ON the Andrew Marr show on Sunday Dominic Raab, on two significant fronts, underlined just why Scotland is moving in favour of independence.

Firstly, he made it clear he believes that everyone operates on the basis of personal greed rather than the understanding that, to have better public services and a more equitable society, you might just have to pay more in tax. Dominic Raab saw this as an issue worth pursuing in an attempt to portray the SNP in a negative light, ironically even though Scottish people voted for higher taxes (for some).

Of course his adherence to policies promoting personal greed is perhaps unsurprising given some of his party are allegedly going to benefit on a personal level from associations with American companies when/if the much vaunted trade deal is signed with the US.

READ MORE: Tories branded 'clueless' as Dominic Raab rejects Scottish visa

Thankfully, however, the politics of greed of the Tory party are being rejected for the politics of hope being practised in Scotland.

Dominic Raab also made a big deal of the Australian points system for immigration, without in fact giving much detail, and then implied in a scathing manner that a different immigration system for Scotland could not work. This is deliberately misleading, through completely unsubstantiated assertion; this appears commonplace in Tory politics these days, and presumably we can expect much more of this in the months and years ahead as the establishment continue to seek to sow fear and concern about Scottish independence.

The politics of greed combine with the Tory government’s wish not to be the ones that history will record as having “lost Scotland” for reasons of self-interest. It is hard, indeed well nigh impossible, to ascertain any real concern for Scotland.

WATCH: Boris Johnson exposes hypocrisy over Scottish visa plan

Returning to the issue of immigration, and having personally gone through the Australian points system, I can reassure Mr Raab that a separate Scottish immigration system doesn’t seem at all difficult to me. Independence would be the preferred solution but even before that, if a person applies to migrate to Scotland and is successful, whether they are fruit picker or brain surgeon, they get a stamp in their existing passport which says “Eligible to work and live in Scotland” or something of that ilk. Employers, who make the appropriate checks on people at the moment, estate agencies and benefits offices etc would simply check the passport of any migrant to the UK.

Let’s face it, the UK Government in introducing an Australian points system to the UK will have to do something like that anyway. Otherwise how do they distinguish between a migrant from Chile or the Philippines and a person who has just come on a visit ? Or are they going to stop all visitors? It sometimes feels like it. Where, exactly, is “the major problem” alluded to by Mr Raab?

It is indeed sad, and to Scotland’s detriment, that there is so much control exercised through the single-solution politics proposed and then put into practice by a UK Government that seems intent in pursuing policies which not only appeal to personal greed, but which are also manifestly not in the interests of Scotland (or indeed other areas remote from London). Sadly, they are in the interests of the governing Tory elite...

Bring on independence and the politics of hope!

Rab Mungall
via email

IT is Sunday morning, we’ve been out of the EU for just 36 hours, and Andrew Marr hosts his usual weekly offering. He has a government minister on to tell us all how it is. The preening self-confidence of the man fair drips off him, as he stops barely short of an actual sneer.

Every dismissive claim, insinuation and opinion is that he is correct, the Union is correct and there is no possibility of his, and his party’s politics-of-greed agenda being wrong. With 44% support across the UK he is better placed to decide Scotland’s future than the whole population of Scotland, never mind the SNP who just smashed his party in last month’s General Election.

Everything that is wrong with the UK is right there, you only have to look. Raab, pompous, bombastic and with brash confidence, plants England’s needs as Scotland’s wishes. He couldn’t be more wrong.

There is an African ideal of Ubuntu. How can I be happy if my friend is sad? An idea very similar to the sharing atween Jock Tamson’s bairns. You see we Scots care. Care aboot more than the silver in oor pooches. We take social responsibility seriously. And paying tax is the largest of those.

Aye Raab, keep yer tax avoidance, yer offshore funds and yer stolen riches. We want none of it. Scots can manage Scotland far better than a Westminster government that has squandered our oil wealth and is still £2 trillion in debt. We’ve nae need o’ yer charity offsetting yer tax liability.

In independent Scotland we will pay our tax and be looked after, baby box to grave.

Brian Kelly
Dunfermline

REGARDING Westminster’s proposed love bombing advert campaign – is political advertising on TV not banned? Another potential court challenge?

As for cinema advertising, I hope any such ads will be treated with the same disdain as the obligatory playing of God save the Queen at the end of the night once was!

Andrew McCracken
Grantown-on-Spey

EDITOR’S APPEAL

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