A SCOTTISH Olympian has suggested that the £20 million earmarked for a second independence referendum is offering people “hope”.
Kieron Achara, a Scottish professional basketball player who represented the UK at the 2012 Olympics, told BBC Scotland’s debate night that people were feeling “defeated”.
He suggested that the money set aside by the Scottish Government for indyref2 was giving people hope in “really tough times”.
Achara told the BBC audience: “My wife’s a nurse and she feels deflated at times. What’s going on right now through the pandemic, she’s getting less money, working the same, making less, a lot of staff shortages, people wanting to leave their professions, and now you’re hearing information about the public sector, more cuts happening. There’s a real fear.
“When you look at that £20m going in for a referendum… that’s bringing hope to so many” Olympian @kieronachara says that many people who feel “deflated” and “defeated” by the cost of living and cuts are taking hope from the prospect of a referendum. #bbcdn pic.twitter.com/iFE5SfgTvj
— BBC Debate Night (@bbcdebatenight) June 1, 2022
“I want to protect the most vulnerable in society, that’s what I stand for. I feel deflated, a lot of people feel defeated. When you look at that £20 million right now going in for a referendum prospectus, that’s bringing hope to so many people at this moment in time.
“They need to find hope. The fear is, hope without a plan is a scary, scary position to be in. I do believe we need to find that hope. We need to find that realisation that we can have that economy, make our own decisions, and choose our own path.
“At the same time right now we’re living through really tough times and I’m finding it hard to balance both and to know what’s right and what’s wrong.”
News of the cash for indyref2, set out a multi-year resource spending review Finance Secretary Kate Forbes, has sparked fury among Unionists.
Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, claimed the Scottish Government had its priorities wrong at a time of crisis.
Ross asked Nicola Sturgeon in Holyrood on Tuesday: "First Minister, just how much worse does the cost of living crisis have to get for individuals right across Scotland before you will divert money away from an independence referendum?"
In response, the SNP leader said: “Every year right now the Scottish Government is having to invest more than £700m mitigating the impact of Westminster policies that Scotland did not vote for – the bedroom tax, the rape clause, the removal of Universal Credit plunging more people into poverty.
"So yes, I think that £20m – 0.05%, one half of 1/10 of 1% of the entire Scottish Government budget to give the people of this country the opportunity to choose a better future – is and will be a really good investment."
SNP MSP Rona Mackay said: “Quite simply, giving the people of Scotland the choice over their future is delivering a manifesto commitment that the SNP was overwhelmingly elected on.
“On top of that, the chance to choose a better future as an independent country is becoming more and more crucial as people across Scotland continue to suffer a Tory-made cost of living crisis, endless brutal Tory cuts, over a decade of a cruel Tory austerity agenda, and decades of Tory governments we didn't vote.”
