ON Tuesday the Wee Ginger Dug very accurately expressed my fears concerning the Tory party’s future treatment of Scotland (Devolution was doomed to fail from the start, Aug 16).

I have tried in past letters to emphasise the vulnerability of Scotland to the complete revocation of devolution and the removal of all powers back to Westminster. It started with direct payments being made to Scottish councils without reference to Holyrood. This contravenes the Scotland Act. Funding of Scottish councils is a devolved matter, to be done by the Scottish Government out of the “block grant”. (I’ve put that in asterisks because it isn’t a grant at all. It’s us getting some of our own money back from taxes collected by Westminster.)

The Tory contenders now intend holding the Scottish Government to account over the health service and education. These are devolved matters and should have nothing to do with Westminster. Statistics recently printed in The National show that our education is better than elsewhere around Europe – never mind just in the UK. In the same way, the Scottish NHS – which still is a national health service, unlike the English one that has been greatly sold off to private industry – performs much better than the health services in all the other UK regions. The Tories’ proposed actions are the first steps to take over our health service in preparation to sell it to the American drug companies. They desperately want a trade deal with the USA, despite the fact that we will lose more than we gain, and the sale to them of the NHS will be the deal clincher.

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We need Nicola Sturgeon to be strong enough to stand up to Westminster over this. She should state categorically that Scotland intends becoming an independent country in the near future and if the health service is sold now, then when Scotland becomes independent the health service will be taken back under government control without any compensation from Scotland.

In April I attended a public meeting of “FIFE X” in Dunfermline. It was attended by Common Weal, SNP, Scottish Socialists, ALBA etc. It was a prototype group of independence-supporting parties who were ready to put a united front to a campaign for independence. The biggest round of applause was given to an Irish member of the audience who stated that if we are ever going to get independence, we need a government at Holyrood that behaves as if it intends being independent and not playing by Westminster’s rules.

At the moment we don’t have that. If we had, we would not be pussyfooting around with the English Supreme Court over whether or not we “could please have a referendum”. We would, instead, refer to the Scottish Claim of Right, as contained in the Treaty of Union, and would tell them that we are going to have a referendum whether they like it or not, and any refusal on their part will negate the Treaty and we will adopt independence anyway. Our Claim of Right is recognised at Westminster and is in Hansard.

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I believe that independence must now be looked upon as an urgent priority. The Unionists no longer have any case that can persuade Scotland that it’s better off as part of the UK than as an independent nation. The only course of action left to them is force. Both the present Tory PM contenders intend reducing Scotland from a proud nation into just another county of England. That will lock us into governance by a political party whose policies we don’t support, for the rest of our days – not just for a generation. We need someone in charge who is prepared to tell them to “get knotted”, and move for independence as quickly as possible.

Malta is smaller than the island of Arran and has less resources than Arran. They chose independence from Britain and are now a successful European country. If they can do it, so can we!

Charlie Kerr
Glenrothes