Richard Mowbray has penned many an epistle to The Herald espousing his hostility to the right of the Scottish people to determine their own future but his letter ("Referendum question and date are at discretion of Westminster", August 10) plumbs new depths of absurdity.

For him to refer to the Claim of Rights as a "farrago" and that those who signed it "represented no-one but themselves" tells us succinctly just how respectful of the wishes of the Scottish people the Tory party really is. The original 1989 Claim of Right was signed by 58 of Scotland's 72 Members of Parliament, seven of Scotland's eight MEPs, 59 out of 65 of the Scottish regional, district and island councils, churches, trade unions and other civic bodies. The notable exclusion from the list of signatories was of course any representative of the Tory party. The Claim was later ratified in 2011 by all the parties, with the exception of the Tories, in the Scottish Parliament. If that isn't representative I don't know what could be.

The issue of sovereignty and how it is expressed is complicated, I concede. But it was made absolutely clear it does not reside in Parliament by Lord Cooper in his 1953 judgment in the case of McCormick v The Lord Advocate when he ruled that "the principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law".

Significantly, that ruling was not appealed by the Crown and therefore still stands, completely unaffected by any provision in the Scotland Act of 1998, in that a power that it never had could not have been retained as a reserved matter by Westminster. That leaves us with no legal definition of precisely how our sovereignty is expressed and in practice I accept we are left with only Parliament as the true representative body of the people. The question is then which of our two parliaments better fits that bill? Westminster has only around 9% of its members elected by the people of Scotland and the wishes of the Scottish people can only at best be a tiny minority; Holyrood, with 100% of its members elected by the people of Scotland, is consequently infinitely more representative of them. By any logic, except possibly that reserved for Unionists, that has to be a "no contest".

To suggest the SNP was cowardly in not issuing a unilateral declaration of independence after the 2011 landslide victory at Holyrood is another example of Mr Mowbray's odd view of democracy. The SNP was pledged to put the issue to the Scottish people in a referendum and had absolutely no mandate to do otherwise. It may be rather strange for a political party to honour its manifesto commitments these days but I can assure Mr Mowbray that the SNP will not follow the Westminster Coalition down that road.

I am however grateful to him for exposing to public scrutiny once again the attitude of the Conservative Party to the democratic rights of the Scottish people. And they wonder why nobody votes for them.

Alasdair MacKenzie,

19 Kirkfield View,

Livingston,

West Lothian.

Richard Mowbray raises an important issue about where sovereignty lies (Letters, August 10). Scots would claim it rests with the people, whereas English people and especially Westminster politicians are convinced it rests with Parliament, which Mr Mowbray seems to support. His comments regarding Canon Kenyon Wright and the Scottish Constitutional Convention representing only their own interests causes me to reflect that the evidence is that politicians at all levels, but particularly of the Westminster variety, have signally failed to reflect the views of the constituents they claim to represent, as their overriding role is to vote as directed by the party. It follows that sovereignty lies not with the people, or with Westminster, but rather with the unelected backroom apparatchiks of the political parties and the politicians' role is to do what they are told. This is, I would suggest, a major reason for the poor turnout at elections across the country.

TJ Dowds,

22 Lammermoor Drive,

Greenfaulds,

Cumbernauld.

Is it only a conceit on my part that manifests a Parliament building before my eyes each time I drive out of Holyrood Park and head out of Abbey Strand for the foot of the Royal Mile? He may live on the wrong side of the country but I'm sure it would not be too difficult for Richard Mowbray to get to the capital, check out my findings, and be home in time for tea.

It seems to me that Canon Kenyon Wright and all the other participants in the Convention produced something more concrete than braggadocio and hot air.

I had a look at the Olympic medals table this morning and noted it features Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus, all of which seceded from the USSR without first seeking permission from Moscow. At the summit of the medals table is the United States, which disentangled itself from Britain without so much as a by-your-leave, although after a bitter war. Dotted around the world are other nations that won their freedom after the British establishment first belittled their aspirations, then dismissed their claims, before acceding to them when the blood price became too great.

No matter what Mr Mowbray says, I firmly believe Scotland will once more become an independent nation but without a bullet being fired or a drop of blood spilled. I hope this will happen soon after the 2014 referendum because our nation deserves more than to be treated as repository for weapons of mass destruction and a means of funding policies her people don't want and didn't vote for.

David C Purdie,

12 Mayburn Vale,

Loanhead,

Midlothian.

For somebody who frequently lambasts any sort of Government involvement, Richard Mowbray is showing a considerable degree of deference to the Government in claiming that Westminster and not the people are the ones who ought to decide how we are governed.

The justification he offers is, at any rate, simply incorrect. In the first instance, it is a constitutional myth that Parliament is sovereign anyway. Comparative analysis of political systems shows Britain has the least powerful Parliament of any country in the nominally democratic world with virtually all power sitting in the hands of the Executive Branch or Government. This hardly fits the profile of a sovereign Parliament.

Moreover, even the myth itself does not hold in Scotland. The Court of Session has ruled that the English doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law. If Parliament does not have that sovereignty it follows that, in common with most of our European neighbours, sovereignty rests with the people and that we have the right to remake our form of Government as we please.

Even if this were not the case in legal terms, the precedent would still exist for us to do so. The United States for instance was born out of 13 colonies without sovereignty who nonetheless asserted the right to remake their Government better to suit them.

Iain Paterson,

2F Killermont View,

Glasgow.