HAVING insouciantly almost lost the Union by personally and naively negotiating the so-called Edinburgh Agreement with Alex Salmond on last year's referendum, the Prime Minister has now redeemed himself ("Cameron signals a future Tory government could block any SNP bid for a second independence referendum", The Herald, April9 ).

He says that Westminster will decide, and constitutionally that is right.

Scottish popular sovereignty, like its English counterpart, has not existed since 1707 when both were subsumed and displaced by British popular sovereignty in the incorporating United Kingdom, which, as Article 1 of the founding treaty put it, was "for evermore".

Even if a separate Scottish popular sovereignty did exist, we do not live in an Athenian democracy in which citizens are called to the agora to cast pebbles to express their views on issues of the day. We live in a highly sophisticated representative democracy where the sovereignty of the people is transferred to Parliament by a General Election. Thus, with Parliament currently dissolved, until May 7 sovereignty lies again in the hands and minds of the British people.

So what are the implications of all this for a contest in which the SNP might sweep Labour aside, taking in excess of 30 of Scotland's 59 seats and more than 40 per cent of the popular vote? The answer is clear. If the SNP do not include in their manifesto a pledge that a victory in May would constitute a mandate to negotiate independence, then there will be no second referendum in the next five years because a House of Commons dominated by all the Unionist parties would not sanction it. As a devolved parliament without sovereign power, Holyrood would and should have no say, even if the SNP were to win in 2016 with a manifesto commitment to a second referendum. The SNP is no Sinn Fein, the Irish party of independence, which in the December 1918 General Election won 47 per cent of the popular vote and 73 of Ireland's 105 Westminster seats, and boldly seized independence.

The SNP leadership is terrified of a General Election mandate for independence, so they deny the possibility, even though it would be subject to British popular sovereignty. They know that the economic arguments on currency (a union, or a separate medium of exchange), will always be lost. They know that fiscal probity is incompatible with their desire to spend and borrow. They foolishly plough on with their ruinous devo max pledge when the drop in the world oil price has all but wiped out North Sea tax revenues (" Sturgeon under fire over devo max pledge", The Herald, April 9). They know that membership of the EU and compulsory adoption of the euro would end political independence before it had begun. They know that separation would bring stagnation and a collapse of the standard of living, just as it did in Ireland for 60years.

The majority of Scotland's voters (but not the party's purblind membership) can see that the nationalists are on the road to nowhere.

Richard Mowbray,

14 Ancaster Drive, Glasgow.

I AM somewhat confused by Alan Carroll's letter (April 9). He states that if "the people of Scotland" elect the SNP as the government in 2016 we have given them a mandate for another referendum. What if the total votes cast for the SNP are less than 50 per cent of the total vote? Will the "people of Scotland" then be ignored?

Lewis Finnie,

25 Larkfield Gardens, Edinburgh.

THE threat by David Cameron that he would not sanction a second independence referendum demonstrates mind blowing arrogance.

This is not a decision for Mr Cameron or any politician to make, but a decision to be made by the Scottish people. Should the SNP include it in its manifesto for the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections and win that election then so be it.

This arrogance from the current Prime Minister, who boasts one MP in Scotland, belies however a wider malaise and why people are so apathetic about politics. How dare Mr Cameron, or anyone else in the Westminster bubble for that matter, tell the Scottish people what they can and cannot do.

Politics in Scotland has changed, it changed for good after the independence referendum. It is just that Mr Cameron and those in the Westminster square mile have not quite caught up yet.

Alex Orr,

Flat 2, 77 Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh.