AS Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonell and their cohorts lead the Labour Party into the electoral wilderness it will be up to Kezia Dugdale and the Scottish Labour Party to try to inject some semblance of creditability into the political spectrum of the UK party. The rows and uncertainty over major policies such as defence and Trident show the party to be completely split. What will the unions say to the possible loss of jobs?

Next we have the unfunded and uncosted financial policies put forward by the shadow chancellor (“Warnings as Labour unveils plans for a ‘real living wage’”, The Herald, September 27). Not since the days of Michael Foot and his disastrous showing in the 1983 General Election has the Labour Party been in such disarray and so unelectable. The Scots know what happened after 1983.

Dave Biggart,

Southcroft, Knockbuckle Road, Kilmacolm.

I HAVE been an activist in the cause of Scottish self-determination for more than 50 years and have always found it difficult to understand why my friends in the Labour Party cannot understand that we simply want to run our own affairs. They associate our aims with those of the fascists and all the poisons of the xenophobic right. These poisons are alive and thriving in Britain today but they are rarely to be found among those of us who want to sever our ties with Westminster and who want to continue to play our role in Europe.

Your frequent correspondent Brian Quail, showing greater courage than I have ever done, in a cause I have ever believed in, lay down before a convoy of Trident Missiles being driven through Stirling. So far as I am aware it is still the policy of Stirling Council to oppose such movements through its area and the Scottish Parliament is opposed to having weapons of mass destruction in Scotland, let alone within a few miles of her major centres of population.

This defiance of the will of the Scottish people is commonplace. Where is the will of the Scottish Labour Party? I have every sympathy with the internationalism of the Socialist Ideal and the concept that we must share the burden with our brethren in Liverpool and Manchester. Does that extend to Calais and Marseilles? To Syria, Libya and Aleppo? The list of tragedies from British post-imperialist dreams continues to grow and the universality dream of the Labour Party has had more than its fair share of responsibility for these disastrous follies.

If we, in Scotland, who believe in an egalitarian society and are prepared to work towards the achievement of such a dream, if we who abhor the horrors of abominable weapons, if we who believe in our fellow man or woman or child, if we Scots of whatever race creed or religion, or political party, would stand together and rid ourselves of the Westminster yoke, we could make ours a great nation and stand proud in the cause of humanity. To those who will argue that the economic case is against us I will say simply that it was enough to persuade me 50-odd years ago, before oil, and I have watched the rapine of our wealth ever since. All we want is to govern our own affairs and to play our own part in the family of nations.

KM Campbell,

Bank House, Doune.