Letters: Plans for a second White Paper are no more than political opportunism

This statement is nonsense as Scotland was never a member state of the EU. We only voted on the EU in the context of our union within the UK. Additionally we have the odd situation of minimum age eligibility, where only 18-year-olds could vote on the EU referendum but the SNP is permitting 16-year-olds to remain voters on its proposed second Scottish referendum, although that age group had no say in the circumstances which are cited as having brought the proposal about.

I wonder when we can expect an edited version of the 2013 White Paper Scotland Future? A comparative study of changes to the predicted income from North Sea gas and oil will be fascinating to say the least. I feel that an independent analysis of what constitutes “significant and material change” is called for if the bill goes ahead.

For example, I expect a revised edition of the White Paper would delete hopeful references to wave power since both key players in the field, Pelamis and Aqumarine firms, have gone into administration since the 2014 referendum.

The caustic emergence of political opportunism is something we are used to in American Presidential debates, but I had hoped Scotland was above such tactics.

Bill Brown,

46 Breadie Drive, Milngavie.

UNFORTUNATELY I have to agree with Ian O Bayne in his conclusion that it really is too soon to attempt another independence referendum a mere for or five years after the last one. However, I still support the Scottish Government in bringing forward a draft bill on a second independence referendum. A week can be a long time in politics, and if events elsewhere in the United Kingdom were to lead to the break-up of the UK then it might be appropriate to take Scotland out of the UK at the same time.

The one lesson that we have learned from the debacle following the vote to leave the European Union is that a referendum must be properly set up with clear guidelines as to how the referendum is conducted and the action to be taken once the result is known.

Sandy Gemmill,

40 Warriston Gardens, Edinburgh.

THE Channel Islands have (very quietly) negotiated "autonomous deals' with both their London masters and the EU. They are not in the EU but they are in the Customs Union granting free trade access but not freedom of movement. I would have thought the rUK's dithering (duds of May’s) Brexiteers might want a similar arrangement?

Scotland however urgently needs a senior European godfather: a France or Germany whose clout could open doors to a quicker smoother acceptance of Scotland’s application (“Scotland ‘halfway out of EU’ before a vote on Union”, The Herald, October 21).

The EU is a political construct and when the politics suits it, doors open with alacrity as in the case of the post-Soviet satellites. The EU wanted them “in” as buffer states in the tense chess-game that is eastern Europe political geography and in they came.

Scotland's political-geography gives it a chance to play a significant EU/international role in the vitally important oil-producing North Atlantic (with ocean warming a northern passage twixt Europe and Asia is on the cards). Scotland sits strategically placed between Washington and Berlin, making us a key ally offering a significant trade-bridge for the North American and European markets. We need to be wanted: even if it's only for our whisky.

Thom Cross,

18 Needle Green, Carluke.

IT is claimed that the 17 million-plus voters who voted Leave expressed the will of the people of the United Kingdom yet more than 30m voters did not vote to leave the European Union. Where is the "will" of the people?

There appears to be a very large majority who do not actively want the path we are now embarked on. It is all very well to accept simple majorities of those who actually vote in matters which can be altered or reversed as a result of the next election, but when the matter is effectively a one-way ticket surely a majority of the electorate is necessary to determine the will of the people.

Michael Elliott,

22 Bruce Avenue,

Dunblane.

BOTH Kenny MacLaren and Christine Grahame (Letters, October 20) take issue with Nigel Smith’s article of the previous day (“Yes vote needs majority of more than 50 per cent for a consensus”, The Herald, October 19), in which he proposed that any future independence referendum, should require a majority vote of at least 55 per cent. They then, quite ludicrously in my view, compare this to the majority required to elect a government, and certainly more pertinently to the majority required to achieve Brexit. Scottish and UK governments are relatively temporary and any majority over 50 per cent is totally acceptable; where mistakes are made they can be reversed in a comparatively short time. I can’t quite believe that Ms Grahame thinks that the minuscule majority that achieved Brexit was a good thing. In the United States any major constitutional amendment requires at least a two-thirds (66 per cent) majority in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate. Mr Smith’s proposal of a 55 per cent majority does not really go far enough. I think we can learn from the Americans on this one and adopt the 66 per cent threshold.

I was not happy with, but did accept, the simple majority proposed for the adoption of independence in the 2014 vote, largely because I took the word of the SNP that it was going to be a “once in a generation” vote. However, like many other No voters I feel cheated and betrayed by Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon and their followers, for it is now obvious that they will seek out pretext after pretext to engineer yet more and more referenda until they achieve their dream. This betrayal of the Scottish people should not be allowed to happen.

Jim Meikle,

41 Lampson Road, Killearn.

THE following is an extract from the constitution of a prominent organisation:

"This constitution may not be changed, except by a vote of at least two-thirds of the delegates present and voting at National Conference."

Which organisation? Oh, the Scottish National Party.

Donald Reid,

120 Henderland Road, Bearsden.

IN his otherwise excellent (as usual) column (“Panic! We’re led by a Dad’s Army of Brexiter buffoons”, The Herald, October 20), Iain Macwhirter highlights the negative impacts of Brexit on poorer people. However in the process, he repeats the erroneous myth that it was poor folk in the north of England who voted for Brexit.

As Danny Dorling, Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, has shown in his reliably excellent statistical analysis, “Contrary to popular belief, 52 per cent of people who voted Leave in the EU referendum lived in the southern half of England, and 59 per cent were in the middle classes, while the proportion of Leave voters in the lowest two social classes was just 24 per cent”.

So as always, not only do the poor get the worst effects of crises created by wealthier people, they wrongly get the blame too.

Andy Milne,

25 Shandon Street, Edinburgh.

IAIN Macwhirter does Dad’s Army a disservice by associating the much-loved TV series with Brexit buffoonery. Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier and their fellow cast members were brilliant actors playing the fool. Frighteningly, the pathetic cast of Brexiters, a series that may run and run, are merely playing themselves.

Robert Love,

37 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.

WILLIAM Scott's defence of an increasingly intolerant UK (Letters, October 21) is fatally flawed when he fails to appreciate that the Scottish government is obliged to balance the books and has no deficit.

The GERS nominal "black hole" deficit to which he refers is in fact a terrible indictment of decades of Westminster economic control of an oil-rich Scotland. All countries run deficits and the £14 billion figure would immediately be cut by one-third upon independence by removing the £4 billion a year charged to Scotland for servicing the UK's horrendous National Debt plus other savings from scrapping Trident and so on.

The whole point of independence is to do things differently and our spending priorities will not be same as Westminster's which is mainly geared towards the City of London at the expense of those living north of Watford.

Following the EU referendum, European leaders now realise that Scotland is no longer a mere region of the UK and would welcome a wealthy social democratic independent Scotland - perhaps as the continuing member of the union after England's separation.

Scotland is not so much Greece without the sun but Norway without independence.

Fraser Grant,

Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh.

WILLIAM Scott (Letters, October 21) praises a "brilliant letter" from Richard Mowbray, and claims that the Darien Scheme was "a bright flash in the pan followed by centuries of darkness". In fact the failed Darien Scheme was followed almost immediately by the Union of 1707. Were the ensuing 300 years the "centuries of darkness" Mr Scott is referring to?

DM Robertson,

47 Forthview Road, Longniddry, East Lothian.