THE Labour Party of Sir Keir Starmer will not prioritise fundamental reform of the House of Lords but will introduce an English Devolution Bill. The latter should not be interpreted as a first step on the road to federalism, as proposed by Gordon Brown. It is an attempt to appear, at least superficially, to be working more closely with local government in devolving more financial responsibility.

If “Sir Keir” had seriously considered Mr Brown’s proposals and if he was serious about engaging more positively and respectfully with the Scottish Government, then one of his 40 bills to be introduced in the UK Parliament should have provided for the repeal of the UK Internal Market Act with the Sewel Convention put on a statutory footing, as agreed by all five of the Scottish political parties participating in the Smith Commission.

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With the UK economy stagnant and devolution on its knees, “Sir Keir”, supported by fewer than one in five of the electorate, has less than two years to demonstrate that Scottish devolution and “the Union” are worth sustaining. Failure to implement the Sewel recommendation of the Smith Commission will simply demonstrate that “Sir Keir” is a man of meaningless words and that his party (including the patronising chief and deputy-chief of the Scottish branch office) has nothing substantial to offer the people of Scotland.

Those who truly believe in democracy, as well as those convinced the majority of the people of Scotland do not wish independence, should welcome either a second referendum (a seven-year interval has been deemed sufficient for the people of Northern Ireland, so should also be sufficient for the people of Scotland) or a de facto referendum in 2026.

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In the meantime, while taking time to reflect and learning from mistakes made is critically important, there is no substitute for each individual who supports independence (whether an SNP member or not) seeking ways, apart from any political party allegiances, to more positively contribute to raising sustained support above 60%. The launch of a “Citizen’s Convention” this year to determine a realistic legal route to self-determination would be a significant step in achieving this goal and in Scotland regaining its independence.

Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian

ALEX Beckett asks “is this the ‘change’ we were promised?” in his letter printed alongside the photo of Lammy and Netanyahu shaking hands.

Surely he realises that this was a smiling Netanyahu having been reassured that the new UK Government will continue to follow Israel’s lead in Middle East affairs as before.

So much for the promised changes with a new government, for, as with social and economic policies, the only changes are in personnel. New faces, same policies. The Westminster consensus continues regardless of party or personnel in government. The UK establishment rules.

Drew Reid
Falkirk

VICEROY Murray is “rolling up his sleeves”, but not to help Scotland. The speech delivered by an English King dripping in diamonds offered Scotland nothing.

GB Energy and the National Wealth Fund are private equity heists designed to funnel money to the City of London, the world’s dirty-money-laundering capital. GB Energy will shovel Scotland’s North Sea oil revenues into Westminster’s yawning maw. It won’t lower prices or create jobs. Only renationalising energy and introducing regional electricity pricing would. The UK has the only fully privatised energy sector in Europe and the highest prices (ditto for water, apart from Scotland, and rail).

But English Labour won’t do this because then Scots would pay the lowest electricity prices in Europe, and the Viceroy can’t have that!

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English Labour’s real priorities lie elsewhere. Starmer flew to Washington, promising the UK would ratchet up defence spending to 2.5% of GDP (£8bn more by 2030), appeasing the baying wolves in the military industrial complex. Foreign Secretary Lammy flew to Tel Aviv to schmooze with war criminal Netanyahu, pledging further support for genocide.

Most heinous of all, English Labour won’t lift a finger to help 4.2 million children living in poverty. It’s creating a task force to kick this uncomfortable can down the road rather than spend the money to lift these kids out of misery. Ending the two-child benefit cap would cost just £1.7 billion. Cabinet minister Pat McFadden even claimed it was “up for debate” whether child poverty was harmful. So, Scotland must continue to mitigate from its limited-by-Westminster budget, taking money from the NHS.

The way out of this neoliberal nightmare is to end this 317-year-old faux union and once again govern ourselves.

Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh

I HAVE never written to this letters page before but I honestly cannot believe the tone of the letters criticising the recent front page of The National for urging a Spanish win in the Euro final.

Let’s be honest here, there’s a reason why practically every right-thinking Scottish person was praying for a Spanish win: if England had won we would have had that win talked about on every English news outlet and stuffed down our throats for the next 20 years.

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That English exceptionalism that brought about Brexit would’ve been suffocating. There’s a reason why we joke about Scotland supporters’ first team being the Scotland team and their second choice being whoever is playing England. If we can’t joke about the big neighbour who has colonised Scotland for the last 300 years losing a football match, without a big squeamish outcry of “oh we mustn’t offend”, what hope is there of us ever demanding our independence?

John McCann
via email