By Rab Bruce’s Spider

The big lesson from the Greek crisis is that the money men rule Europe and anyone who steps out of line will be crushed. After the wave of enthusiasm when the Syriza Government came to power, they have shown themselves incapable of standing up to the neo-liberal demands of the Germans.

Whether the Greek people will accept this capitulation remains to be seen. As things stand, they only seem to have two choices, neither of which will be easy. They can stick with the collapse of all their hopes and struggle on for a few years, watching their public services disappear or be privatised and controlled by EU financiers, or they can bite the bullet, quit the EU, declare themselves bankrupt and reintroduce the drachma.

The first choice provides short term stability with long term decline and potential disaster. The second provides short term chaos with the prospect of longer term recovery. The saddest thing is that, whichever way they go, it is the ordinary people, who did nothing to cause the current problems, who will suffer the most.

But what lessons can Scotland learn from this?

First, an independent Scotland must have its own currency. Leaving control of monetary policy with RUK would be unsustainable in the long run. As soon as the economies of the two countries begin to diverge (no matter in which direction) Scotland would suffer because the monetary decisions are made on political grounds, not economic ones. Just look at what the EU is doing to Greece for confirmation of that. A separate currency is essential if we are to avoid potential retribution from a neo-liberal RUK for daring to adopt a different approach.

As for the EU, it’s clear that smaller nations are better off if they stay out of the Euro. And before anyone starts insisting that Scotland would be forced to adopt the Euro, that rule only applies to new members of the EU and Scotland is already a member by virtue of being in the UK. Even if that wasn’t enough, Sweden, Poland and the Czech Republic have shown that it is perfectly possible to avoid adopting the Euro even while signing up to do so eventually. Given the way Germany has bullied Greece with the connivance of other Eurozone members, it’s hard to see any country willingly ditch their own currency and start using the Euro.

Scottish independence is a long way off but, when the time comes, we need to remember the Greek lesson.