THE way the UK governments have dealt with the McCrone Report has treated the Scottish people with contempt. Largely due to this deceit, while pretending Scotland was a respected part of the UK, many Scots were not convinced to vote for Scottish independence.
Another factor was a belief by many that the wisdom and strength of the UK Government would be better at handling the oil and gas resources. Instead, by a mixture of sheer incompetence and deliberate political decisions, including the privatisation of the industry by a Conservative government Scotland didn’t vote for, between 1969 and 2015 the UK Government only achieved a revenue per barrel of oil equivalent (BOE) of $11. This is in comparison with $29.8 per BOE achieved by the Norwegian Government, which retained public ownership in the industry.
READ MORE: This is how the McCrone Report saw the light of day DECADES later
Had Scotland been independent it would have had an 80% geographical share of the UK oil and gas revenue. Even if the industry had been run as the UK Government did, the revenue would have exceeded £53,000 per person in Scotland. Had it been run as Norway did, that revenue would have been about £140,000 per person. This is in comparison with the £5,679 share per person as part of the UK.
In addition the Norwegian Government set up a sovereign wealth fund in which it saves and invests much of the revenue, including in other Norwegian industries, for when the oil and gas resource is depleted. In 2019 that fund was valued at more than $1 trillion (£706 billion). In comparison the UK Government, one of very few that had such a resource and didn’t set up a sovereign wealth fund, now has achieved a national debt exceeding £2tr. Had Scotland been independent, with its geographical share of oil and gas and dealt with it as Norway has, we could have had a credit per person equivalent to more than £110,000. Instead Scots as UK citizens share a UK debt equivalent to more than £35,000 per person.
We should no longer accept being run by incompetent UK government we didn’t vote for and with policies contrary to the good and the wishes of the majority of the Scottish people.
Jim Stamper
Bearsden
I HAVE just finished reading McCrone in Thursday’s National and I guess that I am not the only Scot, nationalist or not, who is spitting blood at the enormity of the calumny inflicted on the whole Scottish nation by the cohort of criminals in Westminster who presided over the calculated deception and theft of Scotland’s North Sea oil wealth.
These criminals deliberately and maliciously conspired to blight the lives of the current and future generations of the populations of our country. No words of anger can ever touch the depths of evil of this deception.
However, there must be a means of bringing retribution on the organ which presided over this crime: the strangulation of the hopes of a nation. The organ which executed this dire deed is the Westminster government. There must be a mechanism in international law which can be initiated to put the Westminster government on trial for crimes against Scotland: abuse of power, fraud, theft, conspiracy and worse, the deliberate misappropriation of a nation’s future prosperity! Do we have a Scottish legal mind out there who would start the process of obtaining justice for the people of Scotland, who were severely let down by the Scottish MPs who were party to this horrendous deception upon them!
Eric McArthur
Dalmuir
HAVING failed to get out without a deal at the end of January, Boris Johnson has dumped the political declaration and surrounded the UK with red lines for these negotiations; back on course for a no-deal break with the EU at the end of December.
Boris Johnson will probably lead a walkout by the UK from these negotiations wrapped in a Union flag, the people’s hero showing that he is willing to leave the EU without a deal for 99.9% of the economy because the EU will not agree to his interpretation of a fair deal for the fishing industry, the remaining 0.1%.
The fishermen will be euphoric, until they discover that without a trade agreement there are tariffs, mountains of new paperwork on origin, food hygiene and consignment as well as problems in the processing industry due to the reduction in the number foreign workers allowed into the UK.
The Britnats will be euphoric at taking back control over UK waters as well as UK borders, until they discover that with hardly any trade agreements in place the UK has left much more than the EU. We will all discover to our cost that UK membership of the World Trade Organisation is not a substitute for trade agreements.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
SHOULD I be upset at your disappointment, J Taylor (Letters, February 28)? I’m not. Your letter just does what I was commenting about. Your opinions have filled many a column in The National and I am sure you must be pleased at the airing of your opinions. I have over those years despaired, not at the criticism of any of the policy or stance that anyone takes, but at the increasing negativity. It is always easy to criticise, and it is important as you say that that is an option, but criticism without positive constructive support is what is creeping in and I am entitled to see this as corrosive.
The apparent construct that one person’s opinion has more value and currency than another, particularly if he/she is considered “ famous” or appears often in a print, is insidious! I would hate to see that spread to the detriment of the movement to independence. Don’t patronise those with an opinion that does not echo yours. Voice it by all means, but enough of the “Stepford” comments, Mr Taylor.
E Ahern
East Kilbride
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