Paul Scott: Scotland would be a safer place without Unionist delusions

THERE is at least one subject on which the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats all agree. They desperately try to persuade us that the Union is to our advantage.

THERE is at least one subject on which the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats all agree. They desperately try to persuade us that the Union is to our advantage.

The facts, of course, are that it deprives us of the income from the oil in Scottish waters and imposes upon us the risks and a share in the heavy cost of the submarines with nuclear weapons on the Clyde, close to our major centres of population.

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Probably these heavy burdens on us are the major reasons why the Union seems desirable to these three parties, but obviously they cannot admit it.

In the past, Labour has been able to rely on winning a large number of parliamentary seats in Scotland which at times have been enough to give them a majority in the Westminster parliament.

Obviously that is a strong incentive to Labour south of the Border to do their best to keep the Union. So far their Scottish colleagues seem to be prepared to agree.

If the Union helps Labour to win Westminster elections that should be a reason for the Tories to reject it. Their problem is that would not help with their major obsession, which is to try to maintain the illusion that the UK is still a great power.

Their leader, the Prime Minister David Cameron, frequently refers to this and his anxiety to keep the UK as one of the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations.

In practice this means that the UK becomes a puppet of the United States as in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cameron and US President Barack Obama have recently made their relationship painfully obvious.

A century ago Britain certainly was a great power, but to maintain the illusion now has become a futile and dangerous practice.

Then what about the LibDems? For well over 100 years the Liberals have campaigned for self-government, but evidently they want to restrict it to internal affairs. They want to leave the control of foreign affairs and defence to Big Brother in Westminster.

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Since the population of England is ten times larger than that of Scotland, this effectively means leaving the decisions to England, in other words in practice to the puppet of the United States.

Scotland will be much safer in the world and more civilised and progressive when we follow the example of our friends across the North Sea and became a modern prosperous country, with defence forces adequate to our needs, and with no ambitions to act the part of a major power.