(c) arc 2020
Here’s today’s headline from BBC Scotland:
‘Delay to Scottish EU farm subsidy review’
It doesn’t sound like much for the pro-independence movement to be concerned about, does it? Kevin Keane then opens with:
‘A long-anticipated review into how EU farm subsidies are distributed between Scotland and the rest of the UK has been delayed. EU Convergence Uplift payments of £190m were triggered because of the low rate paid to hill farmers in Scotland. But the money was shared out by the Treasury across the UK farming sector.’
Then it dawns on you. Subsidies justified entirely by the particular economic circumstances of Scottish hill farmers are being paid to English (and Welsh?) hill farmers whose economic circumstances would not have triggered the EU payment in the first place. Does that headline capture the essence of the story or does it conceal it and, in so doing, does it avoid feeding the independence movement?
How many, seeing the headline, read on?
STV, the Scotsman and Herald ignored the story.
Compared to the subsidies we already pay to the British post-imperial project’s attempts to project power globally, this isn’t much, but it tells you a lot about our status in this ‘partnership’.
And, this is an old story being ignored, it seems. See this from 2013:
Has Westminster taken E230 million of Scottish farmer’s money?
“I’m beyond angry at this remarkable decision”. So said Scottish MEP and member of the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee, Alyn Smith, who was incandescent with rage over UK government’s trickery: “I had in my naivety taken it to be a foregone conclusion, especially after the very sensible cross party consensus at Holyrood united to fight Scotland’s corner,” he fumed. So what, exactly, has the UK government done?
Scottish farmers and parliamentarians have reacted angrily to the UK government’s decision to withold hundreds of millions of euros from Scottish agriculture that had been allocated specifically by the European Commission to level up Scotland’s historically low payment levels per hectare. Referred to as convergence uplift, the European Commission had allocated an additional EUR 60 million per year specifically for Scottish farming, worth a total of about EUR 230 million over the life of the coming CAP budget.
http://www.arc2020.eu/has-westminster-taken-e230-million-of-scottish-farmers-money/
Talking-up Scotland 
Absolutely correct that the BBC story does not give the full picture. Might make some copies for our Scotland the Brand stall tomorrow. Very relevant to the ‘power grab’ stand off going in at present.
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How long are we going to allow the Westminster thieves to rob us?
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Angela Haggerty also covered it on Newsnet.scot just a few days after the arc2020 story. http://newsnet.scot/archive/furious-farmers-summon-carmichael-to-meeting-after-westminster-eu-cash-grab/
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Angela Haggerty covered it for Newsnet.scot a few days after the arc2020 story. http://newsnet.scot/archive/furious-farmers-summon-carmichael-to-meeting-after-westminster-eu-cash-grab/
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Also found the story covered by the BBC two days before the arc2020 story. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24874125 Thanks for all the great work you do, Professor; I regularly share your work on Facebook & Twitter.
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Thanks Jazzerstix; share, share and share again will wear them down eventually.
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This is so incredible it’s fantasy! I wish!
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Yes MSM have ignored this so the Scottish people once again don’t know they are being cheated out of their allocated funds for the benefit of the rest of the UK , and have been for years.
It really is quite frightening when you see what they are getting away with , there is stuff we eventually get to know about , but Scots are kept in the dark about so much more , the establishment really is determined to hang onto Scotland by foul means by keeping us ignorent of a lot of facts .
Time all Scots took a good hard look at what is going on , but it is hard if you are fed lies every day from every news sourse and you are not into social media , that is why we must re-post blogs and get the word to as many as we can .
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