A Union of Equals

In 2014 Scotland was ‘love bombed’ by a seemingly endless supply of celebrities and politicians from the major Westminster party machines. We were ‘valued’, ‘equal members of the greatest Union in the world’ and even ‘respected partners’. These messages of support and goodwill toward the Scottish nation were tempered with dire warnings of doom, gloom and despondency should we do the unthinkable and vote to leave the protection of our benevolent partner nations. The oil was running out, we would lose our place in the European Union, our pensions would only be safe with Westminster and, according to Phillip Hammond the Defence Secretary at the time, defenceless Scotland would be invaded within minutes by the Russian Imperialist Army and/or aliens as we would not have the ‘protection’ of a nuclear arsenal. These joint arguments swayed a majority to vote to retain the status quo and on the 19^th September 2014 we remained part of the loving benevolent Union.

What has happened since that date ? Let’s deal with the ‘dire warnings’ issued by Westminster if we had voted Yes.

Oil

It appears that our oil has not run out. Less than three weeks after Indyref BP suddenly announced that not only had they discovered a massive deposit of oil west of Shetland at Clair Ridge, the largest single field found in the northern hemisphere, but that they had invented a new technique called LoSal to extract it. BP had commissioned a massive floating crane called the Thialf to install the required infrastructure on the oil field and that they expected full commissioning of the field in a very short time indeed. All of this happened inside three weeks of Indyref so BP really got on with it didn’t they ? The one little problem that Westminster had was that many of us were aware of the Clair Ridge discovery, and Hurricane, Bentley and all the other named fields west of Shetland. Westminster had denied that any of those existed but the fact remains that they did. Could the silence from BP have anything to do with Cameron’s flying visit to BP in Shetland, using a plane from the Queens Flight, shortly before Indyref ? Cameron missed a Cabinet meeting to go there for five hours. Immediately afterward the work on Clair Ridge was suspended and the workers sent home on full pay. If you research the Thialf floating crane you will discover exactly where it was from July 2014… weirdly it was ‘parked’ right on top of the Clair Ridge oil field. The Thialf is estimated to cost £100,000 a day to hire so who picked up that bill ? The LoSal extraction technique BP had invented was mentioned in Oil Trade magazines and bulletins from 2012 onward yet it was made out to have been invented AFTER Indyref to coincide with the ‘discovery’ of Clair Ridge. Have the Tory party and Westminster deliberately lied to the public ?

Europe

We all know what has happened.. we are out of Europe thanks to Cameron and the Tory party calling the European Referendum. Brexit is coming. The Westminster Unionist party machines told us in 2014 that we could only stay in Europe if we voted No. The Scottish people did that and now we are out of Europe. An overwhelming majority of Scots voted to remain in Europe yet we are out. Westminster refuses to acknowledge that simple fact and ignores the approaches from the Scottish parliament to have a say in the Brexit negotiations with the European Union. We are to put all our faith in the Tory party and Westminster and blandly accept whatever they negotiate with Europe. So much for being ‘equals’ and ‘valued partners’ in 2014. Less than two years after the ‘lovebombs’ of Indyref, we are again completely ignored. It is immaterial what sort of Brexit the Tories negotiate with Europe, hard or soft, it will harm Scotland and it is against the wishes of the Scottish people.

Pensions

Much was made of the loss of our pensions if we had voted Yes. The pensions are only safe if we stay in the Union they said, Westminster has instigated a ‘triple lock’ to make sure that pensions keep up with inflation they said, pensions will fall in value if we vote Yes they said. Look at what is happening now. The Tory party are making noises that the ‘triple lock’ on pension is unaffordable and will be scrapped as soon as they think they can get away with it, certainly by 2020 anyway. The retirement age for women has been raised without any prior notice leaving hundreds of thousands of women with inadequate provision from Westminster and virtually forced into working for another two or three years until they are ‘entitled’ to the pension they had contributed to all their lives. The Daily Express newspaper published in Scotland in April 2014 carried the banner headline ‘Pensions Only Safe in the Union’ together with a warning of the dire consequences of voting Yes. This will have swayed a number of pensioners into voting No. However in the same newspaper, on the same day but published in England, the banner headline was ‘Pension Bombshell’ and detailed an alarming insight into the lack of affordability of the State pension and the lack of personal provision among millions of people heading for retirement. More duplicity.

Trident

The SNP, Green Party and a number of other partner groups in the Yes movement all advocated the removal of the Trident nuclear weapon system from Scotland in the event of a Yes vote to Independence. Westminster party machines warned of the dire consequences of that move citing an invasion by Russia should we remove ourselves from the ‘protection’ of Trident. It all sounded very scary, we were doomed to eat cabbage and drink vodka if we voted Yes. There is a flaw in the argument Westminster put forward, a fact that scuppers the threats made in 2014 and that is Norway. Norway is almost the same size as Scotland. It has a Sovereign Oil fund worth somewhere above £800 billion from oil revenues collected since the 1970’s. It has a small standing army with a completely non-nuclear policy… and a land border with Russia. IF Russia were the great Satan that Westminster paint them to be then why have the Russians not just jumped into their tanks and driven into Norway ? The invasion could be over inside a day and give the Russian Imperialists control over oil in the North Sea and an £800 billion oil fund. However Russia has not done so… why ? Westminster would say because we have Trident, but really, what would Westminster do if Russia did invade Norway ? Nuke it ? Wipe it off the face of the earth ? No because that would be deemed a ‘First Strike’, a weapon of attack, not defence. Westminster have consistently stated that Trident would only be deployed if we were attacked with nuclear weapons first. So why do we have it then ? IF we were attacked first then we would be wiped out, launching a counter-attack would be pointless, an act of retribution not salvation. We would still be dead. Nuclear weapons do not protect us from terrorism and we will not be attacked by Russia so why do we have them again ? Westminster repeatedly claimed that tens of thousands of jobs at Faslane depended upon Trident in 2014, they were lying. Freedom Of Information requests from the MOD revealed that only 550 jobs are directly related to Trident and those jobs would transfer with the weapons system wherever it went. Simple fact.

The comparison between the Westminster attitude to Scotland in 2014 and the present day is like comparing chalk with cheese. The love has gone, we are back to being ignored. We have no say in the running of the ‘United’ Kingdom, we have no say in the direction that Westminster is taking us, our collective wishes are ignored. The warnings dished out as a consequence of Independence have all come to pass since we voted No. Some of us who lived through the first Independence Referendum in 1979 can recall the warnings dished out by Thatcher concerning the consequences of Independence then. She said we wouldn’t be able to keep the coal industry going, we wouldn’t be able to keep our steel industry going, we would lose our car industry because we were too small, too poor and too stupid to succeed. That vote was declared to be a No vote. Guess what happened then ? Thatcher destroyed all of those industries anyway, SHE shut them down. Now look at the similar warnings from Westminster in 2014 and look at what has happened. Westminster cannot be trusted, not at all. We have to get away from them, we have to take our country in another direction, not for our sakes but for our children and grandchildren. We have to be Independent.