Ukip Scotland demand winding down of devolution process
THE UKIP SCOTLAND MANIFESTO has been released with policies focused on binding Scotland to a hard Brexit and limiting the autonomy of the Scottish Parliament.
The party is struggling in the polls, hovering around 3 per cent across the UK and is fighting to define its purpose in the wake of the UK’s vote for Brexit in 2016.
While the UK manifesto focuses on the “cancer” of terrorism allegedly growing in the UK, the Scottish manifesto takes aim at the Scottish Parliament, with measures to curtail its autonomy.
Read the full Ukip Scotland manifesto here.
It’s short, it’s in your face and it’s full of typos. CommonSpace presents the key ideas in the Scottish Ukip manifesto.
Full Brexit for Scotland with no separate deal
“Brexit means exit.”
Scotland, the Ukip manifesto maintains, should not be allowed to have any special relationship with the EU separate from the UK after a hard Brexit. This would mean Scotland along with the rest of the UK exiting not just the union but also free movement and the single market.
The Scottish Government’s efforts at international diplomacy in the wake of the 2016 Brexit vote should also be scrapped.
Scotland should be held to the same six point standard as outlined in the UK manifesto, which is a recipe for the hardest of Brexits.
“Rule out” Scotref
“UKIP will rule-out a second referendum.”
The ruling out of a second referendum is an ambitious goal for a party without seats in the Scottish Parliament at the time when the matter was voted on in March.
Some will say that this is, therefore, a very misleading policy. But most of the pro-union parties have a version of this policy in their manifesto – none of them acknowledges that the Scottish Parliament has already voted to request the right to hold a second independence referendum.
The Ukip manifesto also calls for a “Red Line” in front of any further transfer of powers to the Scottish Parliament. The UK party has also raised the prospect of scrapping the Barnett Formula, by which the Scottish Parliament is funded, though the Scottish party has remained silent on this.
In addition to limiting the autonomy of the parliament, the manifesto also wants to further restrict the borrowing powers of the Scottish Government.
Taxes equal or lower to the rest of the UK
“Ukip’s guiding principal is to lower taxes and wants [sic] to kept [sic] Scottish taxes in line with the rest of the UK, if not lower.”
Ukip’s flagship economic policy is a little vague. The party wants Scottish taxes to equal those of the rest of the UK, or be lower than the rest of the UK.
Any small change in taxes has significant implications for the size of the tax base and knock-on effects on any number of fiscal and economic matters. There is a big difference between having taxes at the same level as the rest of the UK and having taxes even a little lower than the rest of the UK.
But for what it’s worth, Ukip wants one policy or another.
Read more – Ukip Manifesto: Key policies of the party fighting for survival in Brexit Britain
Picture: Twitter/Ukip Scotland
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