Tavish pushes for Home Rule

SHETLAND MSP Tavish Scott is again urging fellow islanders to seize the opportunities for Home Rule.

Speaking at the Scottish LibDem spring conference in Dundee on Saturday, Scott will tell delegates that it was not up to the SNP government to decide on the future of the northern isles.

“The northern isles are vibrant, distinctive, with our own dialect, language and Norse festivals. Orkney and Shetland both fly their own flags. Our history looks east more than south.

“Shetland and Orkney want to use this period of intense constitutional navel gazing to decide what we want.

We are not going to be told what to do by the SNP, nor by any other government. This is the time to seize the opportunity of island Home Rule,” he will say.

He will accuse the SNP of “centralising, know-it-all, top-down nationalism”, and insist that it was up to islanders to decide their future.

And he will add: Two thirds of the North Sea and west of Shetland reserves are in Shetland coastal waters. The northern isles don’t need Nationalists negotiating Scotland’s oil share, it’s wirs. We have plenty of our own leverage.

“Shetland and Orkney may never have a stronger opportunity to negotiate a future for the Islands.”

Read Tavish Scott’s speech in full here.