Referendum is about people, not politicians

This referendum is not about the politicians, it is about the people. What I find hardest to deal with when canvassing is not definite No voters who believe that the UK is important to them.

The most depressing and what I believe is the greatest reason we need independence is the good people who have little hope or self-respect because they have been made to feel inferior and vulnerable by years of actions, lies and insinuations. Once proud people of independent mind have been made compliant through reduction of their self respect and the instillation of fear.

Scotland was deliberately undermined by the closing of steelworks, coal mines, heavy industries and the all but complete destruction of the vast ship building industry which, given proper management and investment, could have had a great future.

But the priority of that UK government, which Scotland did not vote for, was to crush unions and their members even at the cost of destroying these industries and make us feel too dependent to consider leaving the UK, taking our oil and gas with us. That Conservative government put many Scots on the scrap heap, then condemned them as‘subsidy junkies’.

We were lied to in the 1970s about the true worth of the oil and still are told the myth that Scotland is being subsidised by England when the reverse is true. Claims continue that we are too small, too poor, too stupid, just generally not good enough to possibly be independent and run our own country. The reality is that it is Westminster which has got us in £1.4 trillion of debt despite oil and gas and austerity.

UK governments, dominated by millionaires, increasingly rule by greed and fear rather than serve and support the people. The UK runs on fear. People are kept in their place by decimating unions, encouraging huge amounts of personal debt, the fear of losing your home and reducing welfare to levels below sustainable existence. Soon we’ll have creeping NHS privatisation and further austerity to contend with. Many people increasingly feel they have little control over their lives, leading to stress, lack of hope and an increasing lack of self respect.

You must ask yourself what level of self-respect will you have if you lose this opportunity to do things differently due to fear instilled in you by the very establishment you could have chosen to leave? Is that likely to lead to success and happiness?

What self-respect will you have by voting ‘No’ resulting in continuing policies which increase inequality, austerity, child poverty and food banks?

If we don’t respect ourselves why should anyone else.

We must escape from this relationship with UK governments whose views and priorities are increasingly divergent from ours.

We have a chance to put our futures in our own hands. We have a chance to forego greed and the importance of the pecking order.

Let’s release the great energy of people who begin again to believe in themselves and their potential. Vote for the chance of a government that does not try to rule the people but to serve them.

We can do this. We should do this. We must vote “Yes” for independence. Jim Stamper, 40 Burnside Road, Rutherglen.