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

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 Scotland, where he said the UK’s primary concern during the pandemic was the risk of Scottish independence. Gove’s recommendation to the English cabinet? Wait for it – to politicise its response in Scotland by strengthening its case for the union.

The supine BBC Scotland omitted any mention of Gove’s paper. Scotland’s secession from the failing UK is England’s worst nightmare. It will do anything – lie, steal, obfuscate and even politicise!! – to prevent an independent Scotland. 

Without Scotland’s wealth and resources, this sham of a union is toast. Scotland has buttressed the UK economy not only since the discovery of North Sea oil, but for well over 120 years. 

From 1900-1921, the UK government produced a set of accounts, Revenue and Expenditure for England (including Wales), Scotland and Ireland (the reports are available at the National Library of Scotland – see below). During this period, Scotland provided the UK Treasury with £762.3mn and received back just £211mn, or 27.7%. Converted from 1911 prices, this is equivalent to £2.5bn a year, more than the £1.5bn oil-rich Scotland sent to Westminster between 1979-97.

The UK government ceased publication when Ireland became independent, not wanting Scotland to get any ideas. 

Gove and the UK establishment including Starmer’s Labour in Name Only (LINO) party are keen to keep Scots in the dark about their wealth and how it is keeping a sinking UK above the water line. It’s time we opened our eyes. We’re being robbed blind. 

Here’s how to access the data: If you have a National Library of Scotland membership (it’s free), go online (NLS.uk), login and and click on Eresources. Under ‘Browse by resource title’, go to the letter U and type in UK Parliamentary Papers. Scroll down and click on the hyperlink to accessthe papers (https://auth.nls.uk/eresources/goto/36). Then in the search bar type, “Revenue and Expenditure (England, Scotland and Ireland) 1901” or any year up to 1921, and you will get a link to the parliamentary papers. From here you can download the pdf of that year’s report. There’s no composite set of accounts for all 21 years, so you need to go year by year. I’ve included some screenshots below for the 1910 report, showing total revenue collected and the contribution by each nation to ‘Imperial Services’.

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...

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,...

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,...

‘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,...