Letters / Yes Shetland
All you Yes voters and No voters should ponder one thing. If you vote either way, you betray Shetland.
By voting, you say that Shetland is part of Scotland, something the Crown is unable to prove in court.
By voting, you say it’s OK to carry on giving the UK treasury £86 million per year and getting nothing back.
By voting, you accept that the UK has a legal claim to our waters, our seabed and the resources that go with them.
By voting, you say it’s OK for our fishermen and crofters to be ruled by Brussels.
The only vote for Shetland is ‘Yes Shetland’ (and I don’t mean the misleadingly named Shetland branch of the Yes Scotland campaign).
If you vote, you do what the Scottish and UK governments have been trying to do for centuries – you help to legitimise their baseless claim that Shetland is part of Scotland.
They know they have no claim here and they’ve shown it in court. There’s no argument any more.
You can continue to live in comfortable denial under The Word of Brian (Brian Smith’s magazine article being the only ‘proof’ the Crown can come up with that Shetland is part of Scotland), or you can stand up and decide how much autonomy you want.
This is not a matter of asking either Scotland or the UK; it’s a matter of us deciding what we want and telling them that’s how it’s going to be.
The ‘Our Island, Our Future’ campaign should be ashamed of themselves for going cap in hand asking for powers that are ours by right.
The UK and Scotland have had it their way for long enough – now it’s our turn.
Stuart Hill
Cunningsburgh
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