AN open letter to Ruth Davidson MSP:

Dear Ruth, after weeks of silence I was surprised to see you in a television interview this Sunday when you claimed “people said we were not going to get a deal on EU nationals, and we have”.

There is no deal on EU nationals Ruth – if there were one, we would know. What we do know is that of all EU nationals who applied for permanent residence since the vote to leave the European Union in June 2016, 30 per cent had their applications rejected by the Home Office. If you had read some of their stories – one in Edinburgh, a French mother married to an ex-marine living here for 24 years and asked by the Home Office to leave after Brexit – if you were concentrating on your day job, you would know, Ruth.

There are so many of us left in limbo that “In Limbo” is now a book of testimonies from EU citizens across the UK. If you hadn’t blocked me on Twitter, you would know, Ruth. If you had bothered to meet us, the three million EU citizens living here in the UK, you would know, Ruth.

No excuses for not knowing, Ruth Davidson, that in your own city of Edinburgh EU citizens with other migrants were out demonstrating about how your own UK Government is busy mistreating them, separating families, filling detention centres and removing the rights of people like me. I was out in Aberdeen with my grandchildren celebrating the contribution migrants, all migrants, make to our city. I’m proud to be a migrant and I thank everyone who came to proudly stand with us on Saturday all across the UK in the “One Day Without Us” event.

Ruth, I wonder if you really can claim you don’t know what is happening to us. I think you do, but you don’t want to admit that we have become an inhumane and xenophobic country. Some blame Brexit. I blame Theresa May and I blame you.
Christian Allard
French citizen living in Scotland for more than 30 years, former MSP for the North East of Scotland, Aberdeen City Councillor for Torry and Ferryhill

LANGUAGE, identity and politics have always been intertwined. In the recent past though, the EU – by recognising minority tongues and protecting the right to use them – has reduced the political stresses within its ambit. A good example of this is the role it played in the Northern Irish Peace Agreement, where EU law not only protected languages, but smoothed the relationship with Eire in many other ways.

The proposed removal of Northern Ireland from the EU is thus in part behind the collapse of the devolved government over language rights and the DUP’s willingness to return to direct rule from Westminster. This type of problem is arising in Spain, where the central government is planning to take back power from Catalonia including the ability to use their own language in schools (Spain could end us of Catalan in schools, The National, February 17).

Given Westminster’s power grab over fishing and agriculture, it is unlikely that they will not eventually meddle with Scotland’s right to nurture their own vernacular tongues, Gaelic and Scots. “But och! I backward cast my ee, On prospects drear! An forward, tho I canna see, I guess and fear.”
Iain WD Forde
Scotlandwell, Kinross-shire

IT is no surprise that Angela Merkel is unaware what the Theresa May wants from Brexit (Merkel ‘curious’ about Britain’s Brexit deal, The National, February 17). I am not sure she knows herself. Mrs May must be aware that the demands of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg for a “clean break”, leaving them free to turn the UK into a low-tax, low-service economy, akin to many tax havens throughout the world, will be against the economic interests of all but a small wealthy elite.

Her attempt to negotiate a deal which will still give the UK continued access to tariff-free trade with the EU and its trade partners, while noble, will only succeed if it is accompanied by continued compliance with EU regulations. These regulations are necessary to ensure economies with high standards of public service – health, education and welfare – are not outcompeted by countries with lower social costs, such as the one proposed by Rees-Mogg and his supporters.

A hard Brexit may well win a majority in the House of Commons, but if the Tories wish to push the UK economy over a cliff, they must learn that they do not have a mandate to impose this solution on Northern Ireland or Scotland.
Peter Rowberry
Duns

AT the outset of Brexit negotiations after Article 50 was invoked, David Davis revelled in constructive ambiguity. Theresa May regurgitated ad nauseam noises like “Brexit means Brexit”, “red, white and blue Brexit” and a whole stream of vague, opaque and unreal terminology in place of hard detail and firmed-up positions on opening points for discussion.

Her latest sallying forth from on high is her “warning” to the Munich summit on European security that ideology is not to obstruct security. Brexit will be good for all, yet the UK’s ideological red lines are an “ideological” barrier. Theresa May does not see that. To her and her ideologues they are simply an entitlement.

Given the EU is still waiting for substantive proposals from No 10 and that Angela Merkel is still “curious” about what No 10 actually wants, one is beginning to speculate.

Boris Johnston raised the nation’s awareness of the adjective teleological. Is it Theresa May’s planned teleological objective to obfuscate for so long that the EU will simply say no and give her an excuse to lay the blame on them? Or is it simply a manifestation of sheer teleological incompetence so far from No 10?
John Edgar
Stewarton