The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Scots being kept in the dark about the benefits of supporting independence
Sir, – The lessons of the past shape our future – whatever the mess the UK is in, the best political outlook for Scotland is to embrace the bright Scottish future so seize it as your own. We are a rich country.
Leave the doommongering and pessimism to others, resist the urge to say we were robbed and focus on the prospects of a future different to the Brexit wreckage at Westminster.
In 1974 civil servant Gavin McCrone produced a paper for the Scottish Office which looked at the implications for Scotland, its economy including the revenue from North Sea oil and what that could mean for an independent Scotland.
The Labour government were struggling with a host of problems – inflation peaking at 27%, public spending constraints, strikes and the electoral threat from the SNP (see the similarities to today).
McCrone wrote that Scotland would have a chronic surplus to quite an embarrassing degree and its currency would become the hardest in Europe with the exception of the Norwegian Krone. The Scottish pound would be seen as a good hedge against inflation and devaluation so the Scottish banks could expect to find themselves inundated with speculative inflow of foreign funds.
The Westminster clique was worried stiff about these prospects so the report was hidden until 2005 when the SNP succeeded in accessing it through a freedom of information request.
Many politicians admitted that had the report been published in the 1970s, things could have been dramatically changed.
It wasn’t, so it didn’t, as we did not know, so we have an establishment stitch-up in action.
Substantial oil revenues did not reach the Treasury until 1980 when Thatcher was PM. The Norwegian oil fund, now worth $1.3 trillion, was not created until 1990.
In 2018, former Tory MP Michael Heseltine told Holyrood that Thatcher squandered the billions from North Sea oil on her short-term consumer boom when she should have invested it. The focus on personal consumption fuelled by tax breaks was, in his words, a key failing of Thatcher philosophy.
In 2019, Boris Johnson arranged for a poll to be conducted on independence for Scotland. Cabinet Secretary Michael Gove has since refused to divulge details from the poll.
An SNP MP won a ruling that these details must be released for several reasons, including transparency regarding the use of public funds. This argument has gone on for many months but we still don’t
know the result from this Westminster crowd.
In 2021, two Westminster government advisers produced a paper on Scottish independence which was dynamite, but has since been censored by the London School of Economics where they are based. Fat chance.
The authors, Drs Chapman and Scott, said the views expressed in their article were their own.
They point out the considerable political and legal difficulties and dangers which would arise if the UK Government attempted to block a referendum in the courts, once the Scottish Parliament had received a democratic mandate from the Scottish electorate to do so.
This could be settled by a ruling from the UK Supreme Court but there are reasons for being hesitant towards becoming entangled and hindering the legislative process of a democratically-elected parliament.
The UK Government may oppose such a course
of action but it will need to be clearly articulated and is very challenging – more political than legal.
They also state if Scotland attempted unilateral secession from the UK, it would be more likely to be recognised as a state by other states and international organisations. In addition, if voting in the UN General Assembly is anything to go by, they see no reason whatsoever why other states would side with the UK position assuming it opposed secession. Sounds like the UK is not popular with other countries.
Scotland has all the necessary machinery in place to become an independent state and I see no obvious reasons why it could not succeed economically.
Boris Johnson has never seemed to bother about the wishes of those in Scotland, or Northern Ireland and Wales for that matter.
When he says there is a lack of consent or mandate his hypocrisy has reached a new low which is now scraping the barrel.
There is one other way of blocking IndyRef2 – a private individual, an exceedingly rich Tory supporter, taking the Scottish Government to court to stop this but that won’t happen, will it?
Well there are a lot of them about.
Vote Tory, get rich, stay rich, simple.