One of the most insidious aspects of the Unionist and media attack on independence is the constant refrain of “Scotland will be poorer after independence, so there will have to be cuts to services or tax increases. Cuts or tax rises. Cuts or tax rises. If you vote Yes, do you want CUTS OR TAX RISES?”

Of late, it’s often been used as a corollary of a new plea: “Oh, it’s not that we’re against independence, but why won’t Alex Salmond admit that there will be downsides? Why won’t he be honest about the risks and challenges? If only he’d admit that it won’t be a land of milk and honey we might listen.”

While its prevalence is new, the actual line is a tired old straw man – neither the First Minister nor the wider Yes campaign has EVER pretended Scotland would suddenly enter a fairytale utopia where everything was perfect and cash flowed from taps.

But for the avoidance of doubt, as advocates of a Yes vote, let’s put something on the record in black and white: There Will Be Cuts.

There are two pillars to the dishonesty constantly perpetuated by the No camp and its allies in the press. The first, of course, is that there will still be MASSIVE cuts to services if Scotland votes No. The UK government isn’t even halfway through its austerity measures, with a huge slab of cuts still to land after the 2015 election no matter whether the Tories or Labour occupy Downing Street.

So the implication that only a Yes vote will bring financial pressures – that independence means cuts while No means keeping everything the way it is now – is enormously disingenuous, and so transparently so that it’s a crude insult to the intelligence of readers, viewers and listeners.

The second aspect is something we’ve touched on before, and it’s the fallacy that an independent Scotland’s finances can be calculated on the basis of a devolved Scotland’s finances. There’s no point becoming independent in the first place just to do everything the same as it’s done now.

So in order to save money, an independent Scotland WILL make cuts. We don’t know which party will be elected as Scotland first sovereign government in three centuries, but the one that’s leading in the polls at the moment is the SNP, and we already know their position with regard to planned spending:

– £800 million a year saved on defence

Not just Trident, but all of the other grossly excessive expenditure currently attributed to the Scottish budget in order that the UK can “punch above its weight on the world stage” by going around bombing brown people. Scotland’s current nominal defence budget is £3.3bn a year. The SNP plans to spend £2.5bn. That frees up a big fat lump of money every single year.

– £50m a year saved on Westminster

Scotland’s contribution to running the Houses Of Parliament. Not any more.

– £200m a year saved on HS2

The UK government’s latest figure for the cost of slightly faster rail journeys between London and Birmingham is £42.6bn. If we make the (enormously optimistic) assumption that the project comes in on budget, Scotland’s population share of the cost will be £3.6bn. HS2 is due to open in 2032, so divided by 18 years that’s £200m a year.

That’s just what we thought of in 30 seconds, and we’ve already found more than a BILLION pounds in savings in Scotland’s budget every single year. That’s a lot of libraries kept open, a lot of nurses kept in work, a lot of infrastructure projects built, and not a penny of tax rises.

September’s referendum isn’t a choice between cuts and no cuts. Both Scotland and the UK run a deficit (although that’s not actually inherently catastrophic – pretty much every nation on Earth except Norway and Switzerland does), and could do with trimming their budgets.

It’s a choice between WHERE you want there to be cuts. Do you want to save the money from the schools budget or the nuclear-submarine budget? Do you want to dump care for the elderly, or a ridiculous vanity rail project that will benefit almost nobody? Do you want your money used to build hospitals, or to rent them from private companies carving off obscene profits?

Our numbers are just the SNP’s ideas. As for what Labour or the Tories would do if they governed an independent Scotland, you’ll have to ask them, because they haven’t told anyone. But the figures above illustrate just a fraction of what’s possible.

So yes, there will be cuts, because being in the UK for 300 years has left us in a mess. The question Scots will have to answer in five months’ time is what they want less of – books or bombs, medicine or missiles, wisdom or wars.