WHO could be surprised that the “Better Together” Unionist gang leaders slunk off to London to dictate to us from afar that we Scots don’t want another say in our future?

Following Theresa May’s Hobson’s choice of taking whatever passes for a Brexit “deal,” doesn’t it seem the erstwhile Team Davidson, Murphy and Darling have taken her lead in their “Scots don’t want a say and therefore we retain the UK Union” brand of elected dictatorship politics now so prevalent in Westminster?

Well, lest they have somehow missed the message, they should recognise there is anger rife in Scotland that the last time we were told the only way to remain in the EU was to vote for the UK Union. Now we’re being dragged out of the European project against our will despite having voted overwhelmingly to remain.

Then there was the claim we were equal partners in this Union, patently a lie proven by our absence from any “negotiations” about Brexit; the UK is about to take the biggest plunge in its political history and we Scots and our wishes are being ignored.

Of course there is also the blatant power grab against the will of the Scottish people and its democratically elected parliament. The legal starting point is that anything not specifically reserved in the devolution legislation is devolved. Westminster has no legal authority to unilaterally retain powers which should be devolved, for whatever period, to carve up internal UK market protocols in Westminster’s interests with no Scots input.

While the Westminster Tory government’s determination to so readily breach the law is in itself breathtaking, doesn’t its dictatorial arrogance tell Scots all we need to know about the quality of our alleged “partnership” within the UK? Any surprise there is rising anger here in Scotland?

Like the Brexit campaign, the euphemistic “Better Together” jamboree was predicated on false promises and abject scare-mongering about currency, our economy and our ability to pay our way etc. Perhaps the first referendum depended too much on a Scottish independence from the heart, however the next referendum, while still appealing to our national spirit, will be backed by substantiated facts and policy goals, and Common Weal’s clear roadmap on how to achieve them.

What should be the game-changer next time is that we now know that whatever is promised by Unionists is false, that whatever our so-called inadequacies are claimed will be scare-mongering nonsense and, importantly, the UK is now governed by the shambles that is the Westminster Parliament; paralysed by the folly of an ill-conceived, simplistic Brexit referendum that delivered chaos merely to satisfy the machinations of the Eurosceptics in the Tory party.

Ms Davidson’s “better Union” is an illusory pipe dream, Westminster dominance would never deliver it.

Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

THE spectacle of the reunion of the Better Together mob was an embarrassing farce. This gathering of oddballs and careerists was largely irrelevant as most of the participants have a tangential connection with Scotland.

Michael Gove is Rupert Murdoch’s man in the British Cabinet. This hardest of hard Brexiteers has not lived in Scotland for 30 years nor has he ever even contested an election here. He said people reliant on food banks did so because of their poor budgeting skills. He is about to sell out Scottish fishermen in any post-Brexit deal.

“Lord” Alastair Darling is used to the finer things in life (especially if the taxpayer is footing the bill). He made four separate second-home designations covering three different properties in the space of as many years. That meant that when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2007 and moved into a grace-and-favour flat in Downing Street, he did not miss out on lucrative, taxpayer-funded second-home allowances. He was last seen joining the board of Morgan Stanley.

Jim Murphy was last heard from having been branch manager when all the self-entitled “Scottish” Labour MPs lost their seats. Just months before this humiliation and fresh from his Irn-Bru crate tour (which consisted of speeches to paid party hacks), Murphy boasted how “easy” the SNP were making it for him.

Ruth Davidson was the “star” attraction. This “celebrity” is being spun as a Tory Wonder Woman. This content-free con-artist is wrapped in cotton wool by the Scottish media but she folds at even the first challenge. She lives in a bubble and mistakes it for reality.

If this is the calibre of the Unionist opposition then the initiative to win rests with the optimistic Yes side. All the No side will be able to come up with will be the same old lies from the same old has-beens.

Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee

Like a poor remake of Return of the Living Dead, the British nationalists gathered together to tell anyone who still believes them that Scotland should not be independent. Forget about the broken promises in the Vow, who cares about the theft of women’s pensions via WASPI, who needs to know about the power grab from Scotland’s Parliament to strengthen the Tory government’s bid to sell off our public services to USA companies once Brexit kicks in, and of course forget that we were promised we would stay in the EU if we voted No.

This bunch of chancers hope that no-one will remember any of the many lies they told to secure a No vote and that we will still be gullible to believe them yet again. Don’t fall for it – get out and persuade more people that our only future is as an independent nation.

Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley