IT is sad that Anas Sarwar and Keir Starmer are so blinded by Tory propaganda that they actually seem to believe that the man whose pals have sponsored the Tory party through the hard Brexit debacle would wish to see Scotland re-join the EU. Perhaps these enlightened individuals, and those who apparently have trust in them, should ask themselves whether Brexit emboldened a calculating predator to invade Ukraine when the rest of Europe appeared weak?
While the UK continued to cut army numbers and increasingly relied on outdated field equipment but built aircraft carriers without the finances to purchase the US planes planned to fly from them, or the ships needed to support them, that predator decided to seize an apparent military opportunity. With the US leading the UK to the distraction of potential conflict in Asia (as evidenced by the building of the aforementioned aircraft carriers), not only did Europe appear weak but the US appeared to be more militarily concerned with potential actions of China and North Korea.
The fact that neither the US nor the UK, both signatories in 1994 to the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances with Russia (which prohibited the use of military force against Ukraine “except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations”), did not take a stronger stand against Russia when it invaded the Crimea on February 20 2014 did not help to curb the evil predator’s hostile ambitions.
Besides enabling Putin’s pals to enrich themselves by allowing their plundered resources to be laundered through London, the UK Government has aided in facilitating the dire catastrophe now suffered by the people of Ukraine, so why would Putin wish to alter the West’s current political and military misconfiguration, which he is determined to savagely exploit?
Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian
THE Sarwar-Starmer nonsense about Vladimir Putin being a cheerleader for a “divisive” Scottish independence referendum has been widely ridiculed. As if a little local UK problem could destabilise Europe! But wait a minute, Keir Starmer now supports Brexit, which undoubtedly has fomented division and distrust within Europe, indeed it may have been a factor in Putin’s calculation as to the best time to strike in Ukraine. Can the Labour leaders explain away that one as they attack Scotland’s democratic aspirations?
Scotland rejects the inward-looking Brexiteer attitude, will look to re-establish social and trade links with Europe, and could potentially be a catalyst for England’s reversal of their Brexit mistake.
Derek Ball
Bearsden
IS Keir Starmer actually the model for Rupert St John-Fontaine, the fictitious double agent featured every week in the Sunday National? He must surely be an independence plant or sleeper agent. This is a man who has ruled out any agreement with the SNP to thwart the Tories, rejected a democratic referendum for the people of Scotland, abandoned all Jeremy Corbyn’s popular egalitarian policies, condemned workers on strike, purged socialists from the party, and now has endorsed a hard Brexit. Each of these policies seems designed to alienate one or other faction within the remainder of Labour’s support in Scotland. Only its Orange Order adherents will not find something to offend and alarm them. He is turning the once democratic-socialist Labour party into a Tory-lite, quasi-SDP organisation, a Blairite shadow without even the European vision.
Thirty years ago I was a Labour supporter, but I don’t recognise this as a left-wing party any more. For many years I imagined myself returning to vote Labour after we achieved independence. If the Scottish Labour party accepts this disgraceful sell-out of its traditions by this vacuous man, then I think it is not only me but hundreds of thousands of others who will never return to it, even after independence.
Dr David White
Galashiels
THE Labour party’s Laurel and Hardy (Starmer and Sarwar) tell the Scots that they won’t recognise a vote for independence. The Tories’ Pinocchio, whose wooden head often disconnects from his mouth, refuses a Section 30 referendum.
Labour supporters state that they see no difference between English working folk in Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds or working people in Glasgow who speak the same language, watch the same TV programmes etc etc. I would point out that there’s no difference between the working people in Belfast, or anywhere else in Northern Ireland, and the working people in Scotland. Yet...
Almost 50 years ago, in 1973, the Tory government gave the Northern Irish the right to hold a Irish reunification referendum every 10 years and in 1998 Labour reduced the period from 10 to seven years. In other words, multiple referendums until the matter is settled.
What to do? If the Supreme Court rejects the Scottish Government’s approach and Westminster rejects the next General Election results, the SNP need to lay out their plan to go beyond Westminster and include it in their manifesto before asking everyone to vote for them.
Gordon Morris
via email
YIPPEE! Labour is doing the work for us. Starmer opposing any way back into the EU and Anas elsewhere re-iterating “Scottish” Labour’s position that they will block any Scottish attempt to have a democratic vote on our independence are another two nails in Labour’s coffin in Scotland. I extend my sympathy to the many decent democrats struggling in the Labour party in Scotland and assure them they would be very welcome indeed with us. I seriously hope those putting together a Yes campaign team are talking to many of them.
Dave McEwan Hill
Sandbank, Argyll
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