As the SNP continues to tether its vision of Scottish independence to EU membership, it risks anchoring that vision to a sinking ship. The global economic order is shifting – America, not Brussels or Beijing, is now calling the shots. In this new landscape, the EU’s economic stagnation is a liability, not a lifeline.
Like the US, the UK faces serious structural problems: unsustainable public spending, woke overreach, and trade deficits born of globalisation. The UK’s £95 billion goods deficit with the EU in 2022 mirrors the imbalance behind America’s $419bn China deficit. Brexit aimed to correct this – but under Keir Starmer, we’re drifting back toward EU-style regulation just as the bloc loses momentum and direction.
Germany – Europe’s industrial backbone – shrank 0.3% in 2023, with output falling and confidence weakening. Why follow this path? The SNP’s case hinges on joining a bloc losing global influence, while giving up access to the UK internal market, which still accounts for 60% of Scotland’s trade. A potentially disastrous move, even before considering the uncertainty and delay of EU accession.
Meanwhile, the US is reshaping the global game. A UK-US trade deal – prioritising key Scottish exports like whisky and salmon – could give Scotland (within the UK) an edge the EU may struggle to match. An independent Scotland outside both arrangements would be left exposed, economically and diplomatically.
Britain must take a lead from the US: rebuild manufacturing, get blue-collar workers back into real jobs – even if it means higher prices at the shops. We can’t afford more deindustrialisation – or to sail off on the wrong ship, just as the tide is turning.
Ian Lakin, Aberdeen.
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We need indy for wellbeing
Graeme Roy (“Scotland’s future health and prosperity are closely linked”, The Herald, April 14) highlights the strategic importance of public investment to improve the physical and mental health of the population. What he does not address, however, is how long-term sustainable investment in our public health services is possible within the fiscal constraints of the Union. The level of investment in all of Scotland’s public services is severely constrained by the UK’s fiscal framework.
Improving the health and wellbeing of the population also requires broader issues of social inequality and deprivation to be tackled – investing in health services is only one dimension of the challenge of increasing the nation’s prosperity. Scotland’s prosperity must be a shared prosperity.
Recent polling by Believe in Scotland shows that a large majority support the idea that Scotland should aim to create a “wellbeing economy”, where the priority is not on economic growth by any means possible but on meeting the fundamental needs and human rights of all citizens. Achieving such an objective will call for much greater public investment than has been delivered over recent decades – not just in health and social care, but also in housing, energy infrastructure, education, food production and a shift to greater self-sufficiency and resilience.
This is not going to be possible within the constraints of the Union. The Scottish Fiscal Commission analysis spans 50 years. One must hope that long before that time frame Scotland has escaped the fiscal cage of the Union and established our constitutional independence and adopted our own currency, supported by our own central bank, inter-bank payment systems and other monetary institutions. If we do this it will completely reframe what is possible. The fiscal constraints considered by the SFC assume that we will remain constrained by the existing fiscal framework and the Barnett Formula.
A "wellbeing economy” mission will involve early investment in health and social care services but policy priorities also need to include investment in new social housing and upgrade of existing stock, more investment in energy infrastructure and de-carbonisation, increased food security and resilience and state intervention in the markets for these key assets. Tackling poverty will also require setting minimum wages at a level at which nobody goes without the necessities for living an active and healthy life.
The UK Government could support the Scottish Government in delivering such a mission if it chose to do so. But Westminster continues to believe that money is in short supply despite the fact that the UK has its own currency and the Bank of England is owned by the state. Scotland will never achieve its ambitions to become a fairer, more equal and greener society if we remain in the Union for the next 50 years.
Jim Osborne, Glasgow.
Holyrood is more democratic
Once again we have someone (Dr Gerald Edwards, Letters, April 15) stating that the Greens have never had an MSP elected by first past the post (FPTP) as if it were of relevance.
When the Scottish Parliament was set up, the Additional Member System was chosen to allow an MSP to be elected directly by each constituency as at Westminster and for others to be elected through the list system to reflect the actual support of each party. While the constituency MSP can arguably on a personal level claim a direct endorsement that list MSPs lack (and I'd question this; most of us vote for the party and know little of the man or woman), to suggest that this extends to parties elected mainly or solely elected through the lists is ludicrous.
Perhaps the FPTP system at Westminster, where Labour can win a landslide on 30% of the vote and where an MP can be elected when as many as three-quarters of constituents voted against him, is Dr Edwards' idea of democracy. But the Scottish Parliament, where the party representation largely reflects how people voted on the list vote (the vote that truly measures party support) seems preferable to me.
David Clinton, Hamilton.
Tories gave, Labour took
When the Conservative government of Rishi Sunak saw the depth of the need, it was sensitive enough to give a cost of living payment of £900 to eight million people on benefits, costing the government of the day £7 billion. One year later, in the spring of 2025, the Labour Chancellor announced that she was deducting a total of £5bn from some of the most needy people in our society, including disabled people and those living in poverty.
At the risk of being too "statistical", what she was really saying was that she had decided and was prepared to take away 70% of the benefits that the Conservative Government had already given one year earlier.
Surely there must be some mistake?
Brian Patterson, Glasgow.
Hydrogen is not the answer
Much of the answer to Iain McIntyre's question about politicians' lack of drive and ambition (Letters, April 18) is in George Rennie's letter of the same date: their minds are captured by youthful campaigners, witness Nicola Sturgeon's cringeworthy COP26 selfie-stalking of Greta Thunberg.
It seems Mr McIntyre hasn't escaped either: the obvious answer for Grangemouth was to get behind Ineos's plan to extract, process and transport the shale deposits. Hydrogen seems pie in the sky to me.
Nearly a year on, Aberdeen’s so-called world-first hydrogen bus fleet – 15 double-deckers costing £500,000 each – has sat idle, part of an £8.3 million council project, one reason being the fact that the city’s two hydrogen refuelling stations, forecast to create 700 jobs by 2030 have been offline for months, due to neglect and age.
I hope the same hubris and incompetence don't visit Grangemouth.
Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.
Crack down on boat migrants
I make no apology for returning to the scandal of the huge invasion of illegal migrants crossing the Channel dangerously in small boats ("Highest daily migrant arrivals", The Herald, April 17). You report that the cumulative figure so far this year is a provisional 8,888, which is an increase of 42% over last year. As the weather improves the numbers will only increase, with a total of around 50,000 forecast just for this year. According to current media reports, the annual cost to the Treasury (ie the taxpayer) for each (repeat each) of these illegal migrants is running now at around £40,000.
It is time the Government accepted that its strategy of “smashing the gangs" of traffickers hasn’t worked, and anyway isn’t a realistic solution. The problem is the demand for their services without which the traffickers would not exist, and the obvious solution is to remove the incentives which create that demand. That can be achieved by making it clear in law, particularly to those waiting in France, that any migrant arriving here illegally would be excluded automatically from staying and would be deported.
If they wish to come here to claim asylum, they must do so by a legal route. Why not as after all they are coming from France, a safe country where they are not at risk?
Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.
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