UK Pensions

The “latest” argument brought back by Unionists is that independent Scots will lose their UK state pension after Scottish Independence. This is because the UK uses National Insurance Contributions (NIC) from current tax payers to pay the Pensioners. Before the 2014 indyref the UK Govt had guaranteed pensions but have since changed their minds. Now several things spring to my mind with this latest rehash of old scaremongering.

First of all, it lays bare that the UK is not managing a pension fund on behalf of its citizens. It is literally taking our NIC and paying an ever increasingly older population their pension payments. If a private pension company did this it would be very risky, the UK population is an aging one. NIC will eventually not cover these pay outs without an increase in National Insurance.

Secondly NIC is something that no eligible person in the UK has a choice but to pay for. It isn’t an optional extra. So paying the pension or passing the equivalent of contributions made to an independent Scotland should not be optional either. Keeping this money will mean the UK government has taken money from people with no promise of anything in return. That’s not even a tax, it’s extortion to take money with the threat of prison time if you avoid payment.

And that last sentence leads me onto point three. The UK has not clarified if after a successful Indyref2 yes vote they will remove British citizenship from the Scottish. In 2019 that was around 5.454 million Brits. To make a large number of British citizens not only ineligible for the UK State pension but to keep all those previous NIC would cause ripples throughout the UK. That “triple lock” pensions suddenly seeming less locked and more like snake oil. It would certainly set a precedent to allow the removal of the State Pension from all ex-pats living abroad. I believe it will be the beginning of the end for a UK State pension all together.

My fourth and final point is the continuing cost to the UK. Unionists constantly tell us we cannot pay our own bills and so are subsidised by the UK State. Getting rid of nearly 5.5 million people who cannot pay their own way would free up vast amounts of money. Unemployment, housing, health, education, power generation, oil, gas and yes pensions too. All the areas we are told Scotland gets extra money wouldn’t be the problem of the British tax payer anymore. In just a single payment to the Scottish State the UK tax bill will shrink. Westminster could concentrate on “levelling up” and making Brexit work. Where is the economic benefits for anyone living in a better, richer UK to be arguing against Scottish Independence?