CONTRARY to the Unionists’ constant cry that no-one wants another referendum, no-one should be surprised that support for independence is rising.

What is in fact surprising – to me totally incomprehensible – is how Boris Johnson and the Tories can be so deaf, blind and deluded that they cannot see how every action and policy proposal is the perfect stimulus for creating antagonism and resentment. It is as if they have deliberately conspired to make Scots hate the Union.

David Cameron tried to tell us that they loved us. Had the Vow of 2014 been honoured we might have accepted it and all possibility of independence would have vanished well into the future and the Union been given a new lease of life.

But we did not get either a federal system or “the nearest thing to Home Rule” as promised. Nor were the Holyrood Parliament and the Sewell Convention made permanent, enshrined in law, nor are we guaranteed our EU membership, nor did we get all the powers that Lord Smith proposed, and instead of being treated as valued colleagues and equals, we have EVEL and our MPs having abuse thrown at them regularly and even told to “go home to their own country”!

When the playground bully picks on the smaller classmate, calls him names, refuses to let him play in his games, pinches his sweets and tells everyone what a poor, useless character he is, does the victim learn to love the bully?

Does the Tory Government, therefore, think that telling us that we are so poor that England needs to subsidise us, too stupid to make our own decisions, too wee to join the other small countries in the world as equals, will make us feel love for the Union? Will refusing even to allow us a part in their “game” of Brexit, retaining cash specifically given to them for our hill farmers, taking it upon themselves to have a say in how our Scottish government spends our money in devolved areas, labelling our projects and goods with Union Jacks and concealing their Scottish origin all make us feel fortunate to belong to such an arrogant, dictatorial state?

On the contrary, I very much fear that some of these moves may be a step towards levelling out the differences between England and Scotland, such as getting rid of our free prescriptions, free university fees, free elderly personal care etc, all of which are the result of positive budget decisions made in Holyrood, which Westminster has not seem fit to copy.

Moreover, with the match funding from the EU for Holyrood projects, such as road improvements, improved harbours and piers, the new fish-market and other infrastructure, ending after Brexit, will that funding be replaced or all such projects be branded as UK ones, even if some or all of the money is actually from the Scottish budget allocation? Is this all leading to a totally emasculated Holyrood, even if it continues to exist in name?

Every action seems designed to destroy Scottish identity. I personally felt nothing but disgust and resentment when my new driving licence arrived with a Union Jack on it, which I believe DVLA said was the result of a Westminster directive to make us feel more pride in being British!

I am a proud Scot and a proud European, the latter being an identity for which Scots have twice recently voted very positively, in 2014 and 2016. I do not want to belong to a state that bullies a so-called equal partner the way it rode roughshod over its colonies in the past.

Am I alone in being thoroughly sickened by the antics of this dictatorship that is daily tightening its grip?

L McGregor

Falkirk