YOUR correspondent Alistair Galloway (Letters, May 11) suggests that the SNP should seek a mandate for UDI in future manifestos. Your readers might like to consider the following example of what happens when you take people's votes away, as he suggests.
When the National Union of Mineworkers was set up following the post-war Labour Government's nationalisation of the coal industry, it was decided that never again would the miners go into national strike divided. To prevent this, it was decided that there would be popular vote in form of a mandatory pithead ballot on any proposal for a national coal strike. This process resulted in the successful strikes of the early 1970s under Joe Gormley.
However, when Mr Gormley's successor Arthur Scargill proposed national strikes to the membership, he was defeated. His response was to change the NUM constitution so that a national strike could be called by a delegate conference, and in due course he secured the strike that he wanted through such a conference. As a result, the union was divided, the miners’ strike of 1984-85 did not hold and was defeated, pit closures accelerated and deep mining is now extinct as a major industry. Possibly worst of all, many mining communities were bitterly divided and remain so in the memories of all concerned.
Scotland has been bitterly divided too, by the 2014 referendum and its continuing aftermath, in which the First Minister and her Government perversely fail to represent the two million Scots who voted to stay in the UK. It is not hard to imagine the outcome if those two million were to be betrayed and led into UDI, having cast their ballots in good faith that their vote in 2014 was decisive and would settle the issue of independence for a generation.
Mr Galloway has made it clear on many occasions that he supports independence at any price. For most people, however, I hope that it is more important to put Scotland back together again in honouring the outcome of 2014 than in promoting further – and potentially catastrophic – division and bitterness.
Peter A Russell,
87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow.
WE live in truly Orwellian times. But there can only be so long the lies can persist before the lived reality of the people comes to replace the spectre of the imagination of our leaders.
In Scotland class sizes have gone up, the number of teachers has gone down. We see homelessness up, the number of houses being built is down. Hospital waiting lists are up, NHS performance is down.
We witness wages going down and number of zero-hour contracts going up. We feel costs going up whilst consumer confidence goes down. We experience poverty going up and opportunity going down. We have our taxes going up, and government spending going down. Bankruptcies up, house purchases down. Violent crime up, the number of police officers down. Fear is up, hope is down.
Everything that is supposed to be down is up. Everything that is supposed to be up is down.
It appears that in Scotland we have things upside down and someone needs to turn the SNP and Tory governments' records of failure for the past number of years right side up. You wouldn't know this of course if you listen to either the First Minister nor the Prime Minister. This era of post-truth politics has to come to an end soon, otherwise we will come to live in a world where as Orwell wrote: "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."
Scott Wilson,
44 Stoneyholm Road, Kilbirnie.
BRIAN Quail (Letters, May 10) is “unimpressed” with my views that do not chime with his on independence and nuclear disarmament. On both subjects he is well informed and makes his case with the conviction of one who is certain he is right, adding for good measure questions for me he no doubt imagines are impossible to answer, so putting me in my place.
On independence he asks that I name countries that have “broken from London rule in the last 100 years, and subsequently sought to have it re-imposed”. The answer is “none” of course, his point being presumably to draw parallels between the many constituents of the British Empire and their independence movements and the context of Scotland’s place in the UK. Ironically of course Scots and Scotland played a pretty significant role in building the British Empire, but that of itself does not undermine this argument. Neither, necessarily, does our geographical position as a direct neighbour on the same island, compared with those in some cases thousands of miles away. Rather, it depends on whether you value generations of close interrelationships between Scotland and the rest of the UK, and the mutual interdependency that has played such a major part in our development. Equally, the influence that Scots have had and continue to have over the economic, cultural and indeed political spheres of the UK as a whole, and through extensive devolved powers in Scotland, means the comparison with the nations of the Empire is a stretch. Yet I understand that Mr Quail will simply not agree with that.
On the question of why I do not call upon the UK Government to support the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons, it is because in my view that would be an empty gesture unless it was part of a wider nuclear disarmament involving the likes of Russia, Israel, China, Pakistan, the USA, North Korea, etc. There is no obvious political will across these nations to back such a plan just now of course, but nevertheless it is ultimately the route by which lasting world peace will hopefully be achieved. Again I appreciate Mr Quail will not agree with me, but I for one hope that multilateral disarmament is not as he suggests “dumped in the compost heap of history”, but is rather revived by new leaders with the vision and authority to lead us towards a safer and more peaceful world view.
Keith Howell,
White Moss, West Linton, Peeblesshire.
JEREMY Corbyn states that, while he supports the UK, he is not a Unionist in the emotional sense. ("Corbyn insists that he is pro-UK but not a Unionist", The Herald, May 10).
Does this mean that where Labour is in power in local government with Conservative support it is not through a common Unionism, but because it actually feels it has much in common politically with its Tory backers in councils like North Lanarkshire, Aberdeen and Falkirk?
Councillor Tom Johnston (SNP),
North Lanarkshire Council,
5 Burn View, Cumbernauld.
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