Dispelling myths over independence

Sir, – I notice a big increase in the number of letters from our unionist friends disparaging independence, which surprises me, as those same folk are telling us that indyref2 won’t be allowed to happen. Maybe they know something I don’t.

We’ve already had the “Scotland’s too poor” narrative (that’s not the case if we can keep all money raised here and decide how to spend it); “Scotland will be invaded by the Russians after indy” (why didn’t that happen to Ireland?); “we won’t be able to pay our pensioners” (GERS tells us that national insurance raised here is about £11.5 billion per year, and pensions will take about £8.5 billion of that). I think we can forget about historic national insurance already paid – that has already been spent by our friends in Westminster.

We can expect more scare stories from those who prefer the constitutional status quo. We can watch out for one I heard last week that has not yet graced the P&J letters page: “Scotland has too much green energy potential to be independent”. A bizarre assertion, I think we can agree. I remember we were told in 2014 that the oil was running out so we couldn’t be independent – they can’t have it both ways!

Willie Dunbar, Deeside Gardens, Aberdeen.