The economic black hole more than doubled to 22.4 percent of GDP last year – about twice as much as anywhere else in Europe and more than seven times the 3 percent threshold required for EU membership. The Institute for Financial Studies said this would provide an indication of an independent Scotland’s finances on the first day, but the analysis said: “This tells us nothing about how Scotland would function as an independent country and is, in any case, an argument for change, not against it “. Kevin Hague, president of the This Islands Union think tank, attacked the “rude” conclusion, writing on Twitter: “So on the first day a new economy will be born, the old industries will evaporate, public spending will be zero, the tax will the base be dismantled and reformed?
“Statistical interpretation is presented as an analysis”
He said the comparisons with other small countries represented “statistical irregularities presented as an analysis” and argued that “general logic is wrong”. “They attribute all the differences in performance to independence, as if that were the only difference between Scotland and their carefully selected benchmarks,” he said. He added: “One could just as easily answer that ‘what these other countries do not have Scotland’ is’ governments that focus on making life better for their people today instead of investing all their energy in to incite grievances and lead to separation “.
