ALTHOUGH the official starting gun has yet to be fired on this new momentous campaign, we all know that persuading those who voted No is our mission. In this regard I enlist the help of The National. I never throw it away after reading it, I always try to leave it (in a responsible place) where someone might just pick it up and read it.

The majority may have zero effect, but I’m sure there is always a chance an article in The National may have made someone think again.The next time you are at the dentist’s or doctor’s, or even down the pub, leave your National. It is in effect a daily Yes leaflet.

Eugene Cairns, Prestwick

WHILE doing the weekly shop over the weekend at my local supermarket I was very heartened to see that there were copies of The National covering The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The Sun. As someone who personally abhors these papers for various reasons, it felt like some sort of justice, especially as The National is often hidden away behind a pillar etc, in case, I presume, the restless natives start getting ideas above their station. I salute such peaceful guerilla tactics!

Julie Smith, Glasgow

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Brexit shambles is one sign of the UK state in crisis

GEORGE Kerevan has exposed the utter bankruptcy and shallowness of the case for Brexit (New protectionism of US makes independence ever more crucial, The National, March 20). It’s a sad fact that the only plan this group of mad-hatters have is that somehow Donald Trump will give them a favourable trade deal.

The blocking of the G20 communique opposing protectionism by the Trump Junta is a sign of a move towards a global trade war. Whilst other G20 members tried to downplay it, nonetheless it’s a significant move.

Last week the Brexit Secretary went before the Brexit parliamentary committee and admitted the UK Government had no idea what the impact of securing no deal with the EU would be.

In February May published her 77-page white paper for Brexit. It wasn’t so much a plan as an empty marketing wish list.

Brexit is the most important set of negotiations the UK Government will ever undertake and the level of ignorance and ill-preparedness is mind-numbing.

Theresa May said in her Brexit speech in January that no deal was better than a bad deal. Her proof? None whatsoever. She has literally no evidence to base this on.

The absence of any strategic plan over Brexit is further proof of a growing crisis of rule of the UK. The pro-EU Tories never considered they might lose the referendum.

No contingency planning was therefore ever considered by David Cameron in the event of a Brexit vote. Theresa May, Boris Johnson and David Davis have no plan either. The Brexit wing of the Tories claimed that leaving the EU would allow the UK to go “out of Europe and into the world” – by signing new trade deals with the US, China and other major markets – while, conversely, maintaining access to the UK’s most important existing market, the EU. This was and remains a fantasy.

Alan Hinnrichs, Dundee

FROM the UK hanging on a shoogly peg, what is all this nonsense about “no mandate for independence”? In Westminster there is only one solitary Scottish Tory MP and one confused Labour MP while there is a massive majority of SNP members, supported by a Holyrood Government elected on a mandate for independence.

However, from a divided Labour party the old political bruiser Gordon Brown sallies forth on an off-white charger with yet another “vow” proclaiming greater powers and federal status for Holyrood – which of course, like the last time, he can never deliver.

The situation becomes even more farcical by the arrogant mutterings of Tory government ministers in London pontificating about a new Scottish independence referendum being divisive, yet failing to acknowledge the divisive nature of their mismanaged hard Brexit, right across the UK, along with the ludicrous LibDems calling for another EU referendum while opposing one for Scotland!

Rabbie certainly had the measure of it when he said:–

“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as others see us”

Grant Frazer Cruachan, Newtonmore

I NOTICE that the Tories in Scotland seem to have decided to copy Trump’s technique of calculated public deception by shouting out any ludicrous statement in the hope that a cheap headline will mislead some of the readers.

The one I see repeated almost daily by the BBC is that “no-one in Scotland wants a referendum”. A moment’s thought would tell anyone that this statement is manifestly absurd.

But the cynical Trump strategy of endlessly repeating the big lie obviously strikes the Tories as a clever wheeze, as they have nothing constructive to say in any case.

They should remember the words of a genuine US President: “you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Their lies will find them out.

Peter Craigie, Edinburgh

SCOTLAND is at a crossroads. It hasn’t voted Tory in 60 years but we have a Tory Prime Minister who will even drag Scotland out of the European single market despite a clear majority in Scotland voting to Remain in the EU.

That 62 per cent which voted to Remain makes for a majority of 24 per cent [in Scotland] compared to the less than four per cent that takes the whole of the UK out of the EU.

Whilst the UK as a whole may have voted to leave the EU it is questionable it voted to leave the single market since so many arguments by the Leave campaign were based on retaining that membership.Even now Tory support is no better than the lowest point of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership. Yet the Tories act as if they can do what they like to Scotland and Scotland will meekly accept it.

There are many reasons Scotland hasn’t voted Tory in that time and all come back to Scotland rejecting the policies of the Tory Party being imposed on us; the poll tax, the bedroom tax, the wholesale closures of industry, to name but a few.

Scotland will have a choice on whether it wants to be an independent country or not. But the question will be more than just: “Do you want Scotland to be an independent country?”

It will also be: “If you could never vote to have a Tory Government for just five years, why vote No to have Tory governments Scotland doesn’t elect for decades to come?”

Bill Wallace, Glasgow