BREXIT and Donald Trump’s surprise victories have left many feeling anxious about a future that seems uncertain and unpredictable.

Lots of constituents have asked me what I think will happen. I wish I knew. I do strongly believe, though, that in uncertain times we must defend the strength of our local communities.

It was worrying, then, to see stories in last weekend’s papers about Scottish Government plans to centralise more and more decisions.

Our police force has already been centralised, and that has been bad for local policing. Central government have already decided that we must have 10,000 new houses, and won’t even allow us to decide where they go, routinely overturning local planning decisions.

It is not just housing either, as SNP ministers recently pushed through a windfarm rejected by East Lothian Council, just as they did with the incinerator at Dunbar.

The Government is currently proposing that East Lothian schools will have their individual budgets decided by Government, instead of here in East Lothian. Schools who think their budget is wrong will have no chance of arguing their case to a faceless civil servant or a minister who knows little of our county, and cares less.

Meanwhile, the council tax will increase next April, and ministers plan to take the extra money away from East Lothian to spend it wherever they see fit.

Now we hear that decisions about local roads may go to Transport Scotland, who already run rail services, and run them very badly indeed.

I oppose this centralisation every day in Holyrood, but we need local councillors willing to stand up to SNP ministers too. Next year’s council elections begin to look like a choice between those who want decisions about local communities taken locally, and those who are happy to see ministers in Edinburgh take control.