United Kingdom has Squandered Assets from Scotland’s Oil

It is interesting to see that the Scottish independence debate has moved on to the issue of oil. This week saw UK Prime Minister David Cameron donning his hard hat and visiting the oil industry in Scotland. At first sight I thought this was an interesting new twist in the referendum campaign. That Cameron had made a flying visit up here to apologise for the fact that the UK had spent decades squandering this natural asset. Maybe say ‘thanks Scotland’ for all the years of bankrolling Britain with the revenue raised by oil.  But strangely the message he travelled north of the border to deliver was that Scotland should thank Britain because the Scottish would never had the sense to develop the oil fields without the UK!

Well of course the truth is that for the last 40 years billions of pounds of oil money has been used to bolster the British economy. Or to put it another way squandered away whilst successive UK governments have continued to build up the UK sovereign debt. How much better it would have been if Scotland had been independent and in the position of the smaller nation of Norway. Norway has managed its oil revenues well with its oil fund investing and making billions in profit in interest payments and dividends. They have planned for a future time when the oil is no longer available.

At this time the oil industry of Scotland continues to bring in large profits and new ventures are planned to further exploit this natural asset. It is therefore crucial that an independent Scotland takes control of the oil revenues away from the UK which has shown such incompetence for the last forty years. A fact, no doubt, that Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond would tell David Cameron face to face in a live televised debate on independence ahead of this year’s referendum vote. However, despite mounting pressure, David Cameron still refuses to enter into such a debate with Alex Salmond.