SCOTLAND cannot change the past but it can and should avoid future repetition of its worst features. We are where we are, but it is vital we know why and how we got here.
Our population in 1707 was less than one million, and at most 1% could vote if male and propertied. It was a rural country where less than 3% lived in towns of more than 5000.
The Act of Union was passed in the Scottish Parliament by 110 Yes to 69 No votes by 49 land-owning gentry with 61 titled dukes, earls, lords and knights. When it was made known to the public, many protests, demonstrations by disaffected common people occurred, which established the measure’s unpopularity and the lie that it was wanted or needed.
Nonetheless the gross misconstruction of that lie has continued. Payment by England (to whom has never been clear), quoted by some at £140,000 and by some at £340,000, and the presence of English troops ready to march at Lancaster, helped considerably the passage of the Act.
Our country was sold, to England, by a titled and landed minority after a negotiation to which the people of Scotland were not party. The selling price even at the higher figure represents at today’s value a bargain-basement, secretive, shabby deal, especially as it required Scotland to assume a commensurate share of England’s national debt already swollen by its wars against France and Holland, both of which were reliable trading partners with Scotland.
The 25 articles of the Act are to 2020 scrutiny incomprehensible and irrelevant, many of the agreements having since been transgressed by Westminster or rendered useless. What followed their adoption was the speedy, complete anglicising of the Scottish land-owning elite for their own personal gain, accompanied by 313 years of Westminster neglect, exploitation and often vindictive hostility, much of which is still in evidence today.
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It is significant for very obvious reasons that we are tutored on the machinations of Versailles 2019 and Munich 1938 but never on the scurrilous details of 1707. The fact is our country was sold, or rather disposed of, as decided by only 0.01% of the Scottish people.
The Scotland of 2020 is unrecognisable as that of 1707. Sociologically, commercially, industrially and politically they are two different countries.
A moment’s thought will condemn as facile and farcical (1) the everlasting nature claimed for 1707 as an essential, immovable, unchallengeable contract between England and Scotland and (2) claims it is sacrosanct.
Further, although not envisaged in 1707, it is illogical, undemocratic, even irrational that one man who has next to no support in Scotland for himself or for his party may legally block fulfilment of the now established objective of the majority of Scotland’s 5.5 million people, one man who dictates the rules for his Cabinet, 50% of whom are Oxbridge graduates, exemplifying that only those so privileged are qualified to govern. Also unacceptable is the Westminster system which encourages nepotism, preferment and reward for political time-serving ahead of hard experience or ability. They are in fact features of the worst in dictatorial administrations.
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The proof is there that our successful, modern country, rich in natural and human resources, cannot achieve its desired future as part of a discredited Union. The Government of Scotland is regularly ignored, its representatives insulted while we its people are treated as nincompoops by the 2020 model of the 1707 English political leaders. Add to that the transparent antagonism aimed at our elected members, and it is impossible to discern any sign of empathy or magnanimity from the now recognised English nationalists regarding Scottish constitutional proposals.
An independent Scotland reliably, effectively led and taking its place in international affairs of its own choosing, is inevitable and cannot long be thwarted by the dinosaurs of Westminster.
John Hamilton
Bearsden
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