Expat Stuart Hunter of Bognor Regis (Latin for King’s Cludgie?) made the Scotsman’s letter pages a few days ago and Fraser McAllister put him right:
Dear Editor
It’s not easy to discern if your correspondent Mr Hunter (11.9.23) is being satirical with his excruciating ‘ what price indy’ warning.
Bearing in mind during WWII a Scot created radar while another Scot created the SAS I think we will make a decent fist of defending our air, land and sea. For the record, a Tory Government closed RAF bases at Leuchars and Kinloss in 2015. Four years earlier when a Russian fleet including an aircraft carrier took refuge just off the Moray Firth the nearest Royal Navy vessel was in Portsmouth and didn’t bother to sail. The Royal Navy has no sea going vessels based in Scotland. Between 2002 and 2015 coastguard stations at Fife Ness, Greenock, Pentland, Port Patrick and Oban were closed; only three remain and yet Scotland’s coastline is longer than that of England or France. What an unbelievably abysmal record!
An independent Scotland would finance all the requirements of a sovereign state by having full fiscal autonomy, not the present 30% or the feeble economic powers it commands. More crucially, a liberated Scotland will have the monetary freedom to set interest rates, create money and maintain a deficit. Our Scottish Pound will be a fiat currency like every other. If the 2014 projections of Standard and Poors are anything to go by, our global credit rating will be triple AAA not the UK’s current mark of double AA.
Civic institutions like the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Courts, the distinctive Scottish NHS, Social Security Scotland, Police Scotland etc. already exist however many new ones will be needed. For instance, a clearing bank is essential, ( Edinburgh is Europe’s fourth most important financial centre ). Top quality jobs will be created to operate regulatory, licensing and taxing authorities; embassies, EU trading agencies and so on. It won’t happen overnight but at least Scotland will be fairer, more prosperous and infinitely more democratic: values – not costs. The only nightmare facing Scotland is a dystopian one if we remain in this unwanted union.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
The views expressed by the Bognor Regis ‘ex-Pat’, were ones I heard fairly frequently during 2014 from friends who had settled in England many years before and had had only limited contact with Scotland in the intervening period.
A few, before they left, had been exponents of the ‘Scottish cringe’ in that they had internalised the pervasive denigrating propaganda and wanted to shed the ‘mark of Cain’ which they felt was branded on us. They wanted to leave as soon as possible to become British/English.
Others, who had left for job and romance reasons, had a positive view of Scotland and were comfortable as Scots. However, their image of Scotland was rooted in a remembered Scotland, which was unaware that Scotland had changed, too. Many were opposed to independence because they believed things like there would be a hard border, their children could not be Scottish and that it was based on anti Englishness and they were settled there, had English friends and children who spoke with English accents.
However after 2014 and the closeness of the result, after 2016 and the fact that despite voting REMAIN, Scotland was taken out of Europe, they reappraised their attitudes and many either supported independence or accepted that it was for those of us who live in Scotland to self determine.
As the UK crumbles under corruption the sense of GLORIOUS BRITANNIA has become a rusty, shabby symbol.
The real reason the English/British ruling clique want to keep Scotland is our oil, gas and renewables potential, which Starmer and Reeves want to pillage to sustain, for a while longer, England’s self delusion as the Imperial state before whom all trembled. This is what underpin’s the pound. Also our sea territory, which means Scotland is 51% of the U.K. area, enables them to maintain their impotent phallus called Trident.
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Mr Hunter lives in England so he will like to be treated nicely by his locals his neighbours his colleagues , this is one way to do it , talk down your country concede your pride and your place at the back of the queue where those neighbours and colleagues will throw him a few crumbs and will have the confidence now to scathe everything Scottish right there in front of him.
What a weakling , a spineless creep , he’s best to stay where he is.
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Hunter will be down his local English pub praising the England team tonight drinking his warm English beer and unruffled if things go against Scotland , he will say that England are superior to Scotland in every way so a win for England is expected, especially by him.
What a sourpuss , I lived in England for many years , I’ve seen them , I can picture him.
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The USA released documents of a collision between an American and Russian nuclear submarine.
The Russian was a hunter killer and the American a missile boat.
Nothing much there then, ust a wee bump.
Oh, where did this happen?
In the Clyde just off Dunoon.
When? 1980’s.
They used to have lots of ships flying the white ensign then.
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I don’t know what has rattled Stuart Hunter’s cage…..I mean does he NOT KNOW that ” Change is Coming” via New New Labour…..okay there is no real clue as to what that “Change” will involve or mean for us (if anything…very doubtful)….or how there will be an actual tangible “Change”….but I heard that allegedly if you say a slogan/soundbite enough times …..well….it will not necessarily come true….. as in happen…..but apparently you might be successful in convincing SOME people, say like Stuart Hunter, that it will…..job done…via slogan/soundbite….
Though I do hope that some of those people who may be considering voting for New New Labour realise that with New New Labour deciding to adopt Tory policies, including Brexit, then that is in fact ONLY a continuation of what we are getting NOW via the Tories and thus NOT an actual “Change” with New New Labour ….unless of course they, New New Labour, only mean the “Change” is in them becoming the new UK government …so why make such a big deal of THAT via a slogan/soundbite as in something that is such a minor occurrence that will have no different or dramatic outcome or positive conclusion for voters in their UK (especially Scotland)…..of course some Scots, like Stuart Hunter, who prefer to be known as British and who no longer live in their native country become experts on all things happening in Scotland…..predominantly via certain sources , as in the rogue MSM, who are also, like Stuart Hunter, hostile to both independence and too the SNP….a rogue MSM very much renowned for talking, writing and speaking **** (rhymes with PAP) on most things relating to Scotland and also it’s politics…..
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I think you are all being very unfair Mr Hunter. You must remember that because he doesn’t benefit from this blog, in his eyes we are too wee, too poor and too STUPID to be a proper Independent nation.
Consequently we need (allegedly) well meaning (but out of touch) ex-pats and unionist editors to point out important elements of nationhood that not one of Scotland’s 5.4 million inhabitants let alone its political leaders could have spotted and that will need addressing.
Oh thank you Mr Hunter for having our back like that. It’s just that the issues
you raise have more than the one solution you offer and for me the discredited union isn’t the one I favour
P.S what makes Mr Hunter believe that UK wide services such as the military, mail, passport offices, coastguard, foreign office are the property of England and that we will be denied them? There are funded by all UK taxpayers as GERS is at pains to point out. A transition period will occur and that’s what it is for – to disentangle the mess that is the yUK
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