Letter to the papers…

Dear Editor,

Scotland is in a calamitous situation but it’s not one a Starmer Labour government will reverse. 

The problem is simple. Scotland is a de facto colony of Westminster. The devolved Scottish Government does Westminster’s bidding because it’s a creature of the Union. England, not Scotland, controls the key areas of governance. Westminster controls economic policy where ruinous interest rates and austerity are crushing people; it controls energy policy where Scots pay more than rUK despite producing most of the energy; it dictates foreign policy where Scotland’s vote to remain in the EU is ignored; it decides defence policy where WMDs are sited on Scotland’s soil against the wishes of its people. 

It’s hard to imagine a more incompetent and callous government. Unfortunately, Labour subscribes to the same lie that ‘taxes fund spending.’ The reality is that the UK government can spend all the money needed to fund decent public services including paying people enough to live on. It created plenty of new money to provide Covid support, tax breaks for corporations, bank bailouts, Ukraine, more nuclear weapons. No one asked ‘who is going to pay.’ But when it comes to helping people, the answer is invariably ‘we don’t have the money.’  

Labour has morphed into the Tories, making the UK a US mini-me, where the choice for voters is between two right wing corporate lobbying groups.

The Scottish people have suffered long enough under UK hegemony. The path to restoring Scotland’s sovereignty, just as it was for England’s former colonies, is not through Westminster but through the UN and ICJ. We need a national liberation movement and we need it now.

Yours sincerely

Leah Gunn Barrett