IAN Blackford, SNP leader in the Commons, has threatened "maximum disruption" if Her Majesty’s Government allegedly continues to "treat Scotland as a second-class nation" ("Blackford in ‘maximum disruption’ threat to Tories", The Herald, October 9). Addressing the SNP faithful and getting into his stride, he fulminated: "The Tories think they can do whatever they want to Scotland and get away with it." Yes, the wicked Tories are providing Scotland with the extra £13.4 billion over and above what Scots generate in revenue, and are thereby keeping Scottish public services afloat. What rotters!
Mr Blackford seems unaware that the best way to deal with spoilt kids who drum their heels on the floor and shout "I want! I want!" is to ignore them. If he and his colleagues want to walk out of Parliament again, let them. It could make the voting arithmetic a lot clearer.
Jill Stephenson,
Glenlockhart Valley, Edinburgh.
I AGREE with Joanna Cherry ("MP Cherry: We can declare independence without a referendum", The Herald, July 8). I joined the SNP 50 years ago at the suggestion of an absolutely wonderful history teacher and have always been of the opinion that a Scottish Parliament with a party elected on an absolute majority, and being there on a manifesto declaring that independence is their main aim, has therefore earned the right to declare independence unilaterally, and that Westminster would have no moral right to interfere.
After all, if a bought Scottish parliament could vote us into the Union then surely an emancipated electorate with a majority for independence can vote us out again.
Ian M Forrest,
Dalveen, Garvock Road, Laurencekirk.
SNP MP Angus MacNeil and MSP Mike Russell join the SNP member for Edinburgh South-West, Joanna Cherry, in calling for the SNP to employ what can only be termed as "unconventional" approaches to achieving their separatist ambitions.
Ms Cherry thinks if the SNP won the majority of seats in Scotland in a General Election that would suffice. Messrs MacNeil and Russell believe the UK Government's agreement isn't necessary to hold a referendum on breaking up the UK.
Since we must assume they're not having a laugh, we should be concerned democratically-elected representatives are apparently willing to use entirely illegitimate means to achieve their only goal: independence at any cost.
Until now, we knew "at any cost" related to the economic damage independence would inflict on our standard of living. Now due legislative process and democracy have become merely collateral damage for the SNP.
Martin Redfern,
Woodcroft Road, Edinburgh.
REGARDING Alexander McKay's comments regarding the SNP conference being stage-managed (Letters, April 9), where, one wonders were the “maverick views” at the Conservative Party conference? Theresa May’s stage-managed but cringeworthy “dance” on to the platform and her supposedly uplifting speech, which was devoid of any solid content, were greeted with rapturous applause by an audience containing a substantial cabal whose primary aim – often from behind the scenes, lest they endanger their own comfortable jobs – is to humiliate and ultimately sack her at the first possible opportunity.
It seems the Conservative Party has more in common with the Soviet Politburo than Mr McKay would care to recognise.
Ailsa Ferguson,
120 Hutton, Glasgow.
IT is always nice to see readers such as Alasdair Galloway (Letters, October 9) noticing my correspondence. However, he is sometimes a little mistaken about what I have actually written.
First, I do not claim (Letters, October 5) that the Labour Party advocates membership of the EEA and of EFTA: I said that in my view the only Brexit solution that could meet Labour's Six Tests would be such an outcome. I too am disappointed that my party has not been clear in its policy and hope that it is the very clever Sir Keir Starmer who is in charge, rather than the perhaps slightly less clever Mr Corbyn. Time will tell, but a bit of leadership in a clear direction would not go amiss.
Secondly, my statement about people voting in 2015 other than to elect Ed Miliband as Prime Minister was a reference to the whole UK in a national General Election. The prospect of the SNP influencing a Labour-led Government was understandably anathema to many voters in England, but more LibDems voting Labour and indeed pro-Europe Tories across the UK voting Labour to avoid a referendum would have done the trick, and a Brexit referendum would have been avoided.
In contrast, Mr Galloway appears to think and judge events only in terms of the narrow spectrum of Scotland and Scottish Nationalism. And as his comments show, when people do that, they can very easily come to entirely the wrong conclusion.
Peter A Russell,
87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow.
AS any Oriental philosopher will tell you, Yin and Yang embody the duality of life: that seemingly opposite forces may be complementary, interconnected and interdependent.
Mark Smith ("Why the polls aren't as good as the SNP thinks they are", The Herald, October 8) finds that polling, seemingly to the advantage of the SNP, may only represent a kind of polling groundhog day. We have been here before, he writes. But no, we have not. The UK did not face separating from the EU, or the “power grab” of devolved responsibilities, or the demotion of the Scottish Office, or the reneging of all the casually made commitments given by Unionists in 2014. We now have a Scottish Labour Party stripped of all its “big beasts”. A Conservative Party which is the handmaiden to Brexit. All these things are interconnected, and in any future referendum will give the Unionist side a problem with their narrative. We don’t have to rehearse all the things we were promised in 2014 that never came to pass (indeed the opposite). The juxtaposition of an “invisible” Irish border, and the insistence of “armed guards” between Scotland/England. Embarrassment and breach of promise are the drivers of the Unionist refusal to ask the question again.
But we don’t have to go there. Maggie Thatcher stated all that was required for Scottish independence, was a majority of elected Scottish MPs committed to that goal. That is surely still the case.
GR Weir,
17 Mill Street, Ochiltree.
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