Devolution has failed Scotland

Popular Sovereignty is the answer

Published in The Herald on Sunday, May 5th, 2024.

Sunday’s Herald reported that private GP clinics have more than tripled since the pandemic when the reality is that there are just 11 private practices out of 905 NHS or 1.21% of the total. Admittedly, if the NHS was sufficiently funded, there wouldn’t be any.

Yet Scotland’s NHS consistently outperforms England’s. It has more GPs and nurses per capita, its A&E has been the best in the UK for over a decade and cancer waiting times, waiting lists and ambulance waiting times are shorter. The Labour-run Welsh NHS performs even worse than England’s on most measures, but you won’t hear that from Anas Sarwar. 

Slamming Scotland’s NHS is an English unionist party tactic to divert attention away from the real issue which is Scotland’s budgetary straitjacket. They know full well that the devolved Scottish administration can only mitigate Westminster’s relentless cuts to the NHS and other services by moving money around - it can’t create more. In addition, our Barnett Formula ‘allowance’ has been falling in real terms and because Holyrood must balance its budget, the pie is smaller.

It all comes down to ownership and control. Scotland has neither. Foreign companies and governments own our land and resources and Westminster controls us politically. Holyrood isn’t a government. It can’t create money, make economic policy or renationalise our privatised assets. It’s a colonial administration masquerading as a government. 

Since devolution, Scotland has suffered a total net wealth loss of over £266 billion in profits and dividends which have gone to companies and shareholders. Just over half went abroad with the rest going to the UK.

The plunder continues unabated. Grangemouth, Scotland’s only oil refinery, is being shuttered while the Scottish administration just lets it happen. In January 2022, it ‘auctioned’ offshore wind rights for a capped one-off payment of £700 million when they were worth over £16 billion, with an additional £28 billion in annual payments. 

Our renewables wealth, like our oil wealth, should be making us rich but Holyrood is allowing it to flow south, with no compensation for the Scottish People. And it’s welcoming two ‘green freeports’ at Cromarty Firth and Firth of Forth, giant land grabs that are regulation-free tax havens and fronts for money laundering.

Let’s face it - devolution has failed Scotland. The sovereign Scottish People must urgently convene a National Convention to end this decaying union and establish a government that is by and for the People.