Letters I: Don’t lose heart: at next high tide we will reach our goal

I hear you ask: “What about this Unionist revival?”. Think of it this way; every ebb tide exposes the shingle and debris on the shore but it soon disappears with the flood tide. Was it not Robert Burns who wrote, “Nae man can tether time or tide”? Perhaps, the Unionists should remember King Canute and bow to the inevitable.

The General Election result would seem to leave us with instability in government. I suspect, although people have said they are fed up of elections, the reality is that we will be back at the polls between this October and April next year.

So, now is the time to take a short breather and get ready for the next effort: the effort that will realise our vision of a fair, just and independent Scotland.
Brian Rattray
Edinburgh

THERE has been much attention paid to the fall in the number of SNP MPs from 56 to 35, seen as disaster for the party. However, let us put this into some perspective in the cool light of day.

The SNP still won more seats in Scotland than all other parties combined, gained the largest number of votes and delivered the second-best result ever for the party. Before the electoral tsunami of 2015, the largest number of SNP MPs was 11 and going into the election two years ago the party had just six. Yes, a number of “big beasts”, primarily Alex Salmond and Angus Robertson, lost their seats and will be a massive loss.

However, it was always going to be difficult to get anywhere close to the 2015 General Election result, which was a once-in-a-generation outcome. The SNP, it should be noted, still form the third-largest party at Westminster. The Tories, who stood on a sole platform of opposition to a second independence referendum, lost the election in Scotland and lost their majority in the UK. Indeed, the SNP have more than double the number of Scottish seats captured by the Tories, who have been heavily defeated.

Instead of strength and stability, the Tories now seem headed for an extended period of infighting, with Brexit negotiations set to begin in just 10 days. The Scottish and UK results both show a massive rejection of Tory austerity and an extreme Brexit. This result – combined with the hung parliament – makes Scotland’s influence pivotal at Westminster.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh

WE did not lose the election in Scotland, with 59 per cent of our MPs representing the SNP. This is only a hiccup although we lost some big hitters. We must stay positive.
Malcolm MacLean
Convener, SNP Sutherland Branch

EVEN with a collaboration of blue, red, yellow and purple Tories they could NOT defeat us in Scotland. Well done the SNP.
Dave Ross
Inverness

THE “bounce” we got in the last General Election on the back of the referendum lapsed. Many of the non-SNP Yes supporters have lost their enthusiasm. It was always going to happen, that and Yes supporters drifting back to Labour due to the Corbyn effect in the UK election.

It is the same effect we had in the last General Election when we enthused so many people – particularly young people. They will come back, once folks see May and co are hanging on. That, in my opinion, is the best thing that can happen for us. Let the Tories and their Irish allies carry on.

It will work for us. The Yessers are still there, they just need to be re-enthused.

Perhaps we can work to get Alex and Angus into Holyrood.

That would be a great coup for us and would cause a stir – imagine having those two giants at Holyrood. Many people – including myself – now see London as an irrelevance.
Tom Urquhart
FSA Scot

WEEK after week in election broadcast after broadcast and in all their party election literature, the message from Unionist parties was clear that in Scotland this election was about independence. The Unionists even vied with each other to show which Unionist party was most against allowing the Scottish people having a say in their own constitutional destiny. It was a close-run contest but Ruth Davidson won by a short head (or should that be a big head?).

So, having made this election a proxy vote on independence, the Unionist cause was dealt a serious blow when they failed to gain a majority – indeed the SNP gained more seats than the rest combined. But this failure did not impinge on the Unionist consciousness and, compounded by their ignorance of basic arithmetic, they all claimed that indyref2 was now defeated as they had won the election by 24 seats to 35.

It pains me to say this, but I blame Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP Government’s education policies for this abject and embarrassing failure among our Unionists to grasp the fundamentals of one of the “three Rs”.

Not only do they fail in their simple sums but they fail to comprehend that independence is not exclusively an SNP objective. The Yes movement is far more than the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon. Indeed, Jeremy Corbyn’s biggest fan in Scotland, Kezia Dugdale, while displaying surprising chutzpah despite finishing third behind the Tories in an election for the second time in a month, has declared that Labour winning seven seats has put “the final nail in the independence coffin”, ignoring the reality that many Labour voters are also in favour of independence.

Time then, Nicola, to get back to the “day job” and educate some of these Unionists who are clearly lacking in some of the basics of a good Scottish education.
James Mills
Johnstone

WELL, it was obvious from the outset that all opposition parties were ganging up on the SNP, but this really was one of the main reasons for the snap election, to quieten the SNP. However, the way some of the opposition parties went about it was highly questionable.

They were saying things about the SNP and their policies which were not true, and totally misrepresenting their policies, giving no credit to what they have done. The concerted effort of tactical voting and the muddled talking of the Tories, allowing them to have six different opinions at the same time, gives them a lot of leeway.

The Tory MSPs at Holyrood are a bunch of I-am-better-than-thou scatterbrains, who dig up trivial smears without looking farther than the front cover to see if there is any substance to their claims. Ruth the mooth has got away with it because she is a Tory.
Tom Ritchie

COMPARED to 2015 and 2016, I did notice a change of mood towards the SNP, and I blame the rubbish in the newspapers.

