Letters: Confusing stance of the Tories on Brexit is a descent into farce

If it cannot deliberate on and formulate in private substantive policies on Brexit before making statements in public, then we must be concerned.

It is resembles a stand-up comedy routine when, after statements are made on “intentions”, a retraction follows with a feeble excuse. The Prime Minister had thought Mr Davis’s comment on no vote on a deal until after March 2019 was in response to a hypothetical question, which ministers are normally reluctant to proffer opinions on.

In Brussels, the EU and the wider 27 members must wonder if it would be better, in the light of the comedy of errors, to disengage from further talks.

I forgot; the EU already has.

John Edgar, 4 Merrygreen Place, Stewarton.

WHAT a shambles. We voted to leave the EU by a small margin on the “false news” advice of the touring Brexit Bus declaring, “Vote Leave and we will have an extra £350 million to be spent on the NHS every week”. The promise was dumped the day Theresa May came into power. Given the small margin in favour of Leave (less than four per cent), you would think that a moment of reflection by the voters would be sensible after we were told what we were signing up to.

It appears that the UK Government is playing fast and loose with us and is saying, “No, it is likely that you will not be able to reflect on the decision because you won’t know the terms we are getting till after we have left”; an attitude more like that of a dictatorship than the mother of parliaments.

We are expected to take on trust what David Davis tells us, a man backed up by the most accident-prone prime minister in living memory. This situation we are in is nothing to do with the good of the country. It is about keeping the Tory party together and in power. The Brexit vote, which David Cameron in his wildest dreams never imagined would secure a Leave vote, was a sop to the right-wing Tories who want the UK to emulate the United States and have all public and private services up for grabs to the highest bidder.

So what happens next? Well, I know one thing for certain. Whatever it is, I, and I reckon most Scots, would rather have the SNP in our corner fighting for us than either the supine London-controlled Scottish Labour or Tory parties.

Bill Hendry, 6 Blackwood Road, Milngavie.

I ATTENDED the launch of These Islands, a long-overdue forum for debate on the benefits of the Union. The inaugural paper by Professor Nigel Biggar, entitled What the United Kingdom Is Good For, should be memorised by every No voter seeking good historic, moral, political and economic arguments and information in favour of the UK. Scotland In Union, These Islands and the recently launched Scottish Business UK are a formidable triumvirate of non-party political organisations able to promote the case for the UK and dismantle Nationalist arguments.

Brexit and Catalonia have highlighted just how free a democracy we have; how deep and powerful our political, economic and social union is; the complexity of leaving; and, to misquote Nicola Sturgeon, what an “unmitigated disaster” it would be to break up the UK. If she decides to bet the croft on a second independence referendum before 2021 she may face at least 3 No campaigns and daily briefings, all raising different issues and unfettered by one compromise vanilla message.

In contrast the Yes campaign won’t be the united front it was in 2014, making it difficult to make a clear case for such a radical change not based on 300 years of mostly good experience but 10 years of decline.

Allan Sutherland, 1 Willow Row, Stonehaven.

A GROUP of more than 70 academics from the UK and Ireland published a letter about the situation in Catalonia, making false assertions that I would like to clarify (“Academics condemn Catalonia repression” and Letters, The Herald, October 25).

They wrongly talk about “the political repression by the Spanish government” and about “human rights violations”. Spain is a social and democratic state, subject to the rule of law, fully integrated in the European Union which respects the fundamental rights. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said: “Given the presence of unreliable and sometimes false information on social media relating to allegations of both police use of force and assaults on police, HRW has only presented cases here that it has been able to verify”, a total of three.

The academics refer to the Spanish police forces as “paramilitary”. In Spain there are no paramilitary forces and it is important to highlight that the police and Civil Guard were acting under court orders on October 1.

They claim that “people of Catalonia must be allowed to freely express their political views”. Being experts in politics and law, they should know that political pluralism is enshrined in the Spanish constitution, allowing the existence of pro-independence parties. In fact, pro-secessionist politicians and activists have been openly and freely expressing their political views for many years.

It is profoundly irresponsible for them to talk about the existence of “political prisoners” in Spain. It was a criminal court that ordered preventive custody without bail for Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart as part of the investigation on the events of September 20 and 21. The court’s decision states as proved facts that they summoned thousands of people who destroyed several police cars and encouraged them to surround an official building where the police and members of a judicial commission were illegally retained against their will for several hours.

It is very disturbing to see that there are professors in British and Irish universities willing to make such inaccurate and false claims about events in Spain. With this distorted portrait of reality they are contributing to generate harassment and a perverted sense of grievance.

Carlos Bastarreche, Ambassador of Spain to the UK, 39 Chesham Place, London.