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Letters / Show strength by not voting

I attended one of the SIC’s ‘Building Budgets’ meetings in August. The idea, which I thoroughly applaud, was to get input from the public about how our money is used. The exercise was making the savings necessary to balance the books.

The figures involved, although large to the departments that have to bear them, are small in terms of the overall budget. The overall budget is around £105.6 million and the savings sought are just over £2 million.

With this in mind we should consider the £76 million per year that Shetland pays net to the UK Treasury (after we pay our taxes and get back all the grants and subsidies we need to run our society). This obscene figure dwarfs any savings we can make by paring services and, on the other side, makes a nonsense of any nebulous benefit we might get from the Viking Energy windfarm, or even from the Total gas plant (details of which are yet to be revealed).

That £76 million per year in Shetland’s economy would enable us to ignore the UK’s imposed austerity cuts, keep our high level of public service and add massively to our reserves. Or is the money better spent by the UK government on illegal wars, Trident and high speed trains?

During her recent visit, Nicola Sturgeon spoke eloquently on the benefits of Scottish independence. Practically everything she said could be equally applied to Shetland independence. We have the talent, the expertise, the culture and the resources. Even before you take the oil into account, Shetland would be immeasurably better off as an independent state. The oil is just our trump card.

People think we need the security of belonging to a large unit, but big is not beautiful, it is ugly. We go to war, not because it is what the people want, but because our politicians decide that is what they want to do. It is good for bankers, armaments manufacturers and other powerful lobby groups, but not for the people. It is the ‘great’ powers’ meddling in and exploitation of other countries that keeps those people and countries in poverty and nurtures the extremists and fundamentalists.

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Small really is beautiful. That is why I have set up the Shetland democracy website.

That is why I am urging people not to vote in the Scottish independence referendum. By doing so, we legitimise Scotland’s fraudulent claim on Shetland.

On 18 September, show your strength by not voting. Let the UK and Scotland know that we, the holders of the trump card, are not playing their game.

Stuart Hill

Ocraquoy, Cunningsburgh

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