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I CONFESS that, having read the various articles in The National on the latest independence paper, I remain somewhat unsure as to the subtle difference signing or not signing up to the nuclear weapons treaty will make.
I also confess that, like 99.9% of the Scottish electorate, I do not care enough to read the actual paper. The independent Scotland it refers to does not yet exist. The actions of the Scottish Government and the SNP over the past 10 years lead me to believe that independence is now a fair bit away and, at best, sometime after the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2031.
My five-year-old car came with a 750-page owner’s manual. I have read only a very few pages of it. I needed to know how the central locking worked, how to cancel the “change oil” warning light and operate the cruise control.
These independence papers are like the detailed owner’s manual for a concept car. A car that is still on the drawing board with sadly no guarantee it will ever be built. If it finally makes it into production, the world will probably be a very different place. In a few short years Covid, Gaza and Ukraine have changed the politics of the planet. Global warming will increasingly form part of everyone’s day-to-day agenda.
I do not know how many of these independence papers are still in the pipeline. I fear the previous ones are already gathering dust on a shelf somewhere in St Andrew’s House.
The General Election is only a few months away. 99.9% of the folk who will take the time to vote do not care if, at some point in the possibly distant future, Scotland will or will not sign this nuclear treaty. I suspect they care more about how they and their family will get through the next year or two, pay their bills, keep their job, are able to send their children to a decent school, see their GP when they need to, wait not too long for medical treatment, in essence live in relative comfort.
The SNP and the Scottish Government need to spend a bit more time helping them to achieve that aim.
Sandra West
Dundee