Letters: The PM's divisive stance may force the break-up of the Union

She is determined to bow to the hard Brexit demands of her three Brexiters against senior members of her own Cabinet, against the majority in the House of Commons and without informing the public of the consequences. Instead the public is waking up daily to the drip of the dire reality and a woefully uncertain future.

Mrs May was elected Prime Minister by around 300 of her Tory Party as a safe moderate sensible (small c) conservative. Yet her determination to drive through her divisive Grammar School plan, her blunt refusal to provide further support for the NHS and her willingness to fly in the face of her party’s manifesto and eagerly accept the jingoist radical immigration provisions of the likes of Messrs Davis, Fox and Johnson have cast her as a callous hard-right Conservative.

This was not the “One-Nation” Conservative Party that the people elected in 2015 and these new policy pronouncements were never in the Tory manifesto.

Mrs May is promoting a series of divisive political conditions that may force the break-up of the Union (London, Northern Ireland as well as Scotland) in a manner that could lead to tragic economic consequences.

Thom Cross,

18 Needle Green, Carluke.

IT is interesting to note the First Minister quite rightly proposes a “special deal” which will allow Scotland to retain membership of the single market on Brexit. This was immediately ridiculed by the Conservative Secretary of State for Scotland and ruled out by the Prime Minister.

Intriguingly, on the same day it was heralded that the UK would continue to pay billions of pounds into the EU budget after Brexit to maintain cherished access to the Single Market for the City of London and other sectors.

The Prime Minister also assured Japanese carmaker Nissan that trading conditions for its Sunderland car plant would not change after Brexit, suggesting that the Government could pick favoured sectors to shield from the impact of leaving the EU.

A “special deal” is also proposed that will ensure no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on Brexit.

It is indeed interesting to note the UK Government is happy to do deals for specific sectors and parts of the UK, but seems more than a little averse to recognising that Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU.

Alex Orr,

Flat 2, 77 Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh.

ANY attempt to equate Scotland with the City of London for purposes of inclusion in the Single Market following Brexit is fatally flawed.

The reason for this is that "the City of London" for this purpose is a metonym meaning "the UK financial sector", whereas Scotland is a geographical area.

Peter A Russell,

87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow.

RICHARD Mowbray (Letters, October 18) enjoins us to a future in a post-Brexit UK, with “sovereignty over the borders, over trade and over the laws of the UK”.

The EU is condemned for its import duties – “a protectionist bloc, not ... a single market as the UK is”. Yet Mr Mowbray never does tell us who, after leaving the EU, we would be trading with. We would be external to Europe with, at the time of writing, no indication of new trade partners, and certainly no detail of any agreements. Presumably, like Wilkins Micawber in David Copperfield, we can only hope that “something will turn up”.

Or perhaps, like the UK, what Mr Mowbray has in mind is a world of no tariffs or non-tariff barriers, the Nirvana of totally free trade with which he declares the UK is blessed. He claims for instance that “people with the same level of skills in the same type of production earn much the same everywhere across the UK”, which is observably not true. If it were true then the Government would not, for instance, be considering different levels of welfare payments to reflect local labour market conditions. Or, if we take plumbing as an example, a website quotes £2,250 for a one-man plumbing business in London to install a new boiler, but for the same boiler in the same size of property, the cost in “the north” would be £1,750.

It is though true, as he claims, there is “great wealth across the UK”, but this is highly concentrated in a particular social stratum, as 10 per cent of the UK owns 45 per cent of its wealth. It is also concentrated in London and the south-east. According to Barclay’s Bank, average wealth there is £287,000, but in no other region is it more than one-third of that (in Scotland it is £40,000). An English newspaper found 40 per cent of the wealthiest households (those with wealth in excess of £1,048,500) are in London and the south east, with only seven per cent in Scotland.

Mr Mowbray claims it is “not surprising that firms in Scotland trade four times as much with rUK as with the EU.” Would one expect anything else after 300 years? But perhaps we should look at the example of Canada, where no less than 75 per cent of exports go to the United States, which suggests two adjacent states will tend to trade with each other a great deal, even if both are sovereign. Just why would this not apply here?

Mr Mowbray’s recommendation of sticking with a country of increasingly significant wealth differences to the point of obscenity, and continued over-reliance on them as an export market, already in economic difficulties, as indicated by the 20 per cent decline in Sterling, I would suggest is a strong argument for “breaking away from the UK”, rather than the EU.

Alasdair Galloway,

14 Silverton Avenue, Dumbarton.

AS it becomes more evident with each passing day just how foolish not to say damaging the outcome of the Brexit referendum is proving to be, the outpourings of the Brexiters become more supercilious and vitriolic. Suffice it to say that the UK has not only become the laughing stock of the international community but thanks to the ill-considered comments being made by Government ministers, not to mention the poison pouring from the boulevard press, the UK is now well on the way to becoming a pariah state.

In the event of Scottish independence rUK would become a small irrelevant off-shore land piece dependent on imports but with no formal trade agreements. Whatever happens rUK would have to import as at present from Scotland. Scotland on the other hand would continue to have as a member of the EU tariff free entry to the 27 member states of the EU and would be able to continue trading internationally under the umbrella of the EU. You have to ask yourself which is the country of opportunity now.

It is also true that despite the enthusiastic efforts of the Scottish MPs at Westminster their ability to form alliances and thereby have influence on an unelected and unwanted Tory Government is extremely limited. The ironical fact is that Scottish representation in Europe would have considerably more influence because of the opportunity to build alliances as required with like-minded states. The myth that the EU institutions are undemocratic is of course nonsense. An independent Scotland would participate in the European Council of Ministers – all of whose members are elected, it would have a commissioner within the European Commission – the civil service, and the number of elected MEPs would increase. Despite the concerns of certain European leaders it would be terribly unwise to underestimate the good will and sympathy there is for Scotland amongst our European friends and allies.

Hugh McLean,

14 Shawfarm Apartments, 64 Newtonlea Avenue, Newton Mearns.

NOW that we've pretty well achieved parity, can we not just call the pound the euro?

Gilbert MacKay,

Glebe Lane, Newton Mearns.

ON reading the article by Rosemary Goring I was left unclear if she was being deliberately naive or just looking for some form of sympathy for her apparent world-weariness (“I know exactly how I’ll vote in next poll on independence”, The Herald, October 18).

Her scaremongering about the possible effects of Brexit were sadly over-emotional and I wondered if she really felt it was in all our interests that Scotland should divorce from the UK only to marry the EU? She states that Brexit will bring “endless separate agreements and contracts to be sorted”. What does she think a hard separation from the UK would bring Scotland?

I felt the references to the negative motivation of the wise and cautious people who voted No in the 2014 referendum were cringing. Her chevalier references to the uncertainty of modern life as a possible reason to daringly vote Yes to Scottish independence suggest to me that if Ms Goring’s house was on fire she would probably throw petrol on it.

If there is an answer to the uncertainty of life in the 21st century it certainly isn’t to suggest 5.3 million people suddenly go it alone for no good reason. People in Scotland have for centuries embraced the twin values of faith and hope to give them strength. Ms Goring may not wish to look towards the religion of our fathers for solace at this time and that is her choice. But I would remind her, that her vote has the power to affect us all in Scotland and suggest she should think deeper and longer.

Bill Brown,

46 Breadie Drive, Milngavie.