Oil revenues to help independent Scotland: Analyst

Mon Sep 8, 2014 

 

Press TV has interviewed columnist and investigative reporter David Lindorff to discuss the situation in Scotland, as it prepares to vote on its independence from the United Kingdom.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview:

Press TV: Your take on, you have heard some of the points Mrs. Gould has made.

Lindorff: It’s pretty funny I came from the state of Connecticut; I grew up in Connecticut, which is the headquarters where most of the US submarines are built in Groton, Connecticut. We say Groton on the Thames in Connecticut. As the US is finally been cutting back on its military expenditures, particularly for submarines, Connecticut has finally adopt, after fighting for years to keep the base there in all the employment that it provides, it’s a small state, couple million people, similar to Scotland in a way.

The state has finally realized the intelligence of setting a policy for demilitarizing the state and converting employment, spending money to convert employment to civilian use and recognizing the great distortion that is caused by relying on military employment and I think Scotland in particular is probably much better off than the state of Connecticut because of its oil revenues that it will get once it is an independent country, if the vote goes that way, is in a great position to throw Trident out and to institute a policy of retraining of job encouragement and to get out of the business of depending on military employment as a basis for keeping its people  on pay check.

I think that is a terrible stay part of a country to simply be part of its over-militarized economy and over-reliance on military. Britain is a puppy of US and all of its militarist policies and there is no reason for Scotland to do that.

Press TV: Something Ms. Gould said about other separate movements inside Europe, I want to look at the significance of that and the situation if Scotland, if the people vote to become independent, the possible effect that it could have on other regions that are looking at the possibility of going independent, whether we are talking about Catalonia or so many other areas. Your take. Could that have a rippling effect on other European areas?

Lindorff: I am sure it will have some effect, but let’s go back to the fact that first of all, Scotland would be if there is an honest following of the Geneva rules for water boundaries, Scotland will be one of the richest countries per capita in the world, pretty much like Norway, it would get about 90 percent of the oil fields in the north sea, according to the Guardian, if the line is drawn right across where it is supposed to be where the boundary between England and Scotland is. So, cost of anything like getting Trident out of Scotland would be easily handled by the oil revenues, that is assuming England doesn’t try to seize most of the oil by not going along with the Geneva rules on sea boundaries. But let’s assume that that is done fairly, I’m not sure that Scotland sets a great precedent for all of these nationalist movements within European countries because it is kind of exceptional to have access to all of that oil revenue.

Maybe you could argue that Catalonia, because it is very wealthy industrial province within Spain, probably one of the wealthiest provinces in Spain, could do very well on its own, so this might be... though I don’t think the Catalonians need a lot of encouragement to go ahead with their independence referendum, if they wanted to do that for a long time. I’m curious to what it would do in Wales, because back when I was in England in the 1950s, when I was a kid, the support for independence was down around five percent, Scotland and it’s soared to here. Wales is very small I think 10 percent, but I think there it could get a real kick if Scotland is successfully separated. That would be interesting to see.

Press TV: your final take on this. Do you think that Scotland can be successful in being an independent country? Go ahead.

Lindorff: Of course it can. I was just two weeks in Finland, which is a country of five million people and they have got an incredible social system. One of the reasons is because they spend about 1.5 percent of their GDP on the military and if Scotland goes independent, they want to reduce their military spending. Britain spends way too much, like the US, on military. If they stop that expenditure, and go to a little self-defense force and stop trying to be part of the British Empire, then they are going to have plenty of money to have a well funded NHS... They will have tremendous savings.

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