The three other parties were constantly going on about indyref2 while the SNP hardly mentioned it. What is unfortunate is that the general public fell for it and voted the way they did. I fear that Scotland will now suffer as a result.

The fishing and farming industries will be sold out in favour of the south-east of England. Ruth Davidson will sell out her own country and be given a nice safe Tory seat somewhere in England with perhaps talk of her becoming Tory leader. Regardless of parties, Westminster will be poorer for the loss of Alex Salmond and Angus Robertson. Angus was targeted because he did his job and rattled the Prime Minister and held her to account. I can’t see anybody doing that now.
Fiona

WHILE I was saddened by our losses overall, I was not surprised that we didn’t match our 2015 victory. I firmly support our next independence referendum, but support the idea of waiting until Brexit is concluded. I think once the real damage starts to become more apparent from Brexit, that will help to boost the percentages of people who support independence.

I think, too, that people will see the real negatives of having Tories in power and will now be able to experience the downsides of that first-hand here in Scotland with a number of new Tory MPs.

Self-determination will become far more appealing. So I think we should bide our time. All good things come to those who wait. We’ve waited over 300 years; two more is certainly a small price to pay for ultimate victory.
Leigh Gerhardt
Falkland

I THINK a second independence referendum should be held, but this time only for people born and residing in Scotland. The unseating of Alex Salmond and Angus Robertson by predominantly non-Scots voters should not have happened and the independence of our country should be determined solely by us.
Robert Dingwall

A SQUANDERED opportunity. Had Scotland stuck to its guns and voted SNP, then today we would be kingmakers. As it is, we’ll be fighting a rearguard action until the next election. Ruth Davidson will now shout that independence is dead, and she will repeat it again and again and again. Which will make for an uphill climb for the Yes movement.
S Mack

NO surprise that the SNP lost seats, the whole motivation behind calling the General Election was of course in hope that pro-Unionist parties would gain seats. Another probability was the Tories trying to further divide voters in Scotland while perpetuating lies that they want to unite us.

I suppose, though, you have to consider the massive surge in SNP support was, for some, born out of anger at the lies throughout our Scottish referendum. Now we surely are seeing same trend in the votes Labour have gained. It was a poor campaign, tainted by the BBC again. It might have been helpful to the SNP had they not been asked only about independence during debates.
Calum Gallacher

ONCE again Scotland, or at least a section of the Scottish electorate, shoots itself in the foot by returning 13 Tory MPs, without whom the Conservative Party would have had to give up the keys of 10 Downing Street and make way for a progressive alliance from which the SNP could have sought real benefits for Scotland in return for their support.

At a time when the rest of the UK started to turn away from the dystopia of a hard Tory Brexit, some people in this country provide a back door for the Tories to creep through and retain power. You couldn’t make it up! I don’t know about us being too wee or too poor to be independent but a section of the population is definitely giving the argument of being too stupid a good run for its money.
John Murphy
West Lothian

SO that’s that then! It has now been confirmed that second is the new first when it comes to the Tory Party in Scotland and rape-clause Davidson in particular! Sixty per cent of our new MPs are SNP. In any other sane person’s reasoning, that’s a resounding majority.

It is interesting also to note that, with EVEL the smart-arse Conservatives have shot themselves in the foot as their 12 Scottish MPs and the Democratic Unionists (who will surely shore them up) will not be able to vote on English-only matters, so leaving them open to defeat on all English policies!

Never mind, Theresa May can always call another election until she gets the result she wants, or she could just get on with it and get back to her day job! Either way, this unneeded election, based on returning officers’ normal fees, has cost the country £50 million. Wouldn’t that amount have been enough to compensate the WASPI victims?

Rape-clause Ruth can revel in her usual loser status, but when the fishermen eventually get stitched up again and farming subsidies are limited and soon dry up, the voters will soon flock back to the SNP. It will give us no pleasure to say we told you so.
Steve Cunningham
Aberdeen

RUTH Davidson is right to demand that a second independence referendum be taken “off the table”. If I was leading a party which only had 13 MPs, I would be afraid to face the judgment of the people.

Euan Macpherson Dundee I’M gutted and horrified that so many people in Scotland voted Tory, after the way they treat the vulnerable in our society. Where is their compassion. God help us!!
Clare Shearer

THE General Election result was disappointing but just wait till the Tories make an absolute shambles of Brexit (and there is absolutely no doubt they will) and voters see the consequences of that AND Theresa May’s pact with the Democratic Unionists, who will push Northern Ireland backwards to the bad old days of sectarian violence.
David Miller

IT takes a large pinch of shamelessness and hypocrisy, even by Conservative Party standards, to see Theresa May turn to the DUP to prop up her diminished party after two General Election campaigns in which Conservative Party spokesperson after spokesperson excoriated the very idea of any parliamentary arrangement at all between Labour and the SNP as somehow improper and, possibly even, unconstitutional.
Gavin Brown
Linlithgow