Letters / History repeating itself?
The Scottish Government have recently published a report with the headline Just Transition: A Fairer, Greener Scotland.
In relation to this, Crown Estate Scotland who received tenure of the Crown estate from the Queen only a few years ago, have designated 15 areas of the Scottish fishing grounds as potential offshore wind farm sites as a part of the ScotWind leasing process. This is only the start, as many more sites are being considered.
A total of 74 applications were received for the 15 sites, showing that this could be a big earner for the SNP government.
A win-win situation one might think, profits for the government and a greener future to appease their Green Party colleagues in government. However, where there are winners; someone usually has to lose, so what is to be lost in this transaction and for whom?
The loss here will be to every fishing community on the periphery of Scotland, with residents that harvest the bounty that nature annually provides from the seabed around our shores.
That ability to harvest the seabed is now being stolen from the fishing communities, as it is being sold off to the highest bidders; by the new Crown Estate landowners, our own Scottish Government in Edinburgh.
Is this a case of history repeating itself, new landowners putting profits above the rights and the livelihoods of the people?
The SNP gained power on the back of a campaign for independence from the Crown of England, a campaign that started hundreds of years ago; due to the atrocities being committed against the Scottish people during the Highland Clearances, perpetrated by the landowners at that time.
Now the SNP appear to be guilty of the same land grabbing and profiteering of the worst of those historic landowners of Scotland; this atrocious theft from the fishing industry will go down in history as one of the nastiest acts a government has committed against their own people in the modern era and will be remembered, as a heinous crime against fishing communities all around the Scottish coastline for many generations to come.
The shame and hypocrisy of this atrocious act will stick to the SNP for ever more.
William Polson
Whalsay
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