Nine years on

Calton has wanted to leave the EU for years, long before he started this blog 9 years ago. There were times when he seemed like a lone voice, howling at the moon. Even when Nigel Farage founded UKIP it seemed impossible that the UK would leave the EU. Now, at time of writing, we have already left and are less than 2 hours from exiting the resulting transition period, with a deal in place, which is something else which seemed impossible until Christmas Eve. Truly 2020 has been a year of miracles as well as disasters.

Some things haven't changed, for instance the SNP's love-affair with the EU. This has led them into the ridiculous position of voting against the deal which Boris Johnson has agreed with the EU, in spite of months of warning against a no-deal Brexit. It also means that most of the items on Calton's 2012 wishlist are still valid - just replace Alex Salmond with Nicola Sturgeon and redefining marriage with trans rights.

What has changed is the mood within Scotland. The hitherto silent majority who voted NO in 2014 have now found a voice and a party to vote for in 2021 - Alliance for Unity, headed by George Galloway. The iron grip of the Murrells on the SNP has also loosened and cracks are appearing in what was once a united party. Nicola Sturgeon's pursuance of a highly woke agenda has won her enemies including Joanna Cherry and Stuart Campbell. The former fired a shot across Sturgeon's bows after being elected to the SNP NEC and the latter continues to bombard Sturgeon on an almost daily basis via his blog Wings Over Scotland, which talks so much sense that Calton has decided to add it to his blogroll.

Many still think that an SNP victory next May is inevitable. Hopefully the SNP are among that number because complacency comes before a fall in votes. Defeating the SNP may seem impossible but so did Brexit. It just needs enough people to turn out and make their voice heard. May 2021 be the year that sees the end of nationalist rule in Scotland! Slainte!

HOW much?

Why are the Scottish Government spending taxpayers' money on a report which will only kick in if Scotland becomes independent? Talk about pre-empting the referendum result! Sounds to Calton more like a bribe to vote YES - if you are on minimum wage - and this from the selfsame government which refused to mandate the living wage for government contracts in the recent procurement bill. At the time they used the EU as their excuse, which is a bit rich from a party committed to an independent Scotland remaining in the EU.

The scourge of the working poor is one which Calton would like to see removed from our society but we need to be careful that hiking the minimum wage does not cost jobs. Trying to mitigate the hike by reducing employer's NI contributions will not always work, particularly for the likes of cleaning employers who typically employ people on part-time contracts where the hours are so low that they do not pay NI.

As for the rest of the report, the only positive measure is the proposed increase in carer's allowance - the rest is just a return to the bad old days of a bloated benefit system where many were better off on benefits than in work and, as usual, it is unclear how the Scottish Government would pay for it all. Calton is just thankful that it is unlikely to be implemented as, even with blatant bribes such as this, the Yes campaign are still failing to make any headway in the polls. They just don't get that canny Scots want to know how much something will cost before committing themselves! And, while we're on the subject, how much did the expert group on welfare's report cost us?

Maybe we just don't want to be in the EU

Extraordinary. In all the BBC coverage on UKIP's gains in the local elections in England and Wales which Calton heard today, not one word about the fact that people may be voting UKIP because they don't want to be in the EU. The Libdems even managed to put their total wipeout down to a mid-term backlash against a governing party! Er, no Nick - Calton thinks it is because you are the most pro-EU of all the main Westminster parties and you are just not in tune with the electorate. Now, which of the parties in Scotland is the most pro-EU apart from the Libdems (whose wipeout here is so predictable that it goes without saying)? The SNP. So, based on that, Calton is going to stick his feathery neck out and predict that, far from the SNP gaining an extra MEP, UKIP is going to get their first in Scotland. Unfortunately, so far it doesn't look like the main parties are prepared to learn anything from their cuffing at the hands of an anti-EU party. They continue to pursue their European dream heedless of the voice of voters or, in other words, situation normal. It reminds Calton of turkeys and Christmas or ostriches and sand. They are either going to get stuffed and roasted or, at the very least, their backsides kicked. Roll on May 2015! (Calton is assuming a No vote in September 2014.)

