Letters: 10 reasons I’ve always supported Scottish independence

A Scotsman reader outlines why he has always supported Scottish independence.

The reasons I’ve always ­supported independence are as follows:

Agricultural: Scotland ­produces a surplus in agriculture. The rest of the UK relies heavily on imports.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Arithmetical: If a room ­contains 11 people, ten of whom live in England, and one in Scotland, then, with the best will in the world, whose ­interests shall prevail?

Stock image. An independence supporter in 2018. Picture: John Devlin.Stock image. An independence supporter in 2018. Picture: John Devlin.
Stock image. An independence supporter in 2018. Picture: John Devlin.
Read More
Letters: Scots are ‘referendumed out’ – we don’t want independence vote

Financial: In world trade, the Scots export more per head than Germany or Japan. Scots founded the Banks of America, Canada, France and England.

Geographical: Scotland has the longer coastline, is taller, and occupies a larger area of the globe, when we include our territorial waters, than England, but we’re always referred to as the smaller country.

Geological: Scotland has many more natural defences against the predicted effects of climate change than rUK.

Historical: Long before England was a united country, Scotland was the oldest ­kingdom in Europe.

Meteorological: Despite masses of publicity to the ­contrary, the area with the most sunshine in Britain is the Moray Firth coastline.

Military: Since the Union, we may not have had to fight the English, but we seem to have fought against everyone else, and we have had the obscenity of Trident thrust upon us.

Mineral: Scotland is the largest oil producer in Europe; the fourth largest gas producer in the world, and has more water in Loch Ness than there is in the whole of England.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Poetical: “What are all the boasted advantages, which my country reaps from a certain Union, that counterbalance the annihilation of her ­independence, and even her very name?” – Robert Burns.

I have not even mentioned Brexit or the McCrone Report.

Joseph G Miller, Dunfermline