The tangled web the UK has woven to entrap Scotland
An edited version was published in the November 6th edition of The Scotsman and the November 10th edition of The National.
Ireland is expanding its ferry service to France (from Rosslare to Cherbourg), from 2 to 5 return sailings per week. Ten ferry routes connect Ireland to France, UK, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands.
Why doesn’t Scotland, another maritime nation, have any ferries to Europe when we used to have regular sailings to Norway and the Netherlands? Reinstating a ferry service would alleviate the Brexit hammer blow dealt to Scottish supply chains and revitalise tourism to and from Europe.
First, our ports, once owned by the Burghs, were sold off to offshore private equity funds under the disastrous Tory privatisation policy. These guys aren’t interested in or required to invest in Scotland’s underdeveloped Victorian era ports to attract international shipping, but only want to extract profits for their shareholders and pad their offshore bank accounts. And the two so-called freeports, at the Firth of Forth and Inverness and Cromarty Firth, are additional roadblocks erected by Westminster with Holyrood’s connivance, to thwart Scotland’s development and steal more of its resources.
Second, London is loathe to facilitate transport links between its Scottish colony and the continent, preferring to control, limit and make Scottish exports more expensive via English ports. Even when an EU member, the UK withheld financial support for international shipping despite the EU programme, Motorway of the Sea, that would have subsidised it. More recently, plans to create a link between Rosyth and Dunkirk were abandoned because Westminster wouldn’t provide any money.
The fact that Scotland, surrounded by seas, has no maritime strategy is outrageous. Motorway of the Sea funding isn’t available post-Brexit, but a European port could apply for funding to support a Scottish link if the Scottish administration showed any interest.
However, as Alf Baird points out, Rosyth isn’t an ideal place for a continental ferry service. It’s too far up the Forth river which adds two hours to the round-trip journey, and ship height is limited by the Forth Bridges.
Instead he suggests the former Cockenzie power station on the East Lothian coast for a modern ferry and cruise ship terminal.
It provides a quicker link to Europe, doesn’t have the height constraints of the Forth Bridges, has plenty of land for freight storage, nearby rail links and plenty of clean offshore wind energy via the substation. He suggests the ScotGov should develop a Brexit Bypass Motorway of the Sea (MoS) ferry tender process to ensure the right service is provided and also impose price ceilings to prevent operator profiteering.
So, I looked into what’s happening with the Cockenzie location which I often cycle past. The 200-acre site, purchased by East Lothian council in 2018, is being developed, but not as a ferry terminal. The council sold part of the site to Inchcape Offshore Windfarm to build an onshore substation to connect into the privatised national grid in order to send Scottish renewables down to power-hungry England.
There are also plans for Seagreen Wind Energy to accommodate a substation and grid connection for an extension of its Seagreen Offshore Windfarm, off the Angus coast.
I looked into who owns these energy companies. Inchcape Offshore Windfarm is half owned by ESB Group (Electricity Supply Board), the Irish state-owned electricity company, and Red Rock Power is owned by the Chinese state energy company SDIC (State Development and Investment Corporation). So profits will flow to the Irish and Chinese governments.
Seagreen Wind Energy is owned by SSE Renewables (49%), French Total energy (25.5%) and PTTEP (25.5%), Thailand’s state energy company.
SSE Renewables is owned by SSE plc which in turn is half owned by private company, Ovo Energy, with the other half owned by institutional investors including Barclays Bank, JP Morgan, the Vanguard Group, BlackRock, HSBC Global Asset management (USA) and Norges Bank.
SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy) plc originated in two public sector electricity supply authorities. One was the North of Scotland Hydroelectric Board founded in 1943 that designed, constructed and managed hydroelectric projects in the Scottish Highlands and was responsible for electricity generation and distribution when the UK nationalised the industry in 1948.
The other was Southern Electricity Board that distributed electricity in Southern England but didn’t generate any power.
Both public authorities were privatised by the Tories in 1990/91 and SSE plc was formed in 1998 after Scottish Hydro-Electric and Southern Electric merged. In 2019 when English Labour had plans to renationalise energy, SSE and National Grid, which together own the UK’s gas and electricity transmission networks, moved their businesses abroad - SSE to a Swiss holding company and National Grid to subsidiaries in Luxembourg and Hong Kong.
At the time, English Labour said:
“The UK's energy networks are vital strategic infrastructure on which we all rely. You cannot boil a kettle, heat your home or run a business without the grid. The idea that private owners, who have been ripping off the public, would move offshore in an attempt to prolong the rip-off illustrates just why we need the grid back in public hands.”
Since Starmer has ditched re-nationalisation of energy (and everything else the Tories sold off), it should be safe for SSE and National Grid to return to the UK!
What a tangled web the UK has woven to entrap Scotland and plunder its resources. It makes you want to give up, which is London’s intent. But if we do, we’ll lose everything and go down with the failing UK.
The sovereign Scottish People must take back their nation. We start by calling out the UK’s blatant theft of our land and resources and demanding that the Scottish administration grow a spine and enact the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) into Scots law, giving the Scottish People the tools to exercise their sovereignty and the power to end the union.
Hi Leah
Prof. Alf Baird has published several authoritative papers on a) the original sell off of Clydeports and Forthports in the 1990s ( which few people seem to even know about ) and b) the complete neglect of the Scottish need for a modern port strategy.
It is time that they had a wider publicity.
Makes me so darned furious and no discussion or sense of an over arching plan for Scotland. Just reactive and to make a quick buck out of selling us to all and sundry. So short sighted!!