I WILL try and respond (logically) to some of the comments in response to my letter (May 29).

Firstly, Colin Stuart (Letters, May 31), I think you are pushing it to see an overlap between Yes Leavers and diehard Unionists.

I do not have an unbending hostility to the EU and all its works. It is just that over the decades the EU has altered out of all recognition from the economic community it started off as, and disquiet has grown principally over the political route it has taken.

But even economically there are questions. The EU has given us CETA, which may yet wreak havoc with our governments’ social plans, in Scotland and elsewhere. Doesn’t it allow governments to be sued for enacting laws benefitting the population which go against the interests of multinationals?

And it is stretching it to say neither referendum is valid because politicians lied or exaggerated. No election or vote will ever stand then, or will we just sue every politician? Lastly, I don’t have any bogeymen in my mind, just in The National, and I have to say they are men, but at least you all sign your names.

Dan Wood (Letters, May 31), why should I abstain rather than vote as you don’t want? I did not suggest that we should ingratiate ourselves to get a Section 30 order, although forming a progressive alliance through the UK seems to be doing just that. And it was not me who made it the rUK’s business whether we have a referendum. Nicola Sturgeon did that by committing us to doing it that way.

How does reinforcing Scotland’s Remain credentials alter anything? The “vague waffle” I referred to was the lack of response to hard questions about the EU. And SNP Leavers are not striving for a GREAT Britain/UK/England, as far as I am aware, although I would not presume to speak on any other Leaver’s behalf.

Peter Thomson (Letters, May 31), despite your use of three variants of throwing the teddies out the pram, I did nothing of the sort. I didn’t go off in a huff, I just made a decision you did not like. To me, it is your response that seems rather huffy. And I feel uncomfortable about your suggestion to just toe the

majority party line come what may (two variants). If I was an SNP councillor, MSP or whatever, yes, I would have to toe the line, but I am not, and many of the SNP rank-and-file disagree with the party leadership on all sorts of things. Is it okay as long as we don’t say it out loud? How does policy ever change then? Isn’t that through SNP members disagreeing about things, even big things like Nato?

J Kirk (Letters, June 1), you ask what we can do about the EU from outside, but what have we achieved in changing from within? You may well get your chlorinated Trump chicken anyway, courtesy of CETA. Why didn’t we hear

more about this treaty as it was going through the European Parliament, if it is going to be such a great deal? And it was precisely because I do not think rUK will be reasonable negotiators that I queried why we are in a pan-Remain alliance at a UK level.

Ian Richmond (Letters, June 1), I cannot really answer your claim about EU interference, as I did not follow it, and did not say anything of the sort in any case.

And lastly Peter Kerr (Letters, June 1), I tend to say what I think, rather than try to establish a dominant narrative. Then you proved I am not alone in my views by saying the narrative is gaining traction. If I could establish a narrative and influence people that much, Scotland and Wales would both be independent now. It is dangerous to allege frauds surrounding the EU or any other referendum without questioning every election result throughout history. Is it fraud if you promise something in a manifesto and then don’t deliver it? What if you can’t deliver it, because circumstances change? As far as I and many others were concerned, the EU result was not consultative. We were told clearly that what we voted for, we would get, and the religious illustration you included was petty and irrelevant. Your arrogance regarding why Leave voters voted the way we did is breathtaking. I think I have made it clear enough why I don’t like the EU, so why keep on saying I did not know what I was voting for? You mention the NHS being privatised. Guess what? CETA can bring us that, now, and all thanks to the EU.

All I hear of is the economic benefits of being in the EU. What many Remainers fail to realise is that many people in the UK have been bypassed by the economic benefits of the EU. And are you not aware that by governments and politicians ignoring the economic concerns of Leavers, particularly in England, it has led to just the backlash they got in the EU 2016 vote?

Lastly, to all of you, prove me wrong. Give me a concrete answer about the EU’s treatment of Catalonia, Greece, Italy, the usurping of democratic governments, Portugal, Ireland, and CETA, which is intended expressly to further the interests of (largely) American multi-nationals over national interests. Didn’t the SNP membership through National Assemblies and conference rail against the neoliberal agenda we see in the Growth Commission report? Why oppose neoliberalism there if we accept the EU’s neoliberalism? And what about the EU’s opposition to Scotland’s independence at indyref 1 and its support of Spain in its repression of the Catalans? Don’t you think they will side with the UK again next time?

Maybe you need to face the uncomfortable truth that although I voted against your wishes, so did many others, I suspect some of them SNP, enough to send a Brexit MEP from Scotland. I have spent many more hours of my life than I ever intended or wanted asking the same questions and getting no answers questioning the SNP’s linking of the European ideal with the political reality of EU. Many of those who voted Brexit may be scared to put their heads over the parapet and ask difficult questions for fear of the response, but remember that they did speak out in the end at the ballot box, as No voters did in 2014, and ignoring and belittling significant minorities does not actually work in the end.
Julia Pannell
Arbroath