 LaST weekend in Inverness, the SNP fired the starting gun on the referendum campaign to deliver an independent Scotland. The decision on independence will, of course, be one for the people. and in order for them to be properly informed about the choices that lie before them, it is crucial they are properly informed of the facts.  Facts are something that have been sadly lacking from the anti-independence side in the debate on Scotland s constitutional future over the years. Myths, fantasy dressed up as fact, and downright falsehoods permeate the discussion on how Scotland would fare as an independent country.  Thankfully, the people of Scotland are increasingly seeing through these attempts to talk down their own ability to make a success of themselves, their communities and their country.  To take one of the most repeated, pernicious and damaging myths head-on, there can no longer be any doubt that Scotland more than pays its own way in the UK. The latest Government Expenditure and  Revenue Scotland (GERS) reports shows that Scotland has run a current budget surplus in four of the five years to 2009-10, while the UK was in current budget deficit in each of these years, and hasn t run a current budget surplus since 2001-02.  Scotland accounts for 8.4% of the UK population, but in 2009-10 contributed 9.4% of overall UK tax revenue   ?1000 extra for every man, woman and child in Scotland. The international comparisons also bear out the fact Scotland is more than capable of paying its way. Our ratio of debt to GDP as an independent country would be lower than the EU and G7 averages.  One of the reasons, of course, for that healthy position in comparison to other leading industrialised nations is that Scotland has a trillion pound asset base in the form of our remaining abundant North Sea oil and gas reserves. and here we run into another myth   the suggestion that Scotland s oil wealth is fast dwindling, nearly depleted and not worth factoring into future economic assumptions.  as recent announcements have shown, nothing could be further from the truth. It is calculated that more than half of the total value of North Sea reserves have yet to be extracted.  BP s recent announcement of its  major investment in the Clair Field west of Shetland even prompted David Cameron to admit that Scotland s oil will be flowing for  many, many years  to come   and it is imperative that it is Scotland that benefits from the next 40 years of offshore activity rather than another four decades of Scotland s wealth pouring into Westminster coffers.  The Unionist case has now resorted to claims that, even with its North Sea wealth, an independent Scotland would have had a ?41 billion deficit between 1981 and 2010, and is therefore dependent on a generous Tory Treasury.  The truth is the opposite. What Scottish Secretary Michael Moore neglected to tell people when he recently recyc led this attack previously used by Labour s Jim Murphy was that the UK ran a deficit of more than ?715 billion over the same period.  In other words, Scotland is in a far, far stronger position than the rest of the UK   actually in surplus relative to the UK as a whole to the tune of ?19bn and by the Unionist parties own risible logic, Britain could not possibly afford to be independent.  One of the most preposterous myths peddled about an independent Scotland is that we would not continue to be members of the European Union. For a start, we are already an integral part of the EU   and as an independent state would be in exactly the same position as the  