{"product_id":"9781509542673","title":"Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot : The Great Mistake of Scottish Independence","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Scottish nationalists seek to end the United Kingdom after 300 years of a successful union. Their drive for an independent Scotland is now nearer to success than it has ever been.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e Success would mean a diminished Britain and a perilously insecure Scotland. The nationalists have represented the three centuries of union with England as a malign and damaging association for Scotland. The European Union is held out as an alternative and a safeguard for Scotland's future. But the siren call of secession would lure Scotland into a state of radical instability, disrupting ties of work, commerce and kinship and impoverishing the economy. All this with no guarantee of growth in an EU now struggling with a downturn in most of its states and the increasing disaffection of many of its members.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e In this incisive and controversial book, journalist John Lloyd cuts through the rhetoric to show that the economic plans of the Scottish National Party are deeply unrealistic; the loss of a subsidy of as much as £10 billion a year from the Treasury would mean large-scale cuts, much deeper than those effected by Westminster; the broadly equal provision of health, social services, education and pensions across the UK would cease, leaving Scotland with the need to recreate many of these systems on its own; and the claim that Scotland would join the most successful of the world's small states - as Denmark, New Zealand and Norway - is no more than an aspiration with little prospect of success.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e The alternative to independence is clear: a strong devolution settlement and a joint reform of the British union to modernise the UK's age-old structures, reduce the centralisation of power and boost the ability of all Britain's nations and regions to support and unleash their creative and productive potential. Scotland has remained a nation in union with three other nations - England, Northern Ireland and Wales. It will continue as one, more securely in a familiar companionship.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Polity Pr","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52929912209717,"sku":"EB_HI0800_J02-05_DUBAI","price":77.0,"currency_code":"AED","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0971\/7773\/1381\/files\/9781509542673-1.jpg?v=1789405747","url":"https:\/\/kinokuniya.ae\/ar\/products\/9781509542673","provider":"Books Kinokuniya UAE","version":"1.0","type":"link"}