Mishmash of worn out tropes hides elephant in the room

Going by the length of John Newall’s reply to my letter on England’s disastrous Brexit, forced upon Scotland against our democratic wishes, I had expected better than the mishmash of worn out tropes and John Bull exceptionalism trotted out by Mr Newall.

Mr Newall makes great play of the successful roll-out of the Covid vaccine in Scotland and the UK, and it has been a fantastic achievement, but to then use this to denigrate the EU’s vaccine programme is crass and over simplistic.

Our success is an illusion until both doses of vaccine are administered. Crowing about vaccines when only 0.80 per cent of the UK population has had the vital second jag compared, for example, to 2.87 per cent in Denmark, is presumptuous and inappropriate.

Mr Newall goes on to assert that Scotland has a deficit that will prevent Scotland re-entering the EU without mentioning the elephant in the room, the UK’s ruinous £2 trillion – and increasing – debt.

Of course, legally, Scotland has no ‘deficit’ or ‘debt’. How can a country with virtually no borrowing ability have a debt? What Scotland does have is a notional ‘debt’, where spending outwith Scotland’s control is assigned to Scotland, such as Trident, HS2 and London’s Crossrail.

Indeed, if Courier readers start counting now at the rate of one a second, they’ll reach the number of pounds spent on Boris Johnson’s failed Track and Trace system at about 9.45am on April 24 in the year 2718.

Straight from the ‘Better Together’ playbook, Mr Newall brings up the hoary old ‘Spanish veto’ myth.

The truth is Spain has no issue with an independent Scotland in the EU so long as this is within the framework of the UK constitution – which it is. Scotland is not a ‘region’ of the UK. There is no constitutional prohibition on independence votes or indeed of Scotland abrogating the 1707 Treaty of Union with England.

This is why successive prime ministers, from Margaret Thatcher to David Cameron, have repeatedly recognised the right of the Scottish people to independence – and why Boris Johnson’s ‘No’ will run into the sand. Mr Newall and I will never agree but that is the essence of democracy and the right to choose in a free country.

Scotland can either remain, semi-detached and impotent, as part of an increasingly insular Little Englander Tory Britain, bringing in its wake further austerity and diminished life chances for our young people, or Scots can vote for independence, just like our neighbours.

Yes, there will be difficult choices, yes, there will be mistakes, but they will be our decisions to get right as we work for the prosperous, open and internationalist country that is within our grasp.

Ron Wilson, secretary, Kintyre SNP.