Saturday 20 December 2008

To the Point

I'm a little late in coming across this post, but it's a good one, from a certain McChatterer (very good reading actually):

"What do Alberta, Bavaria, Queensland, Quebec, New South Wales, Colorado, Catalunya and Nova Scotia have in common? Their regional or state assemblies all have more power than the Scottish Parliament. Do these powers threaten the existence of the nation they belong to? No - and in some of these cases, the devolved powers are necessary to keep the nation state together.

So why would Scotland gaining fiscal autonomy wreck the union?"

Answer: it wouldn't.

There is absolutely no valid reason for not devolving tax-raising powers to Scotland. The Barnett Formula is entirely discredited as a means of fairly and equally distributing public expenditure, and does more to sow seeds of divisiveness between the members of the Union than fiscal autonomy - and thus, responsibility - ever could. The English moan about it being too much (which, in terms of proportion, is true) and the Scottish moan about our hands being tied, hindering policy, and enabling them to use the UK as a scapeboat.

Look, the Scottish Parliament has legislative power over health, education, policing; we have our own legal system too - why can't we use our money to supply our needs? It makes no sense making the English, Welsh and Northern Irish pay for Scotland along with us.

The centralisation and excess of power in Westminster does need to be rolled back. I'm pro-Union personally, but I know that the greater the power of the central government, the less accountable to each individual and the more it can scam us and take more of our economic and social freedom with impunity. And in the end, money is power. Control over the Treasury is the real key to power in government.

So Calman's conclusion depresses me, in that the only reason I can see for the status quo being maintained is pure power; power for power's sake. This government have been in power for far too long.

3 comments:

Components of Independence said...

I, personally, am not pro-union, but the Calman Commission is bang on the money on this.

Fiscal autonomy and fiscal federalism are incompatible with the Union of the United Kingdom.

Quebec, Queensland, Colorado and Western Australia are part of federal states, which the UK is not and is not ever likely to be.

Federation for the UK is as bad as devolution for Scotland in entenching over governance. I often think the idea of UK federalism is some kind of spiteful ruse used by liberals to try and show that they "support government closer to the people". It does nothing of that sort. It extends government and extends the tenticles of government by creating more positions of power and more politicians.

On a point of order, though, I noticed that your blurb states that Scotland's choice is that we should:

Stick with Labour, and stay as a strong Scotland within the union! Or: Stick with the SNP and gain your freedom from England, to have it replaced by a serfdom to Brussels!

I don't follow this.

First of all I'd dispute that Scotland is strong in the UK, or that the UK is "strong" - recent events have shown up how hollow that latter sentiment is, but I'd also dispute that our choice is in those stark terms.

Second, Scotland currently is a member of both the UK and the EU - and has a structure of governance at those levels. "Independence" is not about swapping one for the other, but removing one completely. I can accept that arguments that some have about "serfdom to the EU", but Scotland's current status (as part of the UK) doesn't allow us to have, or articulate, any position on that.

Surely removal from the UK and is an improvement on our current position where there is serfdom to London AND Brussels?

Dan Vevers said...

Assertions a plenty there:

"Fiscal autonomy and fiscal federalism are incompatible with the Union of the United Kingdom."

Why? How?

"Quebec, Queensland, Colorado and Western Australia are part of federal states, which the UK is not and is not ever likely to be."

Why is it never likely to be, exactly? Surely the very creation of our Scottish Parliament, Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies, and the devolution settlement in general indicate major steps in that direction?

As for the point about extending government's power through decentralisation by causing "over governance"? I don't follow. The whole point of such a policy would be to reduce central governance, and take power away from those least accountable to the people - and in terms of mathematics, that is the central government.

The tentacles of government, as you put it, have extended quite far enough from Labour in Westminster - it is they who have created more positions of power, more bureaucrats, more pointless administrators doing non-jobs, 26000 new laws, 3000 criminal laws etc etc. The central government is crying out to be drastically slimmed down and to have its tentacles cut down to size. One way of doing that is to take their power and devolve it to locally and regionally elected officials for whom the need is far more pressing to fully engage with their electors.

