DAVE McEwan Hill (Letters, October 9) rightly warns against needless division within the SNP, and points out the unerring mission of the Unionist media to attack all and every SNP leader as a way of attempting to discredit the whole concept of independence. A strategy which, according to current polls, does not seem particularly successful.

But not withstanding the pertinent question – Does the SNP have the balance right between allowing constructive debate while maintaining unity of purpose? For assuredly it does not when it is apprehensive about even debating independence strategy on the floor of conference in the event of a Section 30 being refused – is Mr McEwan Hill saying that the wider Yes movement apart from the SNP must also cease all discussion and debate too on strategy and tactics?

A lot of the tension within the SNP currently is to do with the challenges of fulfilling a dual role as both the party of government – not only in Holyrood but in council chambers up and down Scotland – and the historic party of independence, whose raison d’etre is the promotion of independence. This is not the obstacle that some believe it to be, but in truth an opportunity, as one of the great strengths of the Yes movement in the run-up to 2014 was its rich political diversity. The key message that the project of independence was about the Scottish people choosing their government, and not about the SNP ruling in perpetuity, was a potent and winning argument.

The cult of personality rarely ends well in political life, and the SNP should recall its official policy on building a pro-independence coalition passed at its 2011 conference, which stressed that it must be broad-based and not narrowly politically partisan, for lite-touch leadership will serve the Yes movement better than a “one party alone” approach.

Cllr Andy Doig (Independent)

Renfrewshire Council

THE final sentences that will be handed down to the Catalan political prisoners will be given very soon. This is an utter travesty of democracy and an insult to humanity and justice. The sentences are expected to be extremely punitive. As soon as we know the sentences, we of CDC (Catalan Defence Committee Edinburgh) and ANC Scotland will hold a vigil beside the Mercat Cross in the High Street, Edinburgh. We ask people to join us to show solidarity with the Catalan people in this very difficult moment.

We in Scotland must show solidarity with our Catalan brothers and sisters. They too support us and look to us for our support. We have always supported them and they find that extremely important and this makes them feel very close to us in Scotland, the people who have supported them most.

Laura Crespi and Crìsdean Mac Fhearghais, for CDC Edinburgh

THERE are those who are surprised that I have become an Catalan independentist because I am Venezuelan by birth and lived for 17 years in Madrid.

I understood the Catalan reality when I came to live in Barcelona a year and a half ago. Here I felt that the speech I had heard in Madrid was biased, since the media showed a distorted reality.

I wonder why both the Spanish justice system and its politicians do not refer to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed by the Kingdom of Spain on 27 April 1977, which reads “All peoples have the right to self-determination” and “The States Parties to the present Covenant ... shall promote the exercise of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right in accordance with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations”.

That the Spanish authorities consider the Catalan referendum on self-determination illegal, since it is not contemplated in the Spanish constitution, seems to me to be a failure to observe international covenants and agreements, which are supranational laws. Likewise, the right to vote, as a full exercise of democracy, should never be repressed, let alone as brutally as the police forces did that October 1, 2017, when civil society decided to exercise the right to express an opinion on a reality that is their own.

A referendum is not a criminal act, the criminal thing is to send police forces to beat the people who voted peacefully. For me that’s living in a dictatorship disguised as democracy.

Ana Rodríguez

Barcelona

THEY are coming again. The Spanish Government is sending again its policemen to Catalonia, like on October 1 2017 during the referendum of self-determination of Catalonia.

They are afraid that Catalan people will take the streets after the sentence of the fake trial of our political prisoners. They are afraid of the determination of the Catalan people. And that’s why they will hit us. And yes, they are right.

We will take again the streets peacefully, democratically but with determination. As always. People from Europe and from the world should know we will not give up this struggle. Because the goal of this struggle is to finally achieve our freedom.

Listen to us, European and world citizens. We will not disappear, we will be there peacefully, democratically and with determination, even if you do not take part of it. We will be there until the victory. Because our victory is a victory of democracy.

Anna Harder

Catalonia