Humza Yousaf's fantasy economics can't hide the hard realities that would face an independent Scotland – John McLellan

An independent Scotland would be forced to make even deeper spending cuts or bigger tax increases than last month’s budget

Realism and self-awareness are not qualities readily associated with the SNP-Green Scottish Government, big on grand designs, dreams, strategies and good intentions, not so hot on practical delivery.

Take former First Minster Nicola Sturgeon’s plea last week to ensure “The Promise” to give all care-experienced children “the childhood they deserve” is fully implemented. Nothing wrong with that, but The Promise was made in February 2020, itself a product of the Independent Care Review she launched in 2016, yet Ms Sturgeon blamed “vested interests” for the lack of progress rather than her own government’s lack of drive. For eight years to pass and a flagship programme, in which she was emotionally and politically invested, to produce little more than warm words, newsletters and a nursery-coloured website hardly defines dynamism.

Then community safety minister Siobhain Brown said the number of XL bully dogs being rehomed in Scotland after the ban in England, which the Scottish Government refused to follow, was all the UK Government’s fault. Up to 14 people have been killed by these powerful beasts, according to the Bully Watch campaign, but the problem, said Ms Brown, was a lack of consultation. “We have made it clear to the UK Government that people in England and Wales should not use any loopholes that could be created to get rid of their dogs north of the Border or anywhere else in the UK,” she fumed, conveniently forgetting the loophole was created by her administration’s inaction.

Humza Yousaf's vision of an independent Scotland ignores the fact that it would need to introduce instant austerity (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA)

Independent Scotland would face massive deficit

But the daddy of them all was yesterday’s keynote speech from Humza Yousaf, a retread of old, threadbare arguments about the land of milk and honey, £10,200-worth of it to us all, which awaited if only Scotland had the courage to throw off the lead belt and diving boots of the Union. A similar “it will be hard but worth it” line was used by ex-MSP Andrew Wilson who led the SNP’s Growth Commission, whose 2018 report extolled the virtues of economies like Norway, Denmark and Ireland, but was immediately condemned by left-wing nationalists as an unacceptably neoliberal, pro-capitalist analysis, then ignored.

That was until yesterday’s revival, when Mr Yousaf based his figure on a further extrapolation of claims by the left-wing Resolution Foundation that poor economic performance had left British workers £8,300 worse off than counterparts in Germany and France. Set aside Office for National Statistics data showing the UK economy grew faster than both coming out the pandemic ─ and will continue to do so, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research ─ the Resolution paper was essentially a call for a new economic strategy based on somewhat obvious principles like embracing change and investing in the future, but also on tight fiscal policy. An independent Scotland would face an immediate £13.5bn deficit, and therefore even deeper cuts or bigger tax increases than the last budget.

Scotland has around 3.5 million working-age adults, but around 800,000 are economically inactive which means 2.7 million workers must generate the extra £10,200 for the other half of the population. Does anyone seriously believe that’s feasible against a background of instant austerity? Mr Yousaf has no control over the political future of a fantasy state and nothing he has done suggests he’s joining the remaining handful of SNP right-wingers who still believe an independent Scotland would become the Singapore of the North.

Slim prospects of North Atlantic tiger

Instead, the Growth Commission plan gathers dust on the same shelf from which the £10,200 figure appears to have been plucked. Then, of course, there is rejoining the EU, which most sensible observers regard as a dead duck because of the political impossibility of a hard trade border with England and a new Scottish currency, never mind detachment from Scotland’s biggest single market by far.

As much as Mr Yousaf praised “our longstanding capabilities in renewables, advanced engineering, food and drink, life sciences, creative industries and finance and business services”, actions speak louder than words, and they don’t point to a North Atlantic tiger. Two incomplete ferries ─ cost fast approaching half a billion ─ don’t represent all Scottish manufacturing, but they are symbolic of the Scottish Government’s attempts to steer industrial policy. Not only have creative industries had their grants slashed but a wee detail Finance Secretary Shona Robison didn’t shout about was the cancellation of all Scottish Government marketing in 2024, a total budget of around £18m which will hit advertising agencies, radio stations, news publishers, and blow a seven-figure hole in the annual forecast for the company at the heart of Scotland’s commercial creative production, STV.

As for food and drink, the proposed ban on alcohol marketing is about to be revived, and Andrew Murphy, the former John Lewis chief operating officer who co-chaired the Scottish Government’s Retail Industry Leadership Group, has condemned plans for a new public health levy on any shop selling alcohol or tobacco, another detail buried in Ms Robison’s budget. “It’s exactly this sort of loose cannon, stealth mode, unpredictable policy-on-the-hoof nonsense that makes the Scottish Government impossible to constructively support or advise,” said Mr Murphy on Linkedin.

The modern SNP has never addressed the contradiction in espousing a vision of a thrusting and thriving economy while taking every opportunity to make doing business more difficult. Close the North Sea, ban inshore fishing, saddle retailing with an unworkable recycling scheme and hit the sector with new tax, fail to pass on UK business rates relief. And then ask the advice of the one business figure who became the devil incarnate for most of the party, Brian Souter, the Stagecoach tycoon who bankrolled the campaign against homosexuality awareness in schools.

It's all head-spinning stuff for most independence supporters, prompting a desperate plea from Edinburgh East MP Tommy Sheppard in The National newspaper that “if the SNP lose the election in Scotland, the debate on independence stops”. That’s not necessarily true, but it could finish the current SNP’s role in leading it. And they'd only have themselves to blame.