ARCHIMEDES famously said “give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum upon which to set it, and I can move the world”. So is it also with our current situation regarding independence. You can have a lever as long as you like – 100% support in the polls, even – but if you have no fulcrum – a credible means of enacting a referendum – you can achieve nothing. Boris has no incentive to do anything other than say “no” unless he is faced with the very real threat of a referendum happening anyway, entirely outwith his influence.

In fact, it’s even worse than that, because the desired “assurance” that the “60-percenters” so evidently crave will never be met, because ordinary people with busy lives will never engage sufficiently unless they are faced with the actual requirement to cast a vote, however reluctant they may currently be to have to address this existential issue for themselves. Catch-22!

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Nicola Sturgeon’s very public assurance back in the spring of 2017 to give us a choice “while it still mattered” has now apparently morphed into a weasel-worded intention to “do her best” to possibly give us such a vote sometime, but in any case well after the proverbial horse has bolted. We all, independence supporters and undecided persuade-ables alike, need something far more concrete and proactive than this.

Robin McAlpine was recently making the exact same lame appeal to “keep talking to our neighbours”, even asking us to lend the Scottish Independence Convention (SIC) our support, but after the early, heady days of meetings packed to the rafters, where has SIC been ever since? If they have truly been engaging with anyone over the last couple of years, it has been with conspicuous lack of success, given the continuing relative stagnation of the polls.

No, the vast majority of ordinary people will only engage when there is a definite goal on which they can focus. Nebulous well-wishing just won’t hack it. They must have a definite offer of a plausible means of escape from careless, domineering London arrogance. A light in the darkness to show the way. Then they can be reached by determined campaigning.

Unless we take suitable proactive steps now, we are simply wasting effort and precious resources, and letting the initiative pass ineluctably to our opponents, who will certainly not be idle. A prime opportunity thereby wilfully squandered.

Robert J Sutherland
Glasgow

I’LL be honest, I felt a little deflated after listening to Nicola’s speech on Friday (though I wasn’t feeling particularly jubilant to start with).

I can understand a lot of the frustrations in the Yes movement, but now I’ve had a a few days to reflect on what she had to say I feel much more positive.

She had a messages for Yessers: keep campaigning, we’ll help by making more funding available.

She had a message for “Scottish” party leaders: come and consult with us to make a better Scotland with a constitutional convention. This puts Labour in particular under immense pressure, since Unison have now declared support for a second vote.

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She had a message for international observers: Scotland is not being treated fairly in this Union. Our democratic wishes are being ignored.

She had a message for Johnson: This isn’t over. We’re pressing on, getting our question tested. We’ll be having this vote and I will be prepared to test it in the courts if I have to.

And she had a message for No/undecided voters: I’m trying to play fair here, I’m not doing anything radical, I’m not trying to make you feel uncomfortable and scare you away. I will provide more detail for you in policy papers so you understand better what our future will look like.

Lots of audiences with something different to take away. I know with a date and an accelerated campaign, support for Yes will grow. But we’ll also make progress by applying all these other pressures too.

So my advice to Yessers is: don’t just listen to the messages for you, think about the messages for others and the political pressure it ultimately puts on the PM.

I think Nicola is doing an amazing job, and I am grateful every day I don’t have to make the right decisions at the right time whilst trying to keep everyone happy. She must be under immense pressure. We have to support our leader, and trust that things will happen when the time is right for us to win and win well.

Maggie Rankin
vial email

THOSE of us who have campaigned for 40, 50, even 60 years for independence will happily wait for a bit longer. Those who are giving up don’t have the staying power and patience that we have needed to keep going this long. It’s coming yet for a’ that.

Grace Chilles
via email

AFTER the vile, aggressive, xenophobic displays of Friday evening and the naked, gloating racism of the morning after the night before – that truly shame all decent Brits – are the Tory right and the Labour ditherers finally seeing what appeasing bigotry and xenophobia leads to, if they were too stupid to already know?

As a black woman who experienced three incidents of racist abuse in a short time following the referendum result in 2016 (more than I’d expect in a “normal” 24-month period), I am more anxious now that the Faragistas and Borisites have had a taste of political blood. And so should we all be.

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh

NOW that we are finally out of the EU, I look forward to next Friday, when the Scottish NHS will receive its £30 million first week’s share of the £350 million per week NHS Brexit dividend.

R Collinson
Dunecht