Our own voice and our own priorities

The anti-independence campaign has shifted focus. In their sights, Scottish defence policy. Last week we had Tory Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, describing SNP defence plans as "laughable". This, of course, from a Defence Secretary with an aircraft carrier but no planes to fly from it . . .

Mr Hammond also wishes to spend billions on new nuclear weapons, replacing Trident, a cold-war relic designed with the sole purpose of obliterating the USSR, with 'son of Trident', a nuclear missile system designed, well, to obliterate the USSR. But the USSR no longer exists - you get my point. So what is the purpose of spending £100 billion on new nuclear weapons? It seems, solely to keep the UK's seat on the UN security council - £100 billion to be spent so the British Prime Minister can keep up the pretence of global influence and power. Laughable? Perhaps, if it wasn't so serious.

And then we had Labour's Lord George Robertson of Port Ellen, former NATO General Secretary, describing SNP plans as perilous, despite those plans being for a defence posture similar to NATO members and partners such as Denmark, Norway, Austria or Sweden. I presume that when he was NATO General Secretary, Lord Robertson didn't believe those nations' defence profiles were perilous to them or their allies. Indeed, as we saw recently, Denmark, a nation the same size as Scotland, flew, together with Norway, as many sorties over Libya as the UK. To put it at its simplest, what the SNP proposes for Scotland is what suffices for the UK's allies.

I saw a quote recently, which some attribute to Ghandi: "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win". It seems very appropriate as we watch the anti-independence campaign unfold.

The UK government clearly doesn't have a clue about Scotland or where Scotland stands today. It seems a big part of their strategy, if they have one, is to try to talk us down, to tell us that we shouldn't rise above our station and do the things the big boys do. Have an army? Not Scotland, no. Although it's ok for Norway and Denmark, for Sweden and Austria. Have our own foreign policy, our own national interests and our own priorities? No, leave that to those who know best.

The problem for the Westminster government is that we've seen how they've managed our defence policy and how they have spoken and acted for Scotland on the international stage. UK government figures confirm decades of defence under-investment in Scotland, while we bear the risk of housing Britain's weapons of mass destruction. Decades of cuts, base closures and amalgamations. Soldiers sent into the frontline with inadequate equipment, maritime reconnaissance cover removed from Scottish waters, no major conventional surface vessels operating from Scotland. A smaller military footprint in Scotland than in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria or New Zealand. And I haven't even mentioned Iraq, yet.

An ever-growing number of people are realising that taxpayers in Scotland contribute more than £3 billion to the UK Ministry of Defence and that nearly one-third of that huge total is not spent here. We pay our fair share, and more, which means, with independence we are in a strong position to safeguard our bases, regiments and the appropriate capabilities needed for the 21st century.

They want us to believe that Scotland is too stupid to run our own foreign policy. That somehow we are uniquely incapable - a claim brought to you by the very same people who delivered the biggest foreign policy disaster in perhaps 50 years, yes, in Iraq. But don't worry there's another one beckoning as Mr Cameron puts Britain on the fast-track to isolation in Europe and, if his backbenchers have their way, withdrawal from our biggest trading partner, the EU.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating, because the anti-independence camp don't yet realise. Scotland isn't the same country it once was. Our eyes were opened long ago. We won't be frightened out of this choice. The more they laugh at us, the more they fight us with their belittling scare-stories, the more certain I am that we will win. Roll on 2014.