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2016: Independent Scots are Europe’s worst benefits tourists

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In the Burns Night spirit, let’s assume Scotland votes for independence. Let’s assume further – despite warnings to the contrary – that Scotland joins the EU painlessly. To Westminster, the Scots are now ‘foreigners’.

Auld Acquaintance shan’t be forgot easily, as tabloids might oft bring to mind – there will be 750,000 Scots in ‘Formerly Great Britain’. Thousands more workers might commute south. If Scots continue 2011 census patterns, nearly 100,000 will be in London alone. 15% of the EU’s 29th member state will live abroad. This will really scotch Cameron’s ambition to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands, especially if all 750,000 appear on the tally-sheet as ‘foreign’ overnight.

Imagine the future alien-Scots work, or not work, the same way they currently do.  British workers will justifiably declare, as some do of Lithuanians or Bulgarians, that Scots are stealing British jobs. Scottish homelessness levels conform to British trends, meaning there’ll also be a spike in the number of non-Britons sleeping rough.

Far worse in many eyes will be the entitlements Loch Ness monster. Scots currently claim far more benefits, proportionally, than the Poles or other Eastern Europeans. Studies suggest that after a year’s UK residence, ‘A8’ migrants (i.e. Eastern Europe asides Romania and Bulgaria) are ’59 per cent less likely to receive state benefits or tax credits and 57 per cent less likely to live in social housing’ than Brits (including current Scots). Civitas publications emphasise caution when using such blunt figures.

To indulge in fanciful speculation, estimates suggest 2% of Scots south of the border claim JSA. Only 1.5% of Poles do the same (LFS, Q2, 2013). Migrants from India, Eire and Wales are all less likely to be on the dole than our Northern cousins. 36.5% of Scots in England claim some kind of state benefit (tax credit, child benefit etc.) – 40.4% of those north of Hadrian’s Wall do.

Tory rebels are haranguing Cameron to change the EU rules for future accession states. What will this mean for Scottish travellers? Border controls? Benefits lock? Being held in the squalid pens that currently blight the Bulgarian/Greek border with Turkey? Perhaps there will be initiatives to create a ‘hostile environment’ for Scots. Far-right parties might take to burning haggis and chanting ‘Go back to Killiecrankie!’

Benefits scrounging is, in some eyes, true to form. Stephanie Flanders noted that Scotland received ‘£16.5bn more in UK public spending in 2009-10 than it contributed to total UK revenues – or a ‘subsidy’ of around £3,150 per head’. This pattern continues annually thanks to the Barnett Formula. North Sea Oil only raised £6 billion over the same period, and it’s worth recalling that England ‘subsidised’ Scottish spending long before the 1980s black gold discoveries.

To add insult to injury, Mr Salmond plans to make Scottish universities free for Scottish and EU students – but to charge the British. Under the same rules that would guarantee Scottish benefits and labour rights, this is illegal. Here as elsewhere, the EU is very much a double-edged sword.

 

(This is somewhat contrived, since under current proposals the first two generations of independent Scots will have dual citizenship anyway. Still, made you think.)


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