Dear Scotland: contemporary views on how and why the union harms scotland

In an independent Scotland, we could sack the government

Labour MP Ian Murray says the first duty of government is to keep its citizens safe. But he doesn’t say how a Starmer Labour government can conceivably do so when it is studiously copying its policies from a Tory playbook which has delivered the discredited, incompetent and failed government of the last 13 years. The UK electorate is being offered more of the same. Starmer is the preferred choice of the British establishment, the ultimate continuity candidate. There is no alternative.

No one mentions what is blindingly obvious. Like the US, the two main UK political parties, both English, have become the UK uni-party. This happened because there is no democracy in the UK – the first past the post electoral system prevents it. If there were, you’d see dissent, debate, and political alternatives to the uni-party. You’d have a media that would air divergent viewpoints and encourage public debate. You’d see more people standing for office and new political parties emerging that reflected the issues and concerns of the majority of people.

The uni-party can’t risk letting in even a chink of democracy because then it would crumble. The oligarchs who control the British establishment and the media and who fund both parties, won’t allow it because democracy is an existential threat to their power and control. They’d rather fund foreign wars than keep people here safe.

The fear of democracy is why Labour ditched its manifesto pledge to introduce proportional representation that would give people a real voice. Starmer will do the bidding of the establishment by doubling down on failure. We will end up with him as the next PM and absolutely nothing will change.

That’s why Scotland must end this union.

Leah Gunn Barrett

Sovereignty resides with the Scottish people and always has

WHY is the Scottish government failing to comply with the expressed sovereign will of the people of Scotland? The Scottish Parliament was not abolished in 1707, it merely stopped sitting. Since the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, sovereignty has resided with the...

What the UK doesn’t want you to know

The oleaginous Michael Gove was caught with his pants down at the Covid Enquiry in Edinburgh. After charging the Scottish Government with political opportunism, KC Jamie Dawson brandished Gove’s Cabinet paper, delivered just before Johnson parachuted into...

How the Union has robbed the Scottish People

Since the 1707 Treaty of Union, Scotland’s wealth has been stolen and exploited by our larger “partner” in an ongoing act of colonisation. The definition of colonialism is economic exploitation by a dominant power that exercises political control over its colony. This...

A Rogue in a Parcel O’ Them

The new Scottish Labour MP Michael Shanks will speak at the Scotland in Union Burns supper later this month. Quelle surprise.  During the by-election campaign Shanks said the constitutional debate was something ‘we have to completely...

A clear route to Independence lies in front of the SNP

THE letter from William Golden in last Thursday’s National echoes similar calls which have been endlessly recorded in the paper for the last six months. The answer to William’s call is never – we will never see the SNP put forward an exciting,...

‘Scotland is not a colony’, and other myths that need cleared up

SEVERAL commentators last week [w/b 15.10.23] insisted that “Scotland is not a colony”, and that British rule over Scotland cannot be seen as colonial in nature. This bears some clearing up. On the most trivial level, ­“Scotland is not a colony” because “colony” was...

The Common Good or Private Profit?

It’s said that the US Congress is the best that money can buy. Corporate cash and the revolving door between it and Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Oil, and the military industrial complex has destroyed democratic accountability. Where America goes, so goes its...

How the Public Good is replaced by the pursuit of profit

It’s said that the US Congress is the best that money can buy. Corporate cash and the revolving door between it and Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Oil, and the military industrial complex has destroyed democratic accountability. Where America goes, so goes its...

England’s Reliance on Scotland

Unionists often write that Scotland is indebted to the UK. In fact, the reverse is true. The British state's plans to use oil and gas to “power-up Britain” relies on 90% of its supply from Scotland. It's not just old energy that England steals from Scotland. A quarter...

The UK Needs Scotland

Douglas Ross giving economic advice to Scotland is lunacy. We’d be crazy to let the Tories continue their wrecking ball policies by electing even more of them in Scotland. This is the party that brought us over a decade of austerity that has gutted public services,...