foreign policy.

As a leader of a less-significant national party it is hard to blame him for this, but in the European elections he is the leader of a front-runner and should be able to provide more details on how a UK exit would affect employment rates, the import/ export market, UK-based financial institutions and how long it would take the UK to renegotiate trade deals.

For better or worse the UK is in the EU and even contemplating an exit has the potential to bring chaos and uncertainty to what is still a very fragile recovery and jobs market.

Yes, there is too much bureaucracy and waste in the EU and the UK does not always get the best out of trade deals, but this is best solved by ensuring the UK is a significant member of the club, a proud voice standing up for what the UK and Europe needs, not an isolationist nation.

The best way to achieve this is by electing MEPs who care about this country’s position in Europe, not Eurosceptic’s whose main goal is to make themselves unemployed.