ALBA candidate Neale Hanvey has said Scotland has to “divorce” itself from gloomy financial predictions about independence and lay the groundwork for a different economic model.
Hanvey was interviewed by economic expert Richard Murphy as part of a series of interviews for The National.
During their conversation Hanvey took aim at the economic model being peddled by both Labour and the Conservatives in their General Election campaigning.
“We’re stuck in an economic model that works on a narrative that makes various assumptions about the need to pay down debt and punish public service funding as a consequence of that,” he said.
“Where the lion’s share of wealth generation is siphoned off by large corporate interests at very attractive rates and where the public purse is called on to bail those same corporate interests out to make sure that their profit margins and shareholders are looked after rather than a real focus on the prosperity of the population not just of the constituent countries of the UK but globally. It’s a real problem.
“And that has driven huge inequality between the poorest and the super-wealthy and the elite.
“It’s the narrative that needs to be fixed rather than tinkering around with the structures that have been put in place to feed that beast.”
It comes after the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned that both Labour and the Conservatives were “avoiding the reality” of what their economic plans mean for public services, with IFS director Paul Johnson insisting that austerity was guaranteed if neither party changed tack.
However, Murphy then asked how Hanvey and the Alba Party would have any influence over economic policy when they would not be in government.
“I think it’s going to be very difficult for anybody, even within the governing party, to have any significant influence because I think one of the challenges that we face in terms of economic policy is the buy-in to that centrist, right-of-centre narrative, from all of the political parties,” he added.
“What we’ve already been warned from Keir Starmer repeatedly is that there would be very little if any change in the economic policies between the outgoing government and an incoming Starmer administration.
“So, even within the party of government the opportunity to challenge that paradigm and address things like national monopolies in water supply down south and nationalising monopolies such as that, it’s going to be very difficult.”
Murphy then quizzed Hanvey on what the party’s plans were for the economy of an independent Scotland and whether the predictions from organisations such as the IFS were a hindrance.
“You have to divorce yourself from the briefings of organisations such as the IFS, who predict that if Scotland becomes independent it would be ten years of austerity, you’d have to constrain costs and the like,” he said.
“There are very meaningful ways to challenge that.
“What frustrates me is we’re in that transition period where there’s a strong national movement towards independence and what I think should be happening in Scotland now is not happening.
“The first thing I would do if I had a say is change the narrative in Scotland as it stands. Because you’ve got to lay the groundwork for a different economic model for the future.
“Things that I would be fighting hard for is to build infrastructure projects that deliver jobs and supply chain jobs already.
“There’s been some brilliantly missed opportunities.
“You’ve got to be imaginative and creative in the now before you start building for the future.”
