Truth about Brexit
TOMMY Sheppard MP tells us the Brexit campaign was the most deceitful in British history.
He appears to have forgotten the deceitful campaign run by his own party in Scotland in 2013-14.
It has escaped his memory that Alex Salmond promised that an independent Scotland would continue to use sterling after Messrs Osborne, Balls and Alexander had ruled that out, and that Alex Salmond ‘guaranteed’ the Royal Navy would build complex warships in an independent Scotland, something that was not in Mr Salmond’s gift.
Mr Sheppard forgets Mr Salmond claimed oil was simply ‘a bonus’, whereas Andrew Wilson, chairman of Nicola Sturgeon’s Growth Commission, has said in plain English that the proceeds from oil were ‘baked into’ the 2013 White Paper, the SNP prospectus on independence.
That is, apart from the numerous lies told by Yes campaigners about the UK taking credit for Scottish exports through English ports (it doesn’t) and that the UK appropriates Scotland’s rightful share of ‘whisky export tax’, a tax that does not exist.
There are also the lies told about Scots paying for London’s infrastructure developments, such as Crossrail and sewerage upgrades. We do not pay for these.
And SNP members told lies about an iScotland continuing to receive UK renewables’ subsidies and research funding after separation.
Now, with Brexit imminent, the SNP forgets that what it and its supporters voted for in 2014 was to leave the EU, on March 24, 2016 – an independent Scotland would by now have been out of the EU for 18 months, with little chance of being permitted to join.
Jill STEPHENSON, edinburgh.
LABOUR and the SNP claim to be united on one thing: Opposing a ‘hard Tory Brexit’.
But hold on. Given the number of people who voted Leave both in the UK as a whole and here in Scotland, very many must be supporters of Labour or the SNP – they can’t all be Tories. No wonder the majority complain their views are not respected by politicians. They can’t even reflect the views of their own members.
Julie Smith, perth.