HAVING campaigned for a No vote in 2014, should I now repent? I shall certainly retain little loyalty to a Brexitered, DUPed disUnited Kingdom

Independence could well be seen by a majority of Scottish voters as the appropriate response to our being dragged out of the EU very much against our will by the “sadomasochistic no-deal fantasies of the zealots” (Fintan O’Tool of the Irish Times).

I believe that the said zealots (down South) care not a jot about either the continued existence of the UK or a peaceful solution to the Irish conundrum.

John Milne,

9 Ardgowan Drive, Uddingston.

MARK Smith writes that “some people will immediately look at my list [of facts about the SNP] and say they’re not facts at all, they’re opinion” ("Four facts about the SNP we can all (hopefully) agree on", The Herald, January 21). The difficulty for Mr Smith is that facts do not speak for themselves but must be interpreted. To take an example from the Brexit debate, at the moment freedom of movement is a fact. In my opinion this is a good thing, though I think a great deal more thought should have been given to the support the migrants would need on arrival. However, others understand freedom of movement in quite a different way. Same “fact”, but different points of view. Freedom of movement does not speak for itself.

Likewise, when we proceed into the detail of Mr Smith's opinion piece, the “facts” he presents are capable of widely differing understandings. For instance, he writes that “the Salmond investigation has emphasised that there are serious divisions in the SNP”. However, when is a division a disagreement? When is a disagreement a debate? Indeed, if everyone is agreed how could we have a debate? Why would we have a debate? How many political parties have no debates, and no disagreements? Indeed, it might even be said that the “facts” of the Salmond case – in the hard sense of what has actually happened – are not fully agreed, and if we cannot agree what the facts, in this sense, are it pretty much prevents any sort of agreed interpretation.

Moreover, Mr Smith has clearly missed the irony in his allegation of division, as one of the most frequent criticisms of the SNP is that it is little better than a cult with dissent absolutely forbidden.

Lastly, and more on a point of consistency of interpretation, Mr Smith’s third “fact” is that support for independence has not been moved by Brexit, and yet in the very next paragraph he says, “the reality now is that we may not know – even by 2021 – what Brexit is going to look like”. So, to summarise, the polls have not been moved by something that we don’t yet know about because it has not happened yet? How surprised should we be by that? I think that is a fact.

Alasdair Galloway,

14 Silverton Avenue, Dumbarton.

THE Government of the UK has never received harsher or more deserved criticism than that expressed by the majority of both people and Parliament since June 2016, but in particular since the commencement of withdrawal negotiations with EU commissioners, the culmination being the worst defeat of any administration in parliamentary history.

The catalogue of Westminster failings needs no repetition, the histories of John Major, of Tony Blair, of Gordon Brown, of David Cameron and most spectacularly of all, of Theresa May have been well exposed. The myths of the “family of nations” and of protecting the interests of “the whole of the United Kingdom” have degenerated into hackneyed propaganda.

From the perspective of Scotland that is particularly apposite. The promises by Westminster of 2014 and 2016 have been broken and forgotten, and the opportunities of the latter to engineer change for the better have been squandered. As George Bernard Shaw prophetically said: “Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything”. The actions and attitude of the PM, and of her supporters demonstrate a complete unwillingness to even consider Scotland`s concerns in pursuit of improvement in its condition. Mr Speaker`s exhortation to the leader of the SNP to “sit down young man” and Mr Nicholas Soames's similar exhortation to him to “go back to Skye” ,while Dennis Skinner's intention to “put the SNP in its place”, speak for themselves. Scotland can expect no meaningful change in the actions prevalent at Westminster. To a disregard or neglect of its concerns and opinions can be added an irrational dislike of things Scottish by elements of the Parliament, the loud examples of which are unchallenged by the Chair.

J Hamilton,

G/2, 1 Jackson Place, Bearsden.

WITH regard to another independence referendum, before we start down this road could Nicola Sturgeon explain how she is going to organise this to avoid the present Brexit problems, such as on what terms would we be leaving England, Wales and Northern Ireland, what type of borders and customs arrangements would there be, what currency would we use and how we would fund it.

W Montgomery,

13 Tullylumb Terrace, Perth.