Saturday 13 September 2014

The Saltire, flying over Holyrood will mean nothing if Capitalists still run everything.

There's a big difference between me an Peter Black over the In the Spectator, article by Fraser Nelson by on Jim Sillars: comments made by Jim Sillars
Peter Quotes Nelson as writing

Sillars is a former SNP deputy leader but now not part of the apparatus- so he can speak freely. All too freely, as it turns out. Here’s what he has said today. 
So Scotland’s refusal to go all Hugo Chavez on its companies is, to Sillars, an example of the SNP administration ‘forced’ by Westminster to be ‘soft’ (ie, not lay down the law to) companies. Their expressing their concerns about his separation plan is the same as ‘subverting our democracy. The have become enemies of the Scottish people, according to Sillars, and will be treated as such.
Sillars had a bit more to say. Under a separate Scotland, companies like Standard Life would be required to give two years warning of any layoffs they wanted to make. This sounds crazy, more like East Germany than a new Scotland. But as Silllars put it:

“This referendum is about power, and when we get a Yes majority, we will use that power for a day of reckoning with BP and the banks. The heads of these companies are rich men, in cahoots with a rich English Tory Prime Minister, to keep Scotland’s poor, poorer through lies and distortions. The power they have now to subvert our democracy will come to an end with a ‘yes’. BP, in an independent Scotland, will need to learn the meaning of nationalisation, in part or in whole, as it has in other countries who have not been as soft as we have forced to be. We will be the masters of the oil fields, not BP or any other of the majors.”

What kind of people do these companies think we are? They will find out.”

Peter of course takes the establishment line

Is this the reality facing Scotland if they vote 'yes' on Thursday? As Fraser Nelson says all this unnerves businesses. He adds that this why increasing numbers of businesses have had to reassure shareholders that, if Scotland votes ‘yes’, they will not stick around for long enough to see what Mr Sillars meant.
May be it would be best for Scotland  if they did so? Scotland has seen its Oil revenues squandered  as it had no control over it.

This was in sharp contrast to that of Norway 

Against the backdrop of the Norwegian referendum to not join the European Union, the Norwegian Ministry of Industry, headed by Ola Skjåk Brækmoved quickly to establish a national energy policy. Norway decided to stay out of OPEC, keep its own energy prices in line with world markets, and spend the revenue – known as the "currency gift" – wisely. The Norwegian government established its own oil company, Statoil, and awarded drilling and production rights to Norsk Hydro and the newly formed Saga Petroleum.

We can only hope that a future Independent Scotland will copy Norway and use it vast national resourced for its own people.

And Independence will be meaningless if in   the  years after Independence the people in Scotland sees it Oil revenues benefiting not them but Oil Magnates in the City of London and the Bankers an Financiers of that same city still dictating Scottish Government policy.

Having the Saltire, irather than the Union Flag flying over Scottish Government Buildings will change nothing if decisions are still being made by Men in Suits in the City of London whose concern is their own bloated wealth. rather than what benefits all the people of Scotland.

1 comment:

Robert Tyler said...

Excellent point, but lets win it first.