When you look at how the British State has treated Scotland and our people since the union began in 1707, it’s a wonder that the union – the UK – is still intact. We are subjected to abuse, sneering laughter, patronising comments and, worst of all, the blatant theft of our natural resources.
It started before the union had even begun. Daniel Defoe (yep, he of Robinson Crusoe fame) was an English spy during the treaty negotiations. He made this comment (among many like it) in November 1706:
“The Scots will be allowed to send to Westminster, a handful of men who will make no weight whatever. They will be allowed to sit there for form’s sake to be laughed at.”
During the passage of the Act of Union in the old English parliament in 1706, an MP shouted:
“We have Scotland on the rack now!”
To which the speaker of the parliament, John Smith, cackled in reply:
“We have catch’d Scotland and will bind her fast.”
According to the Treaty of Union, a new parliament called the Parliament of Great Britain, would begin on May 1, 1707. But that was ignored. The new Scots MPs and Peers were just ‘co-opted’ into the existing English parliament. It simply changed its name to the Parliament of Great Britain and carried on as if nothing of significance had happened.
On that May Day morning in 1707, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, observed of the new Scottish MPs as they trooped into parliament:
“To find themselves obscure and unhonoured in the crowd of English society, where they were despised for their poverty, ridiculed for their speech, sneered at for their manners and ignored in spite of their votes by the ministers and government.”
That was the start of it. Despite the Treaty, Scotland was simply co-opted into the English system and the capturing of Scotland by the new ‘UK’ was complete. Even today, the UK insists that it’s in charge of us uppity Scotch and that if we want to leave the union we need to ask permission. And when we do, they laugh and tell us to get back in our box.
Perhaps the most shocking thing they’ve done, certainly in modern times, is to lie about Scotland’s finances. While huge revenues from Scotland pour into the coffers of the British State, the claim is made that Scotland is poor, and is subsidised massively by the rest of the UK.
Here’s an example. The UK government used to publish income and expenditure figures for Scotland, England and Ireland. These figures are very interesting to us because of the huge contributions Scotland was making to the UK economy. They also show that most of it was kept by the UK.
Before these figures stopped being published, they showed Scotland’s wealth, all of it sent south. In 1921, the last year that figures were published, we generated £120m. But spent on Scotland was just £33m, £86m of Scotland’s money was kept by the British State for ‘Imperial Services’.
During the first 21 years of the 20th century, Scotland generated an astonishing £781m. Yet the lies we are constantly fed by the UK is that we are a poor country, dependent entirely on the handouts from the UK, handouts that are funded by our own money.
We’re only poor because the UK steals our money then tells us we’re poor.
In 1974, the lies went stratospheric with the commissioning of what became known as the McCrone Report. Civil servant, Gavin McCrone wrote a report for the UK government. It was headed SECRET, and detailed how the enormous revenues from North Sea Oil would transform and supercharge Scotland’s economy.
It must be concluded therefore that large revenues and balance of payments gains would indeed accrue to a Scottish Government in the event of independence provided that steps were taken either by carried interest or by taxation to secure the Government ‘take’. Undoubtedly this would banish any anxieties the Government might have had about its budgetary position or its balance of payments. The country would tend to be in chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree and its currency would become the hardest in Europe, with the exception perhaps of the Norwegian kroner. Just as deposed monarchs and African leaders have in the past used the Swiss franc as a haven of security, so now would the Scottish pound be seen as a good hedge against inflation and devaluation and the Scottish banks could expect to find themselves inundated with a speculative inflow of foreign funds.
Successive UK governments, Labour and Tory kept the report from the Scottish people for decades, while, of course maintaining their propaganda that Scotland was too poor to make its way in the world alone. Only intensive efforts through Freedom of Information finally forced the British State to release the report in 2005.
The British State of today is no different to the England of 1706. It regards Scotland with contempt as it continues to steal and plunder our resources while fraudulently claiming we are poor.
That is why we need to leave the union. And demand our money back.