As to your point of order, you may notice that I described the choice as a "false" one. I'm not saying Scotland or the UK are particularly strong - however pro-union Labour/Tory types regularly talk about "a strong Scotland within the Union" when arguing the pros of their case. I would find such a situation most agreeable, however, like you say, we aren't strong, and more importantly, we aren't free (or free enough), and Labour is crippling us. This proposed option of theirs is a lie, is my point.

I understand your point on Scotland, as a UK region, being part of the EU. My point there is that the SNP promises us "freedom" - i.e. from the UK - but behind the UK, and thus, Scotland too, is in fact serfdom to the EU. It's not that we aren't already part of the EU; we are.

But the falseness of the option presented by the SNP is that they aren't actually offering independence at all - they're offering independence from the UK, but not the EU, which means nothing for us in terms of making us freer or more "independent" as a country. This is my answer to your final question: no. A) Because, no matter what, I love my country, the United Kingdom, warts and all, and want to see the UK improve and reform with Scotland in it and B) because the EU is probably the most insidious, dangerous attacker of our liberty and democracy today, and without freedom from it, nothing changes.

Components of Independence said...

Why is it never likely to be, exactly? Surely the very creation of our Scottish Parliament, Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies, and the devolution settlement in general indicate major steps in that direction?

Devolution is not decentralisation. It does not alter the ability of the centralised state and government to impinge upon the ability of its dependent units to carry out their functions. Indeed devolution is an aside to centralisation, we only need to take the taxation and expenditure implication to see that. Quite how the current Scottish Parliament/Government is empowered in those matters is abdundantly clear. Westminster is still the nexus of Scottish sovereignty. It still decides on the Scottish block grant, and Westminster still has the ability to legislate on Scottish affairs (and does so with substantial alacrity through the Legislative Consent Motion LCM).

All the while, Her Majesty's Government have the overriding veto on the existence of devolution in the UK. To me, that is not really proper decentralisation, just a sop to the naive amongst us who think that it is.

I accept that you think that you can reform the British state to cope with these anomalies, but it is not that simple. How will fiscal autonomy work? How will fiscal federalism work? What taxes will be given over to the control of the Scottish Parliament and Government? What taxes will be reserved to the federal UK government? How can we ensure that those "reserved" taxes cover Scotland's pro-rata share of federal spending?

What about federalism itself for the UK? I don't believe there is any federal entity in the world, where one constituent part constitutes over 80% of the federation proper?

That means the existence of an English Government almost exactly as dominant as the federal state itself.

What benefit would England get out of this federal arrangement, when they could ditch the federation, assume their position in world affairs and be recognised as a proud, independent country in its own right? What benefit would Scotland gain from this federal structure, where it (and Wales and Northern Ireland) are significantly outvoted by a much larger political entity on federal issues? Do you honestly see that as empowering Scottish people over the totality of their political affairs?

Indeed, how do you go about getting from the current centralisation to a federal structure? How do we ensure the federation is equitably financed? How do we ensure that the British federation is equitable to all its part - by ensuring that the smaller countries are protected from the dominating effect of the larger country, or that the larger country is protected from the "tyranny of the minority"?

As for the point about extending government's power through decentralisation by causing "over governance"? I don't follow. The whole point of such a policy would be to reduce central governance, and take power away from those least accountable to the people - and in terms of mathematics, that is the central government.

You don't think that federalism won't entrench over-governance? 4 separate governments/parliaments for the "home nations" of the UK, plus one federal parliament all competing to make themselves heard? An expansion of politicians, bureaucrats to manage intergovernmental relations? As I pointed out before we'd have one government almost as powerful as the federation itself. Wasteful duplication in other words. How on earth will "federal" politicians be more accountable to the people of Scotland, when Scotland will be an irrelevance to the federation itself? The mathematics of that should be abundantly clear, shouldn't they?

Of course the other argument is that England could be carved up into little Scotland-sized regions to manage the imbalance that will exist. But I think that very unlikely to garner much support amongst the English populace. I don't see them voting to sacrifice the integrity of their country on the alter of Unionism to appease some Scottish Unionists, no matter how well intentioned they may be.

The tentacles of government, as you put it, have extended quite far enough from Labour in Westminster - it is they who have created more positions of power, more bureaucrats, more pointless administrators doing non-jobs, 26000 new laws, 3000 criminal laws etc etc. The central government is crying out to be drastically slimmed down and to have its tentacles cut down to size. One way of doing that is to take their power and devolve it to locally and regionally elected officials for whom the need is far more pressing to fully engage with their electors.

I don't disagree with the general thrust of any of that, and I'm very much one for the maximum decentralisation of power, but I'm not naive enough to believe that devolution, or federalism is a meaningful form of decentralisation. Surely proper meaningful decentralisation would go hand-in-hand with a bonfire of at least of some of the intermediate governmental units that preside over some of our affairs? That would, in an instant, bring government much closer down the pecking order, towards the Scottish people, than retaining major powers of state at Westminster?

If we are going to decentralise, what earthly reason is there for remote Westminster to exercise any power or sovereignty over Scotland, or its people?

As to your point of order, you may notice that I described the choice as a "false" one. I'm not saying Scotland or the UK are particularly strong - however pro-union Labour/Tory types regularly talk about "a strong Scotland within the Union" when arguing the pros of their case. I would find such a situation most agreeable, however, like you say, we aren't strong, and more importantly, we aren't free (or free enough), and Labour is crippling us. This proposed option of theirs is a lie, is my point.

I understand your point on Scotland, as a UK region, being part of the EU. My point there is that the SNP promises us "freedom" - i.e. from the UK - but behind the UK, and thus, Scotland too, is in fact serfdom to the EU. It's not that we aren't already part of the EU; we are.


Scotland isn't a UK region, I didn't describe it as such, because it isn't - it is a country. My point was that before Scotland can do anything about the EU, it must project itself into a position where it can make decisions on the strength of its interactions with the EU. Your model of Scotland - which seems to me to be the usual Unionist one with some bells on ie some extra powers over taxation etc but with a "sovereign" federal parliament at Westminster deciding the major issues of state. That isn't freedom for my country (Scotland) - nor is it freedom for the Scottish people to make choices about how their country (Scotland, again) interacts with the EU or any other supranational body. It just seems more of the same humiliating subordination that we are all used to - Mother Parliament will take care of it. The non-Scottish majority of the UK, will make the decision for you. That's not freedom, by any means.

But the falseness of the option presented by the SNP is that they aren't actually offering independence at all - they're offering independence from the UK, but not the EU, which means nothing for us in terms of making us freer or more "independent" as a country. This is my answer to your final question: no. A) Because, no matter what, I love my country, the United Kingdom, warts and all, and want to see the UK improve and reform with Scotland in it and B) because the EU is probably the most insidious, dangerous attacker of our liberty and democracy today, and without freedom from it, nothing changes.

It is up to the SNP to make their own policies on things - and I certainly am not going to defend what they say - but two things should be made pretty clear. Firstly, the SNP will not be in power in perpetuity in an independent Scotland; second there is no guarantee that the EU will automatically accept an independent Scotland as a member state.

As a Scottish person, perhaps independence is the best vehicle for you escaping the "evil" EU and maybe you just don't realise that at the moment. I certainly think such a situation would empower the citizenry of this country to influence such affairs than any reconstituted United Kingdom ever will.

Surely if nothing else from all of this, you must accept that Scotland has to be in a position to make decisions vis a vis the EU, before it can actually take a coherent position on the strength of its integration, or otherwise, with the EU?