It appears Supreme Court rulings can be disregarded when it suits

The Scottish Government is forced to abide by a grossly unfair Supreme Court ruling that it cannot formally quantify its discussion with Scots about independence, yet this Westminster right-wing Tory government is intent on openly defying this latest decision to declare illegal the expatriation of asylum seekers to a politically less stable African country that could never guarantee their safety.

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Meanwhile, we have the far-right Tory gurus now calling on Britain, who were founding signatories, to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights to allow such deplorable schemes to be possible in the fascist model of the new Britain they are striving to create. In the cause of humanity this has to be stopped, this Tory party has to be stopped.

The not-so-clever James Cleverly has breezed into the Foreign Office promulgating the same bile, invective and lack of humanity as his predecessor, clearly to satisfy the baying hounds of the party’s ultra-right wing that has now got such a tight grip on Britain’s political direction to the point of abandoning every vestige of what can now be laughingly described as “British” values. They’re gone, now unrecognisable to anyone with a shred of humanity in them.

Of course, there is an election looming, and some will say it will sort these issues out. Labour will take over, and they’ll administer the Tory project with some compassion, so everything will come good. That will be the biggest mistake we can make. Because we’re dealing with two centre-right parties that are intent on appealing directly to those in the country that would welcome the right-wing mantra they’re being offered. Humanity considerations are being shunted to the side by both parties and their supporters.

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For we Scots, these latest shenanigans in Westminster bring home to roost the urgent imperative of independence so that we can chart our future untrammelled by the machinations of right-wing politics unfolding in Westminster.

English-biased Supreme Court decisions are now about to be rendered just another inconvenient hurdle to be circumvented by politicians. So, let’s do it for ourselves.

So, let’s be defiant. Let’s rush to our referendum now. Let Westminster do what they will through the courts. Let’s ignore injunctions, interdicts or whatever. The court of world opinion will be witness to whatever they try to do.

By the time any of that happens we will have the result, and when we win that we take back our independence; we resile our alleged “partnership” in this iniquitous false “union”, build our new Scotland in harmony with Europe and the rest of the free world, and secure our now endangered ECHR rights as the foundation of the fair and free society we’re entitled to, and which Westminster fascist control denies us.

Let’s put Scotland’s independence as our number one political priority. Before it’s loo late.

Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

BREAKING international treaties they signed up to is the only thing this Westminster government is good at. If they ignore the Supreme Court ruling, they should be severely punished, but does the Supreme Court have the power to punish? If they can ignore a Supreme Court ruling then why can’t Scotland? I really question whether the Supreme Court has any bona fide power over Scotland since it recognises only the sovereignty of the Parliament in Westminster, while sovereignty in Scotland remains with the people, something that was never removed with the Treaty of Union.

Sheila Le Mottee
via thenational.scot

REMEMBER Rishi Sunak’s proposal to make numeracy “a central objective of the education system”? Maybe that’s because his own education was deficient in that regard. He doesn’t seem to understand that inflation isn’t a measure of the absolute increase in prices, but a percentage rate compared to the previous year.

What this means is that a fall in inflation doesn’t equate to a fall in prices, but merely a fall in their rate of increase. For prices to actually fall, deflation needs to occur.

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Furthermore, Sunak can’t claim credit for cooling inflation. The Bank of England’s interest-rate hikes didn’t cause it to fall, it was going to fall regardless because it was caused by external supply-side shocks – the pandemic and the Ukraine conflict. The Bank’s policies worsened the cost-of-living crisis, loaded people with unsustainable levels of debt and have unleashed a torrent of business insolvencies, leaving the UK teetering on the brink of recession.

Instead of the years of Tory mismanagement and blatant incompetence, the UK economy needed real wage increases, higher public-sector investment and low interest rates to stimulate economic growth.

Unfortunately, Labour is promising more of the same failed policies. It’s past time for Scotland to go.

Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh