THERE is not much I would ever agree with Tony Blair on, but his comments about the EU being possibly open to reform on free movement of people could just have a ring of truth in it. This would be the answer to the Brexit train wreck that will damage both the UK and the EU, not in equal measures but substantially.

Wouldn’t it not be in everyone’s interest if both sides called a halt to hostilities and got round the table and tried to achieve a compromise that everyone can agree on, or at least try to? Or am I presuming that there is the will there to even try? Many questions surround the Conservative Party’s motives regarding the Brexit move, most of which are certainly not altruistic, but the Maybot is after all a Remainer, then couldn’t she use her iron will (ha ha) to win round the Cabinet while casting into the wilderness the likes of Boris Johnson, Liam Fox and Gove – among others – to start afresh.

What exactly did the 52 per cent vote for in the referendum if it was not a thinly veiled xenophobia? This compromise would leave them no alternative but to accept we stay in the EU or risk being unmasked as the bigots and racists they surely are.
Ade Hegney
Helensburgh

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SNP are doing a much better job than Westminster

I’D just like to respond to the letter from Jim McKie in Friday’s letters special on the Repeal Bill. May I ask Jim McKie what alternate world, or even universe, he’s living in? Wrest powers back from the SNP and get Wastemonster to look after them? Oh yeah?

Well, sir, consider a few facts. We have a health service in Scotland that has recently been held up as an example to that run by Wastemonster, and indeed all other parts of the UK. Ours is in pretty good condition. Theirs is falling apart at the seams. Do you really want them to run ours and create the same shambles out of it as they’ve made of their own? Do you really want to pay £8 per item for your prescription medicines? Do you really want to lie on a hospital trolley in a corridor somewhere for up to five hours instead of being seen promptly and efficiently and, dare I say it, cheerfully by some young Malaysian, African or Indian nurse who is likely to be sent home if Wastemonster has their way?

Do you really want to live in a society where the police force is understaffed and, in the event of a terrorist incident, doesn’t have sufficient officers to provide a response force and instead have to rely on the army to step in and control our streets? That happened following the attack on Westminster.

The fact England’s police forces had been cut by 20,000 officers at the hands of Theresa May when she was Home Secretary was made blatantly obvious. In Scotland, we have actually increased the police force by 1000 officers in the same time period that they cut theirs. Our armed police officers were able to provide an increased, reassuring presence without putting other police work in jeopardy. England couldn’t do that. Do you really want fewer police on the streets? That’s what you will get with Theresa May.

In Scotland, our students go to university, study, and come out again completely debt-free. In England they are charged for their university education and leave with their qualifications and a debt of about £27,000 round their necks. Do you really want that for your children? Because that’s what Wastemonster policy is.

The SNP have mitigated the effects of the bedroom tax that Wastemonster introduced. Do you really want to force people out of their family homes just because they now have a spare bedroom because their kids have grown up and moved away? What if the kids, or perhaps the grandkids, want to come and spend a weekend with granny and grandpa? Is it really right that grandparents should be deprived of that possibility? If London were running it then there would be no choice. Waken up Mr McKie! We have so much more in Scotland than they are allowed in England, and our economy is performing better. Most of this is due to the SNP. They are not faultless and do need to smarten up in some aspects but they’re doing a much better job of running our country than the Tories are doing in England!
CJ Kerr
Glenrothes

ONCE again I smell a very large Tory rodent! We are reassured that, once a whole UK policy has been put in place by Theresa May, possibly without reference to Parliament, powers returning from the EU are “likely to be”, or “could be” passed on to the devolved administrations. But once these powers are with the devolved administrations, these administrations will have the legal right to alter that UK policy.

So where is the sense in keeping these powers initially at Westminster instead of devolving them directly and achieving the same eventual result? Or will this be another so-called “promise” they do not intend to keep?
L McGregor
Falkirk

IF the United Kingdom is really to survive and maybe even become a union of four equal partners then the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill has to be rewritten substantially.

Sections two, three, four, seven and eight of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill are a direct attack on devolution and should be junked in their entirety.

Instead, the UK Parliament should continue in the spirit of English Votes for English Laws and empower a body comprising of representatives from the three devolved parliaments and a hypothetical English parliament to deal with all the European legislation related to devolved powers and present their solutions to Westminster.

The body should be given the same powers as a Minister of the Crown to make regulations arising from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry

THE so-called Great Repeal Bill is directly repugnant to the customs, laws and national sovereignty of the Scottish nation. This piece of pretended legislation is by a tyrannical English regime that does not have the competence or electoral legality to speak for Scotland. As a matter of urgency, I call on the Scottish Government to introduce a counter bill to repeal and dissolve the Treaty of Union and restore our nation to its full rights and powers.
Linda Horsburgh
Dundee

I HAVE a bright idea! It is inspired by Saturday’s front cover. I have been displaying a laminated card on my dashboard extolling people to read The National. I am replacing that by this front cover and as you publish others I will replace it or alternate.
Victor Moncrieff
Lanark