Scotland will be £11 billions poorer with Independence.
Should it be a worry for Wales Independence?
Unionists have failed in presenting any credible reasons for maintaining the Union.
They have not persuaded that Better Together has benefited the constituent parts of the UK.
Having failed in this, they fall back on the Brexit tactic, of not letting the truth get in the way of a persuasive story.
They seek to undermine the case for Independence.
The EU stealing our money, has now become the dire fate awaiting nations who dare to break from the Union.
As the move to Independence has grown in strength, then the attacks on it, using dubious, but effective tactics, intensify.
Scotland, more advanced on Independence, is experiencing this currently.
Wales will increasingly come under the same pressures, as Independence here grows and it is therefore worth putting these attacks themselves, under scrutiny.
The Unionist camp seek to present their assertions under a cloak of apparent credibility. They will cite their data as , government sources, or official figures, or increasingly academic reports.
It was one of these that caused the excitement recently among Unionist supporting media.
Scotland Independence will make it £11 billions poorer.
Headlines in the Anti Independence Scottish newspapers and in the English based, Unionist supporting media. The Mail, Guardian and Independent, among them.
They had latched on, without question, to an academic paper presented by the Centre for Economic Performance, part of the London School of Economics.
The Reality.
The study asserted that an Independent Scotland would be £11 billions, poorer irrespective of whether it rejoined the EU. The media loved it. Scots worse off by £2800 per head if they left the UK. This by a "non partisan" report.
The report. Disunited Kingdom, Brexit, trade and Scottish Independence.
It argues that the Scottish people have a right to know the costs and benefits of Independence, in making their decisions.
And yet we find that this " neutral " report has examined and presented only the costs, while ignoring the benefits.
The £11 billions of the report is exclusively assuming the costs of trade, the cross border costs, of Scotland leaving the UK.
It argues, for example, that Scotland will suffer more expensive imports of between 15% and 30%. Such a wide variation, suggesting a high degree of uncertainty in the research calculations.
The dodgy methodology continues ( I almost called it a dodgy dossier ), by advancing a calculation of a Scotland deficit based only on trade and ignoring the effects of currency, changes in investment flows, taxation policy, new export policy decisions and the ability of Independent countries to boost growth.
In order to reach their conclusions, the authors make some unusual assumptions.
They state that this deficit remained, whether or not Scotland, rejoins the EU.
There is no advantage with regard to trade tariffs.
Scotland would therefore be the only country trading within the EU not to have a tariff free advantage.
The report then uses the fact that Scotland would face border trade costs with the UK, it's largest trading partner, to justify its findings.
In doing so it places Scotland in a category on it's own, for it's the UK's publicly stated policy to encourage free free trade.
Tariff free trade for New Zealand to which it exports £1.7 billions. Singapore to which it exports £5 billions. Canada to which it exports £11 billions and Japan to which it exports £15 billions.
It is not credible that it would not seek free trade with Scotland, to which England exports £67 billions or with Wales to which England exports almost £40 billions.
That this report fails to acknowledge these points, further diminishes its credibility.
The authors are also measuring long term effects in a long term forecast. So long term, as to become not valid and credible. As Keynes famously said to those economic forecasters careless enough to undertake such self indulgent penchants in a fast changing world that " in the long run we are all dead ".
Then for some strange reason, the authors seek to undermine their own research.
The authors state. As with all economic forecasts, our estimates are subject to uncertainty and should be treated with caution. We do not know exactly how large an effect Scottish Independence and Brexit will have on trade costs and although we use the best available data and modelling techniques, our model is an imperfect representation of the global economy.
But all the media wants are the headlines.
So what of the motives behind this report.
The authors say it is to make the voters aware of the costs and benefits of Independence.
This clearly is not the case with such an unbalanced presentation.
But the Centre for Economic Performance has a history with Scottish Independence and is far from impartial.
The CEP is a pro business global research body funded by a mixture of UK government and private finance.
This particular report acknowledged and thanked Jim Gallagher for his input.
Jim Gallagher was the main economic adviser to the Better Together Campaign 2014 and an opponent of Scottish Independence.
The work of CEP is overseen by a policy committee headed by Sir Nicholas MacPherson, former boss of the UK Treasury during the 2014 referendum.
He broke with tradition by using civil servants to produce a stream of, so called, reports attacking the case for Independence.
He used the excuse that the SNP was " seeking to destroy the fabric of the state ".
He publicly urged Tory and Labour opposition to block Independent Scotland from using the pound as currency.
The CEP was active during the 2014 referendum, producing a series of reports, seeking to undermine the case for Independence.
The then director, Professor John Van Reeson, published his own Independence paper and likened Scotland to become a depressed Spain "without the sunshine ".
This response is to what can be seen to be a Scottish issue, but it relates similarly to Wales. Similar attacks are coming to Wales.
As Wales Independence becomes stronger, these tactics become more frequent.
It is to show that such documents can be shown to be flawed and as in this case not at all impartial.
They will be used by opponents of Independence and we in Wales must be prepared to show them for what they are.
Dodgy document propaganda.
