NICOLA Sturgeon has expressed doubt over the timing of a future independence referendum. (“Sturgeon doubt on timing of new independence vote”, The Herald, September 21).

This has to call into question the entire ethos of the Scottish National Party. It has beaten the drum for independence for years despite the warnings of the chaos that would ensue. Suddenly it is holding back.

If it was right, in its eyes, last week, it is still right at present. On the very same day, it has abrogated its responsibility for tax raising policy by using the opposition to “advise” on yet another round of unfairly targeted divisive new tax rises. Where are the principles that dictate a party in government must lead? Ms Sturgeon asks for consensus.

This is just a smokescreen to allow her to drop all the vote-losing ideas of the SNP or spread the blame. If the First Minister wants to democratically test her initiatives perhaps she should take a leaf out of Theresa May’s book and hold a new election to seek an increased mandate?

Dr Gerald Edwards,

Broom Road, Glasgow.

AS Nicola Sturgeon complains that certain domestic legislation returning from Brussels to the UK may not be devolved, or devolved immediately, to Holyrood, let’s remember the Nationalist leader’s ceaseless ambition is Scottish independence.

Ms Sturgeon has no interest in devolution being strengthened – quite the opposite. She doesn’t want us to be satisfied with an increasingly powerful Holyrood Parliament and forego the much riskier option of independence.

So what then are the SNP leader’s motives? In the short term, there are the usual manufactured grievance/victim politics designed to create a “how dare they?” response. But Ms Sturgeon has played this card so many times few of us any longer react.

Longer term, the First Minister doesn’t want returning EU legislation strengthening the UK single market. Her fingers are firmly crossed for a UK diminished by, rather than benefitting from, Brexit.

Plus, as with much devolved legislation, the SNP will make amendments, irrespective of whether change is beneficial, to create difference with the rest of the UK.

The SNP tinkers with legislation to create difference for difference’s sake so that, should a second independence referendum ever take place, it will maintain that our respective legislatures have already diverged.

Despite Ms Sturgeon now publicly claiming she doesn’t know whether another referendum will happen, Brexit shows her every word and deed are carefully aligned with her UK break-up objectives.

Martin Redfern,

Woodcroft Road, Edinburgh.

SINCE 2014 the SNP has behaved like the winners of a constitutional supermarket trolley dash, raiding shelves stacked with political powers even though the party lost the competition.

It started with scaremongering that so-called “vow” powers would not be delivered and a list of referendum-triggering “material changes in circumstances”.

These powers were delivered, resulting in higher income taxes, the acquisition of British Transport Police and the creation of a new social security service with 1,500 employees and a £400 million set-up cost.

Now we have the great EU “power grab” and a list of 111 powers that will be repatriated to the UK. Nicola Sturgeon wants as many as possible to be devolved to Scotland. Examples are animal health and traceability, control of major accident hazards, data sharing and Europol. The SNP’s track record in this area is not good; witness the farm payments fiasco.

The Westminster Government is right to repatriate all of these powers centrally then decide which to devolve to enable localisation and those to retain as centralised functions but located around the UK to enable the country to function as a single economic, social and political union.

It seems the SNP wants to squirrel away as many “powers” as possible so that it can present Scotland as a de facto country, irrespective of the cost, confusion, complication and duplication this will cause.

It also enables the party to use the period before a final settlement to stoke up as much anti-Westminster grievance as possible.

I would be delighted if it would join other parties and come up with a sensible approach.

Allan Sutherland,

1 Willow Row, Stonehaven.

JUST why are David Mundell and Theresa May making important announcements on the consequences of Brexit in Paraguay and Italy respectively (Letters, September 20 & 21)?

Have they heard of the Scottish and British parliaments? You sometimes wonder. Are they frightened to face our democratically elected representatives?

Once again, the democratic rights of the Scottish people are by-passed. Why do we not care more? We seem to forget that our young people are going to be affected by losing the economic and moral rights guaranteed by the EU for a long time into the future.

Susan Grant,

Mansfield Cottage,

Scotsburn Road, Tain.

I AM genuinely puzzled why Scottish Labour thinks raising taxation across the board will be “progressive”. People in Scotland have seen a decline in living standards over the last decade as incomes have stagnated and well-paid jobs are more difficult to find.

That is austerity and proposing higher rates of income tax can only make that worse. It is noticeable that many Labour-controlled councils, faced with raising council tax to fund services, chose not to do so after complaining about the council tax freeze for years.

But Labour and the Tories are still in favour of funding a new generation of weapons of mass destruction and of Brexit, an economic disaster in the making so it is likely taxation will have to be raised just to slow our descent into an American standard of public social provision. Services, along with worker and consumer rights, will carry on declining as British nationalist posturing replaces normal planning for a more prosperous future. There will probably be a budget to buy our children a wee Union flag to wave. And in Scotland, according to Willie Rennie and Ruth Davidson, in 2021 we are to have a Tory-Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition to rule us.Yippee, bring the limos out of storage.

GR Weir,

17 Mill Street, Ochiltree.