New revelations from the UK archives show the lengths the UK Government went to to keep Scotland from her oil and her independence.

Documents from the 1970's have exposed the UK Government's plots and plans to delay devolution, to redraw off shore boundaries and to manipulate Shetland and Orkney in an effort to ensure north Sea oil fields were attributed to England and not to Scotland. 

SNP Treasury Spokesman Stewart Hosie MP has described the latest revelations  as showing the level of "deceit and desperation" in the UK Government.

Extracts from the papers include;

Sir David Walker - now an adviser on the banking crisis stating that; 

“progress toward devolution should be delayed for as long as possible consistently with honouring the government commitment to move down the devolution road and containing the SNP lobby in Parliament”.

in other papers an official states;

"the fact that the greater part of the United Kingdom reserves lies in Scottish waters gives the Scots a permanent bargaining base.”

whilst  the wealth that could come to Scotland was well known with papers confirming scotland would be 25 -30% better off with oil wealth.

Commenting on the papers featured in The Times newspaper Dundee East MP Stewart Hosie said;

"The UK Government has conspired to keep Scotland from her oil wealth and her independence for over 30 years.

"These new revelations of plots and plans to change the border, delay devolution and manipulate the position of Shetland and Orkney expose the lengths to which successive UK Government’s have gone.

"There is now a long list of deceitful steps taken by the Labour and Tory Governments that have deprived the Scottish people of years of future wealth.

"Where we now see a UK Government dragging Scotland into recession and cutting Scotland's funding to pay for their record levels of debt Norway’s oil fund is worth over £200 billion.

"That Gordon Brown is now being advised on the financial crisis by one of the mandarins behind these plans only adds to the bittersweet irony of these revelations.

"It is no wonder there is less trust in the UK Government than in Scottish politicians.

"As recent figures have shown an independent Scotland with her oil and gas reserves would move from being Europe’s 10th wealthiest nation to Europe’s third wealthiest nation.

"As Labour and Tory politicians knew at the time – Scots could have seen income 25-30% higher over the last 30 years.

"We should not let the deceits and desperation of Labour and Tories in years gone by stop Scotland standing up and claiming what is rightfully hers for the future.

"That’s why the SNP Governmment will bring a referendum bill forward and the Scottish people must be given their opportunity to vote for independence in 2010."

The full story can be found at;

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5728477.ece