It’s interesting how this will develop given that Plaid Cymru has effectively abandoned independence in exchange for looking electable to traditional Labour voters.
Love to see it!
Oh dear, more ‘flag-shaggers’ eh?
I really struggle with the independence debate because I just don’t think anyone is taking it seriously.
As a result of the 2008 financial crash, Ireland enacted fiscal consolidation of about €20bn in spending cuts and €12bn in tax increases, which together represented about 20% of Irish Gross Domestic Product. They had to adhere to incredibly strict fiscal rules in order to get a bailout from the EU-IMF programme, and they actively prioritised maintaining a highly competitive business and tax regime in order to attract international investment, meaning taxes were raised more on normal people. The consequence of these years of austerity and fiscal responsibility has been that they have recovered significantly stronger from the crash, and are now in a far stronger position.
Britain, because it was larger and didn’t need an international bailout, had to have lower austerity as a percentage of GDP, and because of increases to pensions, the overall fiscal impact was significantly lower than in Ireland. Lots of people were still negatively impacted, but at no way near the scale. The consequence of this approach has been stagnation, we have largely cut ‘productive’ investment while protecting entitlements, meaning large levels of social division, growing economic inequality particularly regionally.
What I observe is people making the ‘we can be Ireland’ argument to get all of the benefits of Ireland in order to avoid the costs of the UK, without dealing with the reality of what it means to be Ireland. Advocates of independence jump to the 2015 era of strong economic growth and sustainable finances and ignore the preceding 8 years of crippling austerity and neoliberal dogmatism.
Independence in a financial crisis means slashing all of the social programmes in Rhyl to maintain Indy-Wales financial credibility, because a decade afterwards, you can then invest more in it.
If you want a greater degree of longer term financial protection, you aren’t going to get a better deal internationally than Barnett basing Wales’ spending on Westminster budgets.
Yet not even Plaid are willing to talk about independence anymore.
Nationalists bad though right?
I think we can all support Rhyl’s independence from Wales! 😛
I’m not necessarily against independence, but I don’t want my taxes to go up.
Wales has an accelerating ageing population, if we were independent, we’d have to find an extra £22.4 billion every year just to keep pubic services the same. That’s £22.4 billion divided by just 1.4million working people, so that’s an extra £1600 in taxes each year per working person, but that’s not taking into account people who work part time and people on low incomes/ earning near or below the personal allowance… Not to mention, not exactly much of a hardship for our working age adults to just hop across the border and save themselves a tax bill.
I mean, if you have a ballot box and next to it, you had to pay £1600pa in order to vote yes… I can’t imagine there would be many takers.
I’m all for it, but I do think any independence movement needs to be accompanied with a pledge to not increase taxes on the working population. It just needs to be transparent, like this is a realistic independent estimate of how much it’ll cost to go independent.
Swivel eyed loons
Rhyl residents looking forward to a boon day for car break ins
Do any of them have a credible economic plan showing how the average Welsh person would be better off with independence?
I like that we have public discourse and the ability to hold marches like these peacefully (it hasn’t always been the case), but I am against Welsh independence for a number of reasons.
O’r afon y môr🏴
I support the autonomy and more specific direction and leadership an independent wales would give us, but I’m really struggling to grasp how we intend to run a country on 3 sheep and an old bag of coal.
16 comments
Is this for English or Welsh nationalists?
Ah yes, more division. Just what we need!
It’s interesting how this will develop given that Plaid Cymru has effectively abandoned independence in exchange for looking electable to traditional Labour voters.
Love to see it!
Oh dear, more ‘flag-shaggers’ eh?
I really struggle with the independence debate because I just don’t think anyone is taking it seriously.
As a result of the 2008 financial crash, Ireland enacted fiscal consolidation of about €20bn in spending cuts and €12bn in tax increases, which together represented about 20% of Irish Gross Domestic Product. They had to adhere to incredibly strict fiscal rules in order to get a bailout from the EU-IMF programme, and they actively prioritised maintaining a highly competitive business and tax regime in order to attract international investment, meaning taxes were raised more on normal people. The consequence of these years of austerity and fiscal responsibility has been that they have recovered significantly stronger from the crash, and are now in a far stronger position.
Britain, because it was larger and didn’t need an international bailout, had to have lower austerity as a percentage of GDP, and because of increases to pensions, the overall fiscal impact was significantly lower than in Ireland. Lots of people were still negatively impacted, but at no way near the scale. The consequence of this approach has been stagnation, we have largely cut ‘productive’ investment while protecting entitlements, meaning large levels of social division, growing economic inequality particularly regionally.
What I observe is people making the ‘we can be Ireland’ argument to get all of the benefits of Ireland in order to avoid the costs of the UK, without dealing with the reality of what it means to be Ireland. Advocates of independence jump to the 2015 era of strong economic growth and sustainable finances and ignore the preceding 8 years of crippling austerity and neoliberal dogmatism.
Independence in a financial crisis means slashing all of the social programmes in Rhyl to maintain Indy-Wales financial credibility, because a decade afterwards, you can then invest more in it.
If you want a greater degree of longer term financial protection, you aren’t going to get a better deal internationally than Barnett basing Wales’ spending on Westminster budgets.
Yet not even Plaid are willing to talk about independence anymore.
Nationalists bad though right?
I think we can all support Rhyl’s independence from Wales! 😛
I’m not necessarily against independence, but I don’t want my taxes to go up.
Wales has an accelerating ageing population, if we were independent, we’d have to find an extra £22.4 billion every year just to keep pubic services the same. That’s £22.4 billion divided by just 1.4million working people, so that’s an extra £1600 in taxes each year per working person, but that’s not taking into account people who work part time and people on low incomes/ earning near or below the personal allowance… Not to mention, not exactly much of a hardship for our working age adults to just hop across the border and save themselves a tax bill.
I mean, if you have a ballot box and next to it, you had to pay £1600pa in order to vote yes… I can’t imagine there would be many takers.
I’m all for it, but I do think any independence movement needs to be accompanied with a pledge to not increase taxes on the working population. It just needs to be transparent, like this is a realistic independent estimate of how much it’ll cost to go independent.
Swivel eyed loons
Rhyl residents looking forward to a boon day for car break ins
Do any of them have a credible economic plan showing how the average Welsh person would be better off with independence?
I like that we have public discourse and the ability to hold marches like these peacefully (it hasn’t always been the case), but I am against Welsh independence for a number of reasons.
O’r afon y môr🏴
I support the autonomy and more specific direction and leadership an independent wales would give us, but I’m really struggling to grasp how we intend to run a country on 3 sheep and an old bag of coal.
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