First Minister guilty of hypocrisy over Brexit ‘betrayal’ of Scottish fishermen

The First Minister displays new levels of hypocrisy and brass neck with her declarations on Brexit, with the list becoming ever longer.

However, two basic areas merit comment. Firstly, she continually refers to the “betrayal” of the Scottish fisherman, but in the same breath wants to rejoin the European Union in the unlikely event of independence and consequently subject the fisher- men to the Common Fisheries Policy – to which the European Union will certainly not grant Scotland an exemption.

Secondly, she now sides with those calling for a second referendum now that the terms of the deal are known.

But just let us all reflect back for a moment to the famous Scottish Government (SNP) White Paper produced before theindependencereferendum in 2014 for an example of the economics of oil revenues. The paper stated that: “Tax revenues from oil and gas production will depend on a range of different factors, including future production in the North Sea, wholesale oil and gas prices and profitability. The Fiscal Commission has set out proposals for how such revenues could be managed successfully in an independent Scotland. The Scottish Government has published forecasts for North Sea tax receipts under a range of scenarios.

“Two scenarios are used here. In the first, production is assumed to remain unchanged at current levels, whilst oil prices are assumed to remain unchanged in cash terms at their average level over the two years to March 2013.

“Under such a scenario, Scottish oil and gas receipts are forecast to generate £6.8 billion in tax revenue in 2016/17. In the second scenario, production is forecast to increase more in line with industry forecasts, although at a lower level of profitability. Under this scenario oil and gas receipts could reach £7.9 billion in 2016/17”.

Fast forward to 2016/17 and UK North Sea revenue had collapsed to just £84 million. Should Scotland have voted for independence, which would have occurred on 24 March, 2016, can anyone imagine the scenario where the current First Minister or indeed her predecessor would have been telling the Scottish people that we really ought to have another vote based on an entirely false prospectus delivered in 2014?

Her hypocrisy knows no limits.