IF Labour support for independence is increasing, doesn’t this mean real problems for Unionists struggling to make cogent argument against leaving the UK (Almost four in 10 Labour voters back Scottish independence, September 25)?
In January 2013, with the referendum set for the following year, support for independence had fallen to 23%. After the campaign, the referendum delivered support of 45% – a seismic increase although short of the majority required.
Today, even before campaigning has begun, the creditable British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey records the highest level of support in Scotland for independence at 52% – a foundation that can only be built on given both the breaking of the promises made in 2014 by the Better Together campaign and the state of the UK today.
READ MORE: SNP publish their written argument in indyref2 Supreme Court case
We were told in 2014 that Scotland’s economy could not support being independent and that pro-indy claims it could were uncosted and unsubstantiated, and therefore false. Well, isn’t this Tory Westminster government’s mini-Budget entirely uncosted, the impact on the economy not fully understood, and Chancellor Kwarteng refusing to allow the Office for Budget Responsibility, whose remit is to assess it, to do so. It’s OK for Tory- renegade-controlled Westminster to spend our money without having to account for it – amply demonstrated by the huge unaccounted for sums that disappeared during the pandemic – but everyone else must have their plans costed to a minute degree? You couldn’t make this up.
In 2014 we were told our EU membership was only assured by remaining in the UK union. Didn’t that turn out to be a lie? We’re out, and suffering from losing the constraints of the EU on obscene bankers’ bonuses and the other financial wheezes those funding Brexit expected as their reward for doing so. The UK has been trashed so the flash-boy rich set can boost their wealth while impoverishing the rest of us with lop-sided measures that herald energy poverty and greater reliance on food banks for the minions – welcome to the sixth-biggest economy in the 21st century, designed and crafted by 12 years of lying Tory deviousness, greed, selfishness and incompetence.
In 2014 we were told that Scotland’s fossil fuel reserves would have run out by now, when the Westminster government was sitting on data at the time showing huge reserves available – a barefaced lie and information withheld because it would have driven a coach and horses through the claim Scotland’s economy was weak. Now they’re dishing out exploitation licences for these hitherto “phantom” reserves to their Tory-donating pals to make huge profits, in complete contradiction to climate change requirements, and all while refusing to claw back the excess profits even the energy-producing companies didn’t expect, and only achieved because the market is broken and in urgent need of control.
Now is the hour. Scottish political aspirations have never been more at odds with the contemporary ultra-right-wing Westminster circus. They lied to us in 2014. They lied to us about austerity – just a ruse to depress wages and living standards. They lied to us with Brexit – our trading harmed, jobs lost and prices going through the roof. The energy market is broken and we minions are supposed to be grateful our prices have only risen by more than 100%. The rich get richer, Kwarteng laughs at us as he pulls off his party’s latest heist. Nothing of what was promised in 2014 has come to bear. Just more slap-downs, with even devolution being over-ridden by the political shysters that “govern” us. Truss, sensing defeat, intending to move the goalposts of the referendum she knows is coming, her move a folly that will surely antagonise, and reinforce that any pretence Britain has of being a democracy is finally extinguished.
What else do we need to know? The forthcoming court ruling must be the starting gun resounding all over the land to get this campaign fully under way – its loud report the clarion call to end 314 years of penury inflicted on Scotland that needs to be ended.
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh
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