FOR months now all three Unionist parties have asserted ad nauseum: "The Scottish people don't want another independence referendum". They never offer any evidence for this.

Fake news is nothing new, even in Western democracies which pride themselves on their free press. The weak Yes majority for devolution in the 1979 referendum is to this day often recorded as a majority for No. Today the Unionist hope is that if they repeat often enough that the electorate don't want to be consulted (unless it's about EU membership); that having to go and vote (unless it's in an opportunistic General Election) is an annoying chore for the electorate, this will become accepted as fact.

Now Theresa May announces that she will refuse permission for another independence referendum until the UK (with its unwritten constitution, Royal Prerogative and all) has accrued all the EU institutions and edicts to itself. Even then we'll get no referendum until there's "public consent" for one” (“Tories pledge to delay second independence vote until 2022”, The Herald, May 19.

How do we demonstrate public consent? Not by electing a landslide of pro-independence Westminster MPs and throwing out all but three Unionist MPs. We've already done that. Not by voting in an SNP Government on a specific mandate to hold another referendum "if Scotland is taken out of the EU against its will". We've already done that. Not by voting against Brexit in every single constituency. We've already done that. Not by a majority vote for an independence referendum by our elected MSPs in the Scottish Parliament. We've already done that.

Not by opinion polls. The last opinion poll I saw (by the respected company Panelbase) showed support for another referendum running at 51 per cent.

So what's left? Evidently the UK Tory Government (rejected repeatedly by Scotland) is to be the only arbitrator of whether there is "public consent" in Scotland for self-determination.

The gloves are off now. No more bribes. No vague vows; no promises of extra scraps of devolution. The UK Government can charge untrammelled over the constitution including the timing of elections and referendums and how many of its present powers the Scottish Government will be allowed to keep.

What price democracy?

Mary McCabe,

25 Circus Drive Glasgow.

THERE are some 50 countries in Europe. All of them except the UK have a written constitution. That the UK does not have a written constitution is often lauded by its supporters for the “flexibility” it allows. A flexibility none of Europe's countries deem necessary. It is also a charlatan’s charter.

Theresa May has already tried to drive a coach and horses through that constitution when she tried to bypass parliament over a Brexit vote by invoking the Royal prerogative.

She now seeks to prevent a second referendum on Scottish independence until there is “public consent” for it to happen. Naturally this new constitutional requirement has no definition as to what public consent means. Scotland will also have to wait “until the Brexit process is played out”. Again no explanation as to what that means.

This attempt to thwart the will of the Scottish Parliament is inept, weak and doomed to failure. The UK and Scottish parliaments operate within the principle of parliamentary democracy. It is a simple principle. The people choose the parliament (public consent, Mrs May), a government is formed. That parliament then discusses and debates the issues of the day proposed by the government or others in parliament. Secure a majority in favour of your motion and it is enacted. Simple, democratic.

That is the only measure of democratic legitimacy which counts in a parliamentary democracy. Mrs May and other Unionists try to invoke other measures about vote share and opinion polls. As always they will misrepresent these measures, but regardless, the vote of the Scottish Parliament is the only legitimate voice.

An inevitable hard Brexit despite 62 per cent of Scotland voting to remain, coupled with rule for who knows how long, by a party Scotland has rejected, demand that Scotland's parliament should be respected and the people of this country given the opportunity to decide their own future before that future is decided for them.

Kenneth McNeil,

Alva Place, Lenzie.

THOSE unhappy with Prime Minister Theresa May saying in the Conservative manifesto that an independence referendum rerun should not happen until “the Brexit process has played out” and also that “it should not take place unless there is public consent for it to happen), should remember that Nicola Sturgeon has said things in the not too distant past that would have meant something similar.

When seeking to urge out the Yes vote in 2014 she said the referendum would be the last chance in a “generation”, while in subsequent elections. wanting to urge more people to vote SNP, she reassured us all that there would not be another referendum unless the people of Scotland wanted one. So not so very different to what Mrs May is saying, with the only significant difference being that one means what they are saying and the other did not.

Keith Howell,

White Moss, West Linton, Peeblesshire.