A history of oppression that makes it hard to believe anyone supports the Union

For more than 300 years Scotland has been exploited, scorned and robbed. Her people have been abused, ethnically cleansed and deprived of the means to earn a living, as happened in all other colonies of the Empire. After this history of oppression why is it that half the Scottish population still supports the Union?

The Act of Union was signed by a few aristocrats in 1707 and many articles in the Act ben- efited them and other landowners. But the Union was vigorously opposed by the population right up until the ’45, after which any resistance was brutally suppressed. The clan system was dismantled and Highland dress, the pipes and weapons were outlawed.

From the 18th to the 19th centuries the Clearances were inflicted on Scotland. People who had farmed their land for generations were forced off it, their houses burned, and left with the few possessions they could carry – all to satisfy the greed of a few; and all done legally.

Fast forward to the 1980s and the brutality that was Thatcherism. Without any compassion whatsoever, whole industries were decimated and a fifth of the working population became unemployed, without any planning for job creation. Shipbuilding, steel production, textiles, the ju te industry, engineering and coal mining; all gone. In 1989 the ill-fated poll tax was introduced at fabulous expense, a year earlier than in the rest of the UK. Just one instance of many when the Scots have been treated with contempt.

Another example is the disproportionally high casualty rate of Scottish soldiers in two world wars. But then as far as Whitehall is concerned, the Scots are always expendable.

Even though the referendum of 2014 is recent history, the disgraceful behaviour of the Unionist side is legendary. Project Fear stalked the vulnerable and gullible.

It is extraordinary that even today there are Scottish voters who support Unionist parties whose loyalties are to London, when it is only the SNP which is fighting Scotland’s corner.

In the past the factories of famous manufacturers have closed without intervention. Caterpillar, Linwood, Timex, Boots, Johnson and Johnson, NCR and Hoover; all closed with barely a murmur from Westminster. Contrast that with the SNP’S efforts to save the Dalzell and Clydebridge steel plants, and the Bifab yard in Methil.

How much more discrimination will some Scots endure before they wake up to the only future which is sustainable for Scotland? RICHARD WALTHEW

Duns, Berwickshire