PAGES 4 and 5 of Thursday’s National says it all (We can’t afford to stay in the UK, August 27).

So, why are we still in it? We’ve had the excuse that we had to wait to see what was happening with Brexit. But we’ve known for almost a year exactly what was going to happen with Brexit.

Regardless of what Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland want we will be gifted a No-Deal Brexit by Boris Johnson. So, who’s fault is this? Well, everybody blames Boris and in a way that’s true.

However, we have a devolved government at Holyrood whose main function, after taking care of the day job, is to get us independence. Why aren’t they pushing for it? The opinion polls show a majority want it, but still Holyrood falters.

Today’s GERS figures merely confirm what anybody who was active in the Yes movement back in the days of the 2014 referendum already knew. Westminster is prepared to “cook the books” against Scotland to frighten people into believing we are dependent on England for our financial survival.

The reverse is true. England is heavily subsidised by Scotland. We are being charged a share of HS2, which will travel between London and Leeds but won’t come near Scotland. We are charged a share of Trident that we don’t want. We are now also being charged for the labour involved in the construction of two aircraft carriers. In actual fact the Scottish Government should have charged Westminster the labour costs as they are their ships and not ours. Defence is not devolved.

It is estimated the tax that Norway will pay in respect of drilling for and extracting Scottish oil from Scottish waters, (The Moray Firth), will be around

£5 billion. England will take £4.2bn as their share and we will get a mere £480 million for our oil taken from off our coast – not England’s coast, our coast!

And that’s only the latest tax gains for England from Scottish oil. Norway managed to build up a €2 trillion reserve fund that it is now able to dip into to help their economy against Covid. London, with more oil coming from Scottish waters than Norway had, has managed to accumulate a

£2tn national debt and they have the cheek to charge some of it to us after taking the lion’s share of the tax from our oil! They have, in fact, squandered our money.

But then, we can’t go for independence right now because of Covid. (Good excuse! But that’s all it is, just an excuse!) Instead, we just have to sit and bear the food shortages and medicine shortages plus the damage to our economy that are all predicted as a result of Boris’s No-Deal Brexit. Do we really have a devolved government that can’t deal with more than one important issue at a time?

We have all sorts of talented people in the SNP although many of them are busy wasting their time in London. Their presence there achieves absolutely nothing for Scotland. It’s time we drew some of our big guns back from Westminster to push for a referendum before the end of this year.

Never mind if Boris consents to it. Do it anyway and then let him try to come up with a reason why he should not accept the sovereign will of the Scottish people which has already been officially recognised in the Westminster Parliament as being sacrosanct.

We have just four months before we are dragged out of the EU against our will and have to suffer the undoubted austerity, poorer food standards and removal of workers’ rights that will be the result of it.

Our government should not wait for that to happen. They’ve tried fighting it Westminster’s way and that hasn’t worked. It’s time for more drastic action, but the big question is “Does the SNP have the guts to do it on our behalf?” I sincerely hope they have.
Charlie Kerr
Glenrothes