Scotland's ills can't be cured within the failing UK

Today’s Scotsman’s editorial (April 1) acknowledges the positive correlation between poverty and ill health but ignores the causes of that poverty in a supposedly advanced economy. Poverty is a political choice. However, it’s not one made by the Scottish People but by Westminster.

Scotland has worse health outcomes than the rest of this disunited kingdom because as a de facto colony it lacks the powers of a normal country and also suffers bigotry - Scottish languages, culture and history have been denigrated and suppressed - and economic exploitation at the hands of its larger ‘partner.’

It’s a fact that Westminster controls 85% of welfare spending, sets interest rates and monetary policy, takes half of Scottish revenues to spend outside Scotland on projects that don’t benefit us, and dictates energy, foreign, defence and trade policy.

Does anyone seriously think an autonomous Scottish government would have shut down its major industries, throwing thousands onto the human scrap heap and destroying whole communities? Or that it would have squandered its oil wealth on tax cuts for the rich? Or would have sold off its energy, ports, refineries, railroads and land to private corporations, oligarchs and foreign governments? Or would have left the Single Market?

A 2015 UK study found that unemployed people had higher markers of inflammation in their bodies and were at greater risk for illness. Not surprisingly, the most serious inflammation levels were recorded in Scotland, where unemployment was most chronic and endemic.

Scotland’s ills won’t be cured with a more ‘joined up, focused approach’ within the current arrangement, but rather by the Scottish People taking back their power and agency to build a more just and equal nation.