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Political comic Mark Thomas has waded into the independence referendum debate, hinting that he may move to Scotland if the country votes to separate from the rest of the UK next year.

Speaking to The Courier ahead of a performance of his new stand-up show in Stirling tonight, he suggested SNP leader Alex Salmond should be given the chance to create a socialist utopia in Scotland.

However, the London-born comedian warned that the price of funding free public services would be higher taxes.

He said: “It’s for the Scots to decide what they want or don’t want from the union. As a casual observer, it’s a fascinating thing. It’s a chance to establish an independent form of socialism, independent of Westminster that is very caring and that’s exciting.

“What it means, the ramifications, I don’t quite know no-one does. If Scotland is independent and Scotland gets half of what it says it wants, or what people say they want, in terms of continued further support for free education and prescriptions and continued further support for the National Health Service and stop the privatisation of it, if that starts to happen, I might move.

“But guess what? People are offering everything for nothing at the same time and if you want it, you’ve got to pay for it. Everyone has to pay for it properly that means corporations, that means banks, that means everyone, which means tax might go up.

“But what it actually means is we could end up with a better-funded health service, better care for the elderly, better transport, better education, (which is) fantastic. If they could deliver on those, I’d gladly pay more tax and I might move.”

Over the decades, 50-year-old Mark Thomas’ activism has caused arms deals to collapse, inheritance tax law to be reformed and a politician to resign.

He has now turned his attention to encouraging people to carry out acts of minor dissent and has also challenged himself to complete 100 such subversive tasks in a year.

The firebrand comic insists that the people of Stirling have the potential to take a stand.

He said: “Scotland’s got its own history of campaigning and fighting for social issues and there’s a very, very strong and living history of radicalism in Scotland. That’s really, really exciting.

“Whether it’s for independence or socialism or green issues, Scotland’s really got an abundant force in those issues. And all of those issues have campaigning and dissenting voices and activism.

“You look at the poll tax. It was introduced in Scotland first before it came to England and what happened was you saw an incredible level of dissent and activism against it, which spread throughout Britain.

“I would hope that people in Stirling will dissent more because the thing is, people in Stirling are already doing stuff. It’s human nature. I might not know about it but they will already be doing things. You can also see from the website that there have been quite a few hits from that area.”

Mark Thomas will perform 100 Acts of Minor Dissent at Stirling’s Macrobert Theatre tonight. The show begins at 8pm. Visit www.macrobert.org for further information.