Addressing ‘factual errors’ in previous letter
I shall leave John Newall to respond to Ron Wilson’s letter in last week’s Courier, if he so wishes, but I cannot let that letter from the Kintyre SNP secretary pass without comment from me regarding some factual errors contained therein.
Mr Newall is quite correct in his assertion that Scotland’s deficit will be a major stumbling block to an independent Scotland joining the EU, and whatever debt the UK may or may not have is neither here nor there with regard to this. Mr Wilson is trying to muddy the waters there.
Whilst Mr Wilson is correct that Scotland cannot have debt (though no one said that it did), Scotland does have deficit, and the reason we know this is because the SNP-run Scottish Government tells us so in the annual Government Revenue and Expenditure, Scotland (table S.1); but Mr Wilson contradicts himself by going on to say that Scotland has a ‘notional debt’ (whatever that is).
Scotland has no debt. Scotland cannot have debt. Mr Wilson needs to realise that debt and deficit are two different things.
With regard to HS2, yes, Scotland pays a two per cent share of the total cost but will receive approximately 8.3 per cent back in Barnett consequentials. THAT is a very good deal for Scotland. London’s Crossrail? Not a single penny for that will be paid for by Scotland.
Mr Wilson goes on to say that there is no ‘prohibition on independence votes’. Another error from him.
Section 30 of The Scotland Act 1998, the act which allowed us to have a devolved assembly and to which the then Scottish Office signed up, lays down the exact process required. We need permission from HMGov.
Oh, and the notion that Scotland can abrogate the Treaty Of Union is also wrong.
Whilst Westminster is a parliament of equals, it cannot of itself dissolve the Treaty of Union of which it was not itself a progenitor.
That is the prerogative of the suspended national parliaments of England and Scotland, which will require to be recalled from suspension ‘in abeyance ad interim’ where they legitimately reside at the present time.
Only the recalled national parliaments of Scotland and England may re-negotiate the 1707 Treaty of Union.
I would take this opportunity to remind Mr Wilson of two things: we had a referendum in 2014 and voted to stay in the UK, and he should really learn to live with that; and in no election ever, General or Scottish, has the SNP garnered more than 50 per cent of the vote.
Michael McGeachy, Campbeltown.