23/04/07
The Cost of the Union, Oil and Industry
“Jack McConnell, First Minister of the Labour and Liberal Democrat Scottish government, has posed the question in the Scottish Parliament elections what would be the cost to Scotland of Independence, it would be more to the point asking what is the cost to Scotland of staying in the Union,“ said Jim Fairlie, Free Scotland Party candidate in Perth and number one in their Mid Scotland and Fife regional list.
He continued, “Scotland is a resource rich country, are we to be the first country in the world to discover oil and get poorer? The Tories funded Thatcher’s mass unemployment policies off Scotland’s Oil and now Labour is funding their misadventure in Iraq off Scotland’s Oil.”
“Latest estimates are that there will still be oil to extract from Scottish waters in 2050. Scotland could have set up an oil fund just as Norway did when they discovered oil. Norway’s fund, carefully invested, is now worth more than the oil itself and a major investment tool in Norwegian life, meanwhile Scotland’s Oil was and is squandered by London!”
“London can not give Scotland a straight answer to a straight question. We had to wait 30 years for the release of the McCrone Report which was kept under wraps because it showed the true worth of Scotland’s Oil revenues which were deemed too politically sensitive. Britain never tells Scotland the annual worth of Scottish Oil, about tax revenues taken out of Scotland. All of this is an attempt to undermine the Scottish psyche to damage the self esteem of Scottish voters to make them dependent politically on Britain.”
“Industry in Scotland has been sacrificed time after time. The Scottish Steel industry was destroyed by Thatcher because the EU said steel production had to be reduced and Scotland was a convenient whipping boy. Heath did not even bother to get a translation of the Commons Fisheries Policy which the EU rushed through ahead of UK accession so that other EU could plunder Scottish fisheries. The UK has represented Scotland at EU fishing quota negotiations and has regularly sold out Scots, the most recent example being Scottish shellfish quota being traded off to Germany, the Scottish fishing delegation were not even informed until it was a done deal.
At EU negotiations, there is a lack of attention to Scottish interests even when Scotland should be the lead, for instance in fishing, as Westminster Ministers pursue a Whitehall agenda.