IN the event of a no-deal, the Government may not be able to raise certain taxes. No 10 retorts that it’s Theresa May’s deal or no deal and the clock ticks on. The Westminster set up is in a cul-de-sac (“Tory rebels pile pressure on May to rule out any no-deal Brexit”, The Herald, January 9).

All the inconsistencies and contradictions that have surfaced in Westminster are narrowing down to this. We have gone from “no deal is better than a bad deal” to this “bad deal is better than a no-deal”.

On the arch-Brexiter side a no-deal is the epitome of what the “British voted for” in the referendum; another complicated bit of sophistry as they had argued that a deal post Brexit would be easy. But this May-deal is a withdrawal deal and the real deal to be dealt with is what comes next post March 29. But is made problematic by the backstop, the Democratic Unionist Party and the fact that it pleases neither Remainers nor Leavers. But the Prime Minister is cussed and wants her way out of her sense of duty to the nation.

Parliament, the nation and the Westminster-based Anglo parties are in ferment as the never-to-be-used no deal preparations are rolled out and billions of pounds are allocated from the magic money tree.

“ArMaygeddon” is looming, built upon the out-of-control glide path set in motion by the very Tory party that is riven and has no majority due to a prime minister who went for broke and ended up broken, unstable and enfeebled.

It may be that a no deal will take place. The repercussions will not have to be faced by Mrs May. She will not lead her party, or what will be left of it, into the next General Election.

Then it will become obvious to the people south of the Tweed that they have no right to entitlement, the EU is not going to bend its four freedoms and that the duopoly party leaders who brought about this mess will be consigned to the political scrap heap.

The greatest faux pas since Suez will consign the UK to oblivion through its own contradictions and it will go the way the three Continental Empires went after the debacle of 1918.

John Edgar,

1a Langmuir Quadrant, Kilmaurs.

I, LIKE most of my fellow 5.5 million EU citizens in Scotland, treasure my burgundy passport and the precious rights it conveys.

I resent the fact that, by reason of a referendum result based on illegal expenditure and xenophobic lies, English and Welsh votes are to deprive me of these rights and citizenship, despite the clear will of my fellow Scots.

We now have the situation where the Prime Minister is afraid to face the Commons and sends the Brexit Secretary as pathetic substitute and is afraid of the Anglo-imperial fantasists in her party and the populist Europhobia they have aroused.

In Scotland many of us have difficulty containing the outrage we feel at the contempt with which our aspirations and our elected representatives have been treated.

As a law student I was taught that the unwritten British constitution depended on the tolerance of the people and that no government would be foolish enough to push that tolerance to its limit.

The persistent abuse of parliamentary convention by this incompetent, contemptuous, and deceitful government, allied to a complicit and complacent official Opposition, is close to creating anger beyond that tolerance. The raging xenophobes and the outraged Remainers leave little optimism for the survival of the British constitution as we know it.

My hope is that, in 2019, Scotland will rid itself of the toxicity inherent in rule by Westminster. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate.

KM Campbell,

Bank House, Doune.

THE May Government has offered the Northern Ireland Assembly a “lock or veto” on the use of new laws in the event the Brexit backstop comes into force. But there is no Stormont Assembly and, as we in Scotland know, Westminster will not allow a “veto” over its presumed prerogatives. The DUP will be aware of Westminster’s constitutional honey traps but at least it is receiving attention.

The Scottish Conservatives did reasonably well in the 2015 general election by promising to “champion the Scottish interest”. They have asked the May Government for nothing for their lobby foddering, and, unlike the DUP, have received nothing.

The votes of Scottish Secretary David Mundell and his merry band will make Scots poorer than they would have been. Let us hope that, at the next election, their constituents have that in mind as they place their crosses.

GR Weir,

17 Mill Street, Ochiltree.