ROBERT Anderson has it right in Wednesday’s national. Jamie Hepburn needs to hit the ground running in his new appointment. Too much time and too many opportunities have been missed by the SNP leadership in the past years. Now that we have a brand new minister for independence he had better develop a policy and a programme of action.
Robert’s six point are valid ones, but I would like to add that the Scottish Government need to set up the research agency to collate Scottish economic data, which they promised to do years ago, so that they can ditch the useless GERS “estimates”, and they need to examine carefully a land tax to raise revenue before independence so that they can meet their obligations to the Scottish people currently face with grave cost-of-living problems as a result of Westminster incompetence.
READ MORE: Here's what Jamie Hepburn, our minister for independence, needs to do
Humza can forget continuity – we have had enough of big talk and no action. Humza and Jamie need to take action now and demonstrate to the UK Government that we mean business now, we are no longer about big promises with no action. Show the UK that we have a new leadership with a whole different approach, if you want to restore support for the SNP quickly.
Andy Anderson
Ardrossan
SOME excellent ideas from Robert Anderson. I hope they are given consideration. We really need to get our act together on what is the most important issue. The 2026 Holyrood election allows us to use the list vote for a pro-independence party. If the pro-independence parties have a majority, that is the indication of a mandate to withdraw from the Union. Let’s make this clear from the start, and then we have the end point which we need in order to have a focused campaign.
Cailean P
via thenational.scot
WELL said, Robert Anderson of Dunning. More of this please. I’m losing hope but this is the kind of motivation and support we all need. Take heed, Mr Hepburn.
Valerie Marshall
via email
I JUST had to put pen to paper, as it were, to applaud Robert Anderson’s letter in Wednesday’s National. We have a minister now for independence and we must fight fight fight.
Even with this Peter Murrell setback we can still do these things.
I will never give up on achieving independence. We have all come so far. Fight fight fight TOGETHER!
Irene Wilson
Aberdeen
MUCH ink is being spilled over the arrest of former SNP CEO Peter Murrell. The more interesting issue is why the SNP leadership under Sturgeon failed to advance the cause of Scottish self-determination when the British state was at its weakest.
Apart from the fact that devolution was and always has been a creature of the Union – power devolved is power retained – there’s another reason the Scottish National Party failed the Scottish people.
READ MORE: Stephen Flynn 'shocked' at scale of police operation in Peter Murrell arrest
The SNP elite, either through fear or infiltration by the British state (probably both), lost its nerve when the prospect of restoring Scotland’s independence grew closer. The SNP compromised with its colonial masters and its focus shifted to retaining power. MPs and MSPs became more concerned with maintaining their cushy salaries and enhancing their pension pots.
The SNP leadership also consolidated its power over the members, marginalising and expelling troublesome ones who supported the party’s raison d’etre and women’s rights. It ignored conference decisions, changed the party’s constitution to eliminate all opposition and discussion and focused on marginal issues like gender identity. Before each election, it marched the people up and down the independence hill, never reaching the summit. That was the point.
Many members became disillusioned with what was once a great and democratic party. That’s when the Independence for Scotland Party and Alba emerged. We are now seeing the Scottish people reawaken to their colonial position within the UK. The poverty and deprivation of the colonised Scottish people is equal to the UK’s plunder of Scotland.
To end the plunder and allow Scotland to fully develop, we must end colonialism. Our politicians can’t or won’t do it. A people’s liberation movement, however, can.
Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh
GIVEN the huge police activity and overwhelming media reporting across the UK one could be forgiven for thinking that a modern-day Al Capone had suddenly been traced to a house on the outskirts of Glasgow, and that perhaps not only critical evidence of his alleged crimes but possibly the buried remains of those who had dared to cross him might be discovered at that property.
READ MORE: Humza Yousaf hits out at 'conspiracy theories' over Peter Murrell arrest
Without in any way seeking to downplay a seemingly legitimate and important investigation, is it only in Scotland where everyone, no matter their “position” or to whom they are related, are treated as “equals”, or can we expect similar police activity around each and every one of those who together have recently defrauded the UK Government (and tax-payers across the UK) in relation to Covid contracts?
Will each person complicit in the billing of tens of billions of pounds for unusable PPE and services that failed, along with those in Westminster who promoted Tory Party cronies and friends in the award of associated contracts, face similar police and comparable media attention (including highly prominent coverage by the BBC)?
Where is Baroness Mone?
Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian
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