Running scared - the political elite

It seems to Calton that the main political parties are running scared of UKIP and with good reason. The trendy liberal political elite are completely out of touch with ordinary voters. They seem to have no idea what it is like to see your grown up children spending their days either in bed or on the computer playing games because they can't get a job. For many parents the fear of the empty nest has been replaced by anxiety over whether their offspring will ever manage to fledge and fly the nest. Many of these youngsters have been through further education, supported by their parents and yet they still can't find a job. For people like these, the news today that there was a 7% increase in the number of NI numbers issued to workers from overseas in 2013, compared with 2012, is not good news. The government can say all it likes about controlling immigration and bringing down the numbers but, as long as we remain in the EU, we have no control over immigration from the EU, which makes up the bulk of that 7% increase. UKIP are on course to win the EU elections, with the possibility of an MEP in Scotland, because they scratch an itch the other parties are not reaching. They are also constellating an anti-EU sentiment which is not able to be expressed in any other way. If the main political parties were really serious about spiking UKIP's guns, all they need to do is take us out of the EU, thus removing UKIP's raison d'etre in one fell swoop. Or at least offer a referendum. Instead, the old-boy establishment (including the BBC) has ganged up on the newcomer who is daring to challenge them and has resorted to playing the loony/racist card, conveniently ignoring the loonies/racists in their own woodpiles. It is a strategy almost certain to backfire. Voters are not that stupid.

Democracy - SNP style

It seems that, in the SNP's eyes, democracy only applies to Scotland. They are quite happy to ride roughshod over the fact that voters in the rest of the UK may not want a currency union with Scotland if we become independent and voters in other EU countries may not want us to be an EU member, or, if we do become a member they may wish to insist that we do so on the basis of joining the Euro. They are also quite happy to ignore the wishes of the Scottish people when it suits them and to forget that they did not get a majority of the votes at the last election, even although they got a slim majority in Holyrood. However, as soon as someone threatens the outcome of the independence referendum by injecting a few facts into the argument, it is an "affront to democracy". Either that or it is "bullying". Instead of accepting that they cannot force other countries to do their will, and working within the parameters which that creates, the SNP continue to insist that everything goes their way, thus demonstrating that their vision of an independent Scotland is built on sand. It is a fantasy, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. They cannot convince the people of Scotland on the basis of facts and so they are appealing to baser instincts - the dislike of being told what to do. How pathetic. The sad thing is that some Scots will fall for it.

Back to the 19th century?

We have a shortage of housing, unemployment (and, in particular, youth unemployment) is high, it can take 3 weeks in some parts of Scotland to get a doctor's appointment and NHS dentists are scarcer than hens' teeth - so would someone please remind Calton why we need thousands more immigrants from Eastern Europe? Unfortunately, unless we leave the EU (which is Calton's favoured option), we are powerless to stop a new influx in two days' time, regardless of what some Conservative activists may think. Even if we succeeded in delaying the ability of Romanians and Bulgarians to move here until 2018, that is just postponing the problem. The Tory activists are at least right in one thing - more immigration will only fuel tensions, particularly in poorer areas where people are already struggling to find homes and jobs and to access vital services. Calton is not against immigration per se - he is against unlimited economic immigration from poorer countries within the EU and one look at the graph in this BBC News article will tell you why. The number of Eastern European workers in the UK has gone from less than 50,000 in 2003 to 800,000 in 2013. There are areas in Glasgow where one bedroom flats house 15-20 people. That's a higher population density than when the Victorian tenements were built! If this is the sort of Scotland which Alex Salmond and his party wants, Calton's response is "no thankyou". A return to overcrowded tenements and streets overflowing with rubbish hardly seems to be progressive - it's more like a regression to the 19th century. Is this really Scotland's future?

Things can only get better?

The SNP truly are deluded. Faced with negative comments from Wales over the Sterling zone and warning noises from Spain over EU membership, their response is to say, effectively, that the rUK would be mad not to include Scotland in a currency union and the EU would be insane not to want Scotland as a member. Well, which of them has lost their marbles is a matter of opinion - in Calton's opinion it's the SNP, not Wales or Spain.

The other common delusion currently doing the rounds is that things couldn't possibly be any worse than they are at present, under the Westminster government, so we would be better off voting for independence. Wrong. Things not only could be a lot worse, they will be a lot worse. You've only to look at the costs involved in some of the proposals in the White Paper (renationalised mail service, separate TV, new passports, separate tax system) to realise that Scotland will be the poorer if we go it alone. Divorces cost money and it's the Scottish people who will foot the bill for this one. Far from being a richer, fairer nation, we will be impoverished for decades and it's pensioners and the poor who will suffer the most. If that's scaremongering, Calton is guilty as charged but the vision the SNP have set out for Scotland is what is truly frightening.

(Oh, and by the way, Calton was half-asleep yesterday morning but he's sure he heard someone from the SNP say that "independence in Europe" is the only sort of independence currently on the table, and, of course, that is no independence at all. Nice to have that clarified by the Yes campaign.)

Vote Yes for total dependence

The European Commission, an unelected body euphemistically called the 'executive arm' of the EU, has been coming the heavy on Spain and Italy over their budgets. And this is the EU which self-styled supporter of independence Alex Salmond wants us to remain part of (if they'll have us)? Nein danke is all Calton can say. How anyone who believes in self-determination can, at the same time, think that EU membership is a good thing is a mystery. The same applies to a currency union with England. We already have that as part of the UK - if it's such a good thing, why vote for independence? We have the best of both worlds with devolution. Why risk it for a very uncertain future as a supposedly independent country which will, in reality, be totally dependent on either the EU or the rUK? If the SNP really believed in self-determination they would ditch the idea of being in the EU and would be making plans for us to have our own currency as the preferred choice, not a plan B or C. Sadly, they don't have the bottle. If they did, Calton would consider voting Yes. As it is, it's No all the way.

It's not the immigrants who are the problem

Calton has never disputed the fact that most immigrants to this country are hard-working and make a positive contribution to our economy. It is no surprise to find that, in recent years, they are less likely to be in receipt of benefits than Brits. The problem is, the ready supply of skilled people with a good work ethic has allowed us to ignore the fact that many of our young people are unemployable and many of our unemployed do not want to work. If we did not have uncontrolled immigration from the EU, genuine jobseekers would find it a lot easier to find a job and the work-shy would find it a lot harder to hide. We would not have such a huge problem with youth unemployment and business owners would be putting a lot more pressure on the government to sort out our education system so that it turns out employable youngsters. As it is, the influx of Eastern Europeans is masking a growing problem within our society. It is also fuelling resentment because, now, they are not just doing the jobs Brits don't want to do - they are doing jobs that some Brits do want to do. Recession has made us less fussy when it comes to a job, which would be no bad thing if the jobs were available. Given the announcement today of up to 1000 job cuts at BAE Systems yards north and south of the border, it is time for both the Scottish and Westminster governments to take a serious look at whether we can afford a further influx of Eastern Europeans at the end of the year, especially when we have no idea how many will come. We should let in the immigrants we need and the ones who need asylum but call a halt to unrestricted immigration from the EU.

Tinkering while UKIP gains ground

It's a bit rich for Labour politicians to go on about companies recruiting more local workers when they (Labour) presided over an education system which has failed to get a generation of young people ready for the workplace and it would seem that they (Labour) deliberately encouraged mass immigration as a way of forcing acceptance of the philosophy of multiculturalism. And we all know how well that worked out. As long as companies can get cheaper, better workers from outside the UK they will do so - it's called capitalism. It's up to the Government to limit immigration if they want to keep jobs for British workers and that will not be possible as long as we remain in the EU. That is why UKIP are gaining support in many parts of England. Unemployed Brits are fed up of seeing jobs go to Eastern European immigrants and it is fuelling resentment, especially when getting a job means that an immigrant passes the residency test and can then get a council house. The three main Westminster parties all realise this but are not prepared to do what is necessary to sort it i.e. leave the EU. Instead they are all tinkering round the edges and fighting with each other rather than dealing with the problem. No wonder the voters are losing patience with them.

Time to count them in?

It really beggars belief that we just don't know how many people are coming into this country and how many are leaving. What is the point of setting immigration targets when we can't measure if we are meeting them? What is the point anyway, when we have no control over immigration from EU countries? Calton is not against immigration. He is against uncontrolled immigration, which is what we have got at the moment. How on earth can government and local authorities plan for housing, schools, medical facilities etc when we don't know how many people we are planning for? The UK has finite resources and a limit to the number of people it can support. Large numbers of migrants can stretch those resources to breaking point and cause tensions within communities. The Government needs to get a grip on the situation, not by setting arbitrary limits on non-EU immigration, but by looking at immigration as a whole and obtaining accurate statistics on which to base its decisions. Anything else is just empty posturing.

The game's a bogey

At last we seem to be getting somewhere with a sensible fisheries policy which will hopefully end the shameful practice of discards and help small boats. About time too, although it still has to get through a vote in the European Parliament. Groan. Calton is just surprised that Richard Lochhead is still a fan of the EU given the hassle he's had over this. When is the penny going to drop amongst the SNP that, if we were not in the EU, we wouldn't have the hassle? It's called 'independence' folks - if you've the bottle for it. Forget William Hague's idea of a red card - Calton thinks we should grab the ball and walk off the pitch. There are times when the game's just not worth the candle.

Banking on banking reform is not a good idea

Oh dear, here we go again. The Scottish Government has now received legal advice on Scotland's position regarding the EU if we become independent, but they won't tell us what it is. Given that their position has moved from 'automatic EU membership' to 'negotiated membership' post-independence, can we really trust what they say in their forthcoming White Paper without seeing the advice which is behind it? And can we really trust the SNP with our savings when Nicola Sturgeon seems to be banking on global reform of the banking sector to prevent a repeat of 2008? What about pension protection? Does Scotland have enough solvent company pension schemes to pay in to our own protection scheme so that members of collapsed pension schemes are compensated? Calton thinks not. As far as pensions go, there is definitely strength in numbers. A lot of questions like this are going to surface over the next 16 months and the Yes campaign are going to have to come up with better answers than they have done to date if they want to have any hope of convincing the likes of Calton that Scotland should go it alone.

Not so expert independence experts

Nicola Sturgeon has rolled out Hollywood film producer Iain Smith, award-winning chef Roy Brett and events expert Prof Joe Goldblatt to back her argument that Scotland would be better off independent. Unfortunately, Brett seems to be confused between Westminster, which is in charge of VAT, and the EU, which determines our fishing policy. Under the SNP's plans, an independent Scotland would only be able to control the former - the fishing policy would still be out of our hands. Maybe he should stick to cooking. Calton also has his doubts about Goldblatt, who thinks that an independent Scotland would "become one of the most successful tourism destinations in the world". Not once the SNP have covered it with windfarms it won't. It will also not be so attractive to film companies for location shoots once the landscape has been industrialised on a grand scale (unless the next Bond film has a helicopter chase though a windfarm as its opener). Scotland does have a lot of assets and a lot of great businesses. We are being hampered by Westminster's restrictive immigration policies, brought in because they have no control over immigration from within the EU. The answer is not "independence within Europe" but for the Scottish Government to work with Westminster to help businesses by reducing red tape (much of it from the EU), and to agree an immigration policy which takes account of Scotland's needs. Unfortunately there is not much sign of that happening between now and next September.

Farage and Amazon

So, let's see if Calton has this right - Amazon were given £2.5m by the Scottish Government to expand their operations in Dunfermline and Gourock and, in return, the company has paid £2.4m tax. That does not sound like a very good deal. OK, so they have created some jobs, of which quite a few have gone to Eastern Europeans. The arrangement seems to be that Alex Salmond, that well-known supporter of the EU, says that we need more immigrants to fill the jobs which his government is paying companies like Amazon to create. Here's Calton's idea - we leave the EU, stop paying companies based in Luxembourg large sums of money to provide jobs for non-UK nationals and use the money to improve the employability of our young people instead. If Amazon don't like it, they can take their low-paid jobs somewhere else. If we didn't have an open door to any EU national who wants to come and work here, we wouldn't need them. (Calton realises that he risks being mobbed a la Farage next time he visits the Canons' Gait for daring to air such views but, tant pis, someone needs to say it.) The bottom line is this - subsidising industry to locate here doesn't work in the long term. Improving the skills of our workforce does.

