Understandable Scotland is an afterthought but we should not accept it – Swinney

It is understandable Scotland is an afterthought to the UK Government but the country should not accept it, John Swinney has said.

Speaking at a conference about Scotland in 2050, the First Minister stressed the need for the country to become independent and rejoin the European Union.

In pushing for independence, the First Minister again hit out at the UK Government, telling attendees Scotland is at the behest of a “failing system”.

He said: “For me, most importantly, it’s about deciding to take Scotland’s future into our own hands.

“It’s only, in my view, by taking charge of our own destiny, with our own hand on the tiller that we’re better able to ride the waves of change, that we’re better able to shape our own future.

“That does not mean a Scotland standing alone, but rather a nation that has worked out its place in the world and the contribution it wants to make to the world.

“An ongoing deep and rich partnership with other nations of these islands, absolutely, but ultimately as a nation state in our own right as a member state of the world’s largest trading bloc, the world’s biggest single social and economic community – the European Union.

“I’ve long believed that Scotland is an afterthought to successive UK governments, Scotland is not on Westminster’s radar in the same way as, say, London or the Midlands or the South West.

“From a UK perspective, that is completely understandable, but from a Scottish perspective, to accept it is total folly.

“It holds us back in ways big and small, leaving us waiting and praying that decisions taken at Westminster are not too damaging.

“We are prey to a failing system and a failing economic model, a system that delivers for the very few at the very top, while living standards stagnate and real wages are squeezed for the vast majority.

“It means as a nation that we must try to thrive on what amounts at worst to poison pills and at best to policy scraps from the UK table.”

Mr Swinney spoke at the same conference which was later addressed by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.

The Labour leader used his speech as a pitch for his party ahead of next year’s election.

“If I’m being blunt about it, tinkering around the edges is not going to work,” he said.

Mr Sarwar added that next year’s election being treated as an “auction” is also not going to work.

“One political party will offer you 1,000 nurses, another will offer you 1,100 nurses, or one party will offer you 1,000 nurses and another will offer you 1,000 police officers, another one will say 1,100 police officers,” he said.

“That is not going to fix the challenges facing our country right now and it’s not going to build the kind of Scotland we need for our children and our grandchildren.”