I WAS following Michael Fry’s reasoning (Scotland needs its own Human Rights Act – to protect Scots Law from UK, The National, September 19) until he claimed that in the Brexit power grab, some rights which we now enjoy would be ceded to London and be decided by a court “containing a majority (ten out of twelve) of English judges – not as part of some European arrangement” and he concludes that “a small but significant slice of Scottish jurisdiction would be shaved off for good”.

Perfectly true, but that “slice” was removed when passed to European jurisdiction. That oversight notwithstanding, I entirely agree with his conclusion that Scotland requires a “Human Rights Act of our own”. We, in Scotland, are capable of drawing up a Human Rights Act to suit our country.

Cat Boyd’s article (Johnson is dangerous – but so are the Brussels elite, The National, September 19), points out the anti-democratic nature of the EU, describing its leaders as “powerful people doomed by their previous choices to follow a path they know is cursed”. She quotes from a conversation between Yanis Varoufakis and Christine Le Garde about “the absurdity of European demands for austerity” and she, apparently, conceded this.

Where, I’d like to ask, were the powers of the European Court of Human Rights when millions of people across Europe and in Britain were subjected to EU-driven austerity, causing misery and filling the coffers of “French and German banks which had made absurd loans to Greece without any proper calculation of risk”?

She admits that “the European bureaucracy, shielded from any meaningful democracy, are determined to punish Britain”. Of course they are: they must or other countries, sick of EU bureaucracy, will do the same.

I recall Cat Boyd writing that she would vote Remain whilst holding her nose, ie turning her face against the obvious tyranny of unelected EU bureaucrats. Yet, she still allows her incisive analysis of the real nature of the EU to be neutralised by association with the likes of Boris Johnson.

She’s fallen into the trap, cunningly contrived by Remainers, to link xenophobia and ambitious Conservative politicians plotting a power grab of their own with a vote to come out of that anti-democratic union.

Ms Boyd ends her article by supporting “a Norway-style off-the-shelf arrangement for a period of, say, seven years”, in the hope that this suggestion would be difficult for Brussels to turn down. She should read her article again and ask herself how likely it is that the EU bureaucracy will respond to any sensible suggestion that would entail going back on previous decisions.

I remember some years ago doing some street promotion for the SNP when a Frenchman passed me and told me that if we stayed in the EU we’d be “dans le merde”. At the time I smiled condescendingly, not realising just how right he was.
Lovina Roe
Perth

GORDON MacIntyre-Kemp cited the Hansard Society’s criticism of the Henry VIII powers (Henry VIII powers ... a very British coup d’état, The National, September 15). It is worth recalling that there is a long pedigree of similarly respectable commentators decrying these powers. The then Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Hewart, in his book of 1929, The New Despotism, warned that laws delegated to Ministers under these powers was “administrative lawlessness”.

This is quoted in a book by the former editor of The Times, Simon Jenkins, Accountable to None, whose title says it all. And where are the independent law officers of the UK Government today with the backbone to challenge the government?
Gavin Brown
Linlithgow

ANDY Wightman’s idea to tax vacant land could be a game changer for many communities across the length and breadth of Scotland (Wightman: Tax vacant land to raise cash for homes, The National, September 18).

Too often such sites appear and are left to grow wild and often simply become a target for fly tipping. As Mr Wightman highlights, this situation is worse in deprived areas where there is less incentive to build. However, by applying a tax on this land – whether through business rates or another option – this could encourage owners of such land to bring it back into productive use.

It would open up tracts of land in inner-city/urban areas and provide development opportunities for social housing and other amenities.

I hope the Scottish Government will look positively on this proposal.
Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley

I AM old enough to remember politicians of the past who, if you didn’t always agree with them, did have some integrity. This current crop of Tory leaders are the worst politicians ever seen in the UK. Even Thatcher at her most vicious realised she was PM not just for the 40 per cent who voted her in, but the 60 per cent who did not.

BORIS Johnson wants to economically destroy Britain for his own power grab. He personifies how out-of-touch the Tory political class have become and how they have been taken over completely by neo-right-wing Breitbart dogma.

We are mad to allow these absurd clowns to run our country.
Terry Keegans
Beith, North Ayrshire

FOLLOWING on from Sandra Durning’s letter on teacher shortages and Ruth Davidson’s gaffe last week (Letters, September 18), I would just like to point out this little gem. Such is the strength of the teaching qualification in Scotland, that any of our teachers can walk into a job in England! Likewise, so weak is the English qualification, that they would need to train to a higher standard to work in Scotland.
Steve Cunningham
Aberdeen