Scotched Earth ? Or Scotland a desert ? 

When Grangemouth Refinery is no more do you fancy then that Scotland will no longer have a need for petrol or diesel ? Will all Scotland’s petrol stations close overnight ? In the blink of an eye we drive only electric vehicles ? Shall our aircraft fly without aviation fuel ?

Ridiculous untenable notions of course when the only refinery in UK under threat is Grangemouth – others thrive, planning extensions. No economic or environmental considerations justify Scotland becoming unique in the world as a major oil producer without her own refinery – only political hobbling of Scottish aspirations, advanced scorched earth, following the likely overturning of that NO vote of 2014 as sure as night follows day.

Grangemouth, the oldest refinery in the UK, succeeded the first oil works in the world – Young’s Paraffin Light and Mineral Oil Company Limited – opened in 1851 at Boghead, Bathgate. Based there for geographical reasons and to benefit from an acknowledged skilled workforce. Rather than closing down, Scotland should be shouting 

Scottish achievements and innovations from the rooftops, looking to continue to create successes, not gazing at further industrial vandalism, echoing the devastation wrought by Thatcher and her successors.

 Scots helped to build the modern world – Scottish inventions in agriculture, heavy industry, power, transport – think McAdam, Watt, Dunlop, Telford, Howden, or in communications and science Alexander Graham Bell, John Logie Baird, James Clerk Maxwell, James Young Simpson, Alexander Fleming – the list of Scottish inventions is almost interminable and Scottish impact upon the world immeasurable and valuable.

Are we seriously to believe that there are no determined Scottish minds with the vision, cash and knowhow to improve, maintain and if necessary replace Scotland’s only refinerywhen Scotland produces £10billion per annum from the North Sea ? When five refineries in England will not only remain open but also expand ? – doubtless planning on refining Scotland’s oil to sell at a profit attributable to English not Scottish production.

Pull the other one. 

This, along with the scandal of the winter fuel payments, lost in the coldest yet most fuel-producing part of the UK, the planned privatisation of the NHS – this is the price of the Union, the result of that NO vote; pooling and sharing; what’s ours is theirs etc.. Better Together with war mongering duplicitous imperial priorities alien to those of the majority of Scots. 

The Scottish independence movement, the Yessers of 2014, those persuaded since, and those as yet unsure, all of us, together, need up off our knees and onto our feet – making a collective, powerful stand against the continued deindustrialisation of Scotland and exploitation of Scottish resources.

We were told in 2014 ‘lead us, don’t leave us’ ; there were love bombs over the border, phone calls and majestic purring – a Yes vote was going to remove us from the EU and jeopardise pensions. What a difference a decade has made!

I like to think that 2014 was a dress rehearsal; that Kenny MacAskill was right when he said that there will be a tipping point; perhaps that tipping point is close. Mostly though I hope that my fellow Scots manage to persuade our political and civic leaders to find a national spine, a national conscience and the valour needed in these dark days.

If you’re scunnered and beelin at the weasel words of those who promised change, if Grangemouth’s impending closure is a bridge too far, if you’re demented knowing gazing ashore from the  oil rigs and wind farms of the North Sea onto Scotland leads to a vista of food banks, baby banks, school clothing banks, poverty, fear and pain, if your head, heart and soul tell you that we’ve got to look after ourselves and Scotland’s future destiny must be shaped by those who live and work in Scotland, then I look forward to joining you on Saturday in Freedom Square  in Glasgow – there we shall contend for Hope over Fear, not for glory, honour or riches, but for the freedom to reap our own harvest, ring our own till, feed, heat, educate and care for our own. By ourselves, honestly and peaceably. 

When we are united for independence, then we can set to – creating that Constitutional Convention, the Independence Election, Scotland United and with our independence create the Scotland we should be. We’re not a nation of cowed Jimmy hat-wearing banjo playing broken toothed intoxicated halfwits boasting about wha’s like us. We deserve to regain our International status as an intelligent capable democratic prosperous egalitarian peace loving independent nation.  Now that so many challenges face us it is the day and it is the hour. I’ll see you on Saturday. Let’s get the job done this time.