So predictable - unlike the Donside by-election

Is it any surprise that there is growing support for the idea that we should leave the EU when the European Council, backed by the European Parliament, has just agreed the European Commission's request for an extra £6.2bn to be added to the budget, in spite of Cameron talking tough a few weeks ago. Calton doesn't like to say "I told you so" but ... it was entirely predictable that this would happen, and it completely knocks the legs out from under the Prime Minister's idea that he can renegotiate our position within the EU. We just don't have that much clout. However, it is good to see that one of the three main parties (four in Scotland) is now willing to give the British people a say regarding our continued membership of the EU. Labour and the Libdems are going to look increasingly out of touch with the electorate if they continue to refuse to back an in-out referendum on the EU, especially if, as seems likely, UKIP continue to make gains in elections. The Aberdeen Donside by-election will be an interesting indicator of UKIP's support in Scotland, with the announcement of Otto Inglis as their candidate. (Inglis previously contested Dunfermline and West Fife in the last Westminster election.) Calton awaits the outcome, which is anything but predictable, with interest. (And perhaps, given UKIP's recent share of the vote down south, he should be talking of four main parties, five in Scotland?)

Endangered species of the political kind

At time of writing, the Times vote on whether we should be in or out of the EU was 56% OUT to 44% IN. Calton voted OUT. That should come as no surprise to his regular readers. If we left the EU our farmers would at least be able to bury their dead sheep instead of paying the knacker to take them away. We would be able to manage our own fish stocks. We wouldn't be forced into an unaffordable energy policy by EU directives. We would be our own boss again. Unfortunately Alex Salmond is so wedded to the European ideal that even UKIP's tremendous gains in last week's English elections fail to warn him of his impending doom if he carries on down the EU path. For far too long our political elite have not been listening to voters and have not given them a choice on Europe (or gay marriage). It's therefore no surprise that UKIP are cleaning up - no the EU, no to gay marriage, no to windfarms. What's not to like? (Unless you are a Libdem, in which case you are an endangered species.) If the SNP don't start listening to the electorate, they too will be on the endangered list.

Would you trust this man with your pension?

Calton cannot see how the First Minister can pledge that there will be no change to the amount of time pension firms are allowed to get their schemes out of deficit in the event of Scottish independence given that he also seems to rule out opting out of EU pension scheme arrangements, due to his continued love-affair with Europe. It was therefore no surprise to find that no details were given on how Salmond intends to protect Scots' company pensions post-independence. Clueless just about sums up the First Minister's attitude and Ruth Davidson is right to highlight the enormous gamble the SNP are taking with the future wellbeing of the people of Scotland. Unfortunately, instead of answering the question and giving us, the electorate, some concrete information on pensions, Alex chose instead to slag off the Tory-led coalition government down south. It's such an obvious tactic it's embarrassing. The upshot is that anyone with a UK-wide company pension would be well advised to vote no next year if they want to hold on to it.

What planet are they on?

It seems that John Swinney doesn't believe the SNP's line that it will be alright on the night either when it comes to independence and company pensions, according to the word on the twittersphere this evening. If Calton had a subscription to The Times he could read all about it online. As it is, all he can see is the first paragraph of the relevant article. That is worrying enough, with its mention of the 'substantial changes at a European level to safeguard all the current private sector pension funds' which would be needed. Swinney is far more optimistic than Calton if he thinks that the problems are surmountable. This is the EU we are talking about. The words 'tanker' and 'change of direction' come to mind. It's not the same as pulling a few levers and sending the train down a different track, Mr Signalman Swinney. It really seems sometimes that the main qualifications for belonging to the SNP are positive thinking and an outrageous optimism that defies reality. Living on another planet also helps.

Pensions - no laughing matter

It is a well known fact that we are not saving enough towards our retirement in this country, however it is a miracle that anyone is bothering to save for it at all, given all the current uncertainty surrounding pensions. First, we had the Westminster Government moving the goalposts (and Calton is still trying to work out exactly how many years National Insurance contributions he has) and now we have the possibility that a yes vote in the independence referendum will throw another huge spanner in the works for Scots. Does anybody really believe the SNP's line that it will all be alright on the night? Not Calton. He wants to see the figures, especially since part of his retirement income is going to come from a UK-wide company pension scheme. EU insistence that cross-border schemes be fully funded is a) going to prove a major headache if Scotland becomes independent and b) could scupper a large number of company pension schemes and, indeed, companies, not to mention the pension expectations of their employees. At the risk of being branded a clown by Ken Clarke (pot? kettle?) Calton sees this as yet another good reason for us to leave the EU (and stay in the UK).