I AM of course delighted with the decision of the First Minister in going for a referendum on independence in the latter part of 2020. I have suggested this strategy in a number of published articles.
The period 2019/2020 is a totally different proposition from 2014. In the last three years the Project Fear/Vow agenda peddled by the discredited Better Together unholy alliance of the Tories/Labour and LibDems has been exposed to be the total falsehood it always was.
Many No voters believed these hollow promises and voted No. As we all know, much has changed since 2014.
The Scottish Government has got on with the day job and is well on the road to creating the social democracy in Scotland that we all long for. Even right now, living and working in Scotland is a much better prospect than down south. We should as a nation recognise and be proud of what has been achieved over the last three years. The social changes have benefited everyone from those just born through to the older generation and those requiring support due to personal illness and infirmity. All this done with a financial model that depends on what another nation gives us through an ever-decreasing block grant.
During the last three years the real eye-opener for Scotland has of course been Brexit. Although our response has been that Scotland has “been taken out against its will” with an overwhelming majority for staying, of course it also creates a fundamental change in circumstances that allows the triggering of another referendum.
Important that these issues are, they are not in my view as important as Brexit finally and unequivocally providing prima face evidence that Scotland is NOT an equal member of this so-called UK; NOT a precious member of the UK; does NOT have a place at the negotiating high table; that devolution is NOT recognised by England; that its voice is NOT heard in the press or on the BBC and other networks.
The National alone of all the press objectively pursues and voices our cause and agenda, highlighting that in Westminster we are mere bystanders, ridiculed, derided, shouted at, shown total indifference with our country at the mercy of a majority we will never be able to overcome. The system is loaded against Scotland. Westminster cannot and never will represent the Scottish people’s interest and futures.
Brexit has been the vehicle to finally show that the UK political structure is broken and the nations that supposedly make up this political state other than England are also-rans, ignored, under suffrage and are not recognised as nations. British nationalism is in the ascendency in England; we are not part of this development.
All I will say is that any discerning Scot who has been watching the Brexit phenomena as it has unfolded must see that Scotland’s position in this United Kingdom has no future either socially or economically. To sit by and idly act as the bystander will simply consign us forever as a subject nation with no say, to continue to be humiliated, with no input into the future of the UK, forced to accept elected Westminster governments we never elected. Surely for the sake of our children and our grandchildren we have to say enough is enough.
The task for the SNP government and all Yes supporters and Yes organisations is to ensure that what has happened to our country over the last three year is converted into understandable simple messages, even when this may prove difficult, eg currency. Our voters, and particularly those who previously voted No, must get a clear message of why it is time for us to achieve independence.
Dan Wood
Kirriemuir
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