YOUR correspondents (Letters, December 11 & 17) debate why and why not the Scottish Labour Party should change its policy so as to support Scottish independence. There are several very good reasons, which really should be obvious.
The first is that the Labour Party believes that "by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone". In other words, its philosophy is one of mutual support and co-operation, and indeed of loving our neighbour as ourselves. For my part, I cannot see how any Christian can simultaneously support that commandment and Scottish independence. (No doubt I will be enlightened by those who believe that the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland are not our neighbours.)
In practical terms, this philosophy means that Labour supports the continued redistribution of UK resources, currently running from London and the southeast to parts of the country where revenues are lower and/or services are more expensive. As the Scottish Government tells us, Scotland is now consistently a beneficiary of this system. It would be illogical for Scottish Labour to turn its back on this major source of funding for public services and jobs in Scotland.
Secondly, in no time in my 41 years of membership of the Labour Party, 31 of them in Scotland, have I ever known anyone in any branch or affiliate bring forward a resolution that it should support independence. If these have occurred anywhere, they have obviously been defeated. Even in the 2014 referendum campaign when a "Labour For Indy" group popped up, it was found to be a handful of nobodies, whose main publicity photo comprised SNP activists pretending to be Labour members. Just why should Labour change its policies if its membership does not want it?
Peter A Russell,
87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow.
BILL Brown's "imagination is restless" thinking of the slight rise in taxation for a small number of tax payers and he fails to consider that the vast majority will be unaffected or be paying less (Letters, December 15). He also fails to assess the benefits, such as free eye tests, free personal care and free travel which benefit our older folk and free student tuition fees which benefit the young and their parents
He is worried by defence costs but seems unaware that the main reason that Russia might want to attack Scotland is because of the store of nuclear weapons at Faslane. An independent Scotland can make a double saving by getting rid of the ever escalating multi-billion cost of these weapons of mass destruction and greatly reduce the farcical need of conventional weapons to protect them.
David Hay,
12 Victoria Park, Minard.
The SNP’s contortions over Brexit are entertaining enough but are becoming tedious. As various economics experts show, a hard Brexit followed by Scottish secession from the UK would leave Scotland in a very difficult position with regard to borders, tariffs and trade. Above all, the complexity and difficulty of negotiating a withdrawal settlement from a union of f40 years suggests that trying to unpick a union of more than 300 years would be a nightmare. That is before we consider the loss of extra funds Scotland receives from Westminster, accounting for 15 per cent of its public spending. What would an "independent" Scottish government cut when that 15 per cent of funding was removed? That is the question the Scottish Government and SNP – the linkage between party and state is very close - needs to answer. What would they cut?
The SNP is still in denial about the fact that, had yes won in 2014, a separate Scotland would have left the EU. EU Commission members confirmed that at the time. Yet the SNP has never acknowledged that. It is time for it to do so.
Jill Stephenson,
Glenlockhart Valley, Edinburgh.
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