I HEARD a Labour politician claim the other day that we would be deserting our working class comrades down south when we eventually become an independent nation.

I do not go with the notion we are abandoning anyone when we get our independence.

I have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with comrades south of the border, with the Liverpool dockers, with the miners, with many anti-war, anti-poll tax and anti-racism movements and will in the future, regardless if we are independent or not.

We’ve had a very long time of struggling to achieve a socially just society on this island together, that is an incontrovertible fact.

However what is also fact; it has not worked.

I’ll mention food banks, that surely is enough in itself to show the labour movement has failed miserably.

Regardless if you agree or not, Scotland is no region of a greater Britain, it is a nation in its own right, a nation that consistently and overwhelmingly rejects the politics of rewarding greed and punishes the poor.

When Labour moved to the right, Scotland eventually moved away from Labour.

Unfortunately for the parts of England who also consistently vote for what they are being told is a left-of-centre party, the reality is sadly quite different.

Though many would love to be, they are not in the same position as Scotland. They are just that, part of England, a nation which consistently votes for right-wing governments.

It would seem the reality of the argument espoused in the solidarity argument is that we should all suffer the Tories together. That’s exactly what has, is and will happen.

Not much of a sales pitch for their Union is it?

Why, given the futility of the alternative, would any progressive-minded person not take the independence route?

I believe we will be more help to our comrades down south by leading with example, than we ever were banging our heads against the wall fighting a system that has proven time and time again it is nothing if not completely resilient to our efforts.

Don’t get angry, get organised!

Citizen Charlie Sherry, Clydebank

I AM not sure what kind of Valentine’s Day Christopher Bruce was having when he penned his extraordinary response to my letter which was published in The National on Valentine’s Day itself (There is ‘no queue’ to join when seeking EU membership, Letters, February 15).

It seems that Mr Bruce failed to read my letter with any real attention. First of all, Mr Bruce thinks I am part of “the Unionist army”. Anyone who knows me would fall about laughing. I have voted SNP in every Parliamentary election since 1979. I am a lifelong supporter of genuine Scottish independence. I write as an SNP Vote Leave supporter. Polls show that some 36 per cent of 2014 Yes supporters also voted for Brexit. Mr Bruce please note.

Mr Bruce then accuses me of arguing that if Scotland becomes independent then there will be a queue to enter the EU and “Scotland will have to go to the back of it”. No, that is not what I argued at all. I noted that since the Commission, via Jacqueline Minor, has re-iterated that we cannot remain in the EU post-independence then we will join the existing three other countries who are now trying to join.

I fully accept that Scotland may quickly get to the front of these nations. The key point I was making is that by voting for independence pre-Brexit we cannot remain. We will not know how long it will take for us to re-join. That uncertainty will have to be explained to businesses and the wider electorate.

Now my point regarding currency: if the Scottish Government (as is likely) fights any pre-Brexit referendum on a pro-EU ticket, its currency option must be consistent with EU membership.

I believe that no informed party would argue that Scotland could enter the EU using a currency of a non-EU member (rUK) in bad odour. For my own part, I have always supported launching our own currency on independence because that alone allows genuine independence.

Neither is it contentious that Scotland would not use the euro immediately on EU accession. However, as Ms Minor indicated, there would be an expectation that Scotland commit to using the euro sometime. It would also have to explain how it would run its finances. That has major implications for a Scottish Pound.

It does not help our movement to refer to “xenophobic hordes in the south”.

The UK is not a xenophobic country. For Mr Bruce’s information, the previously overvalued Westminster pound has fallen merely to the levels targeted by the IMF. The euro does not need to be a weak currency to be “utterly crazy”. As Greece is about to risk collapse again because of its ridiculously overvalued currency, I wonder what Mr Bruce is thinking? What would he do if he was a helpless Greek?

While our movement rightly prioritises Scottish independence it should also prioritise calm, reasoned independent thinking.

William Ross, Address supplied

WHILE the Indian company Tata imposes a pensions cut on steelworkers in Britain, the Department for International Development plans to give India £250 million in foreign aid by 2019. Does the government’s left hand actually know what its right hand is doing?

Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Kinross

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SCOTS who wish to vent their disapproval at the approval of perfidious CETA ought to set their sights no further than their own MEPs (European Parliament backs controversial Canadian trade deal, The National, February 16). They have to take the brunt of the blame for this miserable imposition more so than Westminster on this.

James Andrew Mills, Renfrewshire

THE EU is an institution which signs up to deals that ride roughshod over the democracy of sovereign peoples and states. Please, please, please indy EU supporters: consider that you may be buying into something that takes away the very thing you have fought for all your lives – sovereignty.

Steve Arnott via thenational.scot

IF we were independent, we would have had our one in 28 (+rUK) representation in both the European Council and the Council of the European Union (simply called “the Council”), and could have held out for the deal we needed – or vetoed it.

Wallonia shows that even a relatively small region in the EU has power, let alone one of the 28 member states.

Peter Piper via thenational.scot