Strengthening the UK at home and abroad will benefit us all

A decisive majority rejected the dismemberment of the UK. Yet nationalists seem to believe that they are on their way: either recent Better Together promises will lead to complete home rule - preferably with Scottish foreign and defence policies, or a single-issue electoral stunt or another referendum will quickly set Scotland free. And David Cameron has assured Yes voters that he understands their concerns: as an act of putative reconciliation, he has promised to deliver substantial new powers to the Scottish Parliament. This would be dangerous and defy majority opinion.

In the absence of strong central fiscal and monetary control, the Scottish economy would quickly be in difficulties if policy were based on no austerity and increased public spending. The nationalists deny that its 59 MPs give Scotland an important stake in Westminster. Instead, they contend endlessly that London-based austerity is cruelly harming Scotland; that the break-up of the UK would deliver a fairer and more prosperous Scotland.

Yet Scotland gets more from the UK Treasury than it gives to it. London, the only significant net contributor to the British public purse, subsidises Scotland; and Westminster has helped Scottish industry by giving it public orders. UK constitutional and economic policy reform could have been pursued at a decent pace in the absence of a needless threat to the Union.

Defence and foreign policy must be for the UK as a whole. Adam Smith made defence the first duty of the state; and his preferred institution was a competitive market. His insights stand. Yet, it seems to me that nationalists would solve the West's problems by hanging Tony Blair for war crimes and persuading terrorists with soft words that no harm is intended them.

They would do nothing to sustain economic recovery. Told that maximum economic growth might be the best option for the poor, nationalists shun empirical evidence and offer an unreasoned ideological rant. The bluster continues: a majority of under-50s voted for independence; it should, therefore, happen. However, if the very young were strongly nationalistic, their parents and grandparents were not. The elderly voted in their patriotic droves to stay in the Union because it offers the best prospects for the long-run prosperity and security of their children and grandchildren. Most Scots did not vote to become citizens of a genteel People's Republic. The interests of all lie in strengthening the UK at home and abroad.

Emeritus Professor James Pickett,

18/4 Harbourside,

Inverkip,

Greenock.

READING Iain Macwhirter's column ("Please make sure you have your say on more powers", The Herald, October 23), it has to be asked if he knows that the referendum game is over.

As the Government declined invitations to provide a second ballot paper on the question of amended devolution at the time of the referendum, we have no way of knowing for sure whether the electorate favour "more powers" or what these powers might be.

Polls during the referendum campaign suggested a majority in favour of more powers, but they also found that those polled didn't know what powers Holyrood actually had and what further powers were to be devolved in terms of the 2012 Scotland Act. Not a mandate for anything, really.

Reading the Smith Commission website and surrounding publicity, it would appear that, in fact, the commission is willing to engage with a "civic Scotland", however that is to be defined. This is unfortunate, as it creates the danger of certain sections of the community (church goers, trades unionists, for example) having a say more than once. Multiple voting, if you like. The only way to do this properly is to restrict consultation to individual contri­bu­tions.

Then, there's the critical problem of the "entrenchment" of Holyrood, which was merely a suggestion from some politicians, made on the hoof. There is no mandate for this, either.

Holyrood, like the institutions in Belfast and Cardiff, is a devolved legislature to which Parliament can devolve powers and from which powers can be recalled, as happened in 2013, in the area of press regulation.

Entrenchment of Holyrood is wholly inappropriate for the constitutional system which the people of Scotland voted for in September, and will be repudiated. While the SNP's latest prospective parliamentary candidate may disagree, to suggest otherwise would be to deny the democratically expressed will of the Scottish people.

John McAleer,

24 Clelland Avenue,

Bishopbriggs.

I AGREE with Iain AD Mann (Letters, October 24) that future Scottish governments and parliaments should have the power to put in place the most sensible economic and social arrangements appropriate to Scotland. However, for me, the Smith Commission had failed before it began, as there is not the slightest chance that the Scottish Parliament will have any say in future UK defence policies.

As things stand, if English MPs vote in favour of going to war, Scotland will go to war, even if every Scottish MP votes against it. Given that every year but one of this century has seen the UK embroiled in foreign wars, and that trend looks set to continue for years to come, is it not right that the Scottish Parliament should at the very least have an official say in the matter of Scots soldiers being sent to war zones, and Scots taxpayers shelling out to pay for them?

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road,

Stirling.

I AM is somewhat baffled by all the optimism around the Smith Commission and new powers for Scotland.

The 11 members could come out of their deliberations with agreement, unanimity, hand in hand; it will not matter one jot.

In Scotland the people are sovereign, in England Parliament is sovereign.

Any agreement in Scotland will have to be ratified in the Westminster Parliament.

All three main parties' members in Westminster who are based in England (some in Scotland too), don't care what or how many vows their party leaders proclaim, they are simply empty, political words. As far as a Westminster MP is concerned only vows agreed and passed in the Westminster Parliament have any legitimacy, in line with West­minster's rules and sovereignty.

There may well be agreement over new powers for Scotland in Scotland but do not hold your breath on Westminster passing the appropriate legislation.

Jim Dear,

82 Marketgate,

Arbroath.