Letters I: No better time for indyref2? Show me the evidence

The Scottish Government is already taking action to alleviate cuts in social security forced on it by the UK’s severe austerity. An independent Scotland would no longer have to second-guess a hostile UK Government in this area.

In the lead-up to indyref, the Unionist parties’ case was that after being supported for 300 years in the Union, an independent Scotland wouldn’t be able to afford anything that had a turbo charger; if we had the temerity to become independent we would have to make do with the standard model.

All indications are that the UK has now acquired exclusive, long-term ownership of the turbo-charged austerity model and an independent Scotland in the EU would have to settle for the standard one after all.

John Jamieson, South Queensferry

I WAS very alarmed to read Kathleen Nutt’s report that certain uncritically Europhile SNP members are pressurising the First Minister into calling an undoubtedly premature second independence referendum on the grounds that “Nicola will never get better circumstances than Brexit to hold a new independence referendum” (SNP Europhiles tell Sturgeon to call for referendum now, The National, 20 January).

In any case how can they possibly know that? Unlike the rest of us ordinary SNP members or Yes supporters, are they able to predict the possible future over he next five, ten, 15 or whatever number of years?

Their views regarding the timing of the next independence referendum seem to be based on the arrogant assumption that the Scottish majority last June for remaining in the EU can easily be persuaded to convert to independence in the aftermath of Brexit despite the fact that there is as yet simply no sustained polling evidence to indicate that this is the case, a point I myself have already made in an earlier contribution (Letters, January 9).

Another point which these allegedly brilliant strategists seem to have blissfully ignored is that in the aftermath of a completed “hard Brexit” negotiation between the UK and the 27 other EU members as presently constituted, the EU will no longer be the same EU in which the majority of Scots (including myself) voted to Remain as it will no longer include the rest of the UK and particularly England, Scotland’s main trading partner. This is a point which Unionist politicians and their cheerleaders in the Unionist press have already made – without, as far as I have been able to observe, any effective rebuttal either from the SNP or from the wider Yes campaign, but if we go ahead with a second indyref within the next year or two we will have to come up with an effective rebuttal pretty fast or else resign ourselves to another defeat.

Ian O Bayne, Glasgow

SO Kezia Dugdale and “Rollover Ruthie” believe the votes of 62 per cent of Scots don’t matter a jot! After all it didn’t take them long to run up the white flag after the EU referendum.

For them, Westminster rules, no matter the cost to their constituents! But then their generous salaries won’t be affected by Westminster cuts, unlike those on zero-hour contracts, the unemployed, benefit claimants, the homeless, all those they obviously don’t care about.

Their combined lack of vision, originality and plain good old-fashioned courage is completely depressing. So thank God we’re not all stuck in the past as Westminster junkies, and more and more of us can envisage a better future for Scotland than Kezia’s “capitulators” and Rollover Ruthie’s “doormats” ever could.

RB, Clydebank

AS a nation Scotland hasn’t voted Tory for 60 years and, even despite overtaking Labour, still languish at less support than Margaret Thatcher’s low point. Yet, particularly since the Brexit vote, they act as if the people of Scotland overwhelmingly support them and will accept anything the Tory party wants to impose on them.

Before the independence referendum, Ruth Davidson promised us voting “No means we stay in” the EU. She and David Cameron signed a pledge saying “power lies with the Scottish people ... to decide how Scotland is governed”. Cameron went further by saying “all the options of devolution are there and are possible” if Scotland voted No.

The Tory rhetoric was clear. Both Theresa May and Ruth Davidson said Scotland was an “equal partner” in the UK. David Cameron promised “no going back to the way things were”.

But what have they done since winning the 2015 election and the Brexit referendum that puts 80,000 Scottish jobs at risk and will result in living standards as the falling pound threatens inflation? A referendum that they only held because of splits in the Tory party. A Brexit Ruth Davidson said was based on “lies” yet now tells people will be wonderful.

Despite saying a No vote meant power lay with the Scottish people and that we could have all options of devolution, the Tories voted down proposals by 95 per cent of Scotland’s MPs that more powers should be devolved. The sole Tory MP from Scotland as Secretary of State haughtily denies powers those MPs and the elected government of Scotland wish to see devolved.

We hear a Tory Prime Minister who hasn’t even put her plans to a public vote signal she will ignore the compromise the Scottish Government put forward for Brexit. Meanwhile Tory Lords say they want to use Brexit to finish what Thatcher started. In short the Tories are acting as if they think the people of Scotland will just meekly accept whatever they impose.

Scotland voted No on the promise that the Tories wouldn’t return to the way things were done in the past and on the basis that power lay with the Scottish people. Scotland voted to Remain in the EU and the European single market to protect jobs. The reality under a Tory Westminster government doesn’t even come anywhere near that.

It is their arrogant actions that are narrowing the choices for Scotland’s future, meaning the only way we can have an equal partnership with the rest of the UK is independence because the alternative is a future of Tory governments telling Scotland what to do just like they did in the 1980s.

Andrew Stuart, Glasgow