Dear Unionist Friends...



...There is going to be a second Independence Referendum. One way or another.

Before the thing gets underway, can we make a deal?

I won't call you a Yoon (because it's not a word) and you won't call me a Separatist (because this isn't Quebec).

I won't slag off 'Scottish' Labour or the Scottish Tories or the Lib Dems and you won't insult the SNP or the Scottish Greens or the SSP. I can't promise I won't slag off Ruth Davidson because, honestly, she and her pals in Holyrood just ask for it. You can, of course, retaliate and slag off Nicola Sturgeon and Patrick Harvie, but it's water off a duck's back to them now. Maybe somebody at Westminster could stop Theresa May parroting: 'Nicola Sturgeon should get on with the day job.' We know who wrote that script for her - and it's a dud.

I won't write to the 34 Unionist newspapers printed in Scotland attacking Unionism and you won't flood the online pages of the 1 pro-independence paper, The National, lecturing pro-independence readers about why Scotland can't be independent.

I won't keep on repeating how awful Theresa May, austerity, Jeremy Corbyn, brexit, etc are for the UK, because I don't need to. In return, you won't keep telling me things I know (mostly because they're lies), like:

- Scotland doesn't depend on English charity: tax gathered in Scotland annually is £60bn. That goes to the Exchequer. Tax returned for the Scottish budget is £30bn.
- Scotland will not have to adopt the Euro if it joins the EU. The Maastricht Treaty says so. You can read it online.
- The Scottish economy is not tanking. It's actually doing a bit better than the economy of the rest of the UK right now.
- Scottish schools, hospitals and local councils are not failing. They are very short of money because of something called austerity and, as you know, that wasn't imposed by the Scottish Government.
- After independence, Scotland will use whatever currency we decide to have. And pensions, annuities, mortgages and savings will not be threatened.
- There isn't going to be a hard border between Scotland and England (there isn't one between Switzerland and the EU) and nobody is going to stop people visiting their families and friends on either side of the border.
- Nobody 'hates' the English in Scotland. We've got many English, Irish and EU citizens living and working here and we want to keep them. Yes and All Under One Banner have 'English Scots for Independence' branches.

Independence is not about hate: it's the natural state for any society. We're looking forward to it. 









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