LAST week I extracted big SNP positives from the English local elections. Now, I love being with my political people, folk who care about stuff that matters, but I recognise a metaphorical pat on the head when I hear one. This week I’ll happily swap the moniker Pollyanna for Cassandra.

Natalie Elphicke – politically to the right of Jacob Rees-Mogg (according to Jacob Rees-Mogg) – crossed the floor during PMQs to announce that she was comfy now with Starmer’s Labour.

For some of us, there is a whole heap of not surprise going on right now.

READ MORE: Keir Starmer ‘delighted’ to welcome hard-right Tory MP Natalie Elphicke to Labour

This is not akin to the Tory GP/MP who did the same a few days earlier. Even The Times newspaper recently printed my letter about the appalling state of the NHS.

Elphicke was not motivated by a hollowed-out NHS – a victim of Labour’s introduction of the private sector under Tony Blair and subsequently underfunding and undermining by the Tories (anyone seen Boris Johnson’s 40 NEW hospitals, by the way?) plus the devastation of Brexit.

No, Elphicke is far to the right wing of a right-wing party and she sees herself in Starmer’s Labour. SO – if anyone missed it – this is what I extrapolated for Scotland after the English local election results:  “A Labour vote may oust a Tory government, but only SNP success will end Tory policies.” Shout it loud.

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh

SOMEBODY told me in my younger years that you can often judge people by the company that they keep. The two defections from the Tories during the past week indicate to me that the Labour Party is now keeping company with some very strange bedfellows.

James Finlayson
via thenational.scot

ANYTHING to keep the right-wing Tory brand from dying. Vote Labour, get the same policies. They’ll take anybody except left-wingers.

Roy Loughran
via thenational.scot

ELIZABETH Carr-Ellis, a Hello! Magazine sub-editor in Canterbury (England) is English Labour’s candidate for the new Scottish seat of Angus and Perthshire Glens, a mere 500 miles away. It’s like a scene from Blackadder, except it’s all too real.

But of course, the forthcoming General Election IS a joke. Scotland has two fewer seats to contest, down to 57, while England is up 10, to 543. This is just another imperial snub because in 317 years we’ve not had a snowball’s chance in hell of influencing Westminster. The system has always been rigged against Scotland to facilitate England’s exploitation and plunder of our nation.

READ MORE: Scottish Labour pick candidate from English council 500 miles away

Here’s the proof. The ONS has recently published Scotland’s Natural Capital Accounts for 2023. Natural Capital is another name for a nation’s natural wealth – clean air and water, productive soils, biodiversity, energy resources, forestry, mineral and fish stocks.

These assets are the basis for providing long-term goods and services to the people, except we know our assets are being stolen by our colonial overlord with just enough table scraps being thrown to keep the people from revolting.

The report reveals why our colonial master holds Scotland, with just 8% of the UK population, fast:

• Scotland is 32% of the total UK land area and its total natural capital asset value was £230 billion in 2019, or 13% of the total UK value.

• Scotland’s ecosystem services – their contribution to economic and human activity – are valued at £15bn, 30% of the total UK value.

• Scotland’s value of provisioning services – products extracted, harvested or derived from nature such as food, water, energy, minerals, timber – was £14bn or 57% of the UK total value.

• Scotland provides 73% of UK fish landings, 78% of which were sustainable vs 35% of rUK’s.

• Scotland generates 31% of UK wind electricity, with 86% coming from onshore wind.

• Scotland accounts for 62% of UK timber production.

• Scotland extracted 28% less water between 2003-2017 partly due to fixing water leaks, another benefit of a publicly owned water service.

• Scotland accounts for 11% of the UK annual value in cultural services, defined as the non-material benefit derived from ecosystems through recreation and tourism. 48% of Scots received health benefits from nature vs 37% in England.

READ MORE: The small but potentially crucial changes in John Swinney's Scottish Cabinet

Scotland’s natural capital should benefit the Scottish people. Instead, the UK coloniser has flogged the lion’s share to private corporations and foreign governments, leaving our citizens impoverished. This has been accomplished with the help of Anglo-Scots like English Labour’s Ian Murray and the devolved SNP administration that is a creature of Westminster.

So why are we still participating in this Union farce by sending MPs to the Westminster cesspit? Scottish MPs should quit the toxic English chamber and come home to help end this faux union. If they refuse, then the Scottish people must take matters into their own hands.

Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh