Freedom From the Queen: The Wrong Decision For Scotland

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For many years Scotland has been flirting with the idea of leaving the United Kingdom and going off on their own to become an independent nation. While at first glance this peaceful secession seems like it would be a great opportunity for Scotland, but in truth this would be a catastrophic mistake. In 2014 the people of Scotland, through a referendum created by the Scottish National Party (SNP), will have the choice to become its own nation. Scotland is not ready for independence from the United Kingdom. This paper will prove that secession from the United Kingdom would be harmful to Scotland. Scotland is better off being a part of the United Kingdom then they would be being independent.
The United Kingdom is currently the third largest economy in Europe and seventh largest in the world [1]. The current GDP for the United Kingdom is $2.148 trillion with Scotland contributing around $152 billion [2]. While Scotland is the second biggest contributor to the UK’s GDP, behind only Great Britain, it would face the daunting task of not having the safety net of a strong economy backing them up. Some experts argue this would not trouble Scotland due to the fact that they contributed 9.6% of U.K. taxes, yet received only 9.3% of U.K. spending in return [3]. Although this is a positive for the case of Scottish independence, it should be noted that independence would leave Scotland with a lot of debt on its shoulders. According to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research “[W]ith a pro rata transfer of existing UK public debt, Scotland would enter independence heavily indebted with no insurance from fiscal risk sharing or fiscal transfer mechanism with the rest of the UK” (NIESR). To pay off this debt and its interest, Scotland